US Central Command Air Forces released additional information on the Nov. 14 precision air strikes against insurgents near the porous Iraq-Syria border. Coalition aircraft were aiding Operation Steel Curtain, and, according to CENTAF, air strikes accounted for most of the...

A joint venture between L-3 Communications subsidiary Integrated Systems and Alenia North American is offering the C-27J Spartan medium tactical airlifter to the Air Force as a potential combat rescue tanker. The Air Force Special Operations Command, Hurlburt Field, Fla.,...

Japanese Air Self Defense Force officials say they have sent fighters aloft 30 times in the last seven months against encroaching Chinese aircraft. The rate is more than twice the scrambles in the same period last year. According to the...

The “boom experts” for USAF’s KC-135 aerial tanker reside at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Tinker AFB, Okla., in two shops whose sole function is to ensure each aircraft’s refueling boom—the fuel transfer tube—is up to snuff. In one...

The Air Force has mothballed the last of its 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs, but plans are under way by a private research group to carry satellites into space on the missiles designed to rain nuclear warheads. According to the Missoula (Mont.)...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) put a stop to conference work on the Fiscal 2006 bill that funds veterans and military construction programs. The reason: She thinks the Air Force gave shorth shrift to its search for economical ways to...

It seems the new preferred means of communication by the two top Air Force officials with airmen is by letter—electronically transmitted, of course. The latest letter is a joint effort on the subject of “integrity first.” (We say “joint” but...

Air Combat Command’s Distributed Mission Operations Center, Kirtland AFB, N.M., has one of the hottest actions around in its Virtual Flag exercises, says DMOC officials. The number of participants is growing each years, and for the 2006 version, as many...

There are dissident voices being raised in Japan over the recently announced US military realignment inside that country. A poll undertaken by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper shows 14 local assemblies inside the country have or will adopt resolutions critical of...

The Gallup Poll finds that the “was it a mistake” question it has asked about wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq offers a surprising look at the political landscape. It is true that Democrats and Republicans have differing views about...

Air Force Capt. Kirk Riggs of the 16th Special Operations Wing, Hurlburt Field, Fla., will receive the inaugural Florida National Defense Space Award on Nov. 17 at the closing of the Florida Space 2005 conference at the Kennedy Space Center....

Getting time-critical data from intelligence analysts to air and ground assets via the Internet depends on a network of computers maintained by communications specialists. Members of the 10th Intelligence Squadron, Langley AFB, Va., wanted to ensure the 1st Communications Squadron...

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, 63, the first head of the Pentagon’s Office of Transformation died Nov. 12 in Bethesda, Md., from cancer. A Naval aviator, Cebrowski was president of the Naval War College from 1998 to 2001,...

In a reorganization, the Air Force Security Assistance Center has activated the 555th International Group to oversee the Air Force’s $100 billion security assistance budget and foreign military sales to more than 100 countries. AFSAC is part of Air Force...

Their E-3 AWACS aircraft sent to Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, for maintenance, the USAF command and control mission specialists deployed for Cope India 2006 sat down with their Indian Air Force counterparts at the IAF’s Salua Air Station ground radar...

November 14, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 10 4 – 14 CAS/Armed Recon 58 21 – 79 Airlift – – 150 150 Air refueling – – 38 38 Total 68 25 188 281 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...