The Air Force’s new MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle over the weekend performed its first combat strike when its operator launched a Hellfire missile against enemy combatants in Afghanistan. Ground forces declared the strike in Deh Rawod successful. USAF sent...

Reports of civilian deaths following airstrikes by NATO forces engaged in operations in Afghanistan have prompted Afghan President to publicly call for fewer airstrikes. Yet, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force continues to refute most such claims. On Oct. 28, Hamid...

Coalition officials in Afghanistan report that Afghan and coalition ground forces called for close air support during a six-hour engagement prompted by a Taliban ambush in the town of Musa Qala in the Helmand province. Afghan and coalition forces killed...

There is at least one segment of the Air Force that has decided it must increase the number of days its airmen deploy for air expeditionary force rotations. The Air Force Civil Engineer, Maj. Gen. Del Eulberg, has told the...

The RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle operators and friends at Beale AFB, Calif., have flown an overnight, 21-hour, local RQ-4 mission, reports A1C Robert Biermann. This past summer Beale airmen completed their first operational Global Hawk mission from the...

Air Force North has reported in an Oct. 29 release that the six Modular Airborne Firefighting System-equipped C-130s detailed to support California wildfire operations have flown a total of 64 missions, dropping more than 180,600 gallons of fire retardant. (An...

The Air National Guard has no bombers in its stock of aircraft, but it does now have a B-2 bomber pilot, Missouri Air Guardsman Maj. David Thompson, who has been tasked to help ANG’s 131st Fighter Wing at St. Louis...

Georgia lawmakers last year engaged the Air Force over its plans to centralize staffing and personnel management functions for the three Air Logistics Centers, eliciting a promise that the service would make no changes until it had completed—and shared—the results...

Boeing has just opened the first new F-15E Mission Training Center, this one for the 366th Fighter Wing at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. According to a company release, the MTC provides “two high-fidelity, dual-cockpit F-15E simulators with a 360-degreee visual...

US airmen from the 510th Fighter Squadron at Aviano AB, Italy, joined Bulgarian airmen for a three-week exercise called Rodopi Javelin 2007. It’s the second time the 510th FS has trained with the Bulgarian Air Force, reports Capt. Jennifer Ferrau....

The Air Force has flown, for the first time, a C-17 entirely fueled by a synthetic fuel blend in all four fuel tanks. An earlier flight had demonstrated the use of the Fischer-Tropsch synthetic and JP-8 blend in one tank....

Oct. 27, 2007 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 20 9 29 CAS/Armed Recon 50 29 79 Airlift 140 140 Air refueling 41 41 Total 70 38 181 289 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance Airlift includes Horn...