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NORAD celebrates its 60th this year, and all military parties involved at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station allowed the media "behind the blast doors" for a rare, limited tour on Thursday, May 10. When I say all parties involved, I mean it quickly gets confusing to say who's toiling inside the mountain, between the U.S. forces on site, Canadian allies, and other unnamed groups (for security reasons). The 721st Mission Support Group is technically who hosted us at the alternate strategic command center; remember that in 2008 Peterson Air Force Base took on the primary command center, as it offers...

It was March 4, 2002. American special operations forces were fighting to establish observation posts high above Afghanistan’s Shah-i-Kot Valley, as conventional troops continued their push through the valley floor below. One of those men, Air Force Technical Sgt. John Chapman, was alone in the pitch-black, wounded and slowly regaining his consciousness in the thigh-deep snow of a 10,469-foot peak known as Takur Ghar, as scores of Al Qaeda fighters closed in. The operators were due to lift-off from their Gardez base around midnight and quietly land near the base of the peak before climbing to the top. But maintenance...

A Tennessee Air National Guard colonel was demoted and promptly retired after a video that shows him leading a re-enlistment ceremony where one member recites her oath using a dinosaur puppet garnered millions of views online. In the video, which was posted Saturday to an unofficial Air Force Facebook group, an unidentified colonel can be seen leading the re-enlistment ceremony for Master Sgt. Robin Brown, who delivers her oath while wearing a dinosaur puppet on her hand and has the puppet mouth the words as she reads them aloud. According to a statement from Army Maj. Gen. Terry Haston, posted...

An Air Force F-16 jet crashed Wednesday at Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas, defense officials told Fox News. The status of the pilot, or pilots, was not immediately clear. In a statement, the Air Force said, “Emergency responders are on the scene. As soon as additional details become available, they will be provided. The accident is under investigation." The jet crashed around 10:30 a.m. during routine training at Nevada Test and Training Range, officials said.

A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot flies over Afghanistan after completing aerial refueling operations with a KC-135 Stratotanker on March 12, 2018.DVIDS I recently had the chance to speak on the phone with a US Air Force A-10 pilot serving in Afghanistan, and he told me about how the Warthog's "presence alone scares the enemy into submission." "Lot of times [when] we're overhead, they'll just put their guns down and go away because they know the A-10 is overhead," the pilot, who asked to be called "McGraw," said. "We've heard that for years." "Do you mean that literally...

This article originally appeared in the March 26, 2018 issue of SpaceNews magazine.U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson calls it a “bold move”: cancel a $6.5 billion purchase of high-tech ground surveillance aircraft and shift that mission to a network dubbed “advanced battle management system.” The argument the Air Force makes in its 2019 budget request for not buying new aircraft to replace the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, is rather straightforward. It can’t survive modern air defenses. The Air Force in 2011 started a five-year study that looked at options for replacing the aging fleet of...

Fighter pilots aren't cheap. The U.S. Air Force estimates that training a new pilot to fly a plane like the F-35 costs $11 million. And that doesn't count the priceless experience of a veteran pilot who has been flying for years. That's why the U.S. Air Force is willing to offer half-million-dollar bonuses to retain experienced fighter pilots. So a nation that throws its fighter pilots in jail is not just wasting money, but also an extremely valuable resource. Yet in the name of politics, Turkey's government has purged its air force so badly that it can barely fly its...

Back in the 1980’s, the Army ran a series of successful commercials, with the slogan, “Be All You Can Be.” The corny ads depicted a US Army that was reborn during the Reagan administration and an Army that actually focused on killing bad guys and breaking things. Imagine that… Flash forward to the Orwellian hell of the Pentagon in 2018, where your military left is right, where men are pregnant, where women are transitioning to men, where lactation stations are now part of the military’s SOP, where the girl next door, at 5 feet nothing and weighing nothing will be...

Beijing is happy with the speed and quality of first Su-35 delivery, but makes local production prerequisite of more orders Multiple sources within Russia and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force suggest that Beijing and Moscow may have struck a preliminary deal for procurement by the PLAAF of more of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighters. Hong Kong-based military monthly Kanwa Defense Review reported in February that the second batch of the highly maneuverable aircraft with thrust-vectoring engines had already descended on PLA airbases in southern China. Among those tipped as the likely locations to service and hangar the multi-role air-superiority fighters...

