Daily Report

The Air National Guard conducted its first domestic MQ-1 Predator flight on Feb. 25 over the skies of southern California. Members of the California ANG’s 163rd Reconnaissance Wing, which is in the process of becoming the first Air Guard Predator...

Michael Serricchio, an Air Force Reservist who was activated shortly after 9/11 and served in Southwest Asia, won a settlement in federal court against Wachovia Securities on March 19 worth about $1.3 million in compensation after a judge ruled that...

So says Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the Air Force’s ISR czar, when discussing the service’s next-generation bomber. Deptula told Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog March 20 that calling this future aircraft just a bomber fails to recognize the multi-role capabilities...

The Air Force will receive about $1.7 billion in defense-related appropriations through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will fund such projects as high-priority maintenance and repair of USAF facilities, construction of new dormitories and child development centers, and...

The 912th Air Refueling Squadron at Grand Forks AFB, N.D., conducted its final flying mission on March 16 when two of its KC-135s rendezvoused with a C-17 over southeastern Montana and northwestern South Dakota. Four days later, on March 20,...

The Thunderbirds air demonstration squadron kicked off its 2009 flying season with shows this past weekend at Luke AFB, Ariz. The March21 and March 22 performances are part of the more than 73 shows that the Thunderbirds have scheduled on...

At next week’s 25th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., Air University officials will introduce a new special area of emphasis (SAE) topic called “space as a contested environment” that is being added to US joint military education. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen established this SAE to highlight “the space domain’s emergence as an environment where US superiority has been and will continue to be challenged,” AU said in a release March 19. The Chairman uses SAEs to bring attention to areas of great importance to the joint military community. Air University officials, along with Air Force Space Command and the National Security Space Institute, spent the past year working with military educators and the Joint Staff to develop the space-focused SAE. The fact that space is a contested domain is not new news as senior Air Force officials have been warning of this for some time now.

Press reports in January that retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration would be tapped to become the new NASA administrator have turned out to be … false. But Gration will be a part of the new Administration since President...

The Air Force Research Lab, along with its industry partners, has developed a portable sensor that allows maintainers to assess the degradation of specialty materials underneath an aircraft’s outer skin in a manner that doesn’t require ripping open up the...

Mar. 19-20, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 47 31 78 3,143 CAS/Armed Recon 60 134 194 7,841 Airlift 350 350 10,425 Air refueling 94 94 3,593 Total 716 25,002 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...