The airmen of the 116th Air Control Wing at Robins AFB, Ga., who fly, operate, and maintain the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft have amassed 20,000 combat flying hours covering operations in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years, reports the Desert Eagle newspaper. And, some of these airmen have served in theater for more than a year; most have made numerous deployments. On the record flight—the 1,756th combat sortie—the Joint STARS crew, flying at 30,000 feet, heard a “mayday” call from troops stranded on a helicopter that had crashed in a lake. The E-8 crew relayed the distress call, bringing a speedy rescue.

Air Force Flight Test Center engineers at Edwards AFB, Calif., designed special plywood and metal ramps to shake—in a specific way—a C-5 airlifter, fitted with new engines and pylons. They needed to test the aircraft’s structural strength and flexibility in...

Gen. John D.W. Corley, the Air Force vice chief of staff, believes that technology is indispensable to defeating terrorism, shaping the decisions of other countries, and preventing non-state actors from using weapons of mass destruction, reports the Montgomery Advertiser in...

Veterans Affairs awarded a $3.7 million contract to SMS, Inc., Aug. 14, to provide “enhanced data security encryption” for all agency computers. The plan calls for all VA laptop computers to have the new encryption program within four weeks of...

The Government Accountability Office says that DOD does not have a good handle on the extent of “irregularities” committed by military recruiters. Says GAO in a new report, “Even one incident of recruiter wrongdoing can erode public confidence.” The Pentagon...

According to data compiled by GAO analysts for the new report on recruiting irregularities (see above), Air Force recruiters in 2004 and 2005 evidenced a higher rate of wrongdoing than their counterparts in the other branches. Data from Fiscal 2004...

As predicted, Lockheed Martin filed a protest on Aug. 14 with the Government Accountability Office against US Army Materiel Command for knocking the company out of the Joint Cargo Aircraft competition. The Army bumped Lockheed’s short-fuselage C-130J from the competition...

Rockwell Collins says it has teamed with Boeing and Honeywell to vie for the Air Force’s KC-10 aircraft modernization program. Last month, Rockwell got a $3.5 million contract to conduct a KC-10 AMP concept refinement study. Contracts for work on...

The 412th Operations Group at Edwards AFB, Calif., recently staged a live-fly exercise to connect pilots with US-wide datalink networks, testing pilot skills for the first time in a simulated net-centric war. The goal was to track and kill targets...

Other airmen call them the “Bats”—they are the crews of the Air Force’s only two EC-130 Compass Call electronic combat squadrons, and they have been “continuously deployed to the [Southwest Asia area of responsibility] since spring 2004,” reports the Rock Slate newspaper. One squadron—the 41st ECS—covers Afghanistan, while the other—43rd ECS—covers Iraq. (Read more in “Evolving to Meet Today’s EW Threat.”) In 2005, the 43rd ECS responded to more than 1,500 joint tactical air strike requests to block electronic signals. So far this year, the squadron has answered more than 1,125 JTASRs.

Airmen from Ramstein AB, Germany, deployed to Niger to collect satellite imagery to aid map-making—called Eagle Vision missions—have spent some time with local inhabitants. They treated children to donated soccer balls and their parents to 1,000 pounds of rice. The...

Bunkers are now in place at Ali Base, Iraq, in response to an increase in rocket attacks. Construction began on the concrete shelters the day after Col. David Orr, 407th Air Expeditionary Group commander, ordered the new bunkers to increase safety and security. Local contractors provided and placed barriers and t-walls to fortify high traffic areas, providing protection for airmen from fragmentation of rockets, shrapnel, and debris. In the near future, the AEG plans to install benches and reinforce the bunkers with sandbags, reports to the base newspaper, Ali Times.

Nineteen Air Force cadets graduated with sixteen military and civilian colleagues from a 10-week long cyber security boot camp, held at the Air Force Research Laboratory information directorate in Rome, N.Y. The course entailed lectures, real-world problem-solving, and collaborating with...

Aug. 14, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 16 6 22 CAS/Armed Recon 42 23 65 Airlift 170 170 Air refueling 39 39 Total 58 29 209 296 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance