Daily Report

The Air Force has launched an effort to find the next fixed-wing aircraft to serve as primary Presidential transport, replacing the Boeing VC-25s that have flown US Presidents since 1990. The VC-25, based on Boeing’s 747-200, is approaching the end...

Mission capable rates—the number of aircraft assigned for duty that are ready to fly—have declined over the past 10 years for Air Force fighters and bombers, according to service data we’ve seen that run through early Fiscal 2009. Fighter MC...

Mission capable rates for Air Force aircraft (see above) don’t tell the whole story on platform availability. Indeed, when factoring the aircraft that are in depot for routine overhauls as well as those that are assigned for duty, availability numbers...

Based on official data we’ve seen, the average annual cost per flying hour of Air Force aircraft types is up across the board with one exception: intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance platforms. From Fiscal 2003 through 2007, the annual CPFH of ISR types actually...

Some 50 airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 920th Rescue Wing at Patrick AFB, Fla., returned home Jan. 5 after filling part of a joint expeditionary tasking to aid the US Army in Afghanistan with combat medical evacuation. Other Reservists...

US Air Force airmen at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, met with members of the Afghan news media last week to discuss how the service conducts its close air support missions and show off some of the aircraft engaged in CAS operations...

NATO member nations have decided to hold on to the alliance’s deployed nuclear weapons in Europe for the time being, Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and head of US European Command, told reporters in Washington, D.C.,...

Raytheon Company announced Jan. 8 that it had “successfully completed two significant milestones” for the Air Force’s next-generation GPS control segment, known as GPS OCX. The Raytheon-led team, which is vying against a Northrop Grumman-led team to build OCX, completed...

The Air Force has awarded Boeing $217.1 million in two contracts to continue production of Joint Direct Attack Munition tail kits and Small Diameter Bombs, according to a Jan. 7 company release. Under JDAM Lot 13, Boeing will produce more...

Associated Press reports that a recent Navy review board believes the Defense Department should not close the investigation into what happened to Navy pilot Scott Speicher, lost during the 1991 Gulf War. Initial reports cited an Iraqi surface-to-air missile, but later accounts, including one unclassified intelligence report, credited an Iraqi MiG firing an air-to-air missile with bringing down Speicher's F/A-18 on Jan. 17, 1991. The Pentagon first listed him as killed in action, but that changed initially in 2002 following new intelligence and what investigators believed to be his initials carved into the wall of a prison. In November 2005, then-acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England directed that the Navy continue to carry Speicher as missing in action rather than killed in action. AP reports that the Speicher family has continued to press the Pentagon to maintain the investigation and that Navy Secretary Donald Winter ordered the latest Navy board review after receiving word from the Defense Intelligence Agency that it had followed all available leads. Winter can uphold or deny the board's finding. (Air Force Magazine coverage over the years.)

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaJan. 7, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 22 18 40 285 CAS/Armed Recon 44 82 126 700 Airlift 130 130 880 Air refueling 52 52 326 Total 348 2,191...