The 83rd Fighter Weapons Squadron at Tyndall AFB, Fla., once again has hosted fighter units testing their combat capability. F-15s and F-16s from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, traveled to Tyndall to practice dissimilar air combat tactics and fire live weapons during a Combat Archer exercise, “the only cradle-to-grave fighter weapon system evaluation,” says Lt. Col. Terry Scott, 83rd FWS commander. The Tyndall unit hosts different units from the Air Force and other services or nations almost every two weeks. The Mountain Home fighters also flew a Combat Banner mission, in which the pilots shoot at a banner extended from a Learjet via a 2,000-foot cable.
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.