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The missing machine gun that triggered the firing of a security forces chief at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, in May turned up in what’s probably the last place the Air Force wanted it to: stashed in an airman’s home off-base. Minot officials announced on Wednesday that the machine gun had been recovered by Air Force Office of Special Investigation agents after obtaining a federal search warrant for the unnamed airman’s residence on June 19. The machine gun was discovered missing during a standard weapons inventory by the 91st Missile Wing security forces on May 16, just about two...

Russia has pledged severe repercussions if President Donald Trump’s order to set up a new, space-oriented military branch violates a treaty banning nuclear weapons in the cosmos. Trump said this week he will establish a sixth branch of the military named the “Space Force,” pending budgetary approval from the U.S. Congress. The idea could require the U.S. to withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction but not conventional arms in space. Viktor Bondarev, head of the Committee on Defense and Security of Russia's upper parliamentary house, told the state-run RIA...

"That's no moon. It's a space station." - Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars IV A New HopeAir Force, Space Force: may the Force be with you. At a meeting of National Space Council intended to transfer space responsibilities from military to civilian hands, president Donald Trump surprised attendees by ordering the top US military officer to launch a new branch of the military in space.While the creation of a Space Force has been debated for several years, the move has been opposed by the military, which has instead begun restructuring the Air Force Space Command to better address threats in...

he former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, managed to overlook the Air Force deserter with top-security clearance on her staff who has been a "most-wanted" fugitive for 35 years. Nanette Asimov and Megan Cassidy report in the San Francisco Chronicle: Employees in the University of California president's office in Oakland knew their former colleague Tim O'Beirne as the personable, brainy number-cruncher for the UC system's vast health benefits program. They were stunned Tuesday to learn that the Air Force has identified him as William Howard Hughes Jr., a captain with top-secret clearance who vanished in 1983....

The U.S. Air Force’s entire B-1 bomber fleet was ordered to stand down Thursday because of an issue with ejection seat components, the Air Force Global Strike Command said. The announcement came more than a month after a B-1B Lancer made an emergency landing at Midland International Air & Space Port in Texas. Officials investigating the incident determined that there was an issue with ejection seat components and ordered the stand down. “The [Safety Investigation Board’s] purpose is to prevent future mishaps or losses and is comprised of experts who investigate the incident and recommend corrective actions. The safety of...

Israeli Air Force’s interest in the Lockheed Martin F-16 was born after the Yom Kippur War when the IAF realized that, alongside the F-15 Eagle, they needed a new, advanced, relatively cheap, multirole jet. The negotiations with the U.S. to acquire the F-16 started in 1975 and after some years of delay, caused by the Middle East tensions, the Fighting Falcon sale was finalised in 1979 as result of the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The first F-16s were delivered to the IAF in 1980 and the following year, before all the Netz (as the F-16A is...

Even as the U.S. Air Force faces a long-term pilot shortage, there are no plans to grow the ranks of enlisted pilots, a top official said recently. "We'll certainly see what the study says, but at this point, we have no intention to expand enlisted pilot positions beyond the Global Hawk" community, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told Military.com on May 4. Wilson was referring to a Rand Corp. study exploring the feasibility of bringing back a warrant officer corps as the service faces shortfalls in its pilot billets. "The Rand study is complete, and we are now reviewing, analyzing...

A pair of U.S. Air Force stealth fighter jets intercepted two Russian nuclear-capable bombers Friday morning off the coast of Alaska, a spokesman for NORAD (North American Aeorospace Defense Command) told Fox News. The approach by the two Tupolev Tu-95 Russian "Bear" aircraft marked the first time in just over a year that Russian bombers had flown that close to U.S. territory. The Russian bombers came within 55 miles of Alaska's west coast, north of the Aleutian Islands, but remained in international airspace, the spokesman, Canadian Army Maj. Andrew Hennessy said.

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...