Daily Report

Current Air Force Green Flag West (GFW) participants are working with an Army National Guard Brigade Combat Team to conduct air-land training at Nellis AFB, Nev., and the Army’s National Training Center (NTC) at Ft. Irwin, Calif. The goal, according...

The Air Force now plans to send its newly acquired Hawker Beechcraft-built MC-12W intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance aircraft to Southwest Asia in May. Earlier officials had speculated that the Project Liberty aircraft would deploy this month, but an Air Force spokesman told the...

Asked for his assessment of the state of the Air Force space program, Air Force Space Command’s Gen. Robert Kehler told reporters at a Space Foundation symposium in Colorado March 31 that operations are going well, but there are still...

Air Mobility Command has begun using the EcoPower Engine Wash System to clean aircraft engines, a move that officials say is better for both the aircraft and the environment. The system uses atomized water, collects the runoff, and purifies it...

About 1,400 US and foreign military forces will descend upon Eielson and Elmendorf Air Force Bases for the April 16 to May 1 iteration of Red Flag-Alaska (RF-A). French units will join NATO and US forces in this Pacific Air...

The School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell AFB, Ala., invited a few friends to participate in its most recent Theater Campaign Warfare exercise, enlisting 35 officers from Navy and Army schools and a French officer attending SAASS....

A recent Congressional Research Service report by military aviation analyst Christopher Bolkcom provides full background behind the long-running F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter alternate-engine controversy between Congress and the Pentagon. We reported last week that the House's top defense appropriator, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), declared that lawmakers "expect the Air Force to eventually build this alternative engine." The Pentagon has steadfastly left funding to continue development of the General Electric F136 engine out of its budgets, and just as steadfastly Congress has put money back. (Currently the Pratt & Whitney F135 is the sole engine slated to power the F-35.) As Bolkcom notes, "The alternate engine program appears to be affected in [Pentagon] budget considerations by the fact that its benefits won't be realized for a decade, while its costs are noteworthy, and immediate." Still, lawmakers hearken back to the 1980s Great Engine War, which produced better engines on better terms. However, Bolkcom acknowledges that the success of the Great Engine War was due to "a considerable amount of effort and skill by Air Force leaders." He wonders whether today's environment or current DOD leadership "would be able to exploit the JSF Alternate Engine competition as effectively."

Need to Have ABL, But: Former Air Force Chief of Staff, retired Gen. Larry Welch, told lawmakers last week that he believes work on the Airborne Laser, which some say is sure to be cut in this ever-tougher budget climate,...

Walter Palmer, a member of the famed World War II Tuskegee Airmen, died March 28 at his home in Indiana, reports the Indianapolis Star. The 87-year-old Palmer flew 158 missions over Italy and Germany in a P-51 as part of...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaMarch 29-30, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 13 31 44 3,468 CAS/Armed Recon 57 155 212 8,816 Airlift 270 270 11,810 Air refueling 84 84 4,027 Total 610 28,121...