Air Force space officials announced Friday that US Strategic Command has accepted operational command and control of WGS-3, the third wideband global satellite communications spacecraft. Perched in position over the eastern Atlantic, the Boeing-built satellite now provides a high-capacity communications...

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and CMSAF James Roy traveled to Southwest Asia last week to meet with airmen and get updates from the combat theater. Both praised the deployed airmen for their contributions in Afghanistan and Iraq, including...

The 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., on June 25 became the 49th Wing during a redesignation ceremony at the desert base. “Because this wing now supports multiple missions, today we will officially change your designation from a fighter...

A C-17 from JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, on June 24 dropped more than 25,000 pounds of supplies to Marines on the island of Hawaii as part of the Rim of the Pacific exercise. This marked the first time in RIMPAC’s...

Air Force Reserve Command’s 916th Air Refueling Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., last week passed a no-notice nuclear operational readiness inspection. “Everyone performed superbly,” said Col. Randy Ogden, commander of the unit, which operates KC-135R tankers. The wing leadership...

James Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, assured lawmakers last week that any future Russian ICBMs launched from rail cars would be subject to the provisions of the New START Treaty that is now before the Senate for ratification. During the June 24 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the treaty, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), ranking member, asked Miller about this, since, Lugar said, treaty critics contend that the Russians would have a legal loophole to deploy rail-launched missiles and they would fall outside of the treaty's jurisdiction. Miller responded, "The rail mobile ICBMs are not specifically mentioned in the New START Treaty because neither party currently deploys [them]." However, he added, if Russia chooses to field them while New START is still in force, "they would be counted under the treaty's limits for ICBMs and for launchers." (Miller prepared remarks)

Brig. Gen. Richard Devereaux, commander of the Air Force Expeditionary Center at JB McGuire, N.J., recently visited locations within US Central Command’s area of responsibility. One of the purposes of the trip was to solicit feedback on the quality of...

Starting July 1, Gen. Stephen Lorenz, head of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph AFB, Tex., will begin using the social networking site Twitter to communicate to internal and external audiences. Lorenz said June 25 using Twitter as an...

A fresh crop of 1,274 basic cadet trainees started their in-processing and entered basic cadet training on June 24 at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. Of these appointees, who make up the academy’s class of 2014, there are 291...

Members of Air Force Reserve Command’s 927th Air Refueling Wing at MacDill AFB, Fla., in mid June took a group of local employers on a flight aboard one of the unit’s KC-135 tankers. The event was sponsored by the Employer...

Air Sorties in Southwest Asia, June 21, 2010 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 27 57 84 11,311 CAS/Armed Recon 18 83 101 16,234 Airlift 168 168 29,480 Air refueling 54 54 7,613 Rescue 37 37 3,254 Total...