After 
seven years of painstaking restoration, the world’s only airworthy EC-121T Warning Star took to the skies, lifting off on a ferry flight from Camarillo Airport northwest of Los Angeles to its new home, the Yanks Air Museum in Chino, east of Los Angeles, for permanent display. Museum officials said the 57-year-old aircraft performed well during the 90-minute flight on Jan. 14. Derived from Lockheed’s Constellation airliner, this EC-121 arrived in August 1955 at McClellan Air Force Base, near Sacramento, where it joined the 552nd Airborne Early Warning Wing, according to the museum. Deployed to Iceland, South Korea, and Taiwan, the aircraft monitored air and missile threats throughout the Cold War under Air Defense Command. It was reassigned to the Air Force Reserve in 1976, before retiring in 1978. The museum acquired it in 2004. (Yanks release)
Air Force exercises in the Indo-Pacific may soon get even bigger and more robust, as lawmakers move to invest more than $620 million in such efforts. The bulk of that money, contained in a $150 billion reconciliation package currently making its way through Congress, is $532.6 million for earmarked for…