Daily Report

The first production-equivalent F-35A conventional takeoff and landing Joint Strike Fighter on Nov. 14 took its first flight—an 89-minute stroll during which Lockheed Martin test pilot Doc Nelson flew it from the company’s Fort Worth plant to 20,000 feet, reached...

Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, US Strategic Command boss, says he hasn’t seen anything indicating that the Minuteman III missile cannot serve as a leg of the nation’s nuclear deterrent until 2030 as Congress has mandated. In discussions with the...

Maine Gov. John Baldacci says the Air National Guard has failed to respond to questions raised about proposed low-level training flights over Western Maine, prompting him, in a Nov. 13 letter to ANG director Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt III, to...

The term “snail mail” to apply to regular mail as opposed to e-mail may take on a whole new meaning for thousands of military retirees who live overseas and receive their government stipends and Tricare pharmacy prescriptions via State Department...

The Air National Guard’s Academy of Military Science, which moved from McGhee-Tyson ANGB, Tenn., to Maxwell AFB, Ala., graduated its first new Air Guard officers—119 out of the 126 who started—in the new location last week, reports the Montgomery Advertiser....

Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania issued a statement Nov. 12 withdrawing a plan that would have given new life to NAS JRB Willow Grove. He wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the plan for Willow Grove...

The Marine Corps has dispatched 10 MV-22 Ospreys to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, according to a Nov. 7 Virginian-Pilot report. The 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Bataan, an amphibious assault ship based in Norfolk, Va., launched the new...

An Italian fisherman hunting for Octopus in the Adriatic Sea found the remains of a World War II-era P-47. Stars and Stripes reports that Filppo Salvagno netted something in 65-feet of water that he couldn’t raise but slowly dragged back...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the Air Force over the ownership of a P-82 fighter the Commemorative Air Force had received via “donation certificate” from USAF in 1966 and restored to flight condition. The aircraft crashed...

Nov. 12-13, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 58 60 118 14,866 CAS/Armed Recon 50 154 204 30,899 Airlift 327 327 42,668 Air refueling 96 96 15,214 Total 745 103,647 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...