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The United States Air Force is a unique service for a multitude of reasons. It was the first branch of the service to allow women into combat roles (security police) and has an entire career field dedicated to protecting air bases, aircraft, Air Force personnel and nuclear weapons. All of the other services require individual units to provide security for themselves, i.e. an Army aviation unit’s members, including her mechanics, are armed and trained as riflemen. Chuck Norris started his martial arts training when he was an air policeman in Korea. Besides Norris, the “Sky Cops” have a storied past...

EXCLUSIVE: It was just a few years ago, in March 2011, when a pair of U.S. Air Force B-1 bombers – during a harsh winter storm – took off from their base in South Dakota to fly across the world to launch the air campaign in Libya, only 16 hours after given the order. Today, many in the Air Force are questioning whether a similar mission could still be accomplished, after years of budget cuts that have taken an undeniable toll. The U.S. Air Force is now short 4,000 airmen to maintain its fleet, short 700 pilots to fly them...

During his long tenure at the Pentagon, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates made many good decisions that helped soldiers and enhanced U.S. security. But his choice to truncate the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor program at 187 jets was an exception. With threats to American air superiority growing, it is time for Congress to consider resurrecting the jet or finding a suitable replacement. Conceived in the 1980s, the F-22 Raptor was designed to secure dominance of the skies for decades. America needed fighters that could outperform the newest Soviet models from Sukhoi and MiG. To counter them, the Raptor incorporated cutting-edge...

RAF jets will battle American stealth fighters in mock dogfights over Britain for the first time in the coming days. British Typhoon fighters will take part in air-to-air combat drills against United States Air Force F-22 Raptor jets. The contests will be the first time the aircraft have gone head-to-head in UK skies, RAF sources said. A dozen F-22s arrived at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk earlier this week and are due to stay for practice missions with the RAF until the start of next month. An RAF source said the allies were likely to fight scenarios at both close visual...

WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) -- The gap between the U.S. military's air superiority capabilities and that of potential adversaries is narrowing, a U.S. Air Force study says. The solution to counter emerging threats is to view air superiority as a condition -- not capability -- using multi-domain solutions developed through a more agile acquisition process. The disclosure was made by Lt. Gen. Mike Holmes, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, and Col. Alexus Grynkewich, the Air Superiority 2030 ECCT study lead, at a recent Air Force Association breakfast. "After 25 years of being the...

A video that captured a retired U.S. Air Force sergeant being forcibly removed from a ceremony at a California base has prompted an investigation, an Air Force Reserve official said Wednesday. The incident occurred at Travis Air Force Base, near Sacramento on April 3, at the retirement of an unidentified master sergeant from the 749th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. Retired Senior Master Sgt. Oscar Rodriguez, in civilian clothing, is shown attempting to read a statement before three uniformed airmen forcibly remove him. The 50-second video clip was first posted on JQPublicBlog.com, which called the footage “a disgraceful spectacle” during what is...

A problem that has prevented Boeing Co 's KC-46A tanker aircraft from transferring fuel to a C-17 transport plane may delay a Pentagon decision approving low-rate production of the new tanker in May, the U.S. Air Force said on Thursday. "We don't yet know the schedule impact to the planned May Milestone C decision, but the problem is well understood and we don't expect an extended delay," said Air Force spokesman Daryl Mayer. Mayer said the issue arose during testing of the refueling boom that is used to transfer fuel from the 767-based tanker aircraft to a C-17 transport plane,...

Wife of Air Force officer among the dead in Brussels terror attack POLITICS | MAR 31, 2016 | BY MARTIN BARILLAS Identified among those killed by Muslim terrorists in Brussels was the wife of U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Kato Martinez. Defense Department officials identified Gail Minglana Martinez, 41, of Corpus Christi TX as among the four Americans murdered in a suicide bomb attack at the international airport outside the Belgian capital. Lt. Col. Martinez had been stationed in Brunssum in the Netherlands. The couple had been married 21 years. The Air Force officer, and the couple's four children, were...

Air Force officials have confirmed that the 41-year old wife of an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel was killed in the terrorists attack in Brussels. Gail Minglana Martinez died at the Brussels international airport after suffering injuries from the bombs detonated by Islamic State terrorists. Her husband and active-duty airman, Kato Martinez, and their four children were hurt and are still hospitalized.

The projected life of the F-35 Lightning II has been extended by six years to 2070 after the US military services tweaked the number of flight hours their fleets should log before retirement. According to the Pentagon’s selected acquisition report (SAR), published on 25 March, the total cost of developing, building, basing, operating and maintaining 2,457 aircraft has increased by 6.8% to $1.5 trillion (2015 dollars) compared to one year ago. The bulk of that increase is attributed to the US Air Force, which has altered the assumed number of hours that each of its conventional-variant F-35As will fly in...

President Obama brought along a second, smaller Air Force One for his family to enjoy a day of sightseeing in Argentina on Thursday. After dancing the tango at a state dinner in Buenos Aires Wednesday night, the president and first lady Michelle Obama took their daughters aboard the government plane colloquially known as “baby” Air Force One Thursday to fly to the scenic town of Bariloche in southern Argentina. It’s a Boeing 757 used when traveling to places where the runway is too short for the primary Air Force One. The larger Air Force One, a 747-200, was parked alongside...

