Lt. Col. Robert Sandford, an F-22 pilot with Virginia Air National Guard’s 192nd Fighter Wing at Langley AFB, Va., on May 17 surpassed 4,000 total flight hours in his career. He is currently chief of standardization and evaluation for the Air Guard unit, which operates F-22s together with Langley’s active duty 1st FW. He was commissioned in the Air Guard in 1986 and formerly flew A-7s and F-16s. “I never set out to amass thousands of hours, I just love to fly,” he said, commenting on his milestone. He added, “I’m very fortunate that I’ve been able to do what I love all these years.” Sandford says he plans to keep flying F-22s “as long as possible.” He recently volunteered for a deployment of Langley F-22s to Guam. “I’m going to stay until they kick me out,” he said, laughing. (Langley report by A1C Jason J. Brown)
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.