Colorado elected officials want to know what the Air Force can do to mitigate the fact that most of the state’s Army National Guard helicopters—ones used in fighting wildfires—are being deployed to Southwest Asia. (Read a Denver Post editorial and Rocky Mountain News report.) According to the News, Sen. Ken Salazar has sent a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne asking just how quickly Colorado could expect Air Force Reserve Command to dispatch its firefighting C-130s.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…