The Air Force will begin its 71st annual Operation Christmas Drop on Dec. 4. The weeklong exercise is a yearly tradition that delivers supplies such as food, fishing equipment, school books, and clothes to remote islands in the Pacific. It is the longest-running Department of ...
Fighters, tankers, airlifters, and ISR aircraft from every U.S. Air Force base in South Korea and Japan are flying in Exercise Vigilant Storm, the large joint aerial training event between the U.S. and South Korea happening this week—even as North Korea fires off record numbers ...
The KC-46 boom operators stopped talking and leaned in as Maryland Air National Guard F-16s approached on a refueling mission over upstate New York. The fighters were visible on a 1,080-pixel, black-and-white screen. The cockpit went quiet, too, and the pilot flipped to a visual ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he returned to government service because of “China, China, China,” but he admitted that the Air Force’s front line defenses in the Pacific have “a ways to go” in the areas of deception, defense, and practicing agile combat employment ...
A dozen C-130Js from the 374th Airlift Wing at Yokota Air Base, Japan, supported more than 500 Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members in the “largest static-line personnel jump and cargo drop” between the two countries, according to a USAF release. “This was not an overnight effort. ...
Single Airmen and Guardians on their first duty assignments to 22 locations in the Pacific and Europe will now have to pack their bags for a longer stay—beginning next month, those tours will last three years instead of two. The Department of the Air Force ...
U.S. Air Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Forces earlier this month flew the 69th annual holiday tradition—Operation Christmas Drop—airdropping bundles of aid and toys to Palau despite COVID-19 restrictions. Aircraft dropped 64 bundles to the 500-island archipelago of Palau from Dec. 6-10, both providing aid ...
Col. Andrew J. Campbell, commander of the 374th Airlift Wing, declared a public health emergency at Yokota Air Base, Japan, on Dec. 16, and rolled out an extensive set of mandatory COVID-19 mitigation measures for U.S. and host-nation personnel—including mandatory contact-tracing for U.S. troops, DOD ...
A contingent of RQ-4 Global Hawks are now flying out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, after making their regular trip from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to avoid bad weather. The RQ-4s often move to Japan to stay safe from Andersen's typhoon season. A Pacific ...
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Yokota Air Base, Japan, is having a new kind of health scare: whooping cough. An individual who works at both the on-base Pizza Hut and the installation’s Military Clothing Store was diagnosed with the highly contagious, bacterial disease, which is formally ...
The UH-1N Huey replacement helicopter officially has a name—the MH-139A Grey Wolf. Air Force Global Strike Command unveiled the name during a Dec. 19 ceremony at Duke Field, Fla. This is Global Strike’s first aircraft acquisition, since its bombers were purchased before the organization stood ...
Operation Christmas Drop, Pacific Air Forces’ trademark yearly training mission that brings humanitarian aid to dozens of islands throughout the region, delivered supplies for 20,000 people in 2019. The week-and-a-half-long exercise included airdropping 176 bundles totaling more than 70,000 pounds of cargo to residents of ...