As soon as the Iraqi Air Force College returned to its pre-war home at Tikrit Air Base in September, the hard work for USAF advisors to forge the new facility and a new staff into a professional, military academy had only just begun. The advisors, many of them US Air Force Academy graduates, are cooperating with graduates of the former Iraqi Air College to implement the structures for a professional commissioning program, from curriculum straight through to the mundane issues of class scheduling. “We want them to have a quality institution where they’re producing quality officers. Not only pilots, but also support officers,” said USAF Maj. Israel Figueroa, 321st Air Expeditionary Wing college advisor. Iraqi Staff Brig. Gen. Ali Hassan, college commander and dean, said the graduates from this academy “will be the future of the Iraqi air force.” (Tikrit report by SSgt. Sanjay Allen)
United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket is slated to fly its second national security mission in February—nearly six months after its first operational launch and almost a year after it was certified to fly military payloads for the Space Force.
