Daily Report

Aug. 4, 2011

F-35 Ground and Flight Operations Suspended

The F-35 program office on Wednesday suspended all F-35 ground and flight operations, as a precautionary measure, after an incident Tuesday with AF-4, an F-35A test aircraft, at Edwards AFB, Calif. AF-4’s integrated power package, which provides power to start...

Fiscal Responsibilities

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday the $350 billion in cuts to defense spending over the next decade that were included in the Budget Control Act of 2011, the nation’s new debt ceiling legislation, can be implemented without affecting military...

Goldfein Replaces Hostage at AFCENT

Lt. Gen. David Goldfein took command of Air Forces Central from Lt. Gen. Mike Hostage during a ceremony Wednesday in Southwest Asia. Goldfein served the previous two years as Air Combat Command’s director of operations at JB Langley-Eustis, Va. US...

Barksdale B-52s Complete Guam Deployment

Airmen of the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron and their B-52s have concluded a four-month deployment to Andersen AFB, Guam. They left Barksdale AFB, La., in early April as part of a normal rotation of bombers to Andersen, which hosts a...

Operation Shady RAT

A leading computer security company has traced 72 cyber attacks on international government organizations and corporations over the last five years to a single server. Forty-nine of the attacks were against US organizations, including 12 US defense contractors and one US satellite company, according to the McAfee white paper, released Wednesday. McAfee Vice President of Threat Research Dmitri Alperovitch, who authored the paper, did not specifically name the hacker, but said it was potentially a "state actor." Some cyber experts believe China was the culprit because of the number of attacks centered on Taiwan and Olympic organizations leading up to the 2008 Beijing Games, reported Reuters. Alperovitch dubbed McAfee's investigation "Operation Shady RAT." The acronym stands for remote access tool. Last month, Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn said the Pentagon might have to redesign a weapon system due to a cyber intrusion, presumably by a foreign intelligence service, against a defense contractor in March. (McAfee white paper; caution, large-sized file.) (See also AFP report)

Dacian Thunder Strengthens US-Romania Partnership

About 230 airmen and 10 A-10Cs from the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem AB, Germany, recently returned from Campia Turzii, Romania, where they participated in a joint, three-week exercise focused on strengthening the partnership between the two NATO countries, announced...

Refuge from a Raging River

Airmen and aircraft assigned to the Missouri Air National Guard’s 139th Airlift Wing took refuge at the Kansas City International Airport in late July as the Missouri River rose up to 12-feet above flood stage. The wing is normally based...

Air Force Buys Leased C-37A

The Air Force will purchase a C-37A executive transport for $26.8 million that it previously leased from Gulfstream Aerospace. The aircraft is based on the Gulfstream V business jet. The Air Force operates a fleet of 10 C-37As that augments...