The Air Force planned to employ a C-17 from McChord AFB, Wash., to deliver passengers and cargo yesterday to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, thereby kicking off Operation Deep Freeze 2008-09, the US military’s support for US scientific research activities on the barren continent. (An active-duty and Air Force Reserve Command crew from McChord flew the last mission for the previous season in April.) According to a USAF release, the C-17 would fly multiple missions from Christchurch International Airport, New Zealand, the staging point for ODF, to McMurdo Station through Sept. 10 as part of the ODF ramp-up phase. The main body of military and civilian personnel plan to arrive in Antarctica in October.
It’s Time for the Air Force to Embrace the F-35
May 23, 2025
Douglas A. Birkey The United States revolutionized air combat with the invention of stealth technology and the low-observable combat jet. Beginning in the 1980s with the F-117 and continuing in the years that followed with the B-2, F-22, F-35, and...