Two Louisiana Air National Guard F-15 pilots from the 159th fighter Wing responded to an alert last week, intercepting a small civilian aircraft that turned out to be pilotless—because, according to various news reports—pilot Marcus Schrenker had bailed out in an attempt to fake his own death. Maj. Matt Rippen and Capt. Josh Fogle were on alert at their base in Belle Chasse when their unit received a task to find an airplane that the FAA said had made a distress call. The two F-15 pilots picked up the airplane as it headed toward the Gulf of Mexico and saw that there was no pilot. They shadowed it until it crashed and directed local authorities to the crash site. (For more on Schrenker, read this Associated Press report) (Louisiana Guard report by Capt. Beverly Couto)
A record investment in research and development by the Department of the Air Force will help the United States win the long-term technology race with China, even while shrinking the fleet size before a possible mid-decade Taiwan contingency, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 17. “With the Air Force,…