“Weapons Away”: Lt. Col. Jim Hecker dropped the first bomb from an operational F/A-22 Raptor, entering USAF record books, announced USAF officials on Oct. 21, three days after the fact. Hecker, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron, Langley AFB, Va.,...

Hecker and fellow Raptor pilots—on the first day many of them had ever launched weapons from an F/A-22 for an air-to-ground sortie—not only hit their targets, they “shacked” them, said weapons systems evaluators at Hill AFB, Utah. The term means...

Only two weeks after the Air Force issued the initial request for proposals for its CSAR-X combat search and rescue aircraft program, one of the strongest potential competitors—the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor—is out. The reason? The aircraft is overqualified. Boeing has...

The flight line of Incirlik AB, Turkey, has become crowded with cargo and airmen as elements of the Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing and the Turkish 10th Tanker Base worked to load 19 truckloads of United Nations supplies onto...

Despite their displacement from Katrina-devastated Keesler AFB, Miss., the airmen of the Hurricane Hunters—Air Force Reserve Command’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron—are back in action and flying in to Hurricane Wilma. The hunters flew their WC-130J into the 175-mile-per-hour winds of...

The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla., has established an around-the-clock, one-stop service center to help get replacement parts to customers in the field. A visit of Lt. Gen. Terry Gabreski, Air Force Materiel Command vice commander,...

Vehicle maintainers at Balad AB, Iraq, will tell you that the extreme conditions in Balad—sand and heat—cause vehicles to need frequent repair. The 23 mechanics of the 332nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron, maintain more than 450 vehicles—from fire trucks to...

Russia has now tested one of its RS-18 Stiletto ICBMs, hitting a target on the Kamchatka Peninsula. According to Associated Press news service, Col. Alexei Kuznetsov, head of Russian space forces, said the launch tested tactical and technical capabilities of...

Army Secretary Francis Harvey is fighting off the talk of a recruiting crisis in his service. Writing in the Washington Post on Oct. 21, Harvey said that the “alarmist rhetoric” surrounding the Army’s 6,000-recruit shortfall is much ado about nothing....

The Pentagon’s health care costs have been skyrocketing—essentially doubling since 2001, according to one DOD estimate. In the next four to five years, the total spending on military health care will exceed $50 billion, says William Winkenwerder Jr., the Pentagon’s...

US Joint Forces Command plans to hold a five-day seminar in early December for senior military medical professionals to indoctrinate them into the world of joint medical operations. Officials say that the present-day and future concepts for joint task forces...

Army Gen. Leon LaPorte, commander of US Forces Korea, told reporters that there has been a “noticeable reduction” in DMZ incidents, but he stopped short of saying that the North Koreans have reduced their forces along the highly fortified zone....

After coming close to irrelevancy as the end of the current session of Congress fast approaches, the Senate Armed Services Committee may manage to get its 2006 defense authorization bill to appear again on the Senate floor—but it’s not on...

The anti-American mood in Pakistan appears to be shifting after Pakistanis have watched the US efforts on behalf of earthquake relief in the country. Turns out the region hit hardest by the quake is known as the epicenter of Pakistan’s...

The Round Table at Seoul: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, after his brief China foray, descended upon South Korea to hold talks on the “strong, but evolving” alliance between the US and South Korea. South Korean defense officials have been making...

When Iraqis stepped up to their ballot boxes earlier this month and voted on a constitutional referendum, US airmen and marines helped to make the process run smoother. The effort involved transporting some 1,320 Iraqi poll workers from the Baghdad...

October 20, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 11 5 – 16 CAS/Armed Recon 48 25 – 73 Airlift – – 170 170 Air refueling – – 32 32 Total 59 30 202 291 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...