Free Republic

Officials at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, are warning airmen and nearby residents to avoid a perimeter around McKinley Climatic Lab after an unexplained explosion occurred at the on-base facility Wednesday. "A little before 10 a.m., an explosion occurred at McKinley Climatic Lab," Eglin officials said in a Facebook post. No injuries have been reported. First responders established a 1,000-ft perimeter, and surrounding areas were evacuated, the post said. Officials said to avoid contact with smoke from the blast, even as it continues to dissipate.

<p>Search-and-rescue crews are looking for seven Marines and four soldiers after an Army helicopter crashed late Tuesday during a routine night training exercise in the Florida Panhandle.</p> <p>Eglin Air Force Base spokesman Andy Bourland told the Associated Press that the helicopter was reported missing at around 8:30 p.m. local time and crews found debris from the crash at around 2 a.m. Wednesday.</p>

Navy personnel are busy preparing to teach the next generation of Sailors how to work with and fly the newest military aircraft, the F-35C Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter, as Strike Fighter Squadron 101 (VFA-101) readies for their stand-up ceremony May 1 on Eglin Air Force Base. The F-35 is a single seat, multi-role fighter aircraft with the capability to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air defense missions. The aircraft is in full production at the Lockheed-Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas. The F-35 is designed to eventually replace the F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B Harrier tactical fighter aircraft and was...

F-35 test pilots at Eglin AFB have flown seven local area orientation flights around the Florida base since flight operations began on 6 March, a US Air Force official says. "We've flown seven sorties so far and are planning to fly four more next week," the USAF official says. "We've only cancelled two sorties and they were both for weather." Two qualified test pilots - USAF Lt Col Eric Smith and US Marine Corps Maj Joseph Bachmann - are flying a series of local area flights to gauge the readiness of the 33rd Fighter Wing's new Lockheed Martin F-35As and...

U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Joseph Bachmann successfully piloted the second F-35 local orientation flight in the skies above the Emerald Coast today. AF-13, an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variant, launched at 2:30 p.m. CDT and completed a 93-minute flight landing at 4:03 p.m. CDT. At its operational peak, the F-35 Integrated Training Center at Eglin Air Force Base will train approximately 100 F-35 pilots and 2,200 maintainers annually. The wing's two F-35 pilots, in conjunction with its integrated team of military members, civilians and contractors, will begin to slowly build up their number of sorties with an initial goal...

Maintainers with the 33rd Fighter Wing have determined that three loose fasteners caused the small fuel leak during the F-35’s first mission flight Tuesday. The wing’s first F-35A Joint Strike Fighter took off at 10:07 a.m. for what was supposed to be a 90-minute flight. The sortie was cut short to roughly 20 minutes when the pilot of an F-16 acting as a chase plane spotted what appeared to a small fuel leak on the F-35. Maintainers with the 33rd Fighter Wing conducted an extensive review of the jet and determined three slightly loose fasteners allowed a small amount of...

The US Marine Corps hopes to start F-35B local area flights at Eglin AFB, Florida, in early April with operational student pilots starting to train in the autumn, a service senior official says. "We anticipate flying at Eglin to start in the next month," the official says. "And our first student pilots to start training next fall to coincide with the delivery of the operational squadron aircraft at MCAS [Marine Corps Air Station] Yuma [Arizona]." But before training operations can begin, the Marines and other services need to be confident that the F-35 is robust enough to withstand the rigors...

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE - The Pentagon's weapons testing office wants to delay F-35 pilot training because of safety concerns. Initial training for the jets at Eglin Air Force Base is scheduled to start in November. Bloomberg news say the director of operational testing wants that pushed back as much as ten months. He says the F-35 "Has not yet met the prerequisites previously set for reducing" air-mission abort rates and "resolving other safety-related issues." Those issues include software fixes for a flaw that grounded the jets for two weeks in August. A Department of Defense spokesman says the Air...

Officials took a step forward in the F-15E Strike Eagle's continuous technological evolution as the Air Force's most versatile combat aircraft here Jan. 18. Officials from the 46th Test Wing launched the fourth generation fighter for the first time with a new and improved radar system, the APG-82(V)1. The APG-82 uses active electronically scanned array radar technology composed of numerous small solid-state transmit and receive modules. The standard radar, APG-70, is a mechanically scanned array housed in the nose of the aircraft. Although the current F-15E radar has undergone numerous updates and upgrades, it is still the same system the...

After 17 months of silence, the 33rd Fighter Wing flightline finally roared back to life Jan. 13, 2011. The 33rd Fighter Wing received four F-16s from the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke AFB, Ariz. The jets will help establish a "battle rhythm," as the wing stands up the first Joint Training Center for the fifth generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. "Everybody who operates on this base will benefit from an airplane taxiing out of here," said Col. James Ravella, 33rd Operations Group commander, "and outside the base, from Tyndall AFB to Pensacola Naval Air Station and other divert bases will...

