Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James visited the roof on Tuesday when she spent two hours flying in a U-2 about 70,000 feet above the ground, according to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing. James visited Beale Air Force Base, California, from Monday to Wednesday in order to get a better understanding of the Air Force’s high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission, according to a 9th Reconnaissance Wing news story. “The unique operating environment, the demanding mission requirements and the tireless dedication of our Beale Airmen can best be understood in person,” James said the news story. “ISR continues to be the…
Author Jeff Schogol
Iraqi F-16s and pilots will not be based out of Jordan, as reported by Iraqi media, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said. Abed Issawi, a Shiite member of Iraq’s parliament, had told reporters that that the U.S. government was demanding that the Iraqi F-16s fly combat missions from Jordan, not Iraq, according to Rudaw, a Kurdish media outlet. “We have information the US has decided that the three F-16s should carry out airstrikes from the land of Jordan while Iraq has a big airbase in the Ziqar province in southern Iraq,” Rudaw quoted Issawi as saying. But…
For years, the Air Force’s M117 750-pound bomb was synonymous with “death from above.” During Vietnam, B-52 crews flying from Thailand and Japan dropped the ordnance as part of Arc Light missions and Operation Linebacker II, and nearly 20 years later, M117s rained down on Saddam Hussein’s army. On Friday, Pacific Air Forces said goodbye to its inventory of the Vietnam Era ordnance when B-52s dropped the last M117s from PACAF’s stockpile on an uninhabited island off Guam. Airmen from the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, of Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, and the 36th Munitions Squadron, of Anderson Air Force…
Meet the new characters of "Terminal Airman."
The creator of the wildly popular “Terminal Lance” web comic has decided to “jump branches” and portray life in the Air Force instead of the Marine Corps. Marine veteran Maximilian Uriarte announced on Facebook Wednesday that “Terminal Airman” will debut next week. The move marks a radical shift for the comic formerly known as “Terminal Lance,” which appears weekly in Marine Corps Times. Until now, Uriarte has focused on aspects of the Marine Corps that make the service stand out from the rest of the military – such as the Corps’ trademarked “knife hands” move, which retired Gen. James Mattis…
An old Air Force recruiting video in which a military instructor claims trainees are in better shape than most Marines just won’t go away. The Air Force removed the video from its website in 2009, but it in the world of social media, nothing really dies, so it was recently resurrected on Facebook. The 57-second video of trainees exercising is narrated by an unnamed elite “blue rope” military training instructor, who says that a common misconception is that the Air Force has the easiest PT standards of the military services. “Actually, we are the hardest when it comes the PT…
Civil Air Patrol Maj. Jaimie L Henson entered the Mrs. United States National Pageant on a whim, hoping it would give her a platform to tell people about the Civil Air Patrol and the benefits of volunteerism. So Henson was “quite surprised” to learn that she will represent her state as Mrs. Kentucky in this July’s pageant. “It is a beauty pageant, but the Mrs. [United States National] Pageant focuses on accomplishments, and not so much the physical beauty,” Henson told Flightlines on Thursday. “I think that’s one of the things that kind of intrigued me about it. The age…
An al-Qaida propaganda pamphlet has listed the Air Force Academy and the company that makes Predator drones as potential targets for terrorist attacks. Fox affiliate KXRM-TV in Colorado Springs first reported on Thursday that the publication from Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula listed the Air Force Academy as a target as part of an article explaining how to make car bombs. The story, “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” lists which materials are needed to build an “Iraqi style car bomb.” The author – listed only as “The AQ Chief” – urges would-be terrorists to select their…
An Air Force unit is willing to pay more for iPhones than they cost in stores and online, but the story is more complicated than a simple case of the military buying the most expensive hammer in the world. The 48th Fighter Wing in Lakenheath, England, has asked vendors how much it would cost to order 120 iPhone 5s for the wing’s commanders and other essential personnel to replace their BlackBerrys as government-issued phones, said wing spokesman 1st Lt. Keenan Kunst. The wing estimates that the phones will cost $82,518.34 in total, or about $687 per phone. An unscientific online…
A plan to start delivering F-16s to Iraq in September is on hold until the security situation improves, a U.S. official said. Last month, the U.S. evacuated contractors building the base for the F-16s at Balad as Sunni militants took large swathes of Iraq. Currently, 18 Iraqi pilots are training in the U.S. to fly F-16s, including 12 flying F-16s at Tucson, Ariz., according to Air Education and Training Command. While the Iraqi pilots are skilled aviators, they need hundreds of flight hours in F-16s to become flight leads and instructor pilots, said Tom Fox, Iraq Training Team Lead at…
Starting this fall, Iraq will start receiving F-16 fighters, giving the Iraqi military the capability to attack al-Qaida militants who have proven to be too well armed for Iraq’s fleet of helicopters. The first two F-16s are slated to arrive in Iraq this September, according to the U.S. State Department. By the fall 2017, Iraq will have received 36 F-16 fighters, the first of which recently made its maiden flight, said Mark Johnson, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin. Johnson declined to say how many smart bombs the fighters bound for Iraq can carry. To date, 11 Iraqi pilots have trained…
