Free Republic

Drone Video of the detonation.https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=E8n3Mwo94zI

A Japan-based combat-ready Air Force wing showed off its aircraft Wednesday in a clear warning to North Korea. Fox News reported the 18th Wing conducted a surprise military exercise at Kadena Air Base in Japan as North Korea is rumored to be nearing a sixth nuclear weapons test. A group of HH-60 Pave Hawks, F-15 Eagles, E-3 Sentries and KC-135 Stratotankers all took part in the exercise, the report said. Photos from the no-notice event showed jets lined up down the entirety of a runway on the base. Such exercises are known as an "elephant walk," featuring planes taxiing in...

President Trump has ordered his military advisers to be ready with a list of options to smash North Korea’s nuclear threat. One of the advisers, Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, confirmed his Commander-in-Chief has made the order as a U.S. carrier strike group heads for the region. It is believed that among the options are combined special forces raids and pre-emptive missile strikes. One of the problems facing an American-led operation to hit Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-Un is the intricate tunnel network under the capital. War-planners have had difficulty mapping out the subterranean complex and believe there are hundreds of...

At 87 years old, famed astronaut Buzz Aldrin is still breaking barriers and having a damn good time doing it. The USAF Thunderbirds invited the icon for a ride in their F-16D while they starred in the Melbourne Air & Space Show over the weekend. Aldrin now holds the record of being the oldest person to ever fly with the USAF Flight Demonstration Team. Melbourne is located south of Cape Canaveral—where Buzz blasted off to the moon in a Saturn V rocket in 1969 as part of the pioneering Apollo 11 crew. Just a few years earlier he rocketed into...

TUSKEGEE, AL COULD LAND AIRCRAFT PLANT IF GLOBAL AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE FIRM WINS T-100 CONTRACT WITH U.S. AIR FORCE Macon County, AL (WSFA) – Leonardo-DRS has submitted a bid in the U.S. Air Force competition to assemble T100 aircraft at Tuskegee, Alabama’s Moton Airfield. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley announced the bid on Thursday. He said if the global aerospace and defense firm wins, the advanced assembly center would create 750 high-wage, full-time jobs over a 10-year ramp-up period. The project would begin in 2019 and the total investment in the T-100 project’s buildings, infrastructure and equipment could reach $250 million....

The Islamic terrorist front group that transformed the way U.S. law enforcement agencies conduct anti-terrorism training is ordering the Air Force to sever ties with an instructor it considers to be anti-Muslim. The question is will the Trump administration cave into its demands? Under Barack Obama, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that reportedly raises money for Hamas, wielded tremendous power and managed to bully law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal level to alter counterterrorism training materials deemed by the group to discriminate against Muslims. This includes getting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to...

You might remember the "Katrina girl" photo, of the little girl with a broad smile, who's hugging the Air Force pararescueman who plucked her family from a rooftop in Hurricane Katrina-flooded New Orleans.The pararescueman, Master Sgt. Mike Maroney, went on a search for the girl in the photo 10 years later. He ultimately found LeShay Brown, then 13 and living in Waveland, Miss., in Sept. 2015. The two have remained close, and as WLOX reported, LeShay took Maroney to her JROTC ball in Mississippi on Saturday.

The Air Force has lost the Right Stuff. The Air Force has lost the warrior spirit, that indefinable quality that enables men who are terrified to do the impossible and to win wars. The Air Force is turning into a politically correct encounter group in matching clothes with weapons. President Trump may be in the White House and General Mattis may be the Secretary of Defense, but the leftist acolytes of the Kenyan commander in chief’s Maoist Revolution are continuing to infest and destroy the armed forces like a stage four cancer. Last week, Fox News broke the story concerning...

Air Force troops have been warned not to use certain words and phrases because they might be deemed offensive. An email saying that certain words such as “boy,” “girl,” and “blackmail” should not be used was sent to Airmen at Joint Base San Antonio Texas, the Daily Mail reported. The email included an attachment with a list of words that “may be construed as offensive.” “You people” also made the list, as well as “colonial,” “blacklist,” and the phrase “blondes have more fun.” Someone leaked the list to Fox News, where it gained national media attention. According to Fox News,...

