Free Republic

Way out in Nevada, the secret base from Independence Day — yes, Area 51 — is hiring a pilot for the only airline that flies direct to the secluded destination. Janet Air — as in “Just Another Non Existent Terminal” — flies a nondescript red-striped fleet of 737s from Las Vegas to various sandy, high-security government outposts where, as in Vegas, what goes on there stays there. The job posting in question is looking for a 3,000-hour pilot with an active Top Secret clearance and little interest in what their passengers do at work. According to salary research site Glassdoor,...

A meteor hit Earth and exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force in July, but the Air Force has made no mention of the event. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed an object of unspecified size traveling at 15.1 miles per second (54,360 miles per hour) struck the ground in Greenland, just 27 miles north of Thule Air Base, on July 25. The base is mainly used to detect missile launches. Director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists Hans Kristensen tweeted about the impact, but the US Air Force has not reported the event. Kristensen argues it’s...

The B-61-12 gravity bomb, a GPS-guided behemoth that’s been in development since 2008, can penetrate three meters of earth before detonating and dial up a nuclear yield of between 0.3 kilotons and 50 kilotons of devastating power. A message to Iran? Read on: An Air Force B-2 stealth bomber just completed the first test drop of an advanced nuclear gravity bomb, Military.com reported on June 30. The B-61-12 gravity bomb , a GPS-guided behemoth that’s been in development since 2008 , can penetrate three meters of earth before detonating and dial up a nuclear yield of between 0.3 kilotons and...

The Air Force said Friday that there was no damage to Thule Air Base in Greenland after a large meteor fell nearby last week. The fireball incident occurred just miles from the remote military base on July 25 and entered the atmosphere with a 2.1 kiloton force, according to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. The Air Force 21st Space Wing monitors missile launches and space activity via sensors at Thule, and directed any questions to NASA, which did not immediately provide a statement.

A meteor hit the earth and exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force last month, but the US Air Force has made no mention of the event. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed an object of unspecified size travelling at 24.4 kilometres per second struck earth in Greenland, just 43 kilometres north of an early missile warning Thule Air Base on the 25th of July, 2018. Director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen, tweeted about the impact, but America’s Air Force has not reported the event.Mr. Kristensen argues it’s concerning there was no public warning...

Reports of an active shooter sent emergency responders to the hospital at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio on Thursday afternoon. A spokesperson for the Air Force base confirmed on Twitter that base emergency responders, including security forces and the fire department, responded to an active shooter incident at a building at the base’s hospital at around 12:40 p.m. local time. “Base personnel have been directed to shelter in place until the incident is investigated,” the base said in a second, which was followed by a third.

Bradley Kim, a defensive back at the Air Force Academy, announced on Friday that he is gay. Kim, who shared his story on his Instagram account and through an interview with OutSports, is the first active player at a service academy to publicly come out. "The biggest reason I want to share this is to be able to reach people who are in similar situations struggling with the same things I have struggled with," Kim told OutSports. "I want to be that example for kids that you can be gay, you can pursue your dreams, and you can have an...

The commander of F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming has agreed to replace a Bible on a POW/MIA table with a generic “book of faith,” according to documents released by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The MRFF is a militant organization that has fought against Nativity scenes, Bible studies and any outward expressions of the Christian faith on U.S. military installations. The head of the foundation, Mikey Weinstein, wrote in the HuffPost that he is dedicated to fighting “virulent religious oppression” carried out by “incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their...

President Donald Trump says the new Air Force One planes will be red, white and blue, a shift away from the classic "baby blue" design that they have had for decades. "Air Force One is going to be incredible," Trump told CBS in an interview over the weekend that aired on Tuesday. "It's going to be the top of the line, the top in the world. And it's going to be red, white and blue, which I think is appropriate." A source familiar with the redesign told CNN last week that Trump was deeply involved in the conversation about a...

When there isn’t anyone counting the free tax dollars flowing in, its easy to see how the Pentagon has gone from $2.3 trillion to over $9 trillion U.S. tax dollars. Lost, can’t find, don’t know where it went? Looks like some in up in the toilet and the rest in a bank account somewhere? Why is the U.S. having debt problems? Wasted and unaccounted spending by the military industrial complex, for anything and everything. Easy to spend other peoples money. The Air Force has admitted to spending a whopping $10,000, a piece, to replace toilet seat covers, in an expense...

President Trump wants to update the paint job on the next version of Air Force One, ditching the iconic robin's-egg blue (which he calls a "Jackie Kennedy color") for a bolder, "more American" look. The big picture: Trump rarely gets into the weeds of government negotiations. But he sat down in the Oval Office with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg in February to personally hammer out the $4 billion deal for a pair of replacement 747s for use as Air Force One (the call sign for whatever Air Force plane the president is on).

Former Air Force linguist Reality Winner pleaded guilty to illegally disclosing classified information on Tuesday as part of a deal which gives her 63 months in prison— she was the first leak case in the Trump administration. Flashback: Winner leaked top secret details on Russia hacking during the 2016 presidential election to reporters at the Intercept. The Obama administration prosecuted 9 or 10 different "leakers," according to the New York Times, which was twice as many as the total number of leak-related cases beforehand combined.

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.