The Florida Air National Guard’s 601st Air Operations Center have taken the reins for a new $15 million, 37,000-square-foot facility designed to help 1st Air Force and the Continental NORAD Region direct strategic air and homeland defense air forces for NORAD and US Northern Command. The new center, slated to become operational in June, will be called America’s Air Operations Center. The former Southeast Air Defense Sector ended its 37-year run last fall as part of the switchover to the new AOC.
The U.S. military is carrying out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico using U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft as part of the Pentagon’s effort to secure the southern border at the direction of President…