Fort Walton Beach - Authorities believe that between 30 and 40 illegal aliens were employed in the construction of the 7th Special Forces Complex, but by the time the very thorough 3-month investigation was wrapped up, so was most of the work, and the great majority of the workers were unaccounted for. Fort Walton Beach - Authorities believe that between 30 and 40 illegal aliens were employed in the construction of the 7th Special Forces Complex, but by the time the very thorough 3-month investigation was wrapped up, so was most of the work, and the great majority of the...

The Joint Strike Fighter under development to replace many aircraft in all branches of the U.S. military appears to be landing late for training. The first delivery of F-35s was expected this month at Eglin Air Force Base, where pilot and support training squadrons were formed for Air Force, Navy and Marines in April 2010. But the first two aircraft are now destined for Edwards Air Force Base in April 2011. Joint Strike Fighter program officials told the Northwest Florida Daily News that Lockheed Martin needs additional time to make aircraft modifications to support testing.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a fifth generation, supersonic warplane combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, plus fully-fused sensor and network-enabled capabilities. It is being manufactured in three versions with major degrees of commonality (100 per cent when it comes to the avionics). There is the Conventional Take-off and Landing (CTOL) F-35A, the Short Take-Off and Landing (STOVL) F-35B and the F-35C aircraft carrier variant (CV). The F-35A aims to meet or exceed the performance of the F-16 while offering greater range, stealth, enhanced lethality and lower operating/support costs. The F-35C is strengthened for US Navy...

The commander of the Joint Strike Fighter training wing is confident the Pentagon will receive its first F-35 jets this fall, leading to the graduation of the first cadre of pilots and maintainers next year. “We’re going to have jets in the fall,” 33rd Fighter Wing Commander Col. David Hlatky said during a May 27 briefing at the F-35 training school house. “Unless there is some major event that nobody can imagine, we’re going to have jets in the fall.” The unit is “banking on November” right now for receiving its first aircraft and will be ready to fly on...

Representatives from the Italian air force and navy visited the 33rd Fighter Wing recently in an effort to check the progress of the first F-35 integrated training center and learn more about this new coalition venture. Things are moving, and this program is becoming real," said Rear Admiral Paolo Treu, director of Naval Aviation Department and commander of the Italian Fleet Air Arm. "I'm grateful to Eglin for giving us this opportunity. A lot of work has been done. A lot of work has to be done." Italy is one of several partner nations that will be training Joint Strike...

Military history was made when the first-ever Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II training squadron, Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, stood up here April 2. The occasion also marked the first time a Marine Corps squadron was embedded in an Air Force wing. "And they couldn't have picked a better place to start," said Lt. Col. James Wellon, VMFAT-501 commander, referring to the 33rd Fighter Wing and Eglin AFB. The "Warlords" squadron was redesignated from the VMFAT-451, a 13-year retired squadron that was reactivated April 1 for the ceremony. "This is truly a historic event," said Maj. Gen. James F....

Air Force Maj. Michelle Coghill confirmed both of the military aircraft's engines used the biofuel for Thursday morning's flight at Eglin Air Force Base near Valparaiso, Fla., the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News reported. The Air Force said the flight represented the first time all of a military or civilian airplane's engines were fueled by a biofuels blend. The test flight represents part of an ongoing Air Force effort to develop and test biofuels. The Daily News said officials from both the Air Force Research Laboratory and Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base oversaw the test flight. Unlike conventional...

An Air Force test pilot is scheduled to fly an A-10 Thunderbolt II jet aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base March 25 on a blend of biomass-derived and conventional JP-8 jet fuel. This will be the first flight of an aircraft powered solely on a biomass-derived jet fuel blend. The biomass-derived fuel used for this event is referred to as hydrotreated renewable jet, or HRJ, and is part of a class of fuels derived from either plant oil or animal fat feedstocks. The feedstock source of the biomass powering the A-10 demonstration is camelina oil, a flowering plant in the...

Fla. Base Set to Open New School on IEDs By MELISSA NELSON Associated Press Writer EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) -- With more American soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan from hidden bombs, the military hopes a new advanced explosives school will help troops to detect and disarm the deadly devices. The military showed off X-ray cameras, chemical sensors and advanced robotics Friday, while the military's top bomb-disposal instructors demonstrated some of the latest techniques in combating deadly improvised explosive devices. The new Advanced Explosives Device Disposal School at Eglin Air Force Base officially opens next month. Explosives experts...

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) -- Nineteen aircraft from Langley Air Force Base, Va., found shelter from the storm on the runway here Sept. 13. The 1st Fighter Wing jets, along with a crew of 90 support Airmen, arrived here midafternoon, evacuated from Virginia because of the expected arrival of Hurricane Ophelia. Providing shelter for the jets is a chance for the 46th Test Wing to be on the receiving end for a change, instead of evacuating its own aircraft -- a task that flying wings here are all too familiar with. Planes here fled the base three times...