Official: Video of surveillance drone over Chicago is a hoax
May 18th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Attention hippies and paranoid schizophrenics: No, the government is not flying surveillance drones over Chicago ahead of this weekend’s NATO summit.
A video has emerged online that purports to show an armed unmanned drone flying over Elgin, Illinois on May 12, prompting a Chicago CBS affiliate to pose the question: “Are surveillance drones flying over Chicago as part of the massive security operation for the NATO summit?”
Actually, no.
The FAA has not authorized any unmanned drones to fly over Chicago for the NATO summit, said agency spokeswoman Laura J. Brown. A Department of Homeland Security official said the aircraft shown in the video is not one of theirs.
Chicago Police also don’t have any record of people calling in claiming to have seen unmanned surveillance aircraft. That stands in stark contrast to an incident in April, when Chicagoans flooded local media with alarmed phone calls as special operations forces in helicopters conducting a training mission over the city.
An Air Force official called the video an obvious hoax, explaining that no unmanned drones are cleared to fly over a U.S. city or population center. Furthermore, the aircraft in the video moves across the screen faster than a real Predator can fly.
The aircraft also appears to be carrying two Hellfire missiles, “And I can 100% assure you that there will NEVER be a time anywhere in the near future where anyone will be flying ARMED RPAs [drones] over our country, the official said.
E-7 list to be released Thursday, as scheduled
May 16th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
The master sergeant promotion list will be released tomorrow as scheduled, despite rumors that it has been delayed until June, Air Force Personnel Command spokesman Mike Dickerson said Wednesday afternoon.
Of the 19,809 technical sergeants who were eligible for promotion, 5,464 were selected to advance to E-7, a promotion rate of 27.58. That’s a sharp reversal from last year’s trend.
In fiscal 2011, the promotion rate for E-7s rose from 24.9 percent to 33.8 percent. An official told Air Force Times in January that the spike in the promotion rate was due to the fact that high-year tenure limitations had forced many airmen to leave the service, causing the eligibility pool to shrink.
But the eligibility pools for fiscals 2011 and 2012 are roughly the same. Air Force officials are still working on an explanation for the drop in this year’s promotion rate.
Hail to the Chief! This week’s Air Force Times
May 14th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Those who know Gen. Mark A. Welsh describe the nominee to become the next Air Force chief of staff as an inspirational and charismatic leader.
Joseph Kost, a retired chief master sergeant, remembers how Welsh would greet all new airmen arriving at Kunsan Air Base in Korea when Welsh was a wing commander there.
“He said this, and I will never forget this: ‘This place sucks! But it sucks equally for all of us. We are all in this together and we are all we have for the next year. No one has it better than anyone else, so let’s make sure we take care of each other and make the most of our situation.’”
In other news, two lawmakers want the Air Force to conduct an anonymous, confidential survey of F-22 pilots, maintainers and flight surgeons to get a sense of how often airmen assigned to the aircraft are suffering hypoxia symptoms.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., wrote in a May 10 letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley that the survey would “definitely document the scope and frequency of these hypoxia-like incidents.”
No F-22 pilots have complained of suffering hypoxia symptoms during deployments or trans-oceanic flights, said Brig. Gen. Daniel Wymann, command surgeon of Air Combat Command.
And a key House panel has approved a measure that would halt the Air Force’s plans to cut Guard personnel and aircraft next fiscal year.
The amendment offered by Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, would fund the Guard at the same level as this fiscal year.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers are investigating whether the Air Force has complied with the “National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933,” which prohibits changes to a Guard unit without the approval of the state governor.
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Refueling unit first to fly 25,000 missions in single AOR
May 9th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Capt. Tanya Dubiel commands a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, May 4, 2012, over Afghanistan during the 22nd Expeditionary Aerial Refueling Squadron's 25,000th flight. AIR FORCE PHOTO
An Air Force refueling squadron stationed in Kyrgyzstan has flown its 25,000th air refueling mission.
The 22nd Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, which provides one-third of the aerial refueling for operations in Afghanistan, reached the milestone on May 4, according to a news release from U.S. Air Forces Central.
“Like their squadron mascot, the mule, the 22 EARS has stubbornly labored to safely and efficiently fuel the fight despite harsh winter and other ops-related challenges,” Col. Brian Newberry, 376th Expeditionary Operations Group commander, said in the news release.
