USAF engineers used the recent Alaska Shield/Northern Edge to practice their airfield set-up capabilities by constructing lighting on a rural airstrip in Red Devil, Alaska, 250 air miles west of Anchorage. Going by air is the only way to reach Red Devil. Last week, airmen from the 611th Civil Engineer Squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base installed a portable runway lighting system, making it possible to use the airstrip at night. Why portable? An in-ground system would be destroyed by sheet ice in the harsh Alaskan winter.
A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Europe across the Middle East to the Persian Gulf on July 25 in a 32-hour flight, as conflicts continued to roil the area with U.S. troops coming under attack in Iraq and Syria on July 25 and July 26, U.S. officials told…