Daily Report

March 11, 2009

Nightmare Scenario

The White House has purportedly given the Defense Department guidance to delay the KC-X tanker program by five years and cancel plans for a new bomber. CQ Today reported this March 9, citing sources close to the ongoing budget discussions...

Airing It Out

The city commission of Valparaiso, Fla., met on Monday for its first public meeting since its controversial Feb. 18 vote to sue the Air Force over the service’s decision to base an initial portion of F-35s at nearby Eglin Air...

C-130 Update

As of Monday, the Air Force had completed inspections on 84 percent of its nearly 600 C-130 transports to check on the condition of their upper-wing joint nuts, an Air Force Materiel Command spokesman told the Daily Report yesterday. Of...

Final Days for Tanker Unit

The last KC-135 of the 912th Air Refueling Squadron is scheduled to depart Grand Forks AFB, N.D., for good on March 16, followed by the unit’s inactivation four days later, according to a base release yesterday. Grand Forks will lose...

Watch the “Dark Side”

Recruiting is good across the board, according to the data for February, announced by the Pentagon Tuesday. The results have been basically the same—give or take a few recruits like seen in the previous month’s stats—since the economy began its...

Bronze Star Medal for Airman

TSgt. Wesley Rincker, an airman with the 509th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Whiteman AFB, Mo., received a Bronze Star medal March 2 for his actions as a convoy commander in Iraq from March to September 2008. While serving as the...

GPS III Program Progressing

Lockheed Martin says it is making good progress in the preliminary design review phase of the Air Force’s GPS Block III satellite program, or GPS III for short. According to a Lockheed release March 9, its industry team, which includes...

Trauma Care Training Gets Boost

The newly revamped center for sustainment of trauma and readiness skills training site in St. Louis, Mo., recently opened a highly realistic emergency medicine trauma simulation lab where Air Force medical personnel can sharpen their trauma care skills prior to...

Speicher’s Status Changes

The Navy yesterday announced that it has changed the status of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a Navy pilot lost in the 1991 Gulf War, from “missing/captured” to “missing-in-action.” Navy Secretary Donald Winter made the decision after a review of available...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest Asia

Mar. 7, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 21 18 39 2,611 CAS/Armed Recon 28 77 105 6,585 Airlift 150 150 8,633 Air refueling 45 45 3,042 Total 339 20,871 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...