It’s Not Just About More UAVs

The Pentagon’s push to send more and more unmanned aerial vehicles to satisfy ever-growing battlefield demands for intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance capability is exacerbating the problem, according to a newly released joint Defense Science Board-Intelligence Science Board report. As directed, USAF has been...

Kowalski to Serve as Provisional AFGSC Head

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley on Thursday announced that Brig. Gen. James Kowalski would be the commander of the provisional Air Force Global Strike Command. Kowalski currently is the Joint Staff’s deputy director for Global Operations. The Air Force plans...

Raptors Double Up in Pacific

The Air Force plans in January 2009 to deploy 24 F-22 Raptors to locations in the Pacific region. Air Combat Command will dispatch 12 F-22s and some 500 airmen from Langley AFB, Va., to Kadena AB, Japan, on the island...

Engine Certification Starts for Joint STARS

Northrop Grumman on Dec. 17 unveiled at its Melbourne, Fla., facility, the test bed E-8C Joint STARS ground surveillance aircraft with its new Pratt & Whitney engines. The first of the military certification flights for the new JT8D-219 engines was...

Russia Provides MiG-29s to Lebanon

According to Russian news reports, Russia plans to deliver 10 MiG-29s to Lebanon, along with other weapons being considered on a list provided to Moscow earlier this week. RIA Novosti news service reports that the advanced fighters will be “sold...

A Less Costly Fix for Helmet Display Unit Problems

A combined effort by the Air Force Research Lab and the University of Dayton Research Institute has developed a lower cost means to rectify failures with the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System in use by Air Force and Navy pilots....

It’s a CHAMP

The Air Force Research Lab’s Directed Energy Directorate wants to receive by Jan. 15 proposals for the Counter-electronics High-power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, an effort to develop a multi-shot and multi-target aerial high-power microwave weapon to attack electronic systems. AFRL...

Sexual Assaults Largely Unreported at Academies

In its latest Service Academy Gender Relations Survey, required by Congress every two years, the Defense Department reports that “90 percent of sexual assaults are going unreported.” Pentagon personnel chief, David S.C. Chu, in a Dec. 17 release, said, “We...

Briefer Briefs

The Air Force is sending Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, currently Joint Strike Fighter program director, to take command of the Air Armament Center at Eglin AFB, Fla., and serve as program executive officer for weapons; he replaces Maj. Gen. David...

Air Sorties from SWA

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaDec. 17, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 31 4 35 12,977 CAS/Armed Recon 44 61 105 36,044 Airlift 120 120 45,435 Air refueling 46 46 17,480 Total 306 111,936...