The proceeds will go to the families of the fallen, known as the “NATC-A Nine,” said Maj. Henry Cecil, who helped spearhead the fundraising effort.

Tickets are $25 each or five for $100. The drawing is planned for Veteran’s Day, Cecil said.

An Afghan colonel turned his gun on NATO Air Training Command advisers inside Kabul International Airport April 27, 2011, killing Lt. Col. Frank D. Bryant Jr., Maj. Philip D. Ambard, Maj. Jeffrey O. Ausborn, Maj. David L. Brodeur, Maj. Raymond G. Estelle, Maj. Charles A. Ransom, Capt. Nathan J. Nylander, retired Lt. Col. James Mclaughlin and Master Sgt. Tara R. Brown.

Guitar maker John Guilford crafted the instrument using, in part, an airman battlefield uniform worn by Cecil in Afghanistan.

And low and behold the organization in question — the Military Religious Freedom Foundation — wants to know what the Air Force has found since it began it’s considering.

The foundation has pressed the Air Force to investigate allegations that Brig. Gen. Dana Born directed a subordinate, in writing, to launch a campaign against the watchdog group and then denied it during a deposition taken in December.

The deposition was taken as part of an ongoing Equal Employment Opportunity case filed by former Air Force Academy economics professor David Mullin, who is a client of the watchdog group. Mullin, who now works at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, alleges that his contract with the academy was not renewed because of disability discrimination by Born and Vice Dean of Faculty Col. Robert Fullerton.

Mullin also is the complainant in an inspector general investigation launched last year that accused Born and Fullerton of “inaccurately portraying” and making a “false statement” about faculty credentials.

In February, the IG found Born and Fullerton negligent for incorrectly telling the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association and a Colorado Springs newspaper that all academy instructors had degrees in the fields in which they were teaching.

Whether Born or Fullerton were punished because of the findings is unknown.

An attorney for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Robert Eye, requested an investigation Feb. 1 into statements made by Born during the December deposition and demanded a response in a follow-up letter Feb. 29. He’s still waiting on that response.

Born is being accused by the MRFF of writing a note about conducting a “COIN” against clients of the religious freedom watchdog group.

MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein participated in Born’s deposition and said he believes that she did not tell the truth when directly asked if she had ever used the term “counterinsurgency” to describe any conduct of students or faculty at the Academy.

In a follow up letter to the Air Force dated May 21, Eye demanded on behalf of MRFF that the service declare whether it was actually investigating the allegations and  pony up a progress report on the status of that investigation.

But the service — famous for its tight lips — says it is still considering.

“While it would not be appropriate to comment specifically, the Air Force takes every allegation seriously and these are being given appropriate
consideration,” said Air Force spokesman Todd Spitler.

And when the 31st Security Forces Squadron and the Italian national military police, get a hold of them, they might be in a lot of trouble.

Pilots at the base have reported that small lasers have been directed into aircraft on approach and take off from the base on several occasions, according to a press release from the base. The lasers are not only a visual distraction for pilots, but apparently can cause irreparable harm to a pilot’s vision, according to 31st Aerospace Medicine Squadron physiologist Capt. Chris Reichlen.

The 31st Security Forces Squadron and the Italian Carabinieri are investigating who the culprits might be.

“While our security forces airmen have limited jurisdiction off base, we have a very close working relationship with the Italian Carabinieri who are investigating these situations,” 31st SFS operations officer Capt. Gregory DeGruchy said in a press release. “Both our organizations are staying vigilant to ensure this sort of action is swiftly countered by increased host nation efforts.”

The offenders could face prosecution under U.S. federal or military law, or under Italian law, according to the press release.

According to Britain’s Daily Mail, Francis Ford, 18, served the crew members — wearing their full flight uniforms — at the Winterton Dunes Beach Café in Norfolk. Ford initially thought he was the victim of a hoax.

“I said ‘Oh, hello there. How can I help’ and one asked for four ice creams. I said ‘Really?’ I thought it was a joke,” he said.

The Daily Mail reported that the Ministry of Defense said the landing was OK:

“A spokesman for the RAF said: ‘SAR (search and rescue) crews complete a variety of training sorties when not completing life saving operations.

‘Crews are often required to land on beaches during SAR operations and they regularly practise this skill as part of routine training sorties.

‘The decision of the rear crew (not pilots as widely reported) to obtain refreshments on a hot day during this sortie, whilst being somewhat unconventional is not against regulations.’”

A beachgoer managed to catch a few photos. You can catch them on the Daily Mail’s site.

The Air Force wants to cut base amenities that aren’t making enough money, prompting the commander of the 81st Force Support Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., to tell his airmen that underused recreational facilities are at risk of going away.

“At a time when our activities are being threatened, usage rates and profitability will be determining factors when tough decisions are made,” Maj. John Ponton wrote on the base’s website in March.

In other news, the Air Force has released the selection criteria for the KC-46A tanker, and that could be one of the most heated competition in years considering the service is facing the possibility of more base closures.

Several bases are under consideration, and ultimately the Air Force expects to select 11 of them.  The Washington state congressional delegation wrote a May 17 letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley in support of Fairchild Air Force Base being one of those selected to host the new tanker.

“Fairchild already possesses much of the needed capacity to accommodate the new KC-46A aerial refueling tanker and the Air Force has already improved the 14,000-foot runway, invested in a new state-of-the-art fitness center, and last month broke ground on a new wing command headquarters that will better integrate active-duty airmen and Air National Guard airmen,” the letter says.

And an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team leader has been awarded his fourth Bronze Star after he saved a soldier who lost both legs in a bomb blast.

Master Sgt. Ronnie “Bo” Brickey put tourniquets on the soldier and vowed to go running with him after he recovered. Thanks to Brickey, the soldier has been walking on artificial legs for the past four months.

Brickey expects to deploy again and that’s just fine with him.

“I get to do the job that I trained for,” he said. “And I get to save lives.”

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Florissant, Mo., police say a teen tried to set fire to an F-101 like this one, on display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. (Air Force photo)

Police in Florissant, Mo., arrested a 17-year-old early Sunday who they say tried to set fire to a historic F-101 “Voodoo”, KMOV in St. Louis reported.

Police were responding to the Florissant civic center for a report of a fire when they discovered someone had tossed beer bottles filled with flammable liquid onto the jet, according to KMOV.  The F-101 was on display there. Police found the 17-year-old behind a tree and arrested him, and reportedly were looking for other suspects.

The F-101 was the world’s first supersonic photo-reconnaissance aircraft, according to the National Museum of the Air Force, and the planes were used in low-altitude photo coverage of missile sites during the 1962 Cuban Crisis and in the late 1960s in Southeast Asia.

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.

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.

A reddit user uploaded this photo of a hangar at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., that had a rather unfortunate mishap. Reportedly, a spark set off the hangar’s fire suppression system, covering the A-10, F-15 and F-16 in foam.  You can only imagine the fun the maintenance crew had cleaning up the mess.

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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