[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiKwiZD25zk] The Air Force Academy this week unveiled new uniforms for its football team. The Nike Pro Combat “Mach Speed” uniforms are new for this year’s season, and are made of new lightweight and flexible material. The jerseys feature American flags and an Academy patch on each shoulder. The Falcons kick off the season Sept. 5 versus Morgan State.
U.S. Air Force Academy cadets are helping the NCAA in a national study on concussions, the service announced. Hundreds of cadets took part in the research July 13, the Air Force said in a press release. It’s part of a three-year, $30 million joint program by the Pentagon and the National Collegiate Athletic Association to better understand concussions that have bene plaguing both sports and the military. “The collected results of these evaluations will be compiled into a database and form a baseline of a cadet’s complete physical assessment,” Col. Darren Campbell, the director of the academy’s Concussion Center, said…
Hill Air Force Base, Utah, has its new F-35 squadron, but does not have the jets yet. The 34th Fighter Squadron reactivated during a ceremony July 17 at the base, which will be the first operational home for the Air Force’s variant of the stealth fighter. The squadron returned to life after being deactivated as an F-16 unit in 2010. The squadron can trace its lineage back to World War II through Vietnam, according to the Air Force. The maintainers who will work on the jets have been at the base for two months to prepare for the arrival. The…
ESPN’s The Basketball Tournament — a single-elimination, winner-take-all contest between 94 teams with a $1 million prize — will start on Friday. And among the players stepping on the court tomorrow will be a team of 10 airmen. The Air Force Bomb Squad, which fell in the first round of the first such tournament last year, is made up of former Air Force Academy Falcons. And this year, the Bomb Squad is touting the addition of point guard Antoine Hood — who Air Force Times profiled this week and has nearly made the NBA several times — as a recruit who “could…
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…
Air Force Sec. Deborah Lee James today delivered a to-the-point message to lawmakers who are considering cutting Basic Allowance for Housing payments for troops who are married to other service members: Hands off. James said in a post on her Facebook page Tuesday morning: I echo the White House and [Defense Department] stance that individuals earn military entitlements based on their service as individuals. Restricting BAH will have a negative impact on the recruitment and retention of high quality service members, and thus we oppose the [fiscal 2016 defense authorization bill] Section 604 language. I am committed to ensuring we maintain the…
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…
UPDATE 6/24: Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody took to Facebook this afternoon to address this draft form, which he said is one of the first mockups created two years ago. “We’re thankful for the comments, feedback and dialogue that’s taken place, but keep in mind…that version is two years old,” Cody wrote. “While some of the elements remain in our most current draft — which AFPC and A1 teams are sharing with Airmen during the in-person roadshow briefs — much of the form has since changed.” ORIGINAL POST: One of the last remaining components of the…
A transgender airman and his financée, a transgender soldier, will attend Wednesday’s LGBT Pride Month reception. Both Senior Airman Logan Ireland and Army Cpl. Laila Villanueva were the subject of the recent documentary “Transgender, at War and in Love,” directed and produced by Fiona Dawson. The Air Force has been supportive of Ireland’s decision to serve as an openly transgender airman. He will attend Wednesday’s event in a male dress blue uniform. “Being invited to the White House as an actively serving transgender airman is one of the most humbling experiences of my life so far,” Ireland said in a…
The Air Force’s main F-35 pilot training base this month activated another squadron of the next-generation stealth aircraft. The 62nd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, stood up earlier this month during an assumption of command ceremony on June 5. Lt. Col. Gregory Frana, previously the F-35A director of operations for the 61st Fighter Squadron at Luke, will command the new unit. The squadron will begin receiving jets next month, and will train alongside pilots from Norway and Italy. “We will focus our efforts on what we’ve been doing for three generations – training and delivering combat…