Capt. Tanya Dubiel, a 22 EARS pilot deployed from Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., was honored to fly the 25,000th mission. She said she was proud that her crew was chose for the mission
“I think it says a lot about our crew,” Dubiel said in the news release. “We’re young, but highly capable of performing the mission and doing it well.”
Dubiel’s mission was one of 346 tanker sorties between April 29 and May 5 that refueled 1,527 coalition aircraft.
F-22 pilots refuse to fly and other stories in this week’s Air Force Times
May 7th, 2012 | Air Force Raptor | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Two Air Force pilots granted whistle-blower protection have said publicly that they refuse to fly the F-22, which has been plagued by oxygen problems.
Eleven F-22 pilots have suffered hypoxia – oxygen deprivation – in the cockpit since September, and five maintainers have complained of similar symptoms, a spokesman for Air Combat Command said.
“I’m not comfortable flying the F-22 right now,” Maj. Jeremy Gordon, with the Virginia Air National Guard, told CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
The Air Force says it is pulling out all the stops to hone in on the problem, and has physiologists, doctors, engineers and others looking for a solution.
In other news, about 150,000 Air Force personnel including civilians and contractors are expected to go through the Air Force’s rifle qualification course by the end of the year.
Instituted six months ago, the course is meant to better simulate the up-close and personal combat situations that airmen find themselves in these days. Airmen learn how to field-strip and reassemble their rifle or carbine, clear malfunctions, and shoot while moving.
“It’s definitely a plus for us to get the experience of how to move instead of just standing and doing one movement,” Tech Sgt. Arturo Quinones said of the course. “I like it.”
And more than 6,400 officers and enlisted airmen are affected by the latest changes to the Air Force Specialty Codes, which became effective on May 1.
One change calls for additional selection and retention criteria for honor guard airmen to “reduce the man hours and funds expended for disciplinary and disqualification processes.”
It was not immediately known if any of the changes require airmen to retrain, reclassify or change their jobs.
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Can officers and enlisted airmen be “friends” on Facebook?
May 2nd, 2012 | Air Force Flightlines Offbeat | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Facebook is an important social media tool that allows supervisors to see what their subordinates are really doing when they call in sick, but should officers and enlisted airmen be “friends”?
Officers and enlisted cannot get too familiar because that could lead to fraternization, and that never ends well.
The Air Force allows officers and enlisted airmen to be Facebook friends, as long as they remain professional at all times, said Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Jennifer Spires. Any unprofessional social activity between officers and enlisted airmen, including online relationships, would be considered fraternization.
“The definition of fraternization is … ‘A personal relationship between an officer and an enlisted member that violates the customary bounds of acceptable behavior in the Air Force and prejudices good order and discipline, discredits the armed services, or operates to the personal disgrace or dishonor of the officer involved,’” Spires told FlightLines.
The issue of whether officers and enlisted can be friends on Facebook was a recent topic of discussion on the Air Force Times online forums.
“I believe that line needs to be clear in a military organization,” one person commented. “It’s like when a subordinate asks some crusty NCO/SNCO what his or her first name is and they promptly reply with ‘Sergeant.’ That’s the way it should be, but in a technological sense, we’re readily providing that info without even being asked for it on places such as Facebook along with every other detail of our personal lives. My subordinates (and superiors as well) do not need to see old pictures of me raising hell or see me posting what a crappy day I had.”
Another commenter wrote that becoming friends with the officers in your chain of command can make life uncomfortable.
“I just think it would be too weird if I posted a status as ‘taking a dump’ and my commander ‘liked’ it,” the person wrote.
More active-duty cuts likely, “resilience” fails to stem suicides — this week’s Air Force Times
April 30th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
More cuts to the active-duty Air Force look increasingly likely now that Congress and state lawmakers have rejected a proposal to reverse proposed cuts to the Air National Guard as part of the fiscal 2013 budget.
“No deal is likely until the Air Force is prepared to make roughly equal manpower cuts to the Guard and the active-duty force as a proportion of each component’s overall end strength,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and co-chairman of the National Guard caucus, said in a statement to Air Force Times.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had offered a compromise to lawmakers that proposed to restore about 2,200 of the Air National Guard personnel and 24 aircraft slated to be eliminated next fiscal year, but lawmakers rejected the deal, saying the aircraft would have to be retired soon anyway and the personnel cuts would come up again next year.
“Restoring only 2,200 Air Guard Personnel means the Air Force has still failed to meet the governors in the middle on personnel cuts,” Leahy said, adding that any deal must include more cuts to the active-duty component.
