Take a collision-damaged F-15 and send it to the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Robins AFB, Ga., hospital section for life-sustaining surgery. Some 37 blue-suit and civilian mechanics and technicians worked a combined 5,000 man-hours—just over eight months work—to complete extensive repairs to an F-15 damaged in a mid-air collision over the Sea of Japan last year. They replaced the skin and a major wiring harness and made other structural repairs—a new canopy and nose and right vertical stabilizer and ailerons. USAF officials say the key to the whole process was sending civilians along to help disassemble and crate up the aircraft for shipment back to Robins. That, they say, was a first.
The U.S. military is carrying out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico using U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft as part of the Pentagon’s effort to secure the southern border at the direction of President…