A group of USAF generals and researchers are meeting in Washington this week to look 20 years into the future in a role-playing wargame called the Future Capabilities Assessment Game. And, though it would seem the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review...

The 27th Fighter Wing, Langley AFB, Va., has received the 50th F/A-22 Raptor delivered by Lockheed Martin to the Air Force. The company has finished final assembly of 63 of the new stealth fighters and is conducting flight tests and...

The Air Force has certified the Small Diameter Bomb is ready to start operational test and evaluation, after a year of development testing by the Air Armament Center, Eglin AFB, Fla. “Team Eglin,” according to Thomas Robillard, director of AAC’s...

The Senate on Friday, after it had approved a continuing resolution to keep the federal government operating, dove back into the 2006 defense authorization bill but scarcely broke the surface, stopping work in mid-afternoon, when it adjourned for the day....

With its active F-15 fighter squadron deployed to Southwest Asia, Kadena AB, Japan, in September welcomed members of the Indiana Air National Guard’s 181st Fighter Wing to fill in the gap in Pacific region coverage. The 181st sent 12 F-16s...

Speaking at a Brussels media briefing last week, Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens insisted the future of the Joint Strike Fighter project is secure, but he acknowledged that a tight defense budget could lead to a reduction in the planned...

With delivery last week of the second Space Based Infrared System High payload, the Air Force’s SBIRS program manager, Col. Randy Weidenheimer, sees “tangible evidence that the program has turned the corner on several developmental issues.” Comparing it to the...

The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats focused its attention Thursday on the threat Iran poses to US security. The central question for Chairman Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) is whether Iran “is advancing the lethal nexus of [weapons...

Pollack offered as his “last option,” should earlier “grand bargain” and “carrot and stick” approaches fail, a direct airstrike. In his words: “Finally, and only as part of a new containment of Iran, the United States should look hard at...

Two Air National Guard civil engineers came, saw, and conquered power problems at the Southeast Texas Regional Airport in Nederland, Tex. When SMSgt. Michelle Milliard and SSgt. Al Martinez of the 147th Civil Engineer Flight, Ellington Field, Tex., surveyed the...

At a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of US Central Command, said al Qaeda is hard to defeat because it is not a monolith like IBM but a franchise operation like MacDonald’s. Just cutting off...

The Air Force now has an unusual one-stop, 24-hour technical support center to help solve any F/A-22 Raptor maintenance issues. Lockheed Martin said the TSC, located at Marietta, Ga., is “a first in contractor sustainment support.” The center comprises contractor...

“Even in this age of e-mails, instant messages, and video chats, nothing provides the morale boost to a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine like regular packages or letters from home,” says Rep. Tom Davis, (R-Va.), chairman of the Government Reform...

The US Junior Chamber of Commerce selected USAF Capt. Paul Maykish, assigned to the 116th Air Control Wing, Robins AFB, Ga., as one of the 10 Outstanding Young Americans for 2005. Maykish serves as the wing executive officer and the...

According to Brig. Gen. Dana Born, the US Air Force Academy is in the midst of a plan that will bring “the most sweeping change in the academy’s 50-year history.” Called the Officer Development System, its intent is “to build...

The House Veterans Affairs Committee held the first of several committee oversight hearings concerned with the transition of service personnel from active duty to veteran status. Although the VA health care system relies on electronic patient records, service members fresh...

The Air Force now has one organization—the 586th Expeditionary Mission Support Group in Kuwait—whose job it is to oversee USAF’s “in lieu of” forces deployed for the war on terror. “In lieu of” airmen are performing jobs that have typically...

The first privately built and piloted vehicle to reach space has been donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum. The official turnover of SpaceShipOne takes place Oct. 5. NASM plans to hang it in the museum’s Milestones gallery,...

An op-ed article in the Weekly Standard takes offense at the duplicity of law schools that appear to comply with the Solomon Amendment to save their federal funding by allowing military recruiters on campus then actively shunning them. Writer Scott...

The Kaiserslautern Military Community Center project, overseen by the 435th Civil Engineer Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, recently had a 15-ton dome lowered into place, completing one more segment of the 840,000 square feet of hotel, shops, base exchange, restaurants,...

Det. 5 of Air Force Space Command’s 22nd Space Operations Squadron celebrated its 40 years of service last week, noting that it came out of the black with the end of the Cold War. The unit, located on the island...

Air Force test pilots flying C-17s are working with NASA testers at Edwards AFB, Calif., to find a way to reduce aircraft noise at commercial airports—potentially opening up some 8,000 smaller airfields with excess noise restrictions. Some of the testing...

It seems that everyone from President Bush on down is talking about realigning the military’s role in disaster relief operations in the United States—after the devastating effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast. However, military operations on US soil are touchy subjects and are governed by several laws, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report on the topic. The Stafford Act, for example, authorizes the use of the military for disaster relief at the request of a state governor—but does not permit the use of military assets to perform law enforcement. However, the President can sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act by invoking the Insurrection Act to use federal troops to aid in the execution of law.

September 29, 2005 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 12 5 – 17 CAS/Armed Recon 32 28 – 60 Airlift – – 150 150 Air refueling – – 33 33 Total 44 33 183 260 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation...