Officials with the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., will shut down the base’s runway on Aug. 1 for repairs. During the shutdown, several of the wing’s B-1B bombers will temporarily operate out of Dyess AFB, Tex., the Air Force’s other B-1 installation. “The B-1s are scheduled to be diverted to Dyess at the end of July,” said MSgt. Gerald Gilchrist, 28th Operations Support Squadron deputy airfield manager. “This is nothing out of the ordinary and is common practice when repairs are being made on an installation runway. Ellsworth hosted B-1s from Dyess when the runway there was being renovated.” The B-1s are expected to return when portions of the runway reopen in mid September. The entire airfield is scheduled to reopen by the end of October. The Rapid City Journal reported that about 200 Ellsworth airmen will travel to Dyess with the bombers. (Ellsworth report by SrA. Jarad A. Denton)
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.