Free Republic

The Chinese parent company of Cnano USA Inc. (Cnano USA) — which intends to build a facility in Kansas approximately 70 miles from Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base — employs dozens of CCP members and sold products to a Chinese university for its use in a Chinese military program. The president of a firm building a manufacturing facility near several Midwest military bases confirmed that his firm’s China-based parent company employs Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members and was previously involved in a military program during a state committee hearing on Monday. The Chinese parent company of Cnano USA Inc. (Cnano...

Say you own a 20-year-old car and intend to drive it beyond the year 2050. It will need some fixing. A challenge similar to that continually faces Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the B-2 stealth bomber. Many aircraft parts made in the 1980s, when the first of 21 B-2s rolled out of a Northrop Grumman Corp. hangar, are as obsolete today as the floppy disk. Yet the plan is to keep those bat-winged bombers flying, and eluding the latest in radar technology, until 2058. The Pentagon is moving forward with a $2 billion, 10-year effort to modernize the fleet’s...

Six hero pilots return home safe and sound from a bombing mission to Libya which saw them in the cockpit for an incredible 25 hours. Three B-2 Spirit bombers, piloted by two men each, made it back after the 11,418-mile round trip from the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri - where they are kept in special hangars - to Libya, where they hit targets on forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi and back again. At $2.1bn, they are the most expensive warplanes in the world and rarely leave their climate-controlled hangars. But when it does, the B-2 bomber makes a...

Air Force officials released their basing decision for the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper ground control stations June 21. The final bases approved by the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force are: Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. and Ellsworth AFB, S.D. "The Air Force uses a deliberate, repeatable and transparent process to address basing needs. These bases are the right locations for the next set of MQ-1/9 ground control stations," said Kathleen Ferguson, the deputy assistant secretary for installations. "They will provide the Air Force with the right kind of synergy for training purposes." The MQ-1 ground...

It is among the U.S. Air Force’s most finite resources, but the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber is still growing in capabilities, and it’s an aircraft America is happy to allow an ally to use. A long-standing exchange program that has seen USAF personnel trade places with those from the Royal Air Force was extended to the B-2 in 2004. The offer to open up the secretive B-2 mission to a key ally was made by then-President George W. Bush in an e-mail to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Among the achievements of the first British pilot, Sqn. Ldr. David Arthurton, was...

The Spirit of Alaska sits quietly next to The Spirit of America (82-1066) and another B-2. Taken at Whiteman AFB, Missouri (Sept. 17, 2008)

WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Air Force officials announced March 16 that the 131st Fighter Wing at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis will join the elite B-2 mission at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. The announcement means the 131st Fighter Wing's Airmen will team up with the world's only B-2 long-range stealth bomber mission located at Whiteman AFB. The move will pair the 131st's Guard unit air crew, maintainers and support staff with the current active-duty B-2 unit. The 131st was selected from Air National Guard units nationwide to support the B-2s. "I am pleased that the U.S. Air Force found...