More than 1,500 US military personnel and civilians gathered March 2 at Ft. Sam Houston, Tex., to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of military flight. The Foulois Centennial Military Flight Celebration honored then-Army Lt. Benjamin Foulois, a Signal Corps pilot who took to the skies over Ft. Sam in a Wright B Flyer on March 2, 1910, making military aviation history. “General Foulois marked Ft. Sam Houston and this great city of San Antonio as the birthplace of military aviation,” said Army Maj. Gen. Russell Czerw, post commander. As part of the celebration, two Wright B Flyer replicas performed. One called Brown Bird made several passes over the spectators, while the second airplane, Yellow Bird, taxied in front of them. Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of Orville and Wilbur Wright, sat in Yellow Bird. (Ft. Sam Houston report by TSgt. Matthew McGovern)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…