A top official at the Air Force Academy apologized for “microaggressions” that appeared in a school-wide email on haircut standards amid backlash to a reference to NBA great Michael Jordan. Cadets received the email on Wednesday from Master Sgt. Zachary Parish commenting on haircuts that did not meet the Academy’s standards and cast a “negative impression” on the “cadet population and armed service members at large.” Parish went on draw a comparison to Jordan. "He was never seen with a gaudy chain around his neck, his pants below his waistline, or with a backwards baseball hat on during public appearances,"...

Federal officials are testing the government's ability to identify gyrocopters and other small aircraft over Washington, D.C., nearly three years after a Florida mailman flew undetected past the White House before landing his 350-pound rotorcraft at the U.S. Capitol. The Air Force will fly a gyrocopter above the capital area at between 500 and 2,500 feet off the ground, and will fly Cessna and Sky Arrow aircraft between 500 and 8,000 feet above the ground, according to a Tuesday press release. “Using Cessna, Sky Arrow and Gyrocopter aircraft, a variety of flight patterns will be flown five to nine times...

A laundry list of provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act will reshape the military space chain of command and oversight of programs. Pentagon and Air Force officials are still grappling with the full extent of the reforms, the most significant of which is the removal of the role of principal Defense Department space adviser from the secretary of the Air Force. "A lot of people focused on the fact that Mike Rogers' idea for a space corps didn't happen, and they missed that a lot of reform did go into this bill," Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the...

In order to test potential A-10 Warthog replacements in rugged conditions, the US Air Force has flown Sierra Nevada A-29 Super Tucano and Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine light attack planes from a dirt runway. The planes took off and landed on the uneven dirt airstrip located in the Melrose Air Force Range training area, a part of Cannon Air Force Base, in New Mexico. The whole event, the takeoff as well as the dusty landing, was captured and shared on YouTube by AiirSource on Wednesday, 3 January.

A man has been arrested and the National Police Air Service helicopter was dispatched to the base. The incident reportedly started at the base’s main gate. Police describe the event as “a significant incident.”

When Heather Wilson was picked to be secretary of the Air Force, she told the Senate: “Air Force policy must continue to ensure that all airmen are able to choose to practice their particular religion.” Now, she has a chance to prove it.On Wednesday, the Family Research Council’s Lt. General Jerry Boykin and Travis Weber gave Wilson 77,024 reasons to reconsider the action taken against Col. Leland Bohannon.A distinguished combat pilot, Bohannon has served his country for more than 20 years. In May, the reputation he’d built in the Air Force came crashing down when his superiors decided that the...

If you honorably served in the Air Force and Navy and live in Virginia (and were not a reservist or any other special designation) there is no license plate available to purchase. The Army and Marines have plates available but not the Air Force and Navy. Please sign the petition to make these available so we're not limited to "Armed Forces Veteran".

New Delhi -- The reach of a weapon possessed dictate the size of a nation's "area of influence". Every country also attempts to acquire technologies and weaponry to keep pace with its "area of interest" in pursuance of the larger national aim. And the effort of matching the "area of interest" with the "area of influence" is considered as balanced growth in military modernization. The great visionaries of Indian Defence Forces along with the scientific fraternity, fully supported by the Government, have constantly been making efforts to remain prepared to march ahead with the growing national ambitions. The Indian Air...

A group of prominent U.S. senators is coming to the defense of a highly decorated Air Force colonel who could be booted out of the military over his religious views on same-sex marriage. Col. Leland Bohannon, an experienced combat pilot, was suspended from command and orders were handed down recommending he not be promoted after he refused to publicly affirm the same-sex spouse of a retiring subordinate. Bohannon, who was on the verge of being promoted to a one-star general, was punished after the subordinate filed a formal Equal Opportunity complaint which was later substantiated by investigators. “His career is...

The Air Force faces many millions of dollars in potential liability for the mass shooting at a small-town church in Texas earlier this month by a former servicemember, legal experts say. “I think it’s almost inevitable that the Air Force will be sued,” said retired Lt. Gen. Richard Harding, former judge advocate general of the service. “And I think there’s a case that can be made, you bet.” If lawsuits against the Air Force were successful, said Don Christensen, the service’s former top prosecutor, the damages could be huge. “What is being shot while you’re in church, watching your baby...

The secretary of Air Force said that, after weathering a 1,500-pilot shortfall last summer, the problem has escalated to being 1,926 pilots short -- or missing 1 in 10 of a force that's supposed to have 20,000 pilots. Secretary Heather Wilson told Pentagon reporters today that "it's not just pilots, though, and air crew, when it comes to readiness." "It is spare parts and flying hours and munitions," she noted. "So increasing the readiness of the force so that we win any fight, any time, is our top priority." The biggest reason for the pilot shortage, in the secretary's...