Defense Secretary Robert Gates is under pressure to pick an Air Force general to head US Pacific Command, a regional joint command slot that will soon be short a leader should Congress OK the shift of Adm. William Fallon to...

Another reason Gen. Bruce Carlson isn’t a long shot to head US Pacific Command (see above) is that his immediate predecessor, Gen. Gregory Martin, originally was picked for the PACOM job. He withdrew when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) threatened to...

The Air Force and prime contractor Northrop Grumman chose a Pratt & Whitney engine to replace the existing P&W engines on the service’s fleet of 19 E-8 Joint STARS ground surveillance aircraft. A P&W statement called its JT8D-219 propulsion system...

The Air Force wants enlisted airmen, especially those halfway through their first term, to consider becoming enlisted aviators. MSgt. Bill Bergen, the aviator career field in-service recruiter, told Daily Report Jan. 18 that there are more than 200 openings right...

About 2,240 Air Force officers in year groups 2003 and 2004 could face the force shaping board slated for March. As of Jan. 11, vulnerability charts show the service still needed to reshape the 2004 year group by separating 319 and has put 1,616 in the potential crosshairs. The top targeted career fields out of 13 that still have too many junior officers include developmental engineering, communications/information, intelligence, and science. For the 2003 year group, USAF only needs to bump 131 out of 628 that are eligible. From this group, the service must cull officers in DE, space and missiles, and navigators. The service announced the date of the FSB last fall, and earlier this month also set a reduction in force board date for officers in other overage year groups.

Housing is more expensive in California than many other states, even close to Edwards Air Force Base out in the desert near Palmdale. Base officials finally have won a three-year battle to secure a basic allowance for housing increase. This...

Unanimous approval by state governors and adjutant generals greeted the new DOD policy changes limiting mobilization periods to 12 months, instead of the current 16 to 24 month terms, for Guard and Reserve units, according to a Jan. 17 National...

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research began working on the technology to produce the global positioning system-guided Joint Precision Airdrop System back in 1997, reports AFOSR. The idea actually came out of the Scientific Advisor Board’s 1995 New World...

An unmanned aerial vehicle—an MQ-1 Predator—crashed five miles southeast of Baghdad Airport on Jan. 17. US Central Command Air Forces officials report no damages, no injuries, and no indications that the incident was due to hostile activity.

According to the 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey by the Office of Personnel Management, 68 percent of federal employees (compared to 71 percent of those in the private sector) are satisfied with their jobs. The federal and private sector employees...

Four Republican Congressmen this week sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, urging him to not use “stop-loss” to ensure the Pentagon can send 21,000 additional troops to Iraq under President Bush’s new plan. Leading the “end stop-loss” charge,...

Polls continue to show that Americans, for the most part, do not want to send additional troops to Iraq, and many believe Congress should cut the purse strings. A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and...

The Air Force told WALB TV news in Valdosta, Ga., that the investigation into the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of Maj. Jill Metzger in Kyrgyzstan last fall is still in progress. The major returned to Moody AFB, Ga., where she...

Jan. 17, 2007 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 13 4 17 CAS/Armed Recon 34 14 48 Airlift 165 165 Air refueling 33 33 Total 47 18 198 263 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance