Only a few years ago, RAF Mildenhall, one of a few bases in the United Kingdom that still hosts U.S. Air Force units, was set to close, a target of the 2015 European Infrastructure Consolidation Plan. That changed in the summer of 2020, when then-Defense ...
Air
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.—The KC-46 Pegasus tankers here all fly with the callsign "Pudgy" in honor of the second-highest-scoring American ace of World War II, Thomas B. McGuire. "Pudgy 01” and “Pudgy 02” arrived Nov. 9, 2021, as part of an elaborate welcoming ceremony. Pudgies ...
U.S. Special Operations Command has awarded a contract for its Armed Overwatch program, selecting L3 Harris Technologies’ AT-802U Sky Warden as the winner of its competition for a low-cost aircraft to fly surveillance and strikes in austere locations. The deal could be worth up to ...
Eight years ago, when Russia invaded Crimea, Ukraine quickly capitulated, its military grossly overmatched, poorly trained, and operating according to an old Soviet paradigm. By contrast, in the current war, Ukraine is fighting hard behind an empowered noncommissioned officer corps, U.S. and Ukrainian Air Force ...
FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—As tens of thousands of visitors entered the Farnborough International Airshow near London, an array of American aircraft stood just a couple hundred feet from the gate. Front and center at the July airshow stood a trio of fighter jets—an F-15E Strike Eagle, an ...
The Air Force grounded its F-35A fighters to check for potentially faulty parts in the type’s Martin-Baker ejection seats. The move followed by a day the service's grounding of nearly half its T-38 supersonic trainers and about a sixth of its T-6A primary trainers for ...
RAF FAIRFORD, U.K.—A little more than a decade ago, RAF Fairford was all but abandoned by the U.S. Air Force, the service keeping the small base northwest of London as a designated standby, to be used only in contingencies. Now, however, the base is in ...
Concerns about potentially faulty ejection seat parts have prompted the Air Force to ground 279 trainer aircraft until inspections can be performed to assure that the aircraft are safe to fly. The grounding, which went into effect July 27, affects nearly half the T-38 fleet. ...
RAF FAIRFORD, U.K.—At the end of a row of fighter jets at July's Royal International Air Tattoo, an entirely different kind of aircraft drew plenty of attention from the thousands in attendance—the U-2S Dragon Lady. Long shrouded in secrecy, the legendary high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and ...