News reports say that Montana residents are complaining about the switch for the Montana Air National Guard’s 120th Fighter Wing from the F-16 to the F-15 because the Eagles generate more noises. The wing has finally completed its transition, courtesy of BRAC 2005, and has picked up the pace of its training sorties, according to Maj. Rick Anderson. Anderson told news media there have been numerous noise complaints, but that the noise levels for the two fighters are similar. He believes folks got used to almost no flying out of the unit during the swtichover, but that the unit now has its pilots trained and has returned to a normal training pace. (There are some folks around Davis-Monthan and Luke Air Force Base’s in Arizona and Eglin AFB, Fla., who might love to switch to the F-15 vice the new F-35 which they claim is much louder.) (Montana’s News Station report and Billings Gazette report)
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.