Despite eliminating the Air Force’s next-generation bomber from the 2010 defense budget, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged it was his personal view that “we probably do need a follow-on bomber.” But he told the Senate Armed Services Committee during May...

The House passed its version of the Fiscal 2009 war supplemental, including funding eight more C-17 airlifters. However, the Senate Appropriations Committee version does not include additional C-17s. A group of Senators, led by Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Sen....

According to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Nebraska lawmakers were forewarned that the Air Force’s new cyber headquarters would not call Offutt Air Force Base its home before the service’s public announcement Friday that it wants to place 24th Air Force...

More than 80 functional experts from the Air Force, Army, and Navy got together at Joint Base Balad in Iraq earlier this month to take an initial look at how to drawdown US Air Force Central operations in Iraq over...

Air Forces Central reports that an MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle had crashed in eastern Afghanistan on May 14. The brief statement said, “The crash was not due to hostile fire.” This is at least the third Predator crash in...

The Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center at Tucson, Ariz., inaugurated the use of the new Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) tactical communications link during a test earlier this month that enabled a C-130 airlifter to connect digitally with a Combat...

SSgt. Bartek Bachleda, a KC-135 boom operator with the 909th Air Refueling Squadron at Kadena AB, Japan, was flying aboard a commercial flight en route from Chicago to Japan when he noticed that the aircraft was losing fuel. He had...

The New York Air National Guard’s 106th Rescue Wing conducted its 100th mission supporting the launch of space shuttles when NASA launched Atlantis May 11 from Cape Canaveral in Florida for its mission to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. An...

The Air Force Research Lab has issued a request for information about potential operational reusable booster system (RBS) concepts, noting that studies have shown an RBS “could reduce the cost of space transportation by significantly reducing the amount of flight...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaMay 13, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 30 22 52 5,307 CAS/Armed Recon 22 77 99 13,000 Airlift 140 140 18,064 Air refueling 50 50 5,874 Total 341 42,245...