Daily Report

Oct. 29, 2009

Let’s Work It Out

Days after the formal comment period on the Air Force’s KC-X tanker draft request for proposals closed, Northrop Grumman officials publicly expressed their displeasure with the current format of the competition during a press conference Wednesday in Washington D.C. They...

Proprietary Concerns

Northrop Grumman Spokesman Randy Belote on Wednesday reiterated the company’s stance that it is a “significant disadvantage” in the current KC-X tanker contest since the Defense Department released pricing information on Northrop’s tanker bid to rival Boeing during the previous...

Keep it Fair

That’s the advice Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has for Defense Secretary Robert Gates concerning the Air Force’s KC-X tanker contest. “The competition has to be completely above board,” Reed told defense...

One Down, One to Go

President Obama on Wednesday signed the Fiscal 2010 defense policy bill into law that authorizes $550.2 billion for defense and national security programs and $130 billion to support overseas contingency operations. The White House was successful in the end in...

Reaching Higher

The Air Force’s Soaring Heights Communities at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., is slated to become the largest solar-powered residential area in the continental US, according to the project’s planners. In a release Monday, this consortium of industry and banks said the...

Now That’s Uplifting

Airmen in the special-purpose shop of the 86th Vehicle Readiness Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, on Oct. 5 turned over a newly reconfigured high-deck patient-loading platform vehicle to the 86th Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility. The vehicle helps medical personnel unload...

Blood Brothers

The Air Force Theater Hospital at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, on Oct. 14 began dispatching blood platelets, critical for blood clotting for treating wounds, to the Navy-run multinational military hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The AFTH, which has been the sole...

Shining Examples

Air Force Reservists from the 701st Combat Operations Squadron at March ARB, Calif., and 710th COS at Langley AFB, Va., were amongst the US servicemembers who participated earlier this month in Bright Star 2009, a biennial multinational exercise hosted by...

Cadets Going Green

The US Air Force Academy has partnered with the Air Force Research Lab and Cool Clean Technologies, Inc., an Eagan, Minn., company to help develop methods to produce biofuels based on algae oil. “These partnerships provide another superb research thrust...

Air Sorties in Southwest Asia

Oct. 23, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 25 32 57 13,657 CAS/Armed Recon 20 77 97 28,829 Airlift 150 150 39,519 Air refueling 41 41 14,233 Total 345 96,238 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...