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A U.S. airman “with no apparent motive” walked into a Wal-Mart Supercenter in North Dakota early Tuesday and opened fire with a handgun, killing one worker and injuring a second before turning the gun on himself, police said. Grand Forks police said the shooting a few minutes after 1 a.m. may have been random, with no link yet found between Marcell Willis, 21, and either the store or the employees. Willis was stationed at Grand Forks Air Force Base, about a dozen miles west of the city....

Named counter-electronics high-powered microwave advanced missile. Weapon destroys electronic systems without hurting people or buildings. Champ is now an 'operational system already in [the] tactical air force.' Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range has been chosen as the delivery vehicle. From Ocean's Eleven to Star Trek, weapons that wipe out enemy electronics are a staple of science fiction films. For years, scientists have been attempting to create such a weapon as part of Champ, or the Counter-electronics High-powered microwave Advanced Missile Project. Now, the US Air Force claims it has advanced the technology, and says it can deploy it using...

Eric Sheppard, the Valdosta State University student who was confronted last month by an Air Force veteran after he stomped on the American flag, has issued a violent 4,700-word anti-white rant in which he threatened to “annihilate those who come after me.” Sheppard is wanted by police after they found a gun in his backpack days after the flag-stomping demonstration. In his lengthy letter, submitted to The Valdosta Daily Times this week, Sheppard said he will not surrender and will use violence if necessary. The flag incident made national news after Michelle Manhart, an Air Force veteran and former Playboy...

The Textron Scorpion costs $20 million, still not exactly a bargain by most people's standards, but a fifth of the cost of the F-35. It suggests that not every advanced defence project has to necessarily come in years late and billions over budget – and points to a new twist in not only the future of fighter-jet design, but also in more humanitarian roles that a budget jet could carry out. Textron aren’t the only ones creating the tech to address this issue. The single jet fighter JF-17 is a Chinese design, currently being built in collaboration with its sole...

A two-star general resigned his command in San Antonio last week after making a racially-charged comment during a lower-ranking officer's disciplinary hearing, the Air Force said Monday. Maj. Gen. Michael Keltz, then commander of the 19th Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, told an accused officer that he appeared “drunker than 10,000 Indians” in a photo of him and another airman. The Air Force confirmed that Keltz made the remark, which initially was reported in a blog.

Two Russian nuclear-capable bombers intruded into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week in the latest saber rattling by Moscow, defense officials said. The Tu-95 Bear H bombers flew into the Alaska zone on April 22. But unlike most earlier incursions, no U.S. interceptor jets were dispatched to shadow them, said defense officials familiar with the latest U.S.-Russian aerial encounter. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), declined to confirm the incursion. But he said no jets were dispatched last week to intercept intruding aircraft. The incident...

A US Air Force refuelling aircraft disappeared off the radar over the English Channel last night. The Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left Amiens in northern France at 0.05am local time (11.05pm BST) and was last reported on a flight tracking website between Dover and Calais 15 minutes later. It is not yet known why the plane - flying under the code QID72 and based at Mildenhall in Suffolk - fell off the radar at 0.20am. The US Air Force was unavailable for comment.

A group of zealous supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz’ (R-TX) 2016 presidential run is planning to launch a ‘Ted Cruz Air Force’ (TCAF) in the coming months prior to the Republican primaries that begin in less than a year. According to TCAF, “Ted Cruz clearly has the support of the grassroots. He will also have air support.” TCAF says its most prominent air feature will be the “Ted Cruz Blimp,” but it also plans on recruiting “antique aircraft, towed aerial banners, light sport aircraft … [and] parachutes.” Member of TCAF Jerry Collette says he’s going to do everything he can...

AUGUSTA — A federal law enforcement officer from Vermont was arrested in West Gardiner on Wednesday after allegedly aiming a loaded handgun at another vehicle on Interstate 95. Maine State Police officers arrested Demitria Buhalis, 41, of Brownsville, Vermont, and charged her with aggravated criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, a Class C felony, said Lt. Aaron Hayden. Buhalis is a police officer at the White River Junction VA Medical Center in Vermont, Hayden said. Hayden said a man driving south on I-95 in Sidney called police just before noon to report that a woman who drove past him in...

A Russia Su-27 jet fighter flew dangerously close and nearly collided with a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft this week in the latest aerial provocation by Moscow, defense officials revealed to the Washington Free Beacon. The Su-27 conducted the close-in intercept of an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, said officials. The incident prompted a diplomatic protest. “On the morning of April 7th, a U.S. RC-135U flying a routine route in international airspace was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 Flanker in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez. “The United States is...

