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The Air Force is preparing to trim hundreds of aircraft from its aging fleet in order to meet an Obama administration austerity order. The move will strike many Air Force supporters as ironic. Because just as the fleet is set to shrink, Defense Secretary ...

Matt Pirrello wasn’t about to let a simple drill get the better of him. So what if he had lost a leg?He had been doing “about-faces” — pivoting clockwise 180 degrees while standing at attention — since he joined the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 2009. Now, the once-simple act of raising his right foot, placing it about half a shoe length behind his left heel and then rotating, threw him. “The movement depends on having a knee and foot that bend in ways my prosthetic leg can’t,” said Pirrello, who lost his right leg in a training...

A discussion with pictures of the mechanical failure causing the Reno Air Race crash.

$12 Pollution Assessment To Be Added To Car Registration FeesEvery person who owns a non-commercial vehicle in the San Joaquin Valley will begin paying a fine for violating federal air quality standards starting in October, said the San Joaquin Valley Pollution Control District. The fine will show up as a $12 pollution assessment on a resident's annual car registration bill. "We will pay this fine every year until we go three straight years without violating tougher federal air quality standards," said Anthony Presto, a spokesman for the pollution control district. The reason for the fine is that the San Joaquin...

EPA has recently suffered a series of defeats in court cases challenging its reliance on “guidance documents” that were never adopted as administrative rules. The most recent example has to do with guidance under the Clean Air Act (“CAA” or “Act”). In Natural Resources Defense Council (“NRDC”) v. EPA,[1] the D.C. Circuit held that EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) by relying on interpretive guidance – rather than a regulation – to allow states to propose alternatives to statutorily required fees for ozone non-attainment areas. Background The CAA requires EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards (“NAAQS”) on...

A few months after Sen. Claire McCaskill was entwined in a scandal over the use of her personal plane for campaign travel, the Missouri Democrat has released amended campaign finance reports dating back to 2006.According to the new filings with the Federal Elections Commission, McCaskill’s campaign committee had failed to account for 143 contributions in the ‘06 cycle, totaling nearly $277,000. The committee also missed about $277,000 in disbursements. During that cycle, McCaskill raised $11.5 million.The discrepancies, her campaign said, could be attributed to the fact that donations were coming in at a furious clip at the end of the...

Thought this video was kind of cool. Hope I'm not breaking any rules.

Dozens of pro-Palestinian activists taken from EasyJet, Alitalia flights for police interrogation; activists arrive on five different planes; Danino says police have met gov't goals at Ben-Gurion Airport. Police diverted two passenger aircraft that landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Friday, detaining at least 60 suspected pro-Palestinian activists for questioning. Participants in the "Air Flotilla" arrived on three other flights as well. Police said that some 69 activists have been denied entry. The flights, one EasyJet from Geneva and one Alitalia, were diverted to Terminal 1, where police combed passengers for pro-Palestinian activists expected to attempt entry into the country...

On the heels of a scathing critique by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Wednesday, President Obama faced pressure from a burgeoning environmental justice coalition demanding stronger action on ozone, a component of smog, in predominantly Latino communities. Fourteen groups sent a letter to Obama expressing dismay at missed opportunities and delays in bringing permissible ozone levels down to between 60 and 70 parts per billion: The EPA estimates that the strongest standard of 60 parts per billion would avoid as many as 12,000 deaths and 58,000 asthma attacks per year. Implementing a weaker standard would mean more lives lost...

Crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit of a plane approaching San Francisco. The man was yelling as he brushed past a flight attendant about 10 minutes before American Airlines Flight 1561 from Chicago was due to land on Sunday night, police said. Rageit Almurisi, 28, carried a Yemen passport but his nationality is not clear, a spokesman said. [Snip] Passengers told of how Almurisi was heard to shout 'Allahu Akbar'--or 'God is great'. Passenger Angelina Marty said: 'I kept saying to myself,

Last August, the the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) graded itself on its enforcement of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in terms of economic benefit-cost analysis. Surprise not: EPA came up with an astounding $31 of clean air benefits for every dollar of cost. That, and Administrator Lisa Jackson can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Deja Vu: EPA’s 1997 Study Back in 1997, the EPA credited itself with providing $22.2 trillion in benefits at a cost of a half trillion dollars from enforcing the CAA from 1970 (when the EPA was established) through 1990 (when Congress amended...

The House just voted 236-181 to remove federal funding for National Public Radio via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Japan has told the U.N. nuclear watchdog radioactivity was being released "directly" into the atmosphere from the site of an earthquake-stricken reactor and that it had put out a fire at a spent fuel storage pond there.

In 2020, the Clean Air Act will prevent 230,000 premature deaths and result in $2 trillion in economic benefits, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported on Tuesday. The EPA report, required by law, assesses the costs and benefits of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, which overhauled the country’s premier air-pollution law and included restrictions on ozone and a range of toxic air pollutants. “The Clean Air Act’s decades-long track record of success has helped millions of Americans live healthier, safer and more productive lives,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.

HOUSTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to downgrade Dallas' air quality from "moderate" to "serious" after the city failed to meet a 1997 pollution limit and new regulations the agency is considering could put the city even further behind. The announcement the EPA planned to make Wednesday will force the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to submit a plan detailing how Dallas will meet federal guidelines by 2013. But, the EPA plans to unveil a more stringent ozone cap by July 31, making it even harder for Dallas to get in line. .

Europe Russia blames Polish crew in Kaczynski air crash Published January 12, 2011 | Associated Press Print Email Share Comments (23) Text Size MOSCOW – Russian officials investigating the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski placed the blame squarely on the Poles on Wednesday, saying the crew was pressured to land in bad weather by an air force commander who had been drinking. Kaczynski and 95 others, including his wife, died in April 2010 when their Tu-154 plane crashed while trying to land in Smolensk, Russia. There were no survivors. In Warsaw, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president's twin...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An international team of researchers has found that the atmosphere's ability to cleanse itself of pollutants and other greenhouse gases, except carbon dioxide, is generally stable. The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, comes amid a fierce debate over whether, as some experts believe, the atmosphere's self-cleaning ability was fragile and sensitive to environmental changes. The research team, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), measured levels in the atmosphere of hydroxyl radicals, which play a key role in atmospheric chemistry. Levels of the agent only fluctuated a few percentage...

The Spanish government has said it will allow its military to take control of airspace if air traffic controllers do not return to work. The controllers staged an unofficial walkout over working hours, leaving passengers across the country facing huge disruption. The group called in sick en masse, closing down airspace over Spain - except the southern region of Andalucia. The government has called on controllers to resume work immediately or defence will assume control of the airspace. Airport operator AENA condemned the mass, coordinated action, saying it was an "intolerable" and "irresponsible" act which hit more than 200,000 passengers...

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — An unmanned Air Force space plane that spent seven months in orbit is set to return to Earth. The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is scheduled to land at Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles sometime between Friday and Monday, depending on the weather and other factors. The Air Force Space Command said in a statement Tuesday the base has begun preparations for the landing. The X-37B resembles a small space shuttle. Since it launched in April, space enthusiasts have speculated about its ultimate purpose.

This is a satire on trying to open a trucking business in CA.

JOLIET, Ill.- An Illinois roofers' union parked its inflatable rat outside of a Joliet church to protest the facility using non-union workers to do roof work. The Rev. Matthew Robinson of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Joliet said members of the Local 11 roofers' union have been picketing in front of the church and placed a giant inflatable rat -- nicknamed Scabby -- in front of the facility, the Joliet Herald-News reported Friday. "It's just ugly, and all people are seeing right now is a big yellow rat in front of our church," Robinson said. "Golly, we don't need that. That's...

PARIS (Reuters) - French police have arrested an Air France stewardess on suspicion of stealing thousands of euros in cash, cards and jewelry as passengers slept on long haul flights, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Police investigating thefts over several months on flights between France and the Far East picked up the 47-year old attendant identified as Lucie R. after she landed from Tokyo on Friday, Le Figaro said. "Her bank accounts showed an absurd gap between her lifestyle and her declared income," the newspaper quoted a police investigator as saying. Police launched an investigation in January after about 4,000...

The United States and Japan agreed yesterday to relocate a controversial U.S. air base to a less densely populated area on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The future of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma had been a subject of intense political debate in Japan that led to the possibility of the base being moved off the island entirely, despite a 2006 agreement to relocate it on Okinawa. Talks between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for the United States and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa for Japan addressed a range...

BEIRUT, May 26 (KUNA) -- The Lebanese army announced on Wednesday that it launched surface-to-air missiles at Israeli fighter jets that had violated the Lebanese airspace. A statement issued by the army directorate said that the two Israeli jets penetrated Lebanese airspace over the town of Kfar Kila in the south, heading to Shaka town.

The high-profile F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will be delayed by two years and will be significantly over cost, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said on Tuesday. “We think it is probable that there will be a Nunn-McCurdy breach,” Donley said at a breakfast with defense reporters. The so-called Nunn-McCurdy law requires the military services or the Pentagon leadership to tell Congress when the price tag of a program increases significantly. The Pentagon then must certify to Congress that the program is still worth pursuing.

Just in case you didn't knew why Air America went belly up: because the libs are too smart :) :) :)

It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

On the first day of what was supposed to be tighter screening ordered by the U.S. for airline passengers from certain countries, some airports around the world conceded Monday they had not cracked down. The United States demanded more careful screening for people who are citizens of, or are flying from, 14 nations deemed security risks. But enforcement of the U.S. rules appeared spotty. "Everything is the same. There is no extra security," said an aviation official in Lebanon, one of the countries on the list. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak...

Reports say people flying from Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Yemen and Cuba will have pat-down body searches

The Department of Defense announced today the alert for mobilization of a replacement unit scheduled to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Approximately 2,600 soldiers from the 29th Combat Aviation Brigade, headquartered at Edgewood, Md., will begin deploying in the summer of 2011.

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq, Dec. 3, 2009 – The adage “Send in the cavalry” once referred to soldiers on horseback, riding to the aid of embattled comrades. Today, that same call for backup can be made a lot quicker and with much more devastating effect through the Army’s joint operations. A soldier tries to guide an air weapons team to a target verbally, without marking the target, during training near Contingency Operating Base Basra, Iraq, Nov. 20, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Maurice A. Galloway  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Twelve soldiers from 1st Battalion, 377th Field...

WASHINGTON, D.C. November 13, 2009 -- A group of researchers at the City College of New York is developing a new way to generate power for planes and automobiles based on materials known as piezoelectrics, which convert the kinetic energy of motion into electricity. They will present their concept later this month at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics will take place from November 22-24 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. About a half-inch by one inch in size, these devices might be mounted on the roof or tail of a car or...

Travellers to Europe face being treated like drug smugglers as security chiefs are expected to recommend new intrusive security measures. French anti-terror chiefs are expected to propose the new measures, such as full body X-rays or handing in all electronic devices, after a terrorist tried to kill a Saudi prince with a bomb he had inserted into his body. Al Qaeda's latest ploy was first pioneered by Abdullah Hassan al Asiri, who blew himself apart in Jeddah in late August in an attack on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi anti-terrorism chief. The 23-year-old terrorist blew himself into 70 pieces...

Iraq has a major problem. Iraq’s air defense is the US Forces in Iraq and those forces are gone at the end of 2011. That region is too dangerous to go without air cover. The earliest that new fighters could start delivering is 2014. Then there is two to three years of training. Iraq cannot afford more than one squadron of fighters per year. It takes a minimum of five squadrons provide Iraq with a basic credible air defense. That means the earliest Iraq could have a basic air defense using new aircraft is after 2020. There are all sorts...

This Iraqi Security Force Update provides a summary of changes to the ISF during August 2009. The Iraqi Security Force Order of Battle as of 31 August 2009 is published at Montrose Toast. Peshmerga Prime Minister Maliki has apparently reached an agreement with Kurdish leaders regarding the status of the Kurdish Regional Guard. According to Member of Parliment Firyad Rawandouzi, from the Kurdistani Alliance, Maliki agreed to absorb the Peshmerga into the “national defense apparatus”. The agreement would facilitate the transfer and commissioning of two new divisions (15th and 16th). The remaining Peshmerga members would either be absorbed into the...

Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Braveheart and his magnificent crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we will open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal. Allegedly the German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They, it is alleged, not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement...

Q As you say, the complexity of this training effort, particularly with the Iraqi air force -- again, do you think that some trainers, U.S. trainers and mentors, will be needed after 2011? GEN. HELMICK: Well, I guess it depends on how we identify air sovereignty for the Iraqi air force. There will be a team that comes here from Washington, D.C., in the next week or so, to kind of refine where the Iraqi air force is and where they think the Iraqi air force should be, based on the current glide path, if you will, on procurement of...

Rushing out of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, Iraqi Soldiers hit the ground and take up security positions during a training exercise in Baghdad, Aug. 18. Photo by Sgt. Travis Zielinski, 1st Cavalry Division. BAGHDAD — American servicemembers here continue to train the Iraqi Army (IA) using the same methods available to U.S. military forces. Starting off with the basic steps and procedures, a crawl, walk then run approach helps the Iraqis attain professional military standards. The 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad, teamed up with 150th Armed Reconnaissance Squadron, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team,...

Meanwhile, millions more Americans are out of work as Congress jets! In March, we learned how ravenous the travel appetite is for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats in Congress. The documents which show the frequency of trips to exotic destinations would be a crushing scandal if Republicans were in charge of Congress. But since Dems are in charge, few will say a negative word about this: House Orders Up Three Elite Jets By Paul Singer Roll Call August 5, 2009 Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by...

July 29, 2009: Saudi Arabia has ordered another three Airbus A330 tankers, for aerial refueling and carrying cargo. The Airbus MRTT is based on the twin engine Airbus 330-300, which normally sells for $160 million each. The 233 ton MRTT carries 111 tons of fuel, plus 43 tons of cargo (26 pallets).

(AP Photo/Don Ryan)Karen McNutt of Women & Guns has a warning for travelers. You could be traveling by airline with a declared and checked-in gun in your baggage, all perfectly legal, and think you've done everything required of you. Then say something compels you to claim your luggage at a layover airport: perhaps your flight was rerouted, or perhaps there was a delay and they're going to shuttle you to a hotel or an alternate terminal... Don't assume it's safe to claim your suitcase. That could put you in a world of hurt. I came across McNutt's article--one I missed...

Cement plants being asked to sacrifice for clean airWeb Posted: 07/12/2009 12:00 CDT By Colin McDonald - Express-News Burning at a minimum of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit, the fire inside the kiln at Capitol Cement is hot enough to melt steel. Flashing orange and white as they soar through a rotating tunnel the size of two semi-trucks, the flames change the chemical structure of the crushed limestone inside and vaporize almost everything else. Fueled by a mix of coal, petroleum coke and sometimes tires, the operation never stops unless something goes wrong. “If that’s running, then we have a chance at...

WASHINGTON – Millions of people living in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency. The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution. The average cancer risk...

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2009 – The Kyrgyz parliament is expected to vote in the coming days on agreements reached between the United States and Kyrgyzstan governments to extend U.S. access to Manas Air Base, a logistics hub that supplies troops in Afghanistan, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell confirmed today. While emphasizing that the United States is “not counting our chickens before they are hatched,” Morrell expressed hope that the deal will go through. If ratified, the agreements would provide for a transit center at Manas International Airport, operated by the United States, to provide logistical support to coalition forces in...

I just finished listening to a podcast where an avionics engineer goes over the final messages sent by the Air France Flight 447 plane before it crashed. The error messages sent by the plane show that multiple computer failures happened simultaneously, starting at 02:10 GMT, when a series of 14 warnings and failures emerged at once. Addison Schonland, president of Innovation Analysis Group, and Michael Ciasullo, IAG's managing director of consulting services, led the podcast discussion. The engineer, who went only by Darryl, and his interviewers were careful not speculate. Darryl is introduced as an engineer familiar with the the...

Want to join the Air Force? Look at the picture above. How about now? Still no? Well damn, the Air Force is gonna be pissed -- this was supposed to be a powerful recruitment tool. The Challenger Vapor features radar-absorbing stealth-black paint, not unlike what is used to mask stealth bombers. The Vapor is set to run almost silently, thanks to "stealth exhaust" - whatever that means. Reminds us of when KITT used to go "Silent Mode" on Knight Rider. You need biometric verification to enter the cockpit via gull wing doors. The driver can view night/thermal vision projections on...

Sniff the air in Barcelona or Madrid, scientists say, and you’ll inhale not only carbon dioxide but possibly cocaine too. Pollution plagues Spanish cities, but a new study reports the air in those two is also laced with drugs notably cocaine. The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute, says on its website on Thursday that it also found traces of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid, a relative of LSD, wafting through those cities. But they said there’s no reason for alarm. “Not even if we lived for a thousand years would we consume the equivalent of a...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The pilots of the Continental Connection turboprop that crashed in February near Buffalo N.Y., rushed through mandatory checklists in a matter of seconds, but spent almost the entire 59-minute flight from Newark, N.J., bantering about personal issues, job goals and the theoretical hazards of ice accumulation during winter flying, according to the cockpit recorder transcript released Tuesday by federal investigators.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Monday endorsed the Pentagon in its plan to end production of Lockheed Martin Corp's top-of-the-line F-22 fighter jets after having pushed to buy more for years. "This is the time to make the transition from F-22 to F-35 production," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and General Norton Schwartz, the service's top uniformed officer, wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.