The Pentagon is slowly gathering information on Tuesday’s low Earth orbit collision of an inactive Russian military satellite with a functioning Iridium commercial communications satellite, Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwrightvice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday. The...

Marine Corps. Gen. James Mattis, commander of US Joint Forces Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation, yesterday reasserted his objections to the strategic concept called effects-based operations, which proved wildly successful in Operations Desert Storm, Allied Force, and...

Air-Land Pow-wow: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz met with his Army counterpart, Gen. George Casey Jr., Feb. 10 in the Pentagon for a day of meetings to discuss areas of mutual interest regarding interdependency and interoperability. The...

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed William Lynn to be deputy secretary of defense by a vote of 93 to four. The former top Raytheon lobbyist will replace Gordon England in the Pentagon’s No. 2 post. Lynn’s nomination was somewhat contentious...

Maj. Gen. Bradley Heithold assumed command of the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency from Maj. Gen. John Koziol in a ceremony Feb. 11 at Lackland AFB, Tex. “We’ll do everything in our power to bolster ISR support for...

Lt. Col. Edward Vaughan, the Air National Guard’s former deputy director of safety, was inducted into the Air Force Safety Hall of Fame at Maxwell AFB, Ala., Feb. 6. Vaughan, an F-16 pilot who has served with ANG units in...

Members of Air Force Reserve Command’s 512th Airlift Wing at Dover AFB, Del., spent a year preparing to for the arrival of the first C-5M Super Galaxy transport at the base, which occurred Feb. 9. In addition to training to...

Harry Hillaker, 89, a long-time aeronautical engineer with General Dynamics who is considered to be the “father of the F-16,” died Feb. 8 at his home in Fort Worth, Tex. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Feb. 10 that Hillaker led...

It was 36 years ago yesterday, Feb. 12, 1973, that the Air Force began an eight-week airlift mission known as Operation Homecoming to repatriate 597 US prisoners of war from North Vietnam. The US had just signed the Paris Accords about two weeks prior that ended the US involvement in the Vietnam War. As a condition of the accord, the POWs were released. C-141 transports began flying the freed POWs out of Hanoi on Feb. 12, while C-9 aircraft flew smaller numbers of them out of locations in South Vietnam and Hong Kong. During the first phase of the operation, the returning servicemembers were flown to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Later, they were transported to bases in the continental US. The operation concluded on April 4, 1973. In 2006, the Air Force placed the “Hanoi Taxi,” the first C-141 that flew into Hanoi into the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, after one final flight with about 100 former Vietnam War POWs aboard. (For more, read this week’s Airman’s Roll Call and Air Force Magazine's Honor Bound.)

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaFeb. 11, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 26 13 39 1,622 CAS/Armed Recon 16 80 96 4,158 Airlift 100 100 5,368 Air refueling 43 43 1,941 Total 278 13,089...