BRAC commissioners voted Friday to preserve Ellsworth AFB, S.D. The big B-1B bomber base now will stay open, as will a second B-1B facility, Dyess AFB, Tex. This decision essentially destroys USAF’s plans for consolidating all of the Air Force’s...

In other decisions affecting Air Force facilities, the BRAC panel deviated from some Pentagon recommendations. Eielson AFB, Alaska, will keep its active aircraft unit and Galena Airport Forward Operation Location will close. Air Force Institute of Technology will stay in...

Vietnam long has been the gold standard for unpopular wars, but evidently no more. A new Gallup poll suggests Americans soured on the Iraq War even faster than they did with the Southeast Asian conflict of the 1960s. The new poll compared the two wars at identical points—after two and a half years of combat. At that point in the Vietnam War—early 1967—41 percent of Americans had decided sending troops was a mistake. The figure at the comparable point in the Iraq War? Fully 50 percent, said Gallup.

In the recently completed Excalibur competition in Europe (DR, 8-23-05), the “Top Wing” title went to the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano AB, Italy. The runner up was the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath. Read complete results here.

An Air Force KC-135 is working with the Navy’s V-22 Osprey team to test the tilt-rotor aircraft’s mid-air refueling capability. The tests, which began on Aug. 24 at NAS Patuxent River, Md., will determine first if the two aircraft can...

USAF forces at RAF Lakenheath in Britain will be one of the first bases to receive USAF’s newest and smallest precision guided weapon, the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb. Officials expect to deploy it on the 48th Fighter Wing’s F-15Es beginning...

Testers at Edwards AFB, Calif., successfully completed the first five-bundle sequential Low Velocity Airdrop for the stretched C-130J, according to AFFTC. The bundles landed only five yards off the planned point of impact. While the stretch J is working its...

The new Sniper XR targeting pod, used first on fighters, will soon go on bombers, too. The B-1 Systems Group at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, are engaged in adapting the B-1B so it, too, can use the Sniper. The big advantage:...

USAFE, for some reason, has been dusting off its old competition concepts. The command this month revived the Excalibur fighter competition between US and RAF crews (see above). It had disappeared after the fall of the Berlin Wall and end...

Some airmen and base employees at Hanscom AFB, Mass., held their cards a little too long. Turns out, from April until late last week, a group of 60 to 70 men and women would gather at an on-base club to...

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) got his wish—kind of. The BRAC commission voted not to close NAS Oceana in Warner’s state. The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has been lobbying to prevent its closure. However, there are strings attached....

The Air Force Academy got high marks from the Princeton Review in its new study, “The Best 361 Colleges.” It ranked tops for the accessibility of its professors—they were the most accessible of all the colleges surveyed. The same report...

Before Gen. Gregory S. Martin retired as head of Air Force Materiel Command, he pushed the command to create a course that would help the AFMC civilian force more readily identify themselves as airmen. The Air Force Core Values course...

A USAF Predator UAV and A-10s, along with RAF GR-7s, provided close air support on Aug. 24 to coalition troops who came under fire from anti-coalition militia in two locations in Afghanistan. The Warthogs used a combination of general-purpose 500-pound...

August 24, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 9 6 – 15 CAS/Armed Recon 52 22 – 74 Airlift – – 150 150 Air refueling – – 42 42 Total 61 28 192 281 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...