US Joint Forces Command officially closed its doors Thursday in a move meant to trim excess Pentagon bureaucracy and help the Defense Department operate more efficiently. Speaking during the disestablishment ceremony at the command’s headquarters in Suffolk, Va., Adm. Mike...

The New York Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing at Hancock Field in Syracuse will host a schoolhouse for MQ-9 Reaper pilots and sensor operators, announced Air Force officials Thursday. The MQ-9 formal training unit will add 44 full-time personnel...

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) called on Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to create an active associate unit at Duluth Air National Guard Base to cooperate with the airmen of the Minnesota Air Guard's 148th Fighter Wing in the operation and maintenance of the F-16 Block 50 aircraft stationed there. "I respectfully urge you to consider active association at Duluth as a means to reduce costs while improving the mission readiness of active duty airmen," writes Klobuchar in her Aug. 3 letter to Donley. She said an active associate unit would benefit from both the "experienced personnel" of the 148th FW and the "excellent training opportunities" available in Duluth. The area also offers "access to affordable housing, transportation, education, and recreation," states her missive. The wing last year converted from F-16 Block 25 aircraft to more capable Block 50s.

California Senators Barbara Boxer (D) and Diane Feinstein (D) have urged the Senate Armed Services Committee leadership to support keeping the MC-12 Liberty fleet in the Air Force, and not disrupt the process under way to bed these aircraft down at Beale Air Force Base in their home state. The Senate's draft version of the Fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill includes language that would transfer ownership of the MC-12s to the Army. "We urge you to support removing this provision when the legislation reaches the Senate floor," write Boxer and Feinstein in their letter to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), SASC chairman, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member. "We can think of no reason why the Air Force cannot continue to support the intelligence needs of their sister services with the Liberty," states the senators' July 29 missive. The House's version of the bill does not include any similar language.

Air Education and Training Command has suspended a training course that chaplains have taught for more than two decades at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., to new missile officers due to complaints that the course’s religious themes infringe on the rights of...

Fourteen F-15Es and a large group of student pilots and weapons system officers will deploy Saturday, along with their instructors, from Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., to Savannah, Ga., to train in an unfamiliar expeditionary environment. Supported by instructors and maintenance...

Retired Air Force Col. Arthur “Kit” Murray, the first test pilot to venture so high as to see the Earth’s curvature, has died at age 92. A native of Cresson, Pa., Murray died July 25 in a nursing home in...

Bell Boeing V-22 program officials submitted their contract proposal to the Navy to build the remaining V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft planned for the Marines Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command, the companies announced Thursday. Their five-year, fixed-priced incentive proposal...

Maj. John Seffern became the oldest person to graduate from the NATO Jump School in Texel, Netherlands. “I am, apparently, the oldest person, by far, to do this”—and it felt like it, too—acknowledged Seffern, who works in 8th Air Force’s...

Work has begun at New Boston AFS, N.H., to erect a modern remote satellite-tracking system for the 23rd Space Operations Squadron. Honeywell is the contractor leading this effort, which the Air Force calls the New Hampshire Tracking Station B-side Remote...