Daily Report

The Air Force expects to have the first increment of the Joint Space Operations Center’s new mission system available for operations by the end of the year, said Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz last week. The new system, which...

For the first time in training, F-22s dropped joint direct attack munitions on targets using self-generated coordinates enabled by the aircraft’s new Increment 3.1 equipment and software upgrade. The aircraft, assigned to JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, “recently” demonstrated this new capability,...

An unexpected degree of aeroshell degradation was “the most probable cause” of the premature flight termination of DARPA’s Hypersonic Technology Vehicle during a flight over the Pacific Ocean last August, according to the findings of the agency’s independent engineering review...

Air Force Global Strike Command is interested in increasing the service life of its Vietnam War-era UH-1N Huey helicopters—that protect the nation’s ICBM fields—by an additional 30 years, while still maintaining the helicopters’ mission-capability rate. Towards that end, Air Force...

A force of 24 F-16s and more than 500 airmen from the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano AB, Italy, deployed to Graf Ignatievo AFB, Bulgaria, for Thracian Star 2012—a month-long partnership-building exercise with the Bulgarian air force. “We very rarely...

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz presented retired Gen. Thomas Moorman with the Gen. James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award. Moorman received the award, the Space Foundation’s highest honor, during the organization’s 28th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs,...

The Missouri Air National Guard’s 241st Air Traffic Control Squadron in St. Joseph recently acquired a new Tactical Air Navigation System, or TACAN, for its operations. The 20,000-pound deployable system is “an electronic lighthouse for aircraft,” explained MSgt. Michael Thomsen,...

Louisiana Air National Guard F-15Cs scrambled to intercept a light twin-engine aircraft that ultimately crashed into the Gulf of Mexico last week, according to Continental US NORAD officials at Tyndall AFB, Fla. After taking off from Slidell, La., headed for...