Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
In September, the Air Force celebrates its 70th year as an independent armed service, having previously been a branch of the Army. After a history arguably dating back to the American Civil War, the Air Force in 1947 began a new story of development and achievement under its own banner.
In the story available through link at the top right button on this page, we have selected 70 photographs representing the Air Force’s history and evolution, one for each year. They comprise leaders, acts of heroism, aircraft, missiles, tragedies, victories, and successes of many kinds.
It would be impossible to select the most important Air Force mission, person, or feat in any given year, nor is it feasible to represent in 70 pictures the more than 300 USAF career specialties or the hundreds of types of aircraft and other weapon systems it has operated. Rather, these images, taken collectively, are meant to illustrate and illuminate 70 years of progress, struggle, and accomplishment.
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
The Department of the Air Force is giving Airman and Guardians until the end of the year to meet new requirements for ensuring they achieve a proper protective mask seal, part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s crackdown on unauthorized facial hair.
The Pentagon on Aug. 25 announced a pair of Air Force contracts to Raytheon and Boeing, totaling more than $766 million, for advance work on adding new radars to the B-52H Stratofortress.
The 13th Fighter Squadron from Misawa Air Base, Japan, deployed its new F-35A fighters to a major exercise for the first time, sending them to Pacific Air Forces’ premier air combat training event: Red Flag-Alaska.
For its latest special uniform celebrating the heritage of airpower, the U.S. Air Force Academy football team is looking to the future: the B-21 Raider.
The Space Force is exploring ways to incentivize acquisition leaders to leverage more commercial innovation across their programs, including a new “scorecard” to quantify their efforts.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.
The Air Force is planning to award Northrop Grumman a contract that could allow the RQ-4 Global Hawk to keep flying into 2033. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center posted a presolicitation notice Aug. 17 saying it plans to award Northrop a sole-source contract for development, modernization, retrofit, and…
2nd Lt. Leah A. Borsich, an Air Force civil engineer, was among the eight people killed when a contractor plane crashed near a remote Alaskan radar site last week, officials announced Aug. 24.
