Air Force officials at Andersen AFB, Guam, reopened the base’s north runway June 18 after a two-year, $24 million reconstruction effort. The north runway is one of two parallel runways on the key Pacific region base. Airfield manager SMSgt. Darron Williams says the runway completion “gives us an exponential increase in the efficiency of the airfield.” Andersen certainly hasn’t let loss of its north runway curtail operations, as it continued to serve as the base for regular fighter and bomber rotations to the Pacific and to host exercises such as the ongoing Cope North. Japan deployed its F-2 fighters for the first time outside its territory and last week, as part of the exercise, the fighters dropped their first live weapons.
NORTHCOM’s Budget Priority: Longer Warning Time
April 14, 2021
Gen. Glen D. VanHerck's top priorities in the upcoming budget are domain awareness in the form of farther-seeing over-the-horizon radars, followed by submarine detection capabilities and joint all-domain command and control, the commander of U.S. Northern Command told members of the House Armed Services Committee on April 14. Before building…