Spotter Charlene Yazzle told local Arizona station WDAM news ‘I was driving north and the truck was headed south to the freeway. UFO Sightings Daily’s Scott C Waring says, ‘This could be some of the alien tech being moved out of Area S4, part of Area 51. It’s a well known fact that lots of new tech the USAF gets is tested there, especially the anti gravity types like the TR3B and some disks. This looks like one of those secret projects. ‘There are black vehicles behind it, but the eyewitness says they are the Department of Safety patrol trucks....

The US Air Force has begun studying future close air support (CAS) aircraft to succeed the Fairchild Republic A-10 as the Pentagon evaluates the weaponry it needs for “prolonged operations” of one year or more. The flying branch is looking at tactical air support platform alternatives for low-intensity “permissive conflict” like counterterrorism and regional stability operations, similar to the types of missions being conducted Iraq and Afghanistan today, where air superiority has been achieved and coalition aircraft can roam relatively freely in support of ground troops. USAF officials say a portion of a "combat air force study” is dedicated to...

Lt. Col. James M. Inks (USAF) 1921-2004 Lt. Col. James M. Inks (USAF): American Military Forces treated as prisoners by Tito's Partisans / The Chetniks treated us like free men and allies."...I kept an accurate account of what happened to me and my comrades while we were in Yugoslavia. This has recently had its secret classification removed by the army and is now cleared for publication. I hope in the near future to have it before every citizen in the United States, in one of our popular magazines and you can rest assured that I will leave nothing out that...

Long before hitching a ride to the moon aboard Apollo 11, then US Air Force test pilot Neil Armstrong was zipping around in a rocket-powered North American X-15, which to this day remains the fastest manned, winged aircraft ever built. That flight record of Mach 6.72 or 7,274km/h was set by pilot William “Pete” Knight in 1967. Now, some 59 years later, America still hasn’t fully realised the promise that experimental flight vehicle held for military operations. Despite many breakthroughs in fields of hypersonic propulsion and high-temperature materials, the air force doesn’t imagine an affordable and operationally relevant surveillance and...

Federal Court Grants Judicial Watch Discovery on Clinton Email Issue History Comes Full Circle as Judicial Watch Releases New Document in Whitewater Criminal Corruption Case against Hillary Clinton Air Force Academy Celebrates Witchcraft and Voodoo While Demeaning Christianity Federal Court Grants Judicial Watch Discovery on Clinton Email Issue Your Judicial Watch has achieved another remarkable breakthrough in our tireless efforts to get to the bottom of the Clinton email scandal. Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted Judicial Watch’s motion for discovery into whether the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deliberately...

The US Air Force has revealed its bomber for the 21st century, the Northrop Grumman B-21 long-range strike bomber. The official designation comes as the air force for the first time releases an artist's rendering of the still-classified bomber — a flying wing design similar to the Northrop B-2 and the company's concept for the previous Next-Generation Bomber (NGB) project. The air force hasn’t purchased a new bomber in this century and is still dependent on 54-year-old Boeing B-52H and 28-year-old B-1B. Its 21-year-old B-2 Spirit, the only in-service stealth bomber, will be in use through 2060, officials say. Revealed...

Raytheon threw its hat in the ring for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X jet trainer replacement program by announcing a partnership with Italy’s Finmeccanica group to offer a variant of the twin-engine Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master for the requirement. Finmeccanica had previously signed a letter of intent with General Dynamics to offer the variant, designated the T-100. At a February 22 press conference in Washington, D.C., Raytheon introduced a T-X industry team that includes Finmeccanica, engine manufacturer Honeywell and training system provider CAE. They will likely compete against three other teams. Earlier this month, Lockheed Martin confirmed that it will...

The public mostly remembers the North American P-51 Mustang as the fighter plane that protected Allied bombers over Germany and Japan during World War II. Overshadowed by newer jet fighters by the time war broke out in Korea in 1950, the re-designated F-51’s relative technological backwardness became a qualified blessing for close air support and battlefield interdiction sorties against the Korean People’s Army. Warren Thompson’s new book F-51 Mustang Units of the Korean War focuses on the veteran fighter’s role in Korea, and also exposes the plane’s little-known history with Australia, South Africa and the Republic of Korea. North Korea’s...

A US air force pilot was saved from ejecting into dangerous ISIS-held territory thanks to the quick-thinking crew of a nearby refueling plane, saving him from potential capture or death, the US Air Force has revealed. The unnamed pilot, whose F-16 fighter jet was passing over ISIS-held territory, had attempted to refuel with a KC-135 Stratotanker plane when he discovered that his craft had suffered a malfunction that rendered more than 80 percent of its fuel capability useless. Captain Nathanial Beer, 384th Air Refueling Squadron pilot, explained: 'The lead F-16 came up first and then had a pressure disconnect after...