Free Republic

Local news reporting a Thunderbird crashed and the pilot safely ejected.

<p>BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — While visiting this sprawling military installation north of Kabul last week, I visited the flight line of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing. And then I stumbled into a little history.</p> <p>The plane is an F-16C Fighting Falcon, commonly known in the service as a Viper. The U.S. military has at least one pair of fighters airborne over Afghanistan virtually all the time, carrying out everything from the armed over-watch and protection of ground units to airstrikes against insurgents.</p>

3/17/2006 - SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. (AFPN) -- Hundreds of physical and mental training hours go into being a part of one of the most advanced careers in the world -- an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot. The F-16’s multiple missions, such as air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, make it one of the most versatile aircraft in the Air Force, said Capt. Charlie Wolfsandle, 55th Fighter Squadron assistant training officer. To be selected to fly the F-16, an individual has to pass a battery of physical and mental tests. Pilots are selected for training when they receive a commission and are...

The good news is that the Pakistan Air Force has finally phased out its 36-year-old U.S.-supplied F-6 aircraft and inducted a fleet of 22 F-7PG jets, newly acquired from China over the past three months. The bad news is that China's F-7 (although much modernized, and beefed up with a MiG-29 engine) is basically a venerable Soviet-era MiG-21 Fishbed, which first flew in 1955. With more than 8,000 produced, the MiG-21 remains by far the most popular combat aircraft of the jet age. China has been producing the F-7 for even longer than the Pakistanis have had the old F-6...

DJIBOUTI, Sep 30, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Several dozen American soldiers raise a big green tent and shuffle it across the sand, making room for yet more equipment at a new U.S. military base that is growing larger by the day in this small but strategically located country in the Horn of Africa. While their colleagues rearrange their living quarters, other soldiers in sunglasses and floppy hats keep watch at the entrance to Camp Le Monier from a machine gun-mounted Humvee. The five-month-old U.S. base in this former French colony just miles across the Red Sea from...