The B-17G bomber being restored at Barksdale AFB, La., in honor of 8th Air Force icon Maj. Gen. Lewis Lyle, on May 18 got its nose art, “Miss Liberty.” A team of airmen, volunteers, and contractors are fixing up this B-17 to replicate “Miss Liberty,” the aircraft that Lyle flew on a raid against Berlin on March 22, 1944. The B-17 will reside in the Eighth Air Force museum. (Barksdale photo caption by SSgt. John Gordinier)
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.


