Senior Air Force officials say they were given a $15 billion budget cut across 2007-11, leaving them with scant room to wiggle. There will be personnel cuts (see below). And, the service will buy only 183 F/A-22 Raptors (number corrected...

Air Force Eyeing Major Personnel Cuts: USAF officials are considering slashing the service’s workforce by some 30,000 to 40,000 personnel between 2007 and 2011. Naturally word leaked out. According to Air Force spokeswoman Jean Schaefer, the subject is serious enough...

Changing World Begets a New USAF Mission Statement: Air Force leaders have revamped the service’s mission statement (we reported they would). Gen. Michael Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff, and Michael Wynne, Air Force Secretary, co-signed a letter, stating that...

There’s no need to increase USAF’s organic airlift capability—that is buying more than 180 C-17s—because the existing force is handling the current wartime operating tempo well and was even able to handle the no-notice hurricane relief effort with aplomb, Gen....

Gen. Norton Schwartz is urging a quick march toward a new tanker (DR 12/08/05), yet Boeing—probably the prime contender—is sounding decidedly pessimistic about how quickly the process will move. Jim Albaugh, a top Boeing official, has no doubt that his...

The 314th Airlift Wing, Little Rock AFB, Ark., has received its fifth new C-130J, and officials say the wing will get another two this month—for a total of seven. Lt. Gen. Dennis Larsen, Air Education and Training Command vice commander,...

Top Enlisted Man Talks Force Development: CMSAF Gerald Murray says the Air Force wants to give its enlisted airmen “opportunities” to realize their potential—all part of the service’s new Force Development initiative. He was blunt, though, when he told some...

The work of USAF’s battlefield airmen in Afghanistan during the early phase of Operation Enduring Freedom was phenomenal, by all reports. Now, says a veteran Joint Terminal Attack Controller, there are new operational tactics, not to mention more battlefield airmen...

Boeing officials took their special operations version of the HH-47 helicopter—the MH-47G—to Nellis AFB, Nev., to demonstrate the potential of the HH-47 Chinook to fill Air Force needs for a new combat search and rescue aircraft. The CSAR-X program, as...

A Bronze to IMA Hogan: The Air Force has awarded a Bronze Star to Air Force Reserve Command’s Lt. Col. Joe Hogan, an individual mobilization augmentee at the 72nd Security Forces Squadron, Tinker AFB, Okla. The 33-year veteran moved airmen...

It may seem a strange turn of affairs, but the Pentagon imported some 120 Air National Guardsmen and National Guardsmen from Guam to aid hurricane relief operations in Louisiana, according to a local Guam TV station. The Guardsmen were returning...

A South Carolina TV station reports that some 180 reservists assigned to AFRC’s 315th Airlift Wing, Charleston AFB, S.C., are coming to the end of their two-year active duty mobilization. What is unique is that many are simply turning around...

Air Mobility Command officials say the 818th Contingency Response Group/24th Air Expeditionary Group will rotate back from their two-month duty at Chaklala AB, Pakistan, next week. Now, the group has to clean, inventory, and replenish their gear for the next...

Awesome Words From the Chief of Staff: Gen. Michael Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff, personally congratulated 19 airmen of the 791st Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron and the 86th AES on a visit this week to Ramstein AB, Germany. What...

DOD officials said that the remains of a US serviceman discovered on one of 11 excursions on the Laos-Vietnam border made between 1994 and 2004 were identified as those of Air Force TSgt. Patrick L. Shannon of Owasso, Okla. Shannon...

We report below on the growing speculation that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is headed out the door. Well, once again, the rumor mill may be premature. Rumsfeld told reporters Thursday afternoon that he has heard the same thing since shortly...

More and more frequently, news articles report that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has seen the exit sign on the wall. The New York Daily News like Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute proffers Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman as a likely...

December 7, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 15 2 – 17 CAS/Armed Recon 62 18 – 80 Airlift – – 140 140 Air refueling – – 36 36 Total 77 20 176 273 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...