Maj. Jill Metzger surfaced late Friday knocking on the door of a house in Kant about 20 miles from Bishkek, the Kyrgyzstan capital, from which she disappeared Sept. 5. According to various news reports, she told officials that she had...

Air Combat Command is paying 31 percent more for aviation fuel today than a year ago, raising the price from $1.74 per gallon to $2.53 per gallon. This is the second year in a row that ACC has faced a...

It takes 36 KC-135 tankers to refuel six B-1B or B-52 bombers when the bombers deploy from Barksdale AFB, La., to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, says retired Lt. Gen. John Sams Jr., who was head of 15th Air...

Air Force KC-135s have been providing refueling services for the Navy and Marine Corps since the Vietnam War, but the joint mission really took hold in Desert Storm. During the first Gulf War, 20 percent of USAF’s total aerial refueling...

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research is working with Brigham Young University to develop the means for unmanned aerial vehicles to coordinate with one another, according to BYU professor Tim McLain. “We’ve developed and demonstrated cooperative timing methods that...

The US and Serbia have signed a status of forces agreement. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Serbian President Boris Tadic formally signed the agreement in Washington on Sept. 7. Rice remarked that Serbia’s future vision is one of “prosperity...

The Senate on Sept. 7 approved a $469.7 billion 2007 defense appropriations bill, including $65.5 billion in supplemental appropriations. The basic total comes to some $9 billion less than the Administration request. As with the House version, the Senate bill...

A new Harris Poll shows that teenagers increasingly have lost confidence in a US victory in the war on terrorism or in the war in Iraq. The survey indicates that only 58 percent believe the US will win the war...

Is it possible to harness the energy from sunlight and heat to power military aircraft? Scientists from four universities will team up to investigate and answer that question with the help of a $6 million grant from the Air Force...

The President has nominated Lt. Gen. Stephen Wood for deputy commander, United Nations Command Korea and commander, 7th Air Force. Wood currently serves on the Air Staff as head of A8, strategic plans and programs. The President also has nominated...

The Supreme Allied Commander Marine Corps Gen. James Jones believes that NATO allies must produce the additional 15 percent of troops agreed to a year ago for operations in Afghanistan. Right now, he says, NATO has provided only about 85...

Faced with a mounting backlog of nearly 6,000 pending veterans’ claims, US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims Chief Judge William Greene Jr. has recalled two of its retired judges to help trim the caseload. The number of pending cases...

Sept. 7, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 13 5 18 CAS/Armed Recon 42 35 77 Airlift 150 150 Air refueling 40 40 Total 55 40 190 285 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance