Airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 916th Air Refueling Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., got one of their KC-135 tankers off the ground in less than an hour after receiving a 7 a.m. call for help from an active duty NKC-135, reports Capt. Shannon Mann. The specially configured test 135 had lost vital flight instrumentation, leaving its crew flying almost blind. They did have a handheld GPS and got information from ground radar, but they needed the KC-135 aircrew and ground command post operators to talk them through a safe landing.
A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Europe across the Middle East to the Persian Gulf on July 25 in a 32-hour flight, as conflicts continued to roil the area with U.S. troops coming under attack in Iraq and Syria on July 25 and July 26, U.S. officials told…