Americans and their opinion leaders seem to have shifted their view of America’s proper role in the world. According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations, American opinion leaders are “less supportive”...

Gen. Bruce A. Carlson, the head of Air Force Materiel Command, predicts a new dawn for small space systems. He told AFA’s Los Angeles Symposium last week that he sees “significant opportunities” in development of micro satellite programs as exemplified...

In his Los Angeles remarks, Carlson raised a flag about the security of US space capabilities. He emphasized that more needs to be done to limit the exposure to risk of US space systems and technologies. Space assets are critical...

New commercial orders of Boeing 767 airliners have bought some time for the Air Force to organize a purchase of tanker derivatives from Boeing, should USAF choose to do so. Company officials said they had expected to start closing the...

Boeing officials let it drop that the company has already invested about $1 billion of its own money in the KC-767 tanker program. They pointed out to reporters last week that the first KC-767 tanker—bound for the Italian Air Force—made...

Pacific Air Forces has reopened its air operations center, marking the conclusion of a $37 million renovation. The center required major infrastructure and technology upgrades, said PACAF officials. It is “absolutely critical” for PACAF’s ability to command and control the...

Air Force enlisted security forces members are flying tiny aerial reconnaissance aircraft that aid them in protecting USAF installations. These are not hobby remote-controlled toy airplanes, say the “cop-pilots,” who must attend specialized training to learn how to pilot the...

The Missile Defense Agency recently notched an important win in its effort to produce a workable system. Officials declared success of the latest sea-based “hit to kill” intercept of a target that had separated from its booster. The feat was...

All Minuteman III launch control centers now have received planned modifications, moving them into the so-called minimum essential emergency communications network. The $250 million project, executed by Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., eliminated Minuteman’s 1962-vintage survivable low frequency...

US Central Command Air Forces says that five USAF C-130s, four C-17s and contracted aircraft—two B-747s, one B-757, and one AN-124—flew in more than 750,000 pounds of equipment and supplies last week. That brings the Air Force-orchestrated airlift to more...

The Government Accountability Office says that within the military services—active and reserve—some 41 percent of specialties have been “consistently underfilled” from Fiscal 2000-05. The Air Force has been working for several years to reshuffle its airmen from overstaffed career fields...

Congress passed a measure to hold off on paying the nearly $23 million that Uzbekistan said the US owed for use of the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, but the Pentagon must not have gotten the memo. (Yes, this is the base...

It must be true, because the base so recently ravaged by Hurricane Katrina just received the largest group of new students in the last two years, say base officials. The 314 recent graduates of basic training arrived at Keesler AFB,...

Lockheed Martin officials say the company has successfully tested a means to deliver time-sensitive intelligence data to combat commanders in minutes instead of hours. The company used non-traditional intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance data picked up from loitering missiles—or one en route to a...

The Pentagon is moving out on its implementation of the National Security Personnel System—minus the part that deals with labor relations. DOD and union officials last week agreed to hold off on the labor relations portion of NSPS until February....

The Air Force has given a $2.7 million award to SpaceDev—the outfit that provided the rocket motor for SpaceShipOne—to develop a large hybrid rocket motor that can produce about 100,000 pounds of thrust. A prototype motor is to be test...

Congress Passes Big Vet COLA: Lawmakers have approved a measure that would provide the largest Cost of Living Adjustment to veterans since 1991, says Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. The boost would be...

USAF officials plan to return the airport terminal and air traffic tower at Kandahar AB, Afghanistan, back to Afghan control. But before they do, airmen at the facility have been installing more than a mile of copper and fiber optic...

Initial flight tests of the Northrop Grumman electro-optical distributed aperture system sensors for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter have proved three sensors will “function simultaneously to provide a seamless, combined wide field of view,” says Northrop officials. The company flew...

The US Air Force is settling in to its temporary home at Manas AB, Kyrgyzistan, and the proof is in the continued enhancements USAF is making to the facility. Recently, in-house and contract construction projects have delivered four new fuel...

USAF gets airmen to instruct in the fine art of tanker employment at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels from one of three weapons squadrons of the Air Mobility Weapons School, Ft. Dix, N.J. According to Lt. Col. Seth Beaubien,...

November 17, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 14 4 – 18 CAS/Armed Recon 60 20 – 80 Airlift – – 145 145 Air refueling – – 35 35 Total 74 24 180 278 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...