Daily Report

Feb. 3, 2011

Just Days Away from a New START

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will exchange the instruments of ratification for the New START nuclear arms agreement on Saturday in Munich, according to State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. Once this exchange occurs, the...

Refined Manna from Heaven

Three C-17 transports have dropped the largest supply of fuel ever to a remote military outpost in Afghanistan. Throughout the span of two days at the end of January, these aircraft dispensed 120 bundles of fuel to soldiers in Waza...

No Letup in Tanker Demands

Tanker aircraft operating in US Central Command’s area of responsibility offloaded more than 1.05 billion pounds of fuel to more than 82,000 aircraft in 2010, according to statistics from Air Forces Central’s combined air and space operations center at an...

Looking Ahead to MQ-X

Future remotely piloted aircraft, like the Air Force’s MQ-X concept, not only need to have jam-resistant signals, authentication, and inscription capabilities, they also must possess additional features to operate in contested airspace that today’s MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators lack,...

C-20H Completes First Combat Tour

Members of the 76th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, have returned home with their Gulfstream C-20H distinguished visitor transport aircraft from Afghanistan, marking completion of this aircraft type’s first-ever deployment to a combat zone. The unit supported the ISAF...

Army Reservists Seek Parity

Much like the Air Force’s “Total Force,” the Army is moving to a similar construct with its reserve components to leverage them more effectively, according to Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, Army Reserve chief. “We are being utilized now as an...

C-17 Drops Special Ops Boat Over Pacific

Members of the 535th Airlift Squadron from JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, joined forces with the Navy’s Special Warfare Unit One from Guam to drop a 19,000-pound, rigid-hull inflatable boat from the back of a C-17 transport. Airmen utilized the maritime...

France Offers Upgraded Mirage to Iraq

As a mid-term solution to Iraq’s lack of air superiority aircraft, France has offered 18 Mirage F1 fighters as a sweetener to a larger military contract. “France has proposed to sell 18 Mirage F1 retrofitted aircraft that can be delivered...