Air Force Times
A military airlift unit in Alabama is taking on one of the biggest challenges in its nearly 60-year history: ditching its beloved cargo planes for helicopters. After 40 years of taking the C-130 Hercules into combat, the Air Force Reserve’s 908th Airlift Wing at Maxwell Air Force Base will become the main hub for training pilots to fly the new MH-139 Grey Wolf—a helicopter designed to patrol nuclear missile fields and evacuate government VIPs in national emergencies.
Military.com
Campaigns promoting the safe storage of firearms to prevent suicide and accidents appear to work on military personnel and veterans, but how the message is crafted has a clear impact on effectiveness, new research has found. With more than 6,700 service members and veterans having taken their own lives in 2020, roughly two-thirds of whom died by firearm, the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have embraced initiatives to encourage gun safety to reduce the number of deaths.
Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
In Episode 97 of the Aerospace Advantage podcast—“The Oldest, Smallest U.S. Air Force in its 75-Year History: What Happened?”—John Baum chats with Mitchell team members retired USAF Lt. Gens. David A. Deptula and Joseph T. Guastella and Mark Gunzinger to understand why America’s Air Force is stretched to the brink. Resetting the Air Force to meet the national security demands of today and tomorrow is possible, but it will take forceful leadership at the highest levels of the Department of Defense. Without modernizing our geriatric Air Force and building it to the capacity required by our national defense strategy, the U.S. is at great risk of losing its next major conflict.
Breaking Defense
The Pentagon’s third “sprint” of a relatively new effort aimed at addressing capability gaps and emerging technologies will be focused on base defense, and the Defense Department wants companies’ help, according to the official spearheading the effort. Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said her office is waiting to get fiscal 2023 funding for the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, but meanwhile DOD is holding industry engagements as it plans the next experiment. The Pentagon requested $358 million for the effort in fiscal 2023.
Politico
NATO defense ministers are gathering in Brussels this week, and sending air defense systems to Ukraine will be at the top of everyone’s agenda, the U.S. ambassador to the alliance told reporters. Russia had bombarded civilian targets across Ukraine over the weekend in retaliation for the bombing of its sole bridge to Crimea. Moscow struck a dozen cities, including Kyiv, hitting children’s playgrounds and pedestrian bridges—primarily using air-launched cruise missiles. The attacks have so far killed at least 14 people and injured another 100.
Task & Purpose
A little-known Air Force squadron that played a key role in the Global War on Terror was shut down in a ceremony at Duke Field in Florida. The unit, the 6th Special Operations Squadron, was one of only two Air Force squadrons dedicated to helping foreign air forces learn how to use light aircraft to defeat insurgents, terrorists, or other threats in their own countries.
The Drive
Could blimps, balloons, kites, and solar gliders help U.S. Central Command overcome a reduction in its ability to have eyes on the region? Those are among the solutions suggested at a recent two-day classified intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance summit CENTCOM held at its headquarters in Tampa, Fla., according to the command.
SpaceNews
A small satellite mission the Space Force plans to launch in 2023 will test the ability of the commercial space industry to deploy a payload on an extraordinarily compressed timeline. A contract for the mission, code-named Victus Nox, was awarded to launch services provider Firefly Aerospace and satellite manufacturer Millennium Space. Once the Space Force decides when the mission must launch, it will give Millennium a few months to produce the spacecraft, and Firefly will only get 24 hours’ notice to get ready for liftoff.
One More Thing
HistoryNet
Not counting bombers, transports, and more specialized types, the United States produced just over 100,000 fighter aircraft of 11 different types for use in World War II. Only 674 of them were Northrop P-61 Black Widows (with another 32 delivered after war’s end). Yet the brutish twin-engine night fighter has achieved a mythic status that belies its small production run and short career—just a single year of combat at the end of the conflict. Does the infamous Black Widow deserve such a reputation? Good question, and the answers will be all over the map depending on whether you consider the Black Widow “too cool” or subscribe to the “too slow, too low” school.
