A cadre of Air Force officers work under the title Air Component Coordination Element in Afghanistan, where they both the International Security and Assistance Force and the US-led Combined Joint Task Force 76. Officers with the ACCE, who provide expertise to meld air and space assets into any campaign, did operate primarily from Bagram Air Base, but with the rise of ISAF, they’ve had to create another element in Kabul.
In 1941, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold of the then-U.S. Army Air Corps, personally reviewed a jet engine patented by Sir Frank Whittle flying on a Gloster E.28/39 aircraft. Impressed by its design, Arnold arranged for a Whittle engine to be brought back to the U.S. and tasked General Electric…