Top Department of the Air Force leaders told lawmakers May 7 they need to divest aging aircraft to make room for more advanced systems, setting up a now familiar budget fight on Capitol Hill. “America cannot wait to modernize the Air Force any longer, not ...
KC-135
Utah Air National Guard KC-135s and Airmen deployed to the Middle East on April 5-6 to support combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria. The four KC-135s and 120 Airmen from the 151st Air Refueling Wing will support Operation Inherent Resolve—the ongoing fight against ...
Two B-1B Lancers returned to Europe for a bomber task force flight on April 7, shortly after USAF bombers returned home from the continent after a deployment. The Lancers from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., flew directly to the Aegean Sea and returned home in ...
The Air Force’s tanker presence in the Arctic will grow, with four more KC-135s heading to a new Active component at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. The KC-135s and up to 220 Active duty Airmen will head to the 168th Wing at Eielson, with aircraft ...
The USAF air refueling mission to support French counter-terrorism operations in Mali is entering its eighth year, with KC-135s offloading more than six million pounds refueling French aircraft. The 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom, is now the sole unit deploying to ...
U.S. Air Forces in Europe last week wrapped its Advanced Battle Management System demonstration, bringing together dozens of aircraft from U.S. military services and multiple countries to find new ways to share data and operate together. The USAFE “on ramp” demonstration was the first to ...
The withdrawal of about 700 U.S. forces from Somalia required a massive nocturnal airlift, movement of fighters and tankers from the Middle East, and other overwatch from drones and other special operations aircraft, all planned and executed within weeks. The mission, called Operation Octave Quartz, ...
The Air Force’s next generation tanker is starting to go operational, but in a very limited way, with the goal of freeing up older planes for combat missions. Air Mobility Command announced Feb. 24 it is phasing the KC-46 into operations, by making it available ...
A B-52 flew a long-range direct sortie from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., to the Middle East on Jan. 27, the third such flight this year and the first under the new Biden administration. The bomber from the 2nd Bomb Wing flew the “presence patrol” ...
The Air Force's role in Joe Biden's inauguration will look much different from past inaugurations, with a historic national airlift bringing in thousands of Guardsmen to protect the Capitol and surrounding areas and a ceremonial component that is much smaller than previous events because of ...
F-16 fighter jets from the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base, Italy, practiced combat cooperation with the Romanian Air Force while conducting “all-domain targeting operations” in a Jan. 14 bilateral exercise in the Black Sea region, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air ...
An artificial intelligence-powered mission-planning pod is slated to be the first capability deployed under the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System concept, possible next year using technologies demonstrated in the series of combat experiments known as “on-ramps,” according to the Air Force’s top weapons buyer ...