FULL TITLE: Farewell, old friend: Touching moment Air Force dog handler hugs his dead K-9 draped in an American flag moments before he was laid to rest A heartbreaking photo shows the moment an Air Force sergeant had to say goodbye to his K9 partner. Air Force sergeant Kyle Smith, from Gastonia, North Carolina, said that having to put Bodza down was one of the hardest things that he has ever done. He was euthanized on Thursday, and a military canine trainer draped a flag over his body. A photo shows Smith giving Bodza one final hug as he was...

A heartbreaking photo shows the moment an Air Force sergeant had to say goodbye to his K9 partner. Air Force sergeant Kyle Smith, from Gastonia, North Carolina, said that having to put Bodza down was one of the hardest things that he has ever done. He was euthanized on Thursday, and a military canine trainer draped a flag over his body. A photo shows Smith giving Bodza one final hug as he was laid to rest. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4299698/Air-Force-Sgt-hugs-dead-K-9-draped-American-flag.html#ixzz4aw59NBVq Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

AMMAN — Royal Air Force jets on Friday destroyed various targets of the Daesh terrorist group in southern Syria, a Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army statement said Saturday, cited by the Jordan News Agency, Petra. One of the targets was a military site that previously belonged to the Syrian army and was seized by Daesh, the statement said, adding that the attack was dedicated to the memory of those who died in the line of duty in the war against terrorism. The Royal Air Force’s unmanned jet fighter planes destroyed ammunition warehouses, a structure designated to customising and booby-trapping vehicles and...

North Korea strengthens its emergency airfield capabilities Joseph S Bermudez Jr, Colorado - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly 13 January 2017 Commercial satellite imagery shows that North Korea has been progressively modernising its emergency airfield capabilities since late 2015 by adapting highways for use as airstrips, building aircraft shelters, and developing contingency airfields. The measures seem to be part of a nationwide modernisation programme designed to bolster the infrastructure of the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF). Built on specially reinforced highway sections or on compacted dirt roads, the highway airstrips average 1.8 km in length and vary in width between 15...

President Trump has announced his pick for Secretary of the Air Force — former Rep. Heather Wilson. If confirmed, Wilson would be the first Air Force Academy graduate to hold the position, according to the White House. Wilson currently leads the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, a public college focused on engineering and science. She represented New Mexico in Congress from 1998 to 2009. "She served as an Air Force officer in Europe during the Cold War and on the National Security Council Staff under President George H.W. Bush during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the...

President Donald Trump is planning to nominate Heather Wilson as secretary of the Air Force. A White House statement said Monday that Wilson, a former New Mexico congresswoman and president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, would be the first Air Force Academy graduate to hold the position, if confirmed. Wilson served in Congress from 1998 to 2009, where she was a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chaired the House Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.

...... This morning, they sank to another low by blocking uniformed Air Force members from entering the Inauguration ceremony. ..... [VIDEO - 31 seconds]

After meeting with the president-elect Donald Trump, Lockheed Martin CEO, Marillyn Hewson, promises to lower the costs of F-35 program as well as to create 1,800 new jobs. This brings out the question how come cheaper F-35 program and thousands of new jobs weren’t suggested earlier? Also, a frequently asked question is whether developing the fifth generation F-35 “super jet”, which proved to be not that “super” after all, justified spending $trillions of taxpayer’s money? According to Trump, this expense is unacceptable. The President-elect already promised a modernization of U.S. military, however, under certain conditions. “The F-35 program and cost...

Alex LockieJanuary 11, 2017 USAF In another positive sign for the beloved A-10, Air Force maintainers at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona have outfitted the Warthog with an upgrade for combat search and rescue missions (CSAR). Dubbed the lightweight airborne recovery system, the upgrade helps A-10 pilots "communicate more effectively with individuals on the ground such as downed pilots, pararescuemen and joint terminal attack controllers," according to an Air Force statement. Of all the fixed-wing aircraft in the US Air Force's inventory, no plane carries out CSAR missions like the A-10. CSAR missions jump off with little warning and...

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday that because of the high cost of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter, he had asked Boeing Co to offer a price for a "comparable F-18 Super Hornet." "Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!," Trump wrote on Twitter....

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday ripped Boeing for the cost of a new Air Force One plane, calling for the contract to be cancelled. "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!" Trump tweeted.