In other news, the Air Force has seen a spike in suicides during the first three months of 2012, and airmen say resiliency alone cannot stem the tide. They blame the suicides on being overworked, stressed about their futures and tired of doing more with less.
Mark Lerner, a clinical and forensic psychologist who specializes in traumatic stress, said people need to learn practical strategies to turn their pain into productive energy.
“The answer is not resiliency,” he told Air Force Times. “I think it’s about providing people with a toolbox. In the same way we train our men and women to deal with the physical aspects of war, we train them in weaponry, we train them in how to fly their aircraft and how to repair it – all the physical stuff – we also have to train them to deal with the hidden trauma, the traumatic stress, the emotional hemorrhage.”
Airmen say the way to reduce suicides is to give them more time off and more resources at work to get their jobs done.
“It just seems the more and more we try to give our guys a break, the more we have to do some computer-based training,” said a maintainer, who asked not to be named.
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DJ Jazzy Jeff performs for deployed airmen
April 27th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Airmen in Southwest Asia got to party like it was 1989 when DJ Jazzy Jeff spun records for the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing.
DJ Jazzy Jeff’s April 25 performance marked the first time he played for a military audience, according to an Air Force news story.
“I first got the idea about two years ago, but we’d never been able to make it happen,” DJ Jazzy Jeff said in the news release. “At home when we go to bed, it’s calm and peaceful, but it’s calm and peaceful because people out here are keeping us safe. So this was just our way of saying ‘thanks for what you do.’”
Back in the day, DJ Jazzy Jeff sang rap songs along with Will Smith, then known as the “Fresh Prince.” The duo’s hits include “Girls Aint Nothing But Trouble,” and “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”
American-born terrorist is either alive, or dead, or being held incommunicado, or not
April 26th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
The status of an American-born terrorist who crooned about wanting to be obliterated by a Predator drone is in a gray area somewhere between “dead” and “alive.”
Born in Alabama, Omar Hammami became a commander with Al-Shabaab, an Islamic group in Somalia that recently became part of al-Qaida. In his side career, Hammami released watered-down rap songs promoting Jihad, including “Send me a Cruise,” about how he wanted to be on the business end of a “paradise missile.”
But he may have met his end at the hands of his fellow terrorists. Rumors have circulated recently that creative differences with his label led to Al-Shabaab terminating Hammami’s recording career with extreme prejudice.
On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that Al-Shabaab had released a statement saying that Hammami was still alive, but it appears the wire service wasn’t quite accurate.
The Long War Journal, a respected blog on Islamic terrorism, pointed out that the statement was actually an opinion piece on a pro-Shabaab Somali website, not an official communiqué from the terrorist group, which has been silent on rumors of Hammami’s death.
Still, the fact that Al-Shabaab’s boosters say Hammami is still alive indicates that the terrorist may still be with us and ultimately realize his dream of being annihilated by a Hellfire fired by the Air Force’s remote control war fighters.
Would the United States and China ever go to war?
April 25th, 2012 | China Flightlines History | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Senior Capt. Guan Youfei, deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense (center) and U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Charles W. Hooper, U.S. military attache in Beijing, greet the first of two U.S. aircrews delivering earthquake relief supplies to China in 2008. COURTESY U.S. AIR FORCE
A recent study from the American Enterprise Institute concluded that the U.S. Air Force lacks the stealth aircraft to successfully fight China.
One expert told Air Force Times it is unlikely China and the U.S. would ever go to war because their two economies are so interconnected, but a reader pointed out afterward that people said the same thing about Great Britain and Germany, which came to blows twice in the last century.
Prior to World War I, Germany’s biggest trading partners were Britain and France while Germany was also one of the biggest investors in Russia, giving rise to the popular notion that a major European war was unlikely – yet the war came, said Dean Cheng, a China expert with the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.
Now, as then, economic interests do not trump national security interests, so China and the United States are not so interconnected that they will never go to war, Cheng said.
The reason the Chinese have bought hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. bonds is the U.S. economy is the only one big enough to handle all that money, he said. For both China and the U.S, the relationship is pure business.
“There’s nothing in the Chinese side of their actions to make them say, ‘You know, I’m willing to take something of a loss here,’ or, ‘I am buying American bonds in peace time because I want to help express sympathy for the United States; the same way nobody here buys Chinese goods – very, very few people – buy Chinese goods because, ‘Well, you know, I want to help China,’” Cheng said.