Free Republic

A once-empty parking lot at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s top secret aircraft plant in Palmdale, Calif., is now jammed with cars that pour in during the predawn hours. More than a thousand new employees are working for the time being in rows of temporary trailers, a dozen tan tents and a huge assembly hangar at the desert site near the edge of urban Los Angeles County. It is here that Northrop is building the Air Force’s new B-21 bomber, a stealthy bat-winged jet that is being designed to slip behind any adversary’s air defense system and deliver devastating airstrikes for decades...

The Air Force’s failure to report Texas church shooter Devin Kelley’s domestic violence conviction to the FBI -- a misstep that left the door open for Kelley to buy weapons -- is a systemic issue in its criminal investigations unit, according to a 2015 Pentagon analysis and a former Air Force agent who spoke to Fox News.

The Air Force Academy says racial slurs posted outside the dorm rooms of five black students were written by one of those students.

Devin Kelley, the man accused of killing 26 people in Texas Sunday, was court-martialed in 2012... the Air Force confirmed to the Daily News Sunday night. In 2012, he was court-martialed after being accused of assaulting his spouse and child, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said. Kelley was confined for 12 months and was reduced to E-1 rank, airman basic, which is the lowest rank possible.

<p>Devin P. Kelley, who was court martialed from the U.S. Air Force, was identified as the gunman who walked into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday morning and murdered at least 26 people, wounding many more in the tiny, rural community near San Antonio...</p>

Before he killed 26 people, Devin Kelley was sentenced to confinement and discharged from the military. Last week, he ominously showed off an assault rifle on Facebook. Devin Patrick Kelley has been identified as the gunman who killed at least 26 people at a church in Texas, a U.S. official told The Daily Beast. A week before he committed the worst massacre at a place of worship in American history, Kelley posted a photo of a semiautomatic rifle to Facebook with the caption: “She’s a bad bitch.” Kelley entered First Baptist Church at approximately 11:30 a.m., witnesses reported, and opened...

MILILANI, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) - At a secure, classified location on Oahu, 230 Hawaii Air National Guard member keep a constant watch over the state. They work at what's unofficially called "NORAD of the Pacific" -- after the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado. They play a critical role in tracking threats to the state -- are considered the first line of defense against another Pearl Harbor. And on Friday, ahead of President Trump's visit to Hawaii, they'll be watching Air Force One closely and anything that may get near it. The group's official name: The 169th Air Defense Squadron...

The United States Air Force could recall as many as 1,000 retired military pilots to active-duty service to address an acute shortage in its ranks. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday allowing the Air Force to call back to service up to 1,000 retired aviation officers who wish to return, the White House and the Pentagon announced.

Two supersonic bombers reportedly drilled alongside allies in Northeast Asia Saturday, reaffirming U.S. commitment to its partners and sending a message to North Korea and other challengers.B-1B Lancers, powerful aircraft carrying the largest conventional payload of guided and unguided munitions of any Air Force bomber, departed Andersen Air Force Base in Guam for the Korean Peninsula Saturday. They first joined up with two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s before joining up with two Republic of Korea Air Force F-15K fighters, the Pacific Air Forces Public Affairs Office said in an official statement.The bombers conducted a flyover during the 2017 Seoul International Aerospace...

The U.S. Air Force’s Small Diameter Bomb II program has seen such large cost overruns that the service will force the manufacturer, Raytheon, to absorb some of the increases, amounting to nearly $40 million. Both parties insist that the present production and delivery schedule won’t suffer, which is important given the present plan is for the precision guided munitions to become a core weapon system for a variety of American combat aircraft, especially the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. On Oct. 18, 2017, the Air Force acknowledged that Raytheon had run out of “financial liability” in its deal to develop the...

U.S. Air Force officials have suspended a decorated officer and revoked his recommendation for promotion to brigadier general because he would not sign an unofficial document affirming a retiring subordinate's same-sex marriage. Col. Leland B.H. Bohannon, Air Force Inspection Agency commander at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., signed all the requisite documents for a senior noncommissioned service member's May retirement ceremony except for one: a letter of "spousal appreciation" for the gay serviceman's partner. Bohannon's Christian convictions about marriage put him at odds with the request to sign the unofficial, optional letter, and he sought counsel from his...

