Daily Report

A program of record to buy 187 F-22s will actually leave the Air Force with 186 Raptors when the production run is complete after factoring F-22 losses to date, the service tells the Daily Report. The most recent crash of an F-22 in March at Edwards AFB, Calif., involved a test aircraft that was “not part of the official program of record,” according to Air Force spokeswoman Karen Platt. (That crash took the life of Lockheed Martin test pilot David Cooley.) Conversely, the non-fatal crash of an F-22 at Nellis AFB, Nev., in December 2004, did involve a Raptor that was a part of the program of record. The net loss to the program of record is one. “Therefore, the fleet will be 186 aircraft when complete,” said Platt.

The Air Force on Monday realigned both the Air Force Communications Agency and Air Force Frequency Management Agency under the administrative control of Air Force Space Command. The moves are part of the overall reorganization of the service’s cyber forces...

The Air Force is in discussions with DAPRA on exploring types of formation flying that hold the promise of reducing significantly the fuel consumption of aircraft, Air Force Chief Scientist Werner Dahm told airmen during a visit May 1 to...

An RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft based at Beale AFB, Calif., is conducting a series of 12 flights in this fiscal year over parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean at the request of partner nations in...

Air Education and Training Command opened its new innovation center April 30 at Randolph AFB, Tex. The center is meant to support AETC’s future learning division in promoting out-of-the-box thinking and generating creative ideas to aid recruiting, training, and education...

Air Force flight surgeons have been teaching a four-week course to a total of seven Iraqi air force and army flight surgeons at New Al Muthana AB, Iraq, to give these medical personnel the training so that they can assume...

Lockheed Martin’s F-35 cooperative avionics test bed aircraft, or CATBird, for short, last month spent more than one week at Edwards AFB, Calif., where it demonstrated the avionics systems being developed for the F-35 stealth fighter. In a release Monday,...

The Air Force has awarded Bronze Star medals for meritorious service to Lt. Col. Susan Bassett, 1st Lt. Bryan Bouchard, and SMSgt. Bobby Simmons Jr. Bassett, chief nurse with the 882nd Training Group at Sheppard AFB, Tex., helped train nurses...

Retired Col. Harold E. Fischer, a double ace of the Korean War and one of 15 US airmen held prisoner by China, died April 30 in Las Vegas. He was 83. Fischer flew 105 combat missions in F-80s initially during the Korean War, then switched to the F-86 and returned to combat, ultimately scoring 10 aerial victories. According to a 1998 article he wrote for Sabre Jets magazine, debris from a MiG-15 he had fired on struck his F-86, stopping the engine and prompting his bailout over China. (Later he learned that a Soviet MiG pilot claimed he had downed Fischer's Sabre; a Chinese officer also claimed that victory.) According to an Air Force fact sheet, on April 7, 1953, Fischer became the last of 15 USAF airmen that would be held in China instead of North Korea. Fischer and three other F-86 pilots were held as political prisoners for two years after the armistice, until June 1955. Among his military awards, Fischer received the Distinguished Service Cross for a Feb. 16, 1953, mission in which he attacked a formation of 16 MiG-15s, downing the lead MiG and, although under fire himself, attacked another MiG firing upon his wingman. He also flew helicopters during the Vietnam War and served as an intelligence officer and commander of the Air Force Human Resources Lab in Texas. He retired in 1978. (A 2007 interview with Military History magazine; undated article on acepilots.com; Fischer flight jacket photo release at National Museum of US Air Force; obituary)

TSgt. Michael Bergquist, a 36-year-old member of the Washington Air National Guard’s 242nd Combat Communications Squadron at Geiger Field in Spokane, has been named the Air Force Male Athlete of the Year for 2008. Bergquist is a multi-sport endurance athlete...

May 1-2, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 44 37 81 4,820 CAS/Armed Recon 45 125 170 11,951 Airlift 283 283 16,484 Air refueling 83 83 5,377 Total 617 38,632 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...