A US Air Force Reserve Command crew flew their C-130J stretch model Hercules from the Mississippi Delta to Germany and then 3,500 miles nonstop to the Dubai air show in United Arab Emirates. The AFRC C-130J from the 815th Airlift...

Lockheed Martin says they are ready to begin thermal vacuum testing—“one of the most significant program milestones”—for the first Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous orbit satellite.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is trying to energize action on the 2006 defense authorization bill by getting staffers in next week to settle lingering policy difference between the House and Senate versions. A panel spokesman...

The list of potential offerors for a new combat rescue tanker aircraft to augment Air Force Special Operations Command’s combat search and rescue vehicle—CSAR-X—is continuing to grow. (DR 11/16/05) Joining the C-27J, according to Flight International, probably will be the...

USAF A-10s and B-52s in Afghanistan and A-10s and F-16s in Iraq struck various enemy targets over the past few days. F-16s on Nov. 21 launched precision-guided munitions against a staging area and weapons cache of anti-Iraqi forces near Salman...

The US Air Force is finally and completely out of Uzbekistan. A Pentagon spokesman said a USAF C-17 flew out the last 90 personnel at the Karshi-Khanabad—or as American troops knew it, K2—Air Base following a brief ceremony this week....

Reporter after reporter recently cornered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to ask him to defend US presence in the middle of an Iraq civil war. Rumsfeld’s repeated response—with slight variations—“Iraq is not in the middle of a civil war.” He calls...

At Fairchild AFB, Wash., all airmen shipping out for deployment in 2006 will undergo a combat skills training course that lasts four days—much more than the basic Air Force requirement of 19 hours, says Fairchild officials. Everyone—from airman to colonel—will...

Lt. Col. Craig Hall, deputy commander of the 325th Maintenance Group, Tyndall AFB, Fla., was awarded the Bronze Star medal. Hall served as commander of the 379th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron in Southwest Asia where he helped set up an...

Airlift Window Goes Up at Ramstein: The historic stained glass window from the chapel at the now-shuttered Rhein-Main AB, Germany, now hangs in the passenger terminal at the new main European airlift hub—Ramstein AB, Germany. The eight-foot window commemorates US...

A US Air Force Academy cadet-built satellite—the FalconSAT-2—slated on Nov. 25 to blast off into orbit from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site in the Marshall Islands did not launch because of problems with the commercial booster. Officials believe...

Scientists with the Air Force Research Laboratory and researchers with Northrop Grumman have demonstrated technology that will allow warfighters to request and receive surveillance information via a handheld device while engaged in urban conflict. AFRL demonstrated the Heterogeneous Urban RSTA...

The Pentagon ceremoniously heralded the arrival of its new global electronic health record system, known as AHLTA. It doesn’t stand for anything, officials said; that’s just what they call it. AHLTA operates 24/7 in a secure, authorized-personnel only environment, said...

Lockheed Martin is ramping up its Suffolk, Va.-based Center for Innovation by adding net-enabled air combat simulation capability to its net-centric laboratory, said company officials. They said the two simulators built to investigate emerging and future capabilities of the F/A-22...

Maj. Gen. (confirmed for a third star) Michael Peterson, USAF’s new Chief Information Officer, tells Government Computer News that the reorganization of the Air Staff functions that deal with information operations—CIO, warfighting integration, and communications operations offices—into a single entity—the Networks and Warfighting Integration-CIO Directorate—was a natural. (Read our item on the merger here.) He says the functions had worked closely together previously, so they “didn’t lose the momentum on [any] initiatives. In fact, he says, “things have speeded up.” So far so good.

Air Mobility Command officials say they’ve “moved forward aggressively” with the command’s environmental restoration program, saving an estimated $500,000 by bundling 41 cleanup sites at seven bases. Covering the AMC east region—comprising 22 sites at Charleston AFB, S.C., MacDill AFB,...

US Transportation Command has put its new Families First program into a “strategic pause,” postponing the February implementation of phase 2 until it can deliver “quality development” of the plan’s “one system, one standard, worldwide Web-based” Defense Personal Property System....

November 21, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 11 4 – 15 CAS/Armed Recon 40 21 – 61 Airlift – – 145 145 Air refueling – – 33 33 Total 51 25 178 254 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...