High temperatures and drought across the West are sparking an almost unprecedented operations tempo for Air Force firefighting C-130s and aircrews. C-130s from three Air National Guard wings and an Air Force Reserve wing are flying missions with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, supporting the ...
C-130J
The Air Force faces an uphill fight with its plans to cut five units worth of C-130s, largely from the Guard and Reserve. The service, however, says the tactical airlift fleet can afford to absorb some risk and that there could be future lift possibilities ...
A third specially equipped Air Force C-130 joined firefighting efforts in California this week as flames burn in five large fires in northern California. The Modular Airborne Firefighting System-equipped C-130H from the Nevada Air National Guard’s 152nd Airlift Wing began operating out of the former ...
The House Appropriations Committee released its draft of the fiscal 2022 defense budget on June 29, adding C-130s and MQ-9s to the Air Force’s budget request while leaving the service’s request for F-35s and F-15EXs untouched.
The Air Force is looking beyond the venerable C-130 for tactical airlift missions, saying the airplane no longer meets its needs for a future of dispersed operating locations, which may not have a runway, service leaders told members of the House Armed Services seapower and ...
The Air Force is asking to retire 201 airplanes and buy 91 new ones in its fiscal 2022 budget request, representing a net decrease of 110 airplanes. The fighter fleet would drop by 77 aircraft, and the RQ-4 Global Hawk fleet would be cut by ...
A C-130J pilot received the Distinguished Flying Cross while a pilot and two loadmasters received Air Medals on May 10 for their actions last September, when their aircraft took enemy fire, injuring one on board and damaging the aircraft’s controls. The team returned to base, ...
The Air National Guard is moving ahead with its plans to base new C-130Js at four bases in Kentucky, West Virginia, Texas, and Georgia after an election-year controversy in which the Air Force was blasted for the timing of its preferred location announcement. The Air ...
More than 90 citizen-Airmen from the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Airlift Wing returned from a four-month Middle East deployment on Nov. 18, according to a wing release. The wing’s aircrews completed nearly 5,000 combat sorties, moving 15,000 people and over 10,000 tons of supplies ...
The Air Force on Nov. 25 publicly announced plans to house C-130Js at Air National Guard wings in Kentucky, Texas, West Virginia, and Georgia, pending environmental impact analyses. The tentative basing decisions were shared with Congress a day earlier, Air National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. ...
The vast majority of Defense Department aircraft, including all of the military’s most advanced fleets, fell short of their mission readiness goals over the past decade, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. Only three of 46 different types of aircraft that the GAO ...
Gen. David W. Allvin received his fourth star and took over as the service’s new vice chief of staff on Nov. 12. Allvin, who previously served as the director for strategy, plans, and policy for the Joint Staff, takes over as the Air Force’s No. ...