Volunteers and 28th Maintenance Squadron maintainers at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., refurbished one of the remaining AGM-28 Hound Dog cruise missiles for display at the South Dakota Air and Space Museum in Box Elder. The dilapidated former nuclear cruise missile was found “basically languishing in a hanger,” before volunteers began the challenging task of restoring it, said museum curator Duane Cole, reported the Rapid City Journal. Designed for external carriage on the B-52, the 43-foot-long Hound Dog entered service with Strategic Air Comand in the early 1960s. Nearly 700 were built. The Air Force retired the last AGM-28 in 1978. The museum unveiled the missile on May 7. (See also National Museum of the US Air Force AGM-28 fact sheet and Day of the Hound Dog from Air Force Magazine’s archives.)
The Air Force is moving forward with a new, algorithm-driven system to help U.S. Northern Command better detect airborne threats. NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which are tasked with protecting the homeland from attack, depend on a slew of radars and other data systems to monitor U.S.…