The KC-135 tankers at RAF Mildenhall, Britain, have been flying a greater number of pure transport missions than they did four years ago. Stars and Stripes reports that the 100th Air Refueling Wing—the only tanking unit in US Air Forces...

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the Financial Times that civilian casualties in Afghanistan had led the alliance to reconsider aircraft weapons loads. He said, “If you put a 250 kilogram bomb rather than a 500 kilogram bomb...

Air Mobility Command wants to put its new C-17 forces through short-field combat landing training using the Grant County Airport in Moses Lake, Wash. This is the same site used by C-17s assigned to McChord AFB, Wash. The new forces...

Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle has completed 1,000 flights. The fourth production Global Hawk, AF-4, spent more than 18 hours at high altitudes without refueling supporting the war on terror for the record flight, according to a...

The House Armed Services Committee has just voted 55 to 2 to approve a bipartisan bill (H.R. 3087) that pushes the Defense Department to develop a redeployment strategy for the US military in Iraq. “Congressional oversight is essential to ensure...

The Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson has a new paper in which he posits why Navy guys are beating out the Air Force and Army guys for the Pentagon’s “plum” jobs. Thompson says the days of equal apportionment among the services...

The Institute of Medicine’s latest report reviewing the health effects of veterans exposed to Agent Orange—a herbicidal agent used to destroy foliage—during the Vietnam War recommends “the pursuit of additional research in toxicology, exposure assessment, and epidemiology.” Congress called in...

As his F-15 Strike Eagle landed at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan last week, Lt. Col. Dave Iverson became the 15th pilot to have 3,000 flight hours on record in the Strike Eagle. SSgt. Craig Seals reports that the director of operations...

Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin submitted their proposals to build the space segments for the Transformational Satellite communications system on July 30. The Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB, Calif., issued the final request for proposals in...

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee’s hearing July 26 focused on health care funding—a “comprehensive discussion” about funding methods and “opinions on the current state of financial affairs at VA,” according a committee statement. Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt explained that...

July 27-28, 2007 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 35 20 55 CAS/Armed Recon 101 81 182 Airlift 315 315 Air refueling 95 95 Total 136 101 410 647 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance Airlift includes Horn...