Airmen with the 305th Air Mobility Wing and Air Force Reserve Command’s 514th AMW at JB McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., put the KC-10’s refueling capacity through a rigorous test during an exercise at Travis AFB, Calif. Neptune Falcon blended combat, mobility, and intelligence-reconnaissance-surveillance air forces into a “cohesive warfighting capability,” said Col. Paul Murphy, 305th AMW commander. Airmen planned and executed 28 sorties during the week-long exercise in late March. They achieved a 100-percent maintenance reliability rate. “From the top down, everyone was watching how we could execute and we did it perfectly,” Murphy said. He added,” My group commanders and I could not be prouder of how well our ‘can do’ KC-10 team performed. This exercise validated our warfighting doctrine and employment.” (McGuire report by A1C Dennis L. Sloan)
The Pentagon is significantly bolstering airpower near Venezuela, dispatching the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to Latin America, it said in an Oct. 24 statement. The announcement came just hours after U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers and other U.S. assets flew near the Venezuelan coast on Oct. 23.
