The KC-46 boom operators stopped talking and leaned in as Maryland Air National Guard F-16s approached on a refueling mission over upstate New York. The fighters were visible on a 1,080-pixel, black-and-white screen. The cockpit went quiet, too, and the pilot flipped to a visual ...
Air
RAF MILDENHALL, U.K—The ops tempo has increased as of late, but after every sortie, the pilots, co-pilots, and boom operators flying the KC-135s of the 100th Air Refueling Wing still gather for a debrief. And in those sessions, the Airmen develop a bond they feel ...
When top Air Force leaders graced the stage at a senior noncommissioned officers' summit to urge attendees from 65 nations to collaborate with the United States, one region was noticeably underrepresented: the Indo-Pacific. Of the 39 partner nations that Pacific Air Forces identifies in the ...
Russia’s long-range bombers fire cruise missiles against Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure nearly unimpeded, so Ukraine needs surface-to-air missile systems that can track and destroy cruise missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force's top enlisted leader told Air Force Magazine. Russian TU-160 and TU-135 strategic bombers take ...
Across Europe in recent months, the 15 KC-135s of the 100th Air Refueling Wing have popped up everywhere from the North Sea to the Adriatic Sea, to the skies of Poland, the Baltics and other parts of eastern Europe. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine creating ...
Ten Airmen on the South Pacific island of Palau watched intently as an MQ-9 Reaper flew in for an automatic landing recently. Neither of the two air crew members grabbed the controls from the pilot at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. Instead, for the first ...
Command of the Air Force Reserve changed hands August 3, as newly-promoted Lt. Gen. John P. Healy succeeded retiring Lt. Gen. Richard W. Scobee in a ceremony at Robins Air Force Base, Ga.Healy takes over the major command after spending the previous year as Scobee’s ...
Only a few years ago, RAF Mildenhall, one of a few bases in the United Kingdom that still hosts U.S. Air Force units, was set to close, a target of the 2015 European Infrastructure Consolidation Plan. That changed in the summer of 2020, when then-Defense ...
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.—The KC-46 Pegasus tankers here all fly with the callsign "Pudgy" in honor of the second-highest-scoring American ace of World War II, Thomas B. McGuire. "Pudgy 01” and “Pudgy 02” arrived Nov. 9, 2021, as part of an elaborate welcoming ceremony. Pudgies ...
