North Dakota’s Senate delegation secured an amendment to the Senate version of the Fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill that would prevent the Air Force from implementing its plan to retire 50 of the nation’s Minuteman III ICBMs. The service wants to use those 50 for ICBM testing and as spares for the remaining 450 missiles. The amendment, introduced by Sen. Kent Conrad (D) and Byron Dorgan (D), not onlycalls for a “detailed strategic justification” for reducing the fleet to 450 missiles but also a “detailed analysis of the strategic ramifications” of continuing to equip the entire MM III force with multiple rather than single warheads. It also would require an inventory of the current test assets and spares and assessments of what’s needed to maintain either a 500 or 450 missile fleet and full modernization. Conrad maintains this is not the time to dismantle the nation’s “most potent deterrent” in the face of the impending threat from North Korea. He says, “If we reduce our missile force now, we will never get them back.”

Missile security forces airmen at Minot AFB, N.D., got a taste of what they train for—rebuffing an attack on a missile launch facility. The attack, in this case, came from three protesters who decided to vandalize an ICBM site near...

Inspector General teams from Air Combat Command and Air Force Space Command that recently inspected the two wings at Minot AFB, N.D., for their nuclear surety practices gave both ACC’s 5th Bomb Wing and AFSPC’s 91st Space Wing the highest...

The 452nd Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB, Calif., is taking the last of the Block 10 production Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles through its paces before turning it over to the operators at Beale AFB, Calif. All the Hawk’s...

Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, expressed his concern over China’s “intentions and continued arms buildup” during a hearing last week. Hunter acknowledged recent overtures by US Pacific Command as showing “positive potential for cooperation,” however...

Virginia National Guard officials say the state has been selected to form one of the five additional National Guard chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear enhanced response force packages. Currently there are 12 CERFPs, but the Fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill added...

Air Mobility Command has embarked on a competition to find a commercial service for aerial delivery functions across the command. By contracting out this service, AMC officials expect to be able to eliminate 93 enlisted positions at four facilities: Charleston...

Equipment maintenance airmen at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, have a $176,000 machine with which they can produce two-dimensional parts for almost any aircraft on the base. And, when the machine turned out its first part, it had saved the Air Force...

Air Force F-16s landed this past week at a military base in Serbia on a visit as part of US and Serbian military cooperation, reports Agence France Presse news service. And, it was just seven years ago that US airmen...

The Pentagon’s POW/Missing Personnel Office has identified an Air Force officer missing in action from the Vietnam War. Maj. John F. Conlon III of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and another crewmember took off from Qui Nhon Air Field in South Vietnam on...

Air Force Academy and Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets have been taking in sights and sounds of the Air Force in action under a program called Operation Air Force, which is in its second year. The participating cadets—all...

June 22, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 11 6 17 CAS/Armed Recon 54 28 82 Airlift 160 160 Air refueling 44 44 Total 65 34 204 303 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance