Daily Report

The Air Force’s leadership, along with the service’s senior commanders, gathered today at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for three days of discussion and decision-making. These tri-annual Corona summits are designed to cover the breadth of issues facing...

Culminating a series of realignment moves that the Air Force has been making at Little Rock AFB, Ark., Air Mobility Command’s 19th Airlift Wing will be activated today at the base and then take over as the new host wing,...

The F-22 fleet surpassed more than 50,000 total flight hours in August, Lockheed Martin announced yesterday. “The fleet reliability measures are ahead of plan and the force-on-force exercises have shown Raptors provide the capability to dominate airspace today and in...

Yesterday, with the end of the fiscal year, marked the last day of formal operations of Air Force Special Operations Command’s MH-53 helicopter fleet after about 40 years of service. The last six Pave Lows in use completed their final...

The Air Force signed a low-cost, long-term lease agreement on Sept. 24 to move into a former General Motors plant south of Tinker AFB, Okla., and establish a new aerospace facility there. “This type of transaction is a first for the Air Force and is truly innovative,” said Debra Walker, USAF’s deputy assistant secretary for logistics, in the service’s Sept. 25 announcement. Under the terms of the deal, Oklahoma County is making 430 acres of land formerly occupied by GM available to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center to establish the Tinker Aerospace Complex. “The new complex will reduce the amount of projected military construction projects needed to replace substandard facilities and provide a much better quality of life for depot maintenance personnel,” said Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley. It will also enable Tinker to attract new depot work. The land includes 3.8 million gross square feet of real property, of which 3.5 million square feet is industrial and administrative space. The State of Oklahoma and Oklahoma County purchased the land from GM through a bond election in May.

The Navy, too, is making some managerial changes to its nuclear weapons enterprise based on its review of the recommendations made earlier this year by the Defense Science Board and by Adm. Kirkland Donald, head of naval nuclear propulsion. “While...

Members of the 1st Air and Space Test Squadron successfully launched a Chimera launch vehicle, a modified Minuteman booster, into space on Sept. 23 from Vandenberg AFB Calif., to support a Missile Defense Agency tracking experiment. They succeeded in essentially...

Officials at Tinker AFB, Okla., are in the midst of a two-year pilot project to disassemble and “demanufacture” condemned jet engine parts for reuse. “This process allows us to recover and recycle parts made from specialty metals, such as titanium...

Moses E. Willoughby, 72, who as a staff sergeant pulled six airmen from the wreckage of a burning B-52 in 1968, and received the Airman’s Medal for his actions, died Sept. 4. The Washington Post reported Sept. 28 that Willoughby...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaSept. 28-29, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 60 30 90 9,791 CAS/Armed Recon 96 123 219 27,891 Airlift 288 288 35,248 Air refueling 116 116 13,781 Total 713 86,711...