DOD Has New Budget Topline, Beginning Second Audit
More Extended Range Reapers Deploy to Anti-ISIS Fight
Air Force Space Command Holds Space Flag Exercise
Air Force Space Command recently wrapped the Defense Department’s biggest space exercise, using aggressors to help airmen hone their skills defending space systems. Space Flag 19-1, held in Colorado Springs, Colo., last month, included airmen from the 50th Space Wing and 460th Space Wing, along with airmen from the 26th and 27th Space Aggressor squadrons. Similar to how Red Flag exercises focus on real-world, large-scale operations, the exercise included “red” and “blue” forces fighting against each other in a “dynamic range of scenarios,” according to an Air Force Space Command release. “The intent of Space Flag is to allow tactical operators the ability to learn how to fight and defend their systems as an enterprise with other tactical operators in an arena we currently do not have,” said Col. Devin Pepper, 21st Operations Group commander and leader of the exercise, in the release. The exercise began in 2017 and will increase to three times per year as a way to transition “our culture and our way of thinking from just providing a service to the warfighter to actually being a space warfighter,” Pepper said.
AFWERX SBIR Grant Looks to Improve Military Fitness with Data
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RADAR SWEEP
Germany Steps Up to Lead NATO High Readiness Force
German forces on 1 January took the lead for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), providing thousands of soldiers to be on standby and ready to deploy within days. Germany takes over from Italy, which provided the VJTF lead brigade in 2018. NATO
Senator Seeks Air National Guard Sexual Misconduct Probe
Sen. Tammy Baldwin has asked Air Force investigators to look into allegations of sexual assault and harassment within a Wisconsin Air National Guard unit that were brushed aside by senior officers, according to a member of the unit. Daily Journal
New Dress Blues in 2019? Not Just Yet, Air Force Says
Aside from the new combat uniform, the U.S. Air Force may not get any additional uniforms this year, as other priorities have materialized for the service. Miltary.com
Airpower and the Arctic: The Importance of Projecting Strength in the North
The U.S. Air Force has been flying over the Arctic for more than a half century. Often forgotten, the United States’ first-ever mass airlift and aerial bombing campaigns were conducted there during World War II’s Thousand-Mile War along a remote chain of Alaskan islands. Defense News
Poland First Ally to Safeguard Baltic Airspace in 2019
The Polish Air Force took over the responsibility for leading NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission out of Šiauliai Air Base, Lithuania, from the Belgian Air Force on 3 January 2019. A traditional handover/takeover ceremony has been conducted at the Lithuanian Air Base every four months since 2004. The Polish Air Force was the eighth Ally to assume the mission at the end of 2005 and has now returned to accomplish the task for the first four months in 2019. NATO
One More Thing …
For UFO fans, History Channel’s ‘Project Blue Book’ Show Rings All Too True to Life
“Project Blue Book,” the History Channel TV series making its debut tonight, takes its inspiration from classic UFO cases of the 1940s and 1950s—but for UFO fans who gathered to watch a Seattle preview of the first episode, the show hints at the shape of things to come as well. GeekWire