Daily Report

An Air Force C-17 transport crashed late Wednesday (about 6:14 p.m. Alaska time) near JB Elmendorf, Alaska, killing the four airmen on board. The aircraft, assigned to Elmendorf's 3rd Wing, was on a local training mission. Three of the airmen were Alaska Air National Guardsmen; the fourth was on active duty. Their names have not been released yet, pending notification of kin. "Our deepest sympathy and sincerest condolences go out to the family and friends of those airmen killed in this crash. Yesterday, we lost four members of our Arctic Warrior family and it’s a loss felt across our entire joint installation,” said Col. John McMullen, 3rd Wing Commander, in a statement from the base. According to an Alaska Dispatch report, the C-17 went down shortly after takeoff. An accident investigation board will investigate the crash and more information will be released as it becomes available. The crash came just days before the base's popular Arctic Thunder air show and open house, scheduled for this weekend. (Initial Elmendorf release) (See also AFP report and Aolnews.com report, and AP report.)

Air Force officials announced Wednesday that, for the time being, USAF will seek to base no more than 59 F-35 strike fighters at Eglin AFB, Fla. Up to 107 had been considered for the training schoolhouse being established there. Further,...

Members of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel did not add money to buy more C-17s in their markup of the Fiscal 2011 defense spending bill. Halting C-17 production has been one of the Pentagon’s major budget-related goals for Fiscal...

That pretty much sums up Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell’s response to the House Appropriation Committee defense panel’s decision to add $450 million to keep alive the F136 engine program for the F-35 strike fighter next year. The Pentagon leadership wants...

Lockheed Martin will begin manufacturing F-35 center wing sections Friday at its plant in Marietta, Ga., the company has announced. Marietta is the current site of F-22 production. This work will occupy more than 320,000 square feet of production space...

Airmen mechanics in the newly opened intermediate engine maintenance center at Moody AFB, Ga., will have the opportunity to maintain more than just one engine type. Traditionally USAF’s engine mechanics have been limited to maintaining only one engine type over...

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems says it has received State Department approval to export an unarmed version of its Predator A remotely piloted aircraft to a wider foreign market, including Pakistan and nations in the Middle East. To date, Predators have...

The Defense Department has notified Congress of a potential foreign military sale of the Boeing-built Small Diameter Bomb to the Netherlands. According to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s release, the Dutch are interested in procuring 603 SDB Increment I systems...

The Air Force is finding that its military working dogs, which are integral to saving lives on the front lines, can suffer long-term like humans from traumatic events in combat. Take Gina, for example, a four-year-old German Sheppard with the...

Air Sorties in Southwest Asia, July 20-21, 2010 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 45 125 170 13,783 CAS/Armed Recon 24 145 169 19,173 Airlift 339 339 34,861 Air refueling 113 113 9,198 Rescue 27 27 4,192 Total...