https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4UoaitLUmE The Defense Department recently posted this video of a C-130 from the Missouri Air National Guard’s 139th Airlift Wing dropping soldiers from Cameroon during “Exercise Central Accord 2014.” It’s the first ever airdrop of soldiers from that country by U.S. forces, according to the Defense Department. Central Accord included more than 450 U.S. troops, along with military and civilian participants from Cameroon, Burundi, Chad, Gabon, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, the Netherlands and the U.S., according to U.S. Army- Africa. The exercise is one of many recent operations by the Air Force in Africa with the aim of building…
Author Brian Everstine
The last Stratotanker has left the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, ending 12.5 years of refueling operations at the base. The transit center’s last refueling mission landed Feb. 24, according to the Air Force. The KC-135, deployed from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., flew for six hours, refueling A-10s and F-16s over Afghanistan. “It’s pretty special to be able to say that we were able to fly on the last sortie out of Manas,” said Col. Mike Seiler, the commander of the 376th Expeditionary Operations Group, according to a release. “When [I] think about it, we flew our last sortie…
The lawmaker most vocally opposed to possible Air Force plans to cut the A-10 has crafted an amendment that would keep the jet in the air for about another 10 years, until the final version of the F-35 is ready. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., has submitted an amendment calling on the Air Force to keep all its A-10s until the Block 4A version of the F-35 is flying, which is not expected until about 2022, along with keeping the Warthogs until the F-35 fleet is as big and as capable as the A-10. It is the latest step in months…
Coalition airstrikes continued its trend of fewer bomb drops in Afghanistan, with 190 total for the month of October, down 42 from the month before. So far in 2013, there have been 1,283 total sorties with at least one weapons release, according to statistics released today by Air Forces Central Command. This compares to 1,975 total for last year. Other assets have remained busy. In October, there have been 23,458 total intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sorties, and 27,000 airlift sorties, which included 176,000 short tons of cargo and 448,000 passengers. Casualty evacuation sorties have remained low throughout the year, with…
Some at March Air Reserve Base in California say so. “It’s creepy. It’s like somebody’s watching you,” base security guard Michael Diaz said about walking along the base’s museum. NBC 4 in Los Angeles has this post-Halloween story about reported paranormal activity on the base, including strange noises and odd figures in the base library. A group of airmen are investigating the sightings, according to NBC4. “Everybody on base has different stories about things they hear, knocks. They notice somebody in the corner of their eye,” said Joe Mora, an Air Force reservist who works with paranormal investigative group Ghost…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPXd4zz2aY4[/youtube] This video, posted today by Youtube account Global Motion, gives a good look at A-10s refueling over Afghanistan earlier this month, shot from the perspective of a KC-135R Stratotanker from the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron. The A-10s are a part of the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, deployed from Moody Air Force Base, Ga. The A-10s have been the focus of political fighting, starting with the planned retirement of possibly the whole fleet. That proposal has prompted Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., to place a hold on the nomination of Deborah Lee James to be the next Air Force secretary.…
The Air National Guard will be forced to move away from the “capstone principle” of one flying unit per state as budgets continue to cut, with more units changing missions away from manned flight. As opposed to flying mobility and fighter aircraft, states will now see more remotely piloted aircraft and cyber warfare units, said Army Gen. Frank Grass, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said today at the Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference in National Harbor, Md. “The future is each state may not have a manned flying mission any more,” Grass said. The process began…
Twenty-two jets — seven C-17s, 11 KC-10s and four C-5Bs — took off in 36 minutes and 21 seconds in the biggest aircraft launch ever held at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., on the 12th anniversary of 9/11. The “Freedom Launch” was a remembrance of 9/11, with the first C-17 taking off at 8:46 a.m., the same time that American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, according to an Air Force release. The aircraft took off for refueling and and to test operations support, aircraft maintenance, fuels and air traffic control capabilities.
The Air Force and the Defense Department as a whole has been vocal about its shift to the Pacific, and usually that focuses on airmen heading across that ocean. But the continental U.S. also plays host to foreign airmen from other countries, and the service is highlighting a specific group: F-16 pilots visiting Idaho from Singapore, and the Air National Guardsmen training them. Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, this month has been home to visiting Air National Guard pilots from Arizona who are training F-16 pilots from Singapore in combat air-to-air operations. The guardsmen, short on flying hours at…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX0WzUHIvtQ[/youtube] The Air Force this week released this video of a C-17 from Joint Base Charleston, S.C., refueling from a KC-10 during exercise Talisman Saber earlier this month. The night-vision video shows the precise operation in the dark. The C-17 was participating in the joint training, which involves U.S. and Australian forces to “improve combat training, readiness and interoperability across a wide spectrum of military activities,” according to the Defense Department. The training wrapped up Aug. 5.
