Holding Patterns

Boeing and Northrop Grumman are using the international venue of the Farnborough air show outside London this week to convey their messages looking ahead for the KC-X tanker program. Yesterday Ronald Sugar and Louis Gallois, the CEOs of Northrop and...

B-2 Radar Stands up to Rigors

Environmental qualification testing of the modernized radar units for the B-2A bomber has been successfully completed, lead contractor Northrop Grumman announced July 15. The laboratory tests validated the ability of the radar’s antenna, power supply, and receiver/exciter module to withstand...

James Tapped to Head 14th AF

President Bush has nominated Maj. Gen. Larry James for appointment to the grade of lieutenant general to serve as commander of 14th Air Force (Air Forces Strategic-Space) at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., the Pentagon announced July 14. In that role, James...

ABL Update

All of the technical capabilities for the Airborne Laser have been proved on the ground and the program is planning a live shootdown in 2009, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, outgoing Missile Defense Agency director, told reporters in the...

Generational Differences

Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, head of the multinational F-35 stealth fighter program, minced no words in criticizing Boeing executives for what he alleges are disingenuous attacks by the aerospace giant on the F-35. Flight reported July 14 that...

Strike Aircraft Help to Repel Attack

Nangalam, Afghanistan, was a central point of coalition airstrikes July 13, Air Forces Central said in a release July 14. Nangalam, in the Kunar region in northeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border was the site of a failed attack by...

Making the Grade?

Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, outgoing director of the Missile Defense Agency, yesterday touted his agency’s flight test record since 2001 while also announcing that a planned test of the ground-based midcourse defense system is being restructured to account...

Tanker Unit Wins Award

The 906th Air Refueling Squadron at Grand Forks AFB, N.D., has won the Air Force Association’s 2008 David C. Schilling Award. The unit was recognized for the “most outstanding contribution in the field of flight” in 2007, with its activities...

Technology Refresh for C-130J

Lockheed Martin unveiled three new technologies yesterday at the Farnborough air show outside of London that it is incorporating into the baseline configuration of its C-130J transport aircraft in use with the Air Force and several coalition partner air forces....

Study says End Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell

A new report by four retired flag officers representing each military branch—including retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Minter Alexander who was in charge of USAF’s manpower and personnel policy in the early 1990s—calls on Congress to repeal the 1993...

Air Sorties from SWA

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaJuly 13, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 27 13 40 6,045 CAS/Armed Recon 46 60 106 17,822 Airlift 132 132 24,590 Air refueling 62 62 8,520 Total 340 56,977...