The U.S. military has signaled that it might cancel essential upgrades for more than 100 early model F-35 stealth fighters flown by the Air Force, rendering the radar-evading jets incompatible with many of the latest weapons. In that case, some 6 percent of the flying branch’s planned 1,700-strong F-35 fleet would be unfit for combat, sticking U.S. taxpayers with a $20 billion tab for fighters... that can’t fight. Experts say the military never should have bought the planes the first place, as they rolled out of Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth factory before the F-35’s design was complete and thoroughly tested—a...

The pilots in the U.S. Air Force fly a bunch of planes. The F-15 Eagle, the C-17 Globemaster, the A-10 Thunderbolt II, and the Mirage 2000D… Wait, that can’t be right. The Mirage 2000D is a French plane, and not in service with the Air Force. Four 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions are released from an F-15E during a developmental test at Edwards Air Force Base in 2002. Photo courtesy of USAF. Yet, that list is accurate. Right now, Maj. Raymond “Banzai” Rounds of the U.S. Air Force is based out of Ochey Air Base in France, flying with the...

Detailed information on the B-21 Raider is still scarce to say the least, but for over a year and a half we have had a rendering supposedly depicting the multi-role strategic stealth platform's basic shape and features. Recently, other simple planform renderings have trickled out from the marketing department of the stealth bomber's manufacturer, Northrop Grumman. Although there can be no doubt that the aircraft will feature a whole slew of cutting edge technologies, will be constructed using the latest manufacturing techniques, and will be covered in the most advanced radar absorbent coatings, the general configuration of the aircraft doesn't...

A second Dover Air Force Base airman charged with sexually abusing a teenage runaway has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. Court records show a change-of-plea hearing is scheduled Wednesday for 25-year-old Dalian Washington of Philadelphia. Washington is charged with sex abuse of a minor and sex trafficking of a child.

An Air Force Sergeant in America has proposed to 'the love of his life' on the wing of an F-15 fighter jet. Video captured the moment at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina, US, when Sgt. Charles Fairchild got down on one knee on top of the tactical combat aircraft. It happened seconds after his girlfriend of two years, Amber Neeb, took a taxi like ride in the jet with a pilot, moving at an approximate 93 km/h - F-15's can fly up to speeds of 3000 km/h. Sgt. Fairchild has been serving in the Air Force...

Air Force KC-135 tankers lined up on the runway in Kadena, Japan. AFA: The Air Force needs more tankers and transports because a sophisticated enemy like Russia or China can shoot them down, the chief of Air Mobility Command said here. The current fleet size is based on war plans that only considered how much fuel, supplies, equipment, and troops the air fleet needed to move from A to B, Gen. Carlton Everhart told reporters. The assumption was that no enemy could challenge our control of the skies, which made sense against the Taliban or the Islamic State. But now,...

At AFA, Boeing displayed this full-scale model of its T-X contender as backdrop to an announcement by Saab that its part of the jet would be built in the U.S. (Photo: Chris Pocock) With the U.S. Air Force nearing a selection decision for its 350-airplane T-X advanced jet trainer requirement, partners Boeing and Saab used this week’s AFA Air Space and Cyber Conference to boost the American credentials of its contender. Boeing displayed a full-scale model on its stand and a large banner in the foyer that proclaimed “American Jets for American Pilots.” Saab announced that it would invest in...

Senior cadet Steven Fox from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs is accused of assaulting a date he brought to an AFA dance back in 2015, KKTV reported. Court papers accuse Fox of penetrating the man with a finger without his consent and rubbing himself against the man’s leg for sexual gratification, The Gazette reported. Fox’s defense lawyers say the acts were consensual and the two men were dating at the time.

A KC-46 tanker refuels a C-17 transport in mid-air. Sometimes the refueling boom impacts the receiving aircraft, damaging it. AFA: The four-star chief of Air Mobility Command wants his new KC-46 Pegasus tankers “yesterday,” but the tanker’s boom has a nasty tendency to scrape up planes it’s trying to refuel, as well as two other category one deficiencies, and contractor Boeing has to fix those. The paint scraping problem — formally known as “undetected contact” — by itself could “possibly” delay the new planes’ arrival at AMC, Gen. Carlton Everhart said. That date was already pushed back to “late spring”...