Daily Report

The Pentagon has released the name of the airman who was killed by an improvised explosive device March 15 while working with a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. He is SSgt. Timothy Bowles. Born in Anchorage Alaska, Bowles grew...

Air Force Special Operation Command’s CV-22 tiltrotor aircraft has been cleared to conduct combat operations worldwide, if called upon. “It can do the job,” AFSOC spokesman Don Arias told the Daily Report yesterday in confirming that AFSOC had reached the...

The 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo., passed a limited nuclear surety inspection held at the base March 11-13, receiving an overall grade of “satisfactory,” the highest possible rating. With the passing grade in an inspection in which the inspectors demand perfection, the Minuteman III ICBM unit remains certified to perform its nuclear mission, Air Force Space Command said in a release March 13. The limited-scope inspection was prompted when the wing fell short in a larger NSI last December when inspectors observed deficiencies in certain areas. When a wing receives an unsatisfactory rating in an NSI, it must be retested within 90 days in an LNSI that targets the areas found to be in need of improvement. Approximately 12 inspectors from Air Force Space Command conducted the LNSI, with oversight provided by the Air Force Inspection Agency and US Strategic Command. The 90th MW joins the 341st MW at Malmstrom AFB, Mont., that aced its reinspection in February after coming up short in the original NSI.

The Air Force’s top civil engineer said he is looking to surge as much capacity as he can into Afghanistan in the coming months to help build up facilities, airstrips, and infrastructure to accompany the recently approved troop buildup there....

The Air Force currently has 3,000 civil engineers deployed to Southwest Asia, said Maj. Gen. Del Eulberg, USAF’s civil engineer. Speaking to reporters in the Pentagon yesterday (see above), Eulberg said 43 percent of those are in joint expeditionary taskings....

A group of 13 Republican Senators and one Democrat Senator last week appealed to President Obama to refrain from any action that would delay or cancel the Air Force’s efforts to field a new KC-X tanker as soon as possible or a next-generation bomber in 2018. “We believe that any delay or cancellation of either program constitutes an unacceptable and unnecessary risk to our nation’s unique ability to project airpower worldwide,” wrote these Senators, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), in a Feb. 13 letter to Obama. The Senators said they were acting in response to press reports last week claiming that the Office of Management and Budget had recommended a five-year delay to the KC-X program and the bomber’s outright cancellation. (OMB and Pentagon officials later refuted such claims.) Since the tanker and bomber fleets are becoming “increasingly obsolete and unsupportable,” the group of Senators, which includes lone Democrat Sen. Tim Johnson, (S.D.), called for the “expedited procurement” of the new tanker and bomber. Interestingly, they reminded the President that the text of his own defense agenda states that “essential systems” like the KC-X “provide the backbone” of the US military’s ability to extend global power.

A US fighter aircraft shot down an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle last month that had intruded into Iraqi airspace and had spent more than one hour well inside Iraqi territory, Multinational Force-Iraq officials confirmed yesterday, according to several press reports....

The major structural components of the first of three C-17s destined for NATO’s strategic airlift consortium came together March 13 during a “major join” ceremony at Boeing’s final assembly facility in Long Beach, Calif. During the ceremony, the wing assembly...

The 560th RED HORSE Squadron officially stood up March 8 at Charleston AFB, S.C., as part of Air Force Reserve Command’s 315th Airlift Wing. The engineering unit, which is made up of 209 Reservists, will provide major force beddown, damage...

Donald Winter, resigned as Navy Secretary March 13, as he had planned. “As I relinquish my duties as Secretary of the Navy, I count myself blessed for having had the opportunity to serve as your Secretary,” he said in a...

Mar. 13, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 13 20 33 2,853 CAS/Armed Recon 21 55 76 7,162 Airlift 160 160 9,400 Air refueling 49 49 3,279 Total 318 22,694 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...