When rows and rows of aircraft, 35 in total, lined up for the largest display of airpower in recent years at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, they had two audiences in mind: the Airmen on the ground that made it happen, and most importantly, those who would see the photographs from abroad. The May 5 “Moose Walk” included 26 F-22s, two C-12s, two C-130s, two E-3 Sentrys, and three C-17s, in addition to HH-60s and a C-17 already in the air. It was a massive display of readiness by the 3rd and 176th Wings at the Alaska base. Airmen worked in shifts leading up to the event, combining a full day’s worth of takeoffs and landings into one onslaught of aircraft. “The message is that we’re ready. We’ve always been ready,” 3rd Wing Commander Col. Robert Davis told Air Force Magazine in an interview. “And the challenges associated with COVID-19 have not prevented us from being ready to defend the nation in our NORAD alert mission, or to be able to project airpower, to deliver airpower to combatant commanders.”

The Air Force plans a high/low mix of rocket-boosted and air-breathing hypersonic missiles to give adversaries a troublesome and expensive defense problem, service acquisition executive Will Roper said May 14. While the ARRW missile is on track for operational service at the end of fiscal 2022, a smaller, air-breathing missile will also be developed, he said. The “worst thing” the U.S. could do is “give that adversary the benefit of only having to look up or down, or the benefit of only having to worry about bombers but not fighters,” Roper said.

A potential “clean sheet” Arsenal Plane for Air Force Global Strike Command could be done with the Digital Century Series approach, but the budget likely won’t allow for such a new start in the near future, service acquisition chief Will Roper said. Roper said he is working on a “variety of options” for Air Force Global Strike Command, and one of them is potentially a new Arsenal Plane concept, but it is in a “very nascent” form. “My job is to have options so that the number of bombers can be achieved,” Roper said of the goal of 220 bombers USAF leaders have been voicing lately.

A C-130J from the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, delivered more than 30,000 pounds of COVID-19 relief supplies to Italy as part of a new NATO initiative to quickly transmit equipment. The C-130J carried KN-95 masks, surgical gowns, and COVID-19 test kits to Italian logistics hubs in Milan and Rome, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe release. The flight was the first in a series of planned operations to Italy to redistribute supplies and was coordinated as part of NATO’s Rapid Air Mobility initiative, which began in March to simplify procedures for relief flights by using NATO call signs to speed up air traffic control clearances across Europe.

Eglin Air Force Base’s 96th Medical Group can now get the results of COVID-19 tests within about an hour, instead of waiting up to three days for a lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to process them. The group is using recently acquired test kits in conjunction with a molecular diagnostic analyzer—a system previously used to check for the pathological culprits behind illnesses such as pneumonia—to detect the new coronavirus in patient samples, a base release said.

Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center boss Maj. Gen. Shaun Morris is nominated for the top spot at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. Morris is also up for a promotion to lieutenant general. His nomination was sent to the Senate on May 11. If confirmed, he will replace Lt. Gen. Robert McMurry, who has run AFLCMC since May 2017. The Air Force did not say where McMurry will go next.