Daily Report

March 18, 2010

No Fanfare

In a routine senior officer announcement, the Pentagon revealed that Vice Adm. David Venlet would fill the F-35 hot seat. How hot? Ash Carter, the Pentagon acquisition guru, just revealed the F-35 would indeed breach Nunn-McCurdy and the Air Force...

The Condor Question

Some folks are still not convinced that the Air National Guard has made its case for extending low-level fighter training routes in the Condor military operating area over western Maine. On March 16, the Maine Congressional delegation sent a letter...

Making STOVL Hover

Lockheed Martin announced March 17 that the F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant had demonstrated its hover capability during a test flight at NAS Patuxent River, Md. The test, according to a company release, “confirmed predictions of the jet’s vertical...

Getting There

Northrop Grumman announced March 17 that it has begun installing the hardware to enable a communications upgrade for the B-2 bomber that will permit the crews to receive battlefield information about 100 times faster than the current comm system, according...

Can They Serve?

Undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness Clifford Stanley told lawmakers last week that, although recruiting has been good, that may not persist given the fact that “much of the contemporary youth population is currently ineligible to serve” in the...

U-2 Pilot Reaches 100 Combat Missions

Maj. William Gottenberg on March 9 returned from completing his 100th combat mission in the high-flying U-2 reconnaissance aircraft on a sortie over Southwest Asia. Gottenberg, who is deployed from Beale AFB, Calif., and switched from the RC-135 to the...

Getting UAVs in the National Airspace

According to a new National Aeronautics Research and Development Plan released with little fanfare March 4 by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, “an important new goal” for the nation is integration of unmanned air vehicles into...

Remains of Vietnam Era Airman Identified

The Defense Department announced March 16 that the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command has identified the remains of Maj. Curtis Daniel Miller of Palacios, Tex., who was part of a 14-member crew aboard an AC-130A Spectre shot down on March 29,...

Air Sorties from SWA 031210

Air Sorties in Southwest Asia, March 12-13, 2010 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 63 73 136 4,224 CAS/Armed Recon 44 140 184 6,445 Airlift 370 370 11,639 Air refueling 80 80 2,980 Rescue 39 39 239 Total...