Daily Report

The incremental shutdown of F-22 production hit another milestone last week as workers at Lockheed Martin’s aircraft plant at Fort Worth, Tex., completed the final F-22 fuselage mid-section. They marked the occasion with a special send-off, draping the mid-section in...

Air Force personnel officials last week instituted hiring controls to reduce projected growth of the civilian workforce and maintain civilian manning at Fiscal 2010 levels. Effective immediately, the Air Force will hire one person for every two new vacancies in...

Data from testing actual hardware appear to confirm initial concerns that a new 4G wireless broadband network in the United States would interfere with the Global Positioning Satellite signal, said Gen. William Shelton, head of Air Force Space Command. “Although...

Maj. Gen. Mark Ramsay will be the next commander of 18th Air Force at Scott AFB, Ill., the Defense Department announced last week. To accompany his move, President Obama has nominated Ramsay for promotion to the rank of lieutenant general....

Through the first four months of 2011, Air Force C-130s and C-17s have air-dropped more than 25 million pounds of cargo via to supply ground troops in Afghanistan, according to Air Mobility Command officials. That’s around 6.25 million pounds per...

More than 100 marines returning to the United States from a tour in Afghanistan spent several days at the Air Force’s Deployment Transition Center at Ramstein AB, Germany, before completing the journey home. These marines of the 1st Explosives Ordnance...

The Air Force Thunderbirds will become the Defense Department's first air demonstration team to use an alterative fuel blend during a performance. Thunderbird No. 5 and No. 6 will run on a mix of half traditional JP-8 fuel and half hydrotreated renewable jet fuel when the team wows the crowd on Friday and Saturday at the Joint Services Open House at JB Andrews, Md. The HRJ in this mix is derived from the seeds of the camelina plant, but other forms of biomass like beef tallow can also be the source. To date, the Air Force has tested and certified the A-10, C-17, F-15, and F-22 to operate on the JP-8-HRJ blend. Fleet-wide certification is on track for completion in 2013, say Air Force officials. "Over the past five years, the Air Force has certified more than 99 percent of its aircraft to operate on various blends of synthetic and traditional fuels, and we are moving ahead in certifying biofuels as well," said Undersecretary Erin Conaton during an Air Force Association-sponsored speech May 11 in Arlington, Va. (Andrews release) (Conaton transcript)

The estimated cost of repairing three C-130s damaged in a tornado last month at Little Rock AFB, Ark., has gone up. Initially pegged at about $6 million to fix the three aircraft, the estimate now stands at twice that, reported...

Members of the 402nd Maintenance Wing at Robins AFB, Ga., dedicated a new $24.1 million aircraft maintenance hangar in a ceremony at the base last week. Workers completed the 86,000-square-foot facility nearly a month ahead of schedule, reported the Sun...