The Air Force’s top uniformed officer told House appropriators last week in a closed door session that lawmakers—or anyone else—should not look to the Air Force budget to pay for Army enhancements. Government Executive obtained a copy of Gen. Michael...

Airstrikes supporting coalition ground forces south of Baqubah on the Diyala River in Iraq killed 14 terrorists and destroyed a safe house used by foreign fighters on Jan. 27, according to a Multinational Force-Iraq release. Paring that with US Central...

Pacific Air Forces has deployed Block 50 F-16s from the 35th Fighter Wing at Misawa AB, Japan, to Iraq, marking the first time for Block 50 Vipers to operate in Iraq, according to an Air Force release. The 14th Expeditionary...

The 36th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron deployed to Andersen AFB, Guam, from Minot AFB, N.D., has just set a record for launching its 200th consecutive sortie with a 100 percent mission effectiveness rate for their venerable B-52 bombers. Basically over...

The Air National Guard’s 102nd Fighter Wing at Otis AB, Mass., has sent its first few airmen to intelligence school in Texas, reports the Cape Cod Times. The transition from an F-15 fighter unit to one that operates a distributed...

The airmen of the 494th Fighter Squadron deployed to Southwest Asia from RAF Lakenheath, Britain, flew 972 combat sorties and became the first unit to employ the Small Diameter Bomb in combat. And, that’s not all. The F-15E Strike Eagle...

The “Scorpions” of the 603rd Air Control Squadron from Aviano AB, Italy, are coordinating air support for coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan. Since deploying to Kandahar Air Base earlier in January, 86 members of the 603rd have been...

The airmen from Dyess AFB, Tex., who maintain the tactical airlift workhorse of Southwest Asia—the C-130H Hercules—have gotten a new semi-permanent complex in which to repair and maintain the high demand transports. Their old one was a collection of homemade...

A senior Chinese military official predicts that there will be weapons in space “in our lifetime.” Reportedly Col. (or Brig. Gen., depending on the report) Yao Yunzhu is 52 and was speaking at the World Economic Forum last week in...

The Airborne Laser (formally the YAL-1A attack laser) is back at Edwards AFB, Calif., where it will undergo tests that include firing—for the first time—its two solid-state illuminator lasers. The lasers will fire at a target board on a missile-shaped...

Army Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, head of the National Guard Bureau, received word Jan. 26 that the Senate confirmed his nomination as chief for an additional two years. As of April 2007, Blum will have served as bureau chief for...

According to Lt. Gen. Robert Elder Jr., the commander of 8th Air Force who also is charged with standing up the Air Force’s new Cyber Command, the service will create an online Global Cyberspace Innovation Center by this summer. Government...

The 820th Security Forces Group at Moody AFB, Ga., has been selected as the first Air Force unit to deploy the Ground Situational Awareness Toolkit. The GSAT system, which consists of the Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle and ShotSpotter gunfire...

Jan. 25-27, 2007 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 46 25 71 CAS/Armed Recon 140 72 212 Airlift 425 425 Air refueling 84 84 Total 186 97 509 792 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance