The Air Force plans later this week to conduct the first-ever flight of a B-1B bomber burning the synthetic fuel mix that it wants its entire inventory to start using by early next decade. USAF spokeswoman Vicki Stein said March...

Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert Allardice, commander of the Coalition Air Force Transition Team, told Pentagon reporters March 17 that the Iraqi Air Force is focused on increasing its combat mobility mission but is also beginning to train and prepare...

Air Force Cyber Command headquarters will have a numbered air force designated 24th Air Force, four wings, and more than 65 squadrons collectively, including units from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command, USAF announced March 14 in a document describing the plans for the new major command’s structure in the most detail to date. (wiring chart PDF) USAF says it remains on track to declare the command ready for initial operations on Oct. 1, despite the fact that no permanent location will have been assigned by then. And, for the interim, the new command will remain at Barksdale AFB, La., where it has been since last September. Further, the new command will be distributed, with positions to be spread among numerous bases. Two of the wings will be new: an electronic warfare wing and cyberspace wing. They will join an information operations wing (formerly the Air Force Information Operations Center) and the 67th Network Warfare Wing. Since USAF has never stood up a command like this, it is being very deliberate and careful as it moves forward said Maj. Gen. William Lord, AFCYBER (Provisional) commander. “Some of these things may change, but this is what we're looking at right now,” he said.

The Air Force and its industry partners successfully launched a modernized Global Positioning System Block IIR satellite built by Lockheed Martin into space March 15 from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., the company announced. The satellite, designated GPS IIR-19M, is the...

An F-16 fighter from the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s 138th Fighter Wing inadvertently dropped a 22-pound BDU-33 non-explosive dummy bomb on an apartment complex in Tulsa, Okla., March 13 while it was en route to a training range in Kansas...

Four B-52 bombers made history March 6 when they simultaneously hit mock targets at four separate training ranges spread out across an 11,200-square-mile perimeter during an exercise from Andersen AFB, Guam. Called Quad Lightning, the mission was the first-ever of...

F-15E aircrews from the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., didn’t realize it at the time, but a close air support sortie they carried out in Afghanistan’s restive Helmand province late last year was called in by none...

The Pentagon’s commission reviewing military compensation believes that current military pay is competitive with the civilian sector, agreeing with a Congressional Budget Office report issued last summer. Like CBO, the just issued 10th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation report recommends...

The first F-35 test aircraft, AA-1, successfully completed the inaugural stage of its airborne refueling tests March 12 during its 34th flight, prime contractor Lockheed Martin announced March 13. The airplane was aloft for one hour and 34 minutes near...

The Air Force has awarded Boeing a $130 million contract to upgrade eight active duty and eight Air National Guard F-15C fighters with the APG-63(V)3 active electronically scanned array radar, the company announced March 17. Raytheon builds the radar and...

March 13, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 13 13 26 1,944 CAS/Armed Recon 33 38 71 5,947 Airlift 139 139 8,862 Air refueling 42 42 2,788 Total 278 19,541 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...