The Air Force plans to issue its final amended request for proposals this week and would give the three competitors—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Sikorsky—a little over two weeks to return their revised proposals for the combat search and rescue replacement...

The Air Force has too many fighter and bomber pilots. As Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley noted last week, this situation stems from two basic changes: fewer bomber and fighter platforms and greater need for unmanned aerial vehicle and special operations pilots. To fix the imbalance, the service has begun to implement a program it terms Transformation Aircrew Management Initiatives for the 21st Century to help redistribute the pilot force. The initiatives include opening up previously experience-restricted cockpits to new specialized undergraduate pilot training graduates and replacing several hundred rated officers in non-flying operational billets with enlisted aviators. The service expects the redistribution to enable it to increase the number of sorties it can allocate to inexperienced pilots.

The Air Force coordinated its latest Total Force initiative, a process called Transformational Aircrew Management Initiatives for the 21st Century (see above), through the active duty personnel and operations communities and the Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve Command....

Want more fodder on the danger posed by operating with an increasingly old aircraft fleet, read this May 27 article filed from Iraq by David Wood of the Baltimore Sun. Wood paints a vivid picture of the tenuous state of...

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) says that last week’s markup of the 2008 defense authorization bill by the Senate Armed Services Committee does not include additional funding he wanted for Cannon AFB, N.M., to support the switch to Air Force Special...

The Senate Armed Services Committee agreed with Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) that the National Guard and Reserve should get time off their retirement dates for contingency support. According to a statement from Chambliss, the committee...

A British municipal council rejected an application by the US Air Force to build around 500 new houses on land near RAF Mildenhall, reports the Stars and Stripes. Local citizens last year cited concerns about increased traffic. The council, according...

The Miniature Air Launched Decoy under test at Eglin AFB, Fla., reached speeds up to 0.9 Mach during its first powered flight test on April 30, according to a May 23 release from the Armament Systems Center at Eglin. An...

The deputy commander of the 4th Operations Group at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., has flown his 3,000th hour in an F-15E Strike Eagle. This milestone for Col. Todd Boyd sets him apart in the 4th Fighter Wing—he’s the first current...

Lt. Col. Derek Hoffnung with the 28th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Eglin AFB, Fla., received a Bronze Star for his actions while deployed to Camp Victory in Iraq, where he commanded the 704th Expeditionary Support Squadron. His mission was...

Lebanon’s military needed ammunition quickly, so USAF tapped one of its C-17s in the Southwest Asia Theater to perform a short-notice delivery. The C-17 crew loaded up 180 pallets of munitions at a SWA base and flew into Beirut to...

May 26-27, 2007 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 31 28 59 CAS/Armed Recon 106 101 207 Airlift 286 286 Air refueling 108 108 Total 137 129 394 660 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance Airlift includes Horn...