The head of Air Combat Command, Gen. Ronald Keys, tells the Newport News Daily Press that ACC is “cash-flowing” its operations because the war in Iraq is costing the command $200 million a month and it has to wait for...

Speaking to Pentagon reporters via teleconference from the US Central Command Air Forces Combined Air and Space Operations Center Friday, CENTAF chief Lt. Gen. Gary North emphasized the intense pace of activity in the CENTCOM theater of operations. From the...

The Air Force and Army work toward developing a more maneuverable airdrop bundle has paid off. US Central Command officials told Pentagon reporters Friday that an Alaska Air National Guard C-130 aircrew used the new Joint Precision Airdrop Delivery System to drop supplies to an Army unit in Afghanistan on Aug. 31, marking the first combat use of the new system. JPADS employs the Global Positioning System to steer itself under a rectangular parafoil to a drop zone from a height of up to 25,000 feet. The tool enables airdrop and mission survivability to locations currently inaccessible by traditional means, said Lt. Col. Charles Ciuzio, the chief of the air mobility division at the Southwest Asia Combined Air Operations Center. (Also see 455th Air Expeditionary Wing release)

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has declared victory in securing the new Joint Cargo Aircraft for the state’s 110th Fighter Wing at Battle Creek. A letter from National Guard Bureau chief Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Blum posted on the governor’s Web...

Lockheed Martin noted that the modernized C-5M Super Galaxy had survived its “dynamic taxi” testing on Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards AFB, Calif. The testing “validates the structural design of the new engine pylon,” George Shultz, vice president of the...

Brig. Gen. Steve Hoog, director of the air component coordination element for the Multinational Force-Iraq, talking with Pentagon reporters via teleconference, expressed optimism about USAF’s ongoing work to create a new Iraqi Air Force. Hoog said that the fledgling IqAF...

US Central Command Air Forces chief Lt. Gen. Gary North told Pentagon reporters Friday via teleconference that USAF has several key capabilities coming online that should help cut down on the risks faced by ground convoys in a combat theater....

Airmen from the 36th Contingency Response Group at Andersen AFB, Guam, and sailors from the US Naval Base Guam will sail to Wake Island, where they will assess the damage to the island and airfield operations following Super Typhoon Ioke....

Air Force units in the path of Tropical Storm Ernesto variously shifted their aircraft to other locations and closed operations. Charleston AFB, S.C., for instance, sent its C-17 fleet to Whiteman AFB, Mo., and Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and closed its...

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, writing in an op-ed article in the Los Angeles Times, says he worries “about the lack of perspective in our national dialogue.” He acknowledges that his remarks before two veterans service groups recently “generated much discussion”...

Top DOD health care officials got to hear first hand from severely injured troops about the problems and gaps in the military’s health care system, in a first ever “From Deployment to Employment” conference last week. Although wounded troops in...

USAF officials honored the C-9 Nightingale for its legendary service in aeromedical evacuation in a ceremony unveiling a static display of the aircraft at Lackland AFB, Tex. The aircraft, named for nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, was the only aircraft specifically...

DOD officials report that the number of mail order prescriptions sent to beneficiaries in July reached a record level—7.4 percent of total prescriptions filled within the military health care system. That is the highest level in two years. According to...

Aug. 31, 2006 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total ISR 16 6 22 CAS/Armed Recon 41 24 65 Airlift 160 160 Air refueling 36 36 Total 57 30 196 283 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance