A special tactics combat controller from the 24th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla., died March 19 during a training swim in Panama City. The Airman has been identified as A1C Keigan Baker, 24, of Longview, Washington. Baker enlisted in the Air Force in ...
The Air Force is moving ahead with contracts for both finalists involved in its exploration of light-attack aircraft, issuing awards to both Textron’s AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s A-29 over the past few weeks. Formal funding is the latest step in the Air Force’s light-attack ...
Long before Air Force Special Operations Command combat controller John Chapman exhibited the heroism that cost him his life, but earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor, he spent time at the Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Training Annex in Texas, learning how to become a ...
An AC-130U Spooky crew provided more than nine hours of air support to special operations forces, enabling the rescue of 15 patients during a mass casualty evacuation in an April 2019 mission in Afghanistan. In a March 2 ceremony at Hurlburt Field, Fla., the aircrew ...
Air Force Special Operations Command is collecting evidence that may bolster a few valor cases for upgrades, possibly even to the Medal of Honor. The review is using hindsight to determine “where did we perhaps undershoot in terms” of the award nomination, Air Force Special ...
The Air Force is overhauling how it selects and trains special operators, creating a single Air Force Specialty Code for prospective enlistees and streamlining the basic military training process beginning in April. The Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Vectoring program creates a single point of entry ...
U.S. Special Operations Command’s armed overwatch planes eventually will replace the U-28 Draco, a small fleet of specialized and heavily used intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. James Slife said Feb. 12. Under the armed overwatch program, SOCOM ...
US Special Operations Command is moving forward with its armed overwatch plan, independent of the Air Force’s light attack experiment, inviting industry for a briefing in March on a proposal to buy an estimated 75 aircraft. The aircraft would “provide Special Operations Forces deployable and ...
Following the deaths of two special tactics airmen within about one month, Air Force Special Operations Command has suspended all parachute, diving, and mountaineering training to review safety equipment and procedures. AFSOC stood down the training on Dec. 3, in coordination with US Special Operations ...
The US Air Force, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and a Japanese construction company on Dec. 5 broke ground on a new, $63 million permanent home for special operations CV-22 Ospreys at Yokota AB, Japan. Yokota will host 10 of the aircraft for “long-range ...
The Air Force and other local emergency services on Nov. 22 suspended the active search for SSgt. Cole Condiff, the special tactics airman who fell into the Gulf of Mexico from a C-130 on Nov. 5. For more than two weeks, USAF aircraft, airmen, and ...
An Air Force combat controller will receive the Silver Star on Nov. 22 for his actions in Afghanistan last year, in which he fended off enemy ambushes with danger close airstrikes. TSgt. Cody Smith, who is assigned to the 26th Special Tactics Squadron at Cannon ...