The Air Force informs us that it is no longer providing the daily airpower summaries that we used to generate our Air Sorties in Southwest Asia table, which has been a popular component of the Daily Report column. Accordingly, the table in Wednesday’s column, with data current through Dec. 19, 2010, is the last one under this format. We will continue to work with the Air Force to illustrate the contributions of airpower to the fight in some similar or new format.
The Air Force in October carried out a homeland defense mission, with jets including F-16 Fighting Falcons, in Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands to show a base there could safeguard the northern regions.