The Air Force has been scrambling to answer some dreaded “what if” questions this week—as in, what if the F-15 A-D models are grounded permanently? Air Combat Command on Dec. 3 issued an indefinite stand-down order. Lt. Gen. Raymond Johns,...

If the grounded F-15 A-D fleet truly is broken and can’t be brought back to service, it might be possible to get the F-22 production rate up from 20 a year to 24 right away, but not beyond 30, according...

One person you wouldn’t expect to be losing sleep over the current F-15 grounding is US Transportation Command boss Gen. Norton Schwartz. But Schwartz told a Capitol Hill audience Thursday that the F-15 situation is a “stark reminder” that a...

Gen. Norton Schwartz, head of US Transportation Command, said Thursday he doesn’t really care if the new C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft has “Army” or “Air Force” written on the side. “As a Joint guy, I don’t care who owns it,...

US Transportation Command chief Gen. Norton Schwartz feels that a force of 205 C-17s and 111 C-5s is the best strategic airlift mix for the nation. He has quoted these numbers to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Schwartz told a...

The state of Oregon called the Air National Guard’s 125th Special Tactics Squadron at Portland into action to help evacuate up to 400 residents from areas flooded by recent storms. Working with Army Guardsmen, the special operations airmen deployed four...

Continuing the effort to prove whether it’s feasible for unmanned aerial vehicles to refuel in midair, the Air Force Research Lab and Boeing’s Phantom Works recently tests of the automated aerial refueling program. According to a Boeing release, the AAR...

Northrop Grumman’s LITENING Advanced Targeting has maintained an operational availability rate of 95 percent over more than two years, according to a company release. US and coalition military forces have flown LITENING AT for more than 370,000 combat hours out...

Structural maintenance airmen at Kunsan AB, South Korea, have just finished painting the first F-16 to receive an “arctic” paint scheme. It is destined for Eielson AFB, Alaska, where it will form part of Pacific Air Force’s new Red Flag-Alaska...

The Kentucky Air National Guard now has 56 airmen trained for the Air Guard’s first contingency response group, the 123rd CRG at Louisville. Kentucky declared its intent last year to create a CRG, units designed to establish bare base operations...

On Dec. 3, airmen of the 27th Special Operations Civil Engineering Squadron at Cannon AFB, N.M., dedicated a memorial to Capt. Kermit Evans Sr., who died last year in a helicopter crash in Iraq. Evans was a member of the...

Dec. 4, 2007 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 24 9 33 CAS/Armed Recon 46 40 86 Airlift 139 139 Air refueling 39 39 Total 70 49 178 297 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance Airlift includes Horn...