It won’t be Pope Air Force Base, N.C., anymore, but even the new Pope Army base (Ft. Pope?) will have an Air Force presence. Despite earlier reservations about destroying synergy between USAF airlifters at Pope AFB, N.C., and the troops they transport at Ft. Bragg, just next door, the BRAC commission accepted the Pentagon recommendations for Pope. The Army will own the facility and the Air force will maintain a 16-aircraft C-130H squadron, instead of its current 25-aircraft wing. It was unclear, from the Friday afternoon BRAC session, if the squadron would be a mixture of active and reserves forces, as USAF proposed, or all Air Force Reserve Command. Pope’s 36 A-10 Warthogs are slated for Moody AFB, Ga.
RTX’s Raytheon unit was able to “significantly” extend the range of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile using mostly software changes in experimental tests last year, expanding the reach and lethality of the standard U.S. dogfighting weapon, company officials said Sept. 15.
