Cheyenne Mountain Is Not Quite Shutting Down

The head of NORAD and US Northern Command, Adm. Timothy Keating, has decided to bring most of his people who work at Cheyenne Mountain AFS, Colo., to nearby Peterson Air Force Base, which houses the headquarters for both commands and...

Florida Abuzz Over USAF Plan for Eglin

Florida civic leaders, including Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, feel they have been sideswiped by a surprise Air Force proposal to shift some jobs from Eglin AFB, Fla., to Edwards AFB, Calif., considering it came well after BRAC 2005 actions that...

The Air Force Lines in and out of Lebanon

Air Force Special Operations Command airmen and their MH-53 Pave Hawk helicopters and MC-130P Combat Shadow tankers from RAF Mildenhall, England, have continued to aid evacuation operations in Lebanon. An Air Force news release says the 352nd Special Operations Group...

Marking a Nighthawk Milestone

Members of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., recently took special note of the fact that their F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters have amassed 250,000 hours of operation. Col. John Forsythe, commander of the 49th Operations Group, flew the...

Bombers and Friends Go Down Under

US Air Force B-2 bombers have been flying 18-hour missions to Australia to make use of the Delamere bombing range in Australia’s Northern Territory, as part of Exercise Green Lightning. USAF KC-10 tankers enabled the bombers to participate in this...

Reservists at Wright-Patt Fly First C-5 Mission

Two months after retiring their last C-141, airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, took off on their first C-5 mission—flying from Ohio to Ramstein AB, Germany on July 19. Maj. Mike Baker and...

USAF Spells Deployable ATC—ANG

The bulk of the Air Force’s deployable air traffic control and landing systems reside in the Air National Guard, and Air Guardsmen voluntarily fill some 25 percent of ATC deployments, according to a USAF news release. Recently, members of the...

Moving Along With NPOESS

Raytheon officials say the company and NASA successfully completed testing data transfer and system compatibility for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project—all together known as NPP. The NPP is slated to fly early versions of key...

It’s Dangerous Out There

Lightheartedness aside, Americans do believe that the world is more dangerous today than in times past, according to a new survey by The Gallup Poll. The July 21-23 poll found that 76 percent of Americans say the world is more...

Predators Can Aid Homeland Relief Operations

The FAA has cleared Predator MQ-1 and MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicles for use in domestic disaster relief operations. Air Combat Command has received a “certificate of authorization” from FAA to use the UAVs to provide video and infrared search and...

Arnold Tests Mars Vehicle

A team at the Arnold Engineering Development Center’s Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel facility in Silver Spring, Md., has successfully completed atmospheric entry testing of a key component to the Mars Science Laboratory—due to be launched in 2009 for its seven-month trip...

Woolsey Teams with Congress for Defense Energy Group:

Two Congressmen and a former Central Intelligence Agency director have teamed up to form the Congressional Defense Energy Working Group to “identify challenges” and “recommend logistical and policy solutions” to the US military’s dependence on energy, which they view as...

Air Sorties in the Global War on Terrorism

July 27, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 15 8 21 CAS/Armed Recon 42 30 72 Airlift 160 160 Air refueling 39 39 Total 57 36 199 292 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance