News
US Army faces uphill battle to fix aviation mishap crisis
In the first half of fiscal 2023, more than a dozen U.S. Army aviators died in helicopter crashes, a startling number that prompted an aviation-wide standdown in April 2023.
First upgraded F-35s won’t be ready for combat until next year
The first F-35s to be delivered with a set of upgrades known as Technology Refresh 3 will initially be used for training flights, but will not be ready for combat until 2025, Lockheed Martin said in an earnings call Tuesday.
Air Force maintenance mishaps are rising. Can a worksheet fix it?
How is your personal stress? How much sleep did you get last night? Do you need to use hazardous materials or chemicals to complete your next task, and how is the lighting in the workspace? Those are just some of the questions that Air Education and Training Command wants its aircraft maintainers to answer on a new worksheet it rolled out in February.
Biden urged to send ATACMS along with air defense systems to Ukraine
President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday the U.S. will send badly needed air defense weaponry once the Senate approves a massive national security aid package that includes $61 billion for Ukraine.
Now is not the time to scale back on the B-21 bomber program
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin made headlines when he hedged about the ultimate size of the B-21 Raider buy, explaining that new technologies may supplant the aircraft by the late 2030s.
Air Force
Why a C-130 crew braved a 26 hour flight to Guam
An Air Force C-130J Super Hercules crew braved a long flight around half the planet earlier this month as part of an experiment testing how quickly they could respond to a crisis in the Indo-Pacific.
Air Force says ‘see ya later’ to gator happily blocking plane’s wheels
A Florida alligator harboring apparent dreams to one day serve as an Air Force pilot sadly did not have the chomps for the role. Officials at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, shared Monday that a gator who wandered onto the flightline was quickly wrangled and relocated to a nearby river.
Veterans
Remains of WWII pilot identified decades after fatal bombing mission
Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. John E. McLauchlen Jr. was killed during a World War II bombing mission in Southeast Asia.
Korean War veteran will finally get his Purple Heart, 73 years late
The Army notified 96-year-old Earl Meyer, who still carries shrapnel in his leg from when he was wounded, that it has reversed itself and granted him a Purple Heart.
VA’s new IVF policy doesn’t cover surrogates or unmarried partners, unlike Tricare
The Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affairs recently expanded fertility treatment benefits to more people, but the VA’s benefit stops short of covering surrogates, which the DoD covers for certain active-duty troops under Tricare.