Air Frame: Year in Review, April 2011: President Obama waits in the White House’s Blue Room on April 28, 2011, before announcing his intent to nominate CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace Robert Gates (second from right) as Defense Secretary and Army Gen. David Petraeus (far right) to lead the CIA. On the day before, an unbalanced Afghan air force officer killed eight USAF air advisors and one US civilian contractor in a shooting incident in Kabul. Earlier in April, Obama outlined plans to cut the defense budget by $400 billion by 2023 to help reduce the federal deficit. April also saw Beale AFB, Calif., named the stateside home of USAF’s MC-12W Liberty surveillance fleet and the Pentagon terminate the F-35’s F136 engine contract, and issue a new unified command plan stressing the Arctic’s growing importance. White House photo by Pete Souza
Pentagon officials overseeing homeland counter-drone strategy told lawmakers that even with preliminary moves to bolster U.S. base defenses, the military still lacks the capability to comprehensively identify, track, and engage hostile drones like those that breached the airspace of Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 days in December…