NORAD and Russian air force officials met late last month at Peterson AFB, Colo., to hash out details of the upcoming Vigilant Eagle exercise. This year’s Vigilant Eagle is scheduled to take place in August in Anchorage, Alaska, and Anadyr, Russia, and will include a live-fly element as the two organizations fine-tune procedures to deal with scenarios in which a hijacked commercial aircraft traverses both NORAD-controlled and Russian airspace, according to NORAD’s April 30 release. “The Vigilant Eagle exercise series has been an extraordinary and historic opportunity for NORAD and the Russian Federation to coordinate on the response to a mutually acknowledged hijacking threat,” said Joe Bonnet, NORAD’s joint training and exercises director. “From a participant’s perspective, it is more than a military exercise; it is creating lasting bonds and partnerships extremely valuable for the security of our nations,” he added. The meeting took place from April 24 to April 27. The final planning conference will take place in June in Ottawa, Canada, states the release. Last year’s Vigilant Eagle activities featured a command-post exercise and had no live-fly element.
Matthew Lohmeier, who was fired from a Space Force squadron command just two years ago, took another step in his unlikely journey to the Department of the Air Force's No. 2 job May 1, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee that his background as an Air Force F-15C pilot…