Daily Report

The House Appropriations defense panel has just opted to add funding in its markup of the 2010 defense spending bill for 12 additional F-22 Raptors. That's the same number already approved by the House in the 2010 defense authorization bill. The President has vowed to veto any measure with additional Raptors. The Senate has deferred action on its version of the 2010 defense policy bill until next week, when Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) vows to bring back the amendment he and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pulled Wednesday that would kill the seven additional Raptors included by the Senate Armed Services Committee over Levin's objection. The Senate defense appropriators have yet to finish their markup of the Senate spending bill, but Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) is said to support keeping the F-22 production line open, if only to provide a foreign military sales option. In his markup release, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), key House defense appropriator, noted: "I have said for the past few years that we must not narrowly focus on the wars of the present, and that we must prepare our Armed Forces for both current and future, unconventional and conventional conflicts. This legislation represents that balance."

The 12 nations partnered in the Strategic Airlift Capability effort will have their first of three new C-17s at Papa Air Base in Hungary later this month, according to a Boeing release covering the July 14 ceremony for the C-17...

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday morning withdrew the measure they had crafted earlier this week in an attempt to thwart the addition of more F-22s in the Fiscal 2010 defense policy bill. According to...

So said Air Force Space Command boss Gen. Robert Kehler during a Capitol Hill breakfast seminar July 14. Kehler called the Space-Based Space Surveillance “a very expensive and important satellite” that will provide a much-needed boost to USAF’s space monitoring...

In an op-ed published in the July 14 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Republicans Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Sen. Johnny Isakson write that opponents to continuing production of the F-22 Raptor “aren’t waging war: They’re waging obfuscation.” The two Senators have posted...

According to a July 15 release from the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, the Air Force has directed the renaming of the New York Air National Guard’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to the Eastern Air...

The Air Force has discharged the three officers who fell asleep on July 12, 2008, when they were supposed to be watching classified launch code devices at a missile alert facility operated by the 91st Missile Wing at Minot AFB,...

The San Antonio City Council has approved a grant of $685,000 to study the growth anticipated for Lackland Air Force Base, much of it due to BRAC 2005 decisions but also because the Air Force now wants to install its...

Officials at Nellis AFB, Nev., on July 13 dedicated a refurbished Airmen’s Center to A1C Jesse Samek, who was killed in October 2004 in Afghanistan when his HH-60 helicopter crashed during a rescue mission. Samek, who was a flight engineer...

Two Air Force Reserve Command KC-135s from March ARB, Calif., are in Australia, where they’re supplying aerial refueling for forces participating in the US Pacific Command-directed Talisman Saber, an exercise designed to increase interoperability between US and Australian forces. During...

The US Air Force Academy has identified 67 known cases of the H1N1 flu, the so-called Swine Flu, and a total of 121 cadets who show flu-like symptoms, as of July 13. Just three days earlier, the academy had positively...

July 12-13, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 46 50 96 8,040 CAS/Armed Recon 30 137 167 18,520 Airlift 255 255 26,323 Air refueling 109 109 8,855 Total 627 61,738 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...