Gen. Bryan D. Brown, commander of US Special Operations Command, says USAF Special Operations Forces are moving fast to adapt to new world conditions “and doing a fantastic job.” He told us Wednesday that the air commandos are among the...

As Brown sees things, airpower will be a critical factor in combat on the “non-linear” battlefield, a fluid, constantly shifting space devoid of lines and tidy “front” and “rear” areas. Airpower, in his view, delivers three essential elements—mobility, flexibility, and...

Air Force officials at Travis AFB, Calif., set to become a new home for the C-17, say they have worked with the final site activation task force. That clears the way for the planned July arrival of the Air Force’s...

Air Force pararescuemen are hard at work in a disaster area. The PJs are flying over the mountains of northern Pakistan in a Russian-made MI-8 helicopter, surveying areas where relief supplies are needed in the aftermath of the country’s devastating...

Members of USAF’s 818th Contingency Response Group/24th Air Expeditionary Group are processing hundreds of thousands of pounds of relief supplies coming into Pakistan every day. The groups’ members, which have been drawn primarily from Air Mobility Command’s 621st Contingency Response...

Anybody want to talk about the Senate’s legislative effort? Us neither. Suffice it to say that, after working through scores of large and small amendments added at the nth hour, 98 Senators finally voted “yes” for the 2006 defense authorization...

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, got his wish this year, when he tacked an amendment onto the 2006 defense authorization bill calling for study of the effects of wind turbines on military radar...

A pair of maintainers with the 386th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron took a trip to Mosul, Iraq, to rescue a stranded C-130 cargo airplane. SSgt. David Harrelson and SrA. Brian Kundick, both deployed to Iraq from Pope AFB, N.C., conferred...

Raytheon says that the company has completed a significant milestone—the factory acceptance test—of the command, control, and communications segment for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, for the next-generation weather satellite. An integrated Raytheon-Northrop Grumman team completed six months...

NATO’s military leadership has agreed to closer cooperation between its International Security Assistance Force peacekeepers and the US-led coalition that is engaged in combat operations. That’s the word from NATO’s Military Committee chairman, Canadian Gen. Ray Henault. Yet to be...

Air Mobility Command has named Maj. Gen. James A. Hawkins to command 18th Air Force, Scott AFB, Ill. Currently Hawkins is director of operations at AMC headquarters. He is a 1973 West Point graduate and a bomber pilot whom, in...

Contractor Lockheed Martin says its second Milstar communications satellite now has surpassed its 10-year design life. The company’s first one has been in orbit for more than 11 years. USAF launched the first one built by the Lockheed team on...

Pilots at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB, Calif., have tested autonomous aerial refueling maneuvers—using a C-12 as the tanker and Calspan’s variable stability Lear-25 as the receiving aircraft. Officials say both aircraft had “carrier-phase differential Global...

November 15, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 9 5 – 14 CAS/Armed Recon 72 25 – 97 Airlift – – 155 155 Air refueling – – 36 36 Total 81 30 191 302 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...