April 2, 2015: In late March Saudi Arabia destroyed the Yemeni Air Force. How that came to be is a strange tale indeed. Saudi Arabia began airstrikes against Yemen on 25 March 2015 in response to requests for assistance from the internationally recognized Yemeni government. The call for help was triggered by a rebellion by northern Shia tribes, seeking more power for themselves and less corruption overall. Over the last year the Shia rebels have gradually taken control of over a third of the country. The elected government was preoccupied fighting Islamic terrorists and separatist Sunni tribes in the south...

LANGLEY AFB, Va. — The Air Force has officially eliminated any requirement for face-to-face work accountability with the launch of the service’s “Virtual Work” mobile app last month, according to Hannah Gardener, a spokeswoman for the app’s developer, Zynga.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday kicked off a drive to attract and retain more women and minorities, including a push to increase the number of female officers and pilots. Air Force Secretary Deborah James announced nine measures that she said were critical to ensuring the Air Force's success, such as a web-based mentoring system, longer deferrals for deployments after pregnancy, and a 30-percent target for the percentage of females in the officer applicant pool, up from 25 percent.

The U.S. Air Force's secret program to develop as many as 100 next-generation bombers that can stealthily strike any target in the world has some experts calling the $550 million per plane price tag laughable. *SNIP* Another critic compared the initiative to the costly B-2 program, which was eventually slashed, and said the cost estimate is "as close to meaningless numbers can be." *SNIP* The Post reported that the Air Force intends on the plane taking its first stealth flight in the mid-2020s. . "I think the long-range strike bomber is absolutely essential to keep our deterrent edge as we...

The U.S. Army has no interest in taking over the Air Force’s fleet of A-10 attack planes, even if it would save the venerable Cold War-era aircraft from the bone yard. The service’s top civilian, Army Secretary John McHugh, rejected the idea of accepting hand-me-down A-10 Warthogs from the Air Force. “No chance,” he said during a breakfast meeting with reporters on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. “That’s not even been a topic of casual conversation.” “With our own aircraft fleet we’re taking some pretty dramatic steps to reconfigure and become more affordable, and the A-10 mission is not something we...

Even as three Rafale fighters line up in Bengaluru for eye-popping aerobatics displays at the Aero India 2015 exhibition this week, senior ministry of defence (MoD) sources say the proposal to buy the French fighter is "effectively dead".The reason: During three years of negotiations between Dassault and MoD officials in the so-called "contract negotiation committee" (CNC), it has emerged that Dassault's bid was actually higher than that of the Eurofighter Typhoon, not lower as the MoD had announced on January 31, 2012. Dassault had submitted a sketchy commercial bid, and when the CNC obtained details from the French company to...

Built and designed in the 1960s after the A-12 Oxcart, the SR-71 Blackbird is still the fastest, most vanguardist air-breathing airplane in the history of aviation. These once classified photos reveal how Lockheed built both birds in secret, in California. They look taken at the Rebel base in Hoth. "Everything had to be invented" The A-12 and the SR-71 were a completely different design from anything else before it—and everything after, as time has demonstrated. At the time, many of the technologies needed to make these airplanes were considered "impossible." And yet, thanks to Kelly Johnson and the amazing team...

n outspoken wounded veteran from Tucson has caused a stir on social media over his objection to a flag he calls an affront to the American flag. Instead of red and white stripes, the flag flying recently at a home on Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has stripes of rainbow colors -- traditionally used to show gay pride. Former Senior Airman Brian Kolfage, who lost two legs and an arm in an attack in Iraq, says the flag parodies the American flag. Kolfage says it's illegal and had no business flying on a military base. "I was cutting across base...

AMMAN/TOKYO - An audio message purportedly from a Japanese journalist being held by Islamic State militants said a Jordanian air force pilot also captured by the group would be killed unless an Iraqi female prisoner in Jordan was released by sunset on Thursday. The message appeared to postpone a previous deadline set on Tuesday in which the journalist, Kenji Goto, said he would be killed within 24 hours if the Iraqi was not freed. The latest audio recording, which could not be verified by Reuters, was posted on YouTube early on Thursday. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a...

Defense Spending: The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block. We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union. We've also mentioned the phasing out of the A-10 Thunderbolt,...