Finding the balance among the three components of the Air Force—active duty, Reserve, and Air National Guard—will be critical as the service continues looking for new efficiencies and ways to trim its overall budget, said Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, head of Air Force Reserve Command. Operation Odyssey Dawn, which oversaw the initial establishment and enforcement of the no-fly zone in Libya, is the perfect example of how seamlessly the three components are able to work together today and why it’s important to ensure that continues into the future. “When Libya kicked off, there was a very small planning timeframe. Within 36 hours we had people from 50 different locations, tankers from 50 different locations on Moron AB, Spain. “Twelve hours later were putting gas into jets. That’s huge … from an operational standpoint and from a command standpoint, if I don’t have enough money, having the three components working together is a much stronger entity than any one working separately.”
Air Force Conducts Test Launch of Minuteman III ICBM
May 21, 2025
The Air Force tested an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif,. at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time May. 21. The successful test saw the missile equipped with a single reentry vehicle travel more than 4,200 miles to strike a test site near Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall…