Air Mobility Command’s 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center, the unit at Scott AFB, Ill., that runs global airlift, air refueling, and aeromedical evacuation missions, has bested its previous high-point for number of sorties planned: 1,063 sorties in one 24-hour period...

The Pentagon has issued a new directive (DODD 3000.07) that sets irregular warfare on the same footing as traditional warfare. The directive, signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England earlier this week, states that it is DOD policy to...

Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley was on the road earlier this week, stopping at the National Guard’s Joint Operations Center in St. Augustine, where he talked with a Florida Times-Union reporter about elevation of the National Guard Bureau director to...

Some 250 airmen and 13 F-16s from the 555th Fighter Squadron at Aviano AB, Italy, have returned to their home base from a nearly month-long exercise in Bulgaria. During Nickel Javelin 2008, the Aviano team conducted training with Bulgarian air...

The program to replace engines on the Air Force’s fleet of E-8C Joint STARS surveillance aircraft is on track toward first flight with the test aircraft on Dec. 17, according to officials at the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB,...

There's been no public release, per se, but US Pacific Command last month issued a new strategy, which it says is "based on partnership, presence, and military readiness." No where in the strategy does the term "military preeminence" appear, even though as late as this summer, PACOM boss Adm. Timothy Keating was still using it to describe the command's view. In his cover letter to the new strategy, Keating writes: "The emphasis on security cooperation and capacity building does not signal a departure from our primary responsibility to fight and win. Instead, it acknowledges the complexity of our security environment and the importance of proactively employing forces in ways that strengthen partnerships and support conditions that preclude the necessity for combat operations." However, lest any potential foes read too much into the new softer-sided PACOM strategy, it does end with these words: "We will be an engaged combatant command committed to being a trusted partner and preeminent warfighter."

Air Forces Central reported Dec. 4 that an MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle had crashed on the runway at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, about 7:30 a.m., Baghdad time. The release said the extent of the damage was unknown and made...

That is the message being generated by the Aerospace Industries Association in a new outreach campaign. According to a Dec. 2 release, “The initiative, aimed at the incoming administration and Congress, will encourage leaders to consider the industry as an...

The Laughlin Task Force plans to push the Texas state legislature to create an encroachment-proof zone around Laughlin Air Force Base, near Del Rio, reports Southwest Texas Live.com. The task force, comprising elected officials, civic and business leaders, and citizens,...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaDec. 3, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 25 18 43 12,497 CAS/Armed Recon 21 70 91 34,761 Airlift 140 140 43,885 Air refueling 46 46 16,937 Total 320 108,080...