Col. George Uribe, chief of standardization and evaluation for 1st Air Force at Tyndall AFB, Fla., received a Bronze Star Medal on Aug. 19, the same day on which he was promoted to his new rank. He was recognized with the Bronze Star for his meritorious service as a lieutenant colonel in Iraq from September 2007 to March 2008 where he was deputy commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group at Joint Base Balad. Among his accomplishments, he flew 20 successful on-call close air support missions. Uribe is the first and so far only Air Force fighter pilot to accrue more than 1,000 combat flying hours in an F-16. Aug. 19 was also a big day for him as received his 14th Air Medal as well as a Meritorious Service Medal for his current work with 1st AF. (Tyndall report by Carol Carpenter)
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.