The Boeing tanker-lease controversy evidently no longer is a threat to confirmation of Michael Wynne as Air Force Secretary. That, at least, is the word from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. According...

Levin doesn’t think much of the Bush Administration’s vow to veto the 2006 defense authorization bill. In fact, he thinks it’s bluster. The White House says it will nix the bill unless Congress excises references to new standards for treatment...

A Cold Front Is Approaching: Are budget pressures endangering major aircraft programs? Surprisingly, Levin says no. He does not believe that termination awaits either the Air Force’s F/A-22 Raptor or the multi-service F-35 Fighter. Moreover, he does not believe the...

Is no news, good? Maybe. Perhaps, though, we should wait until the other pea under the shell stops moving. The Senate, according to Levin, is in a wait-and-see mode, biding its time until the Pentagon finally releases the Air Force...

Readers may recall our item (DR, 09/27/05) taking note of a Sept. 23 meeting of some 100 Air Force general officers at a hotel in Omaha. USAF’s new Chief of Staff, Gen. Michael Moseley, had called the brass together for...

When Gen. William R. Looney III took command of Air Education and Training Command in June, he immediately began introducing the same management approach he used at Electronic Systems Center and Aeronautical Systems Center—the balanced scorecard strategic measurement system. It...

Col. Gail Wojtowicz, the Air Force’s division chief for future concepts and transformation, is leading a three-day war game exercise to test the service’s abilities in the year 2025. (DR, 10/03/05) Wojtowicz told Reuters that 100 researchers and other officials...

USAF F-16s launched a GBU-38 against a pontoon bridge in the vicinity of Haditha, Iraq, to support the 2nd Marine Division for Operation River Gate. According to US Central Command, the goal of the operation is to deny al Qaeda-affiliated...

Eagles for Korea: US Air Force airmen are helping in the delivery of two new F-15K Eagles to Seoul, South Korea. Theses are the first two of 40 K model F-15s South Korea purchased from Boeing for $4.2 billion. Boeing...

Settling a dispute that has run over a year, the Las Cruces City Council voted Monday to accept an offer of $603,754 from the Air Force to repair the city’s airport runway that was damaged by a USAF C-17 carrying...

Northrop Grumman has completed acceptance testing of the fist production model of the new integrated sensor suite that will enhance the imaging capability for the Air Force’s RQ-4A Global Hawk fleet. It is ready to begin installing the new package,...

The Senate Intelligence Committee has received statements in closed session that could clear up the controversy surrounding the “Able Danger” data-mining program. A committee spokesman told the Washington Times that the committee will probably release a report or statement in...

US Joint Forces Command plans to absorb the Joint Warfare System—a simulation tool that officials say was “born joint,” making it immensely appealing. The took had been the property of Pentagon’s Program Analysis and Evaluation Office. Command officials say that...

Engineers from the 1st Expeditionary RED HORSE Group from Nellis AFB, Nev., are removing and replacing Soviet-era steel planking covering 60,000 square meters of ramp space at Bagram AB, Afghanistan. The work is part of a $4.4 million airfield construction...

Reps. Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Sam Johnson (R-Tex.), Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), and David Wu (D-Ore.) all got a good look at the Force Protection Aerial Surveillance System during a recent visit to Balad AB, Iraq. Members of the...

And, the Air Force is giving airmen the option to sign up for a longer tour in South Korea after they arrive in the country. Until a recent policy change, airmen had to sign up for the Korea Assignment Incentive...

VA Secretary James Nicholson told Washington Post reporters that the additional 2005 and 2006 funding was prompted by “this surge in demand from people coming back from the theater, plus a real increase in demand from veterans of other eras.”...

October 4, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 9 3 – 12 CAS/Armed Recon 34 20 – 54 Airlift – – 175 175 Air refueling – – 30 30 Total 43 23 205 271 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...