Staff Sgt. Angie Johnson sings on The Voice
February 7th, 2012 | Air Force Air Force swag Flightlines Video | Posted by Blair Tomlinson
Cee Lo Green nabbed Staff Sgt. Angie Johnson for his team on NBC’s The Voice on Monday. After her performance of Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker,” Cee Lo said “I love a girl with guts and confidence.”
Johnson was discovered on YouTube covering Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” with her band Sidewinder. The video now has over 2 million hits.
Sidewinder is part of the 571st Air Force Band, 131st Bomb Wing, Air National Guard.
Tags: Adele, Air Force Band, air national guard, Angie Johnson, Cee Lo Green, Heartbreaker, Pat Benatar, Rolling in the Deep, Sidewinder, The Voice
From captain to two-star general in a day
October 3rd, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Scott Fontaine
Everyone knows how it works: You do a good job and stay out of trouble, and you earn a promotion.
But usually it’s one rank at a time.
Enter the Georgia National Guard, which just received its newest adjutant general. Maj. Gen. Jim Butterworth is responsible for more than 14,000 personnel in the Georgia National Guard, the Georgia Air National Guard and the Georgia State Defense Force.
Butterworth’s new gig comes with a promotion — from captain to major general.
It’s a political move. Butterworth is a former Air Force and Air National Guard pilot with experience flying B-1s. He left the service in 2002 over concerns with the anthrax vaccine. Since leaving the service, he has worked for Delta Air Lines and served as a state senator. And it comes at a time of a major shake-up of Georgia National Guard brass.
If you ask big Air Force, though, Butterworth remains a major. And he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he doesn’t plan to show off his new stars while doing business in D.C.
“As I understand it, there are plenty of adjutant generals that show up [at the Pentagon] in a suit. That would be my intention,” Butterworth told the paper.
Tags: air national guard, b-1, georgia
Seriously, how much fun is this guy having?
August 18th, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Scott Fontaine
A pararescueman from the Alaska Air National Guard’s 212th Rescue Squadron jumps from a Coast Guard C-130 during training June 23 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Jack Sanders)
Tags: air force, air national guard, c-130, coast guard, jb elmendorf-richardson, pararescuemen
Yee-haw, Norty!
July 26th, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Scott Fontaine
Some pictures are worth a thousand words. Like this one of the Air Force’s chief of staff riding through the streets of Cheyenne, Wyo.:
In case you’re wondering, Schwartz was the grand marshal of the 115th Cheyenne Frontier Days parade. He and his wife, Suzie, rode through downtown on horseback. He also attended the CFD Rodeo, where he “rode in the grand entry and received a behind-the-chutes tour,” according to an Air Force release.
Tags: air force, air national guard, cheyenne, schwartz, wyoming
New digs, lingering problems
July 25th, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Scott Fontaine
The groundbreaking at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam of a 77,500-square-foot hangar and operations facility for the Hawaii Air National Guard’s F-22 squadron drew hundreds of people, including the state’s governor and adjutant general.
It’s safe to say the 77,500-square-foot facility will probably be pretty dang nice. A drawing on the website of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser shows the new complex surrounded by well-manicured lawns and palm trees. The Raptor is the world’s most advanced air-to-air fighter. Some of the world’s top pilots sit in the F-22′s cockpits.
But the Raptor pilots aren’t getting in the air anytime soon. The service grounded the F-22 fleet in May, citing safety concerns. At first, investigators were looking at the oxygen systems — but now carbon monoxide could be the culprit.
The Star-Advertiser, meanwhile, wrote the grounding particularly affects the Hawaii pilots because Hickam doesn’t have an F-22 simulator.
“So whether these people go back to the mainland somewhere and get into the simulators and then get back into the airplane here is still yet to be determined,” said Maj. Gen. Darryll D.M. Wong, the state adjutant general, according to the newspaper.
Tags: air force, air national guard, f-22, hickam, raptor
Air Force active and reserve meet recruiting marks
June 28th, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Markeshia Ricks
The Department of Defense announced today that the the Air Force active and reserve components met their recruiting and retention benchmarks fiscal year-to-date 2011, through May.
The Air Force had 18,444 accessions, which was its fiscal year-to-date 2011 recruiting goals. DoD said the service is on track to meet its fiscal year-to-date 2011 retention goals.
The Air National Guard had 4,529 accessions, with a goal of 4,523; while the
Air Force Reserve had 6,079 accessions, with a goal of 6,194. DoD said that both components are on target to achieve their fiscal year attrition goals.
Tags: air force, Air Force Reserve, air national guard, recruiting, retention
From Tangier to Tucson
June 28th, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Scott Fontaine
If you’re a foreign policy nerd like some of us on the Air Force Times staff, then you can’t help but think the 162nd Fighter Wing has one of the cooler gigs in the Air Force.
The 162nd, an Arizona Air National Guard unit, trains foreign militaries how to fly the F-16. They operate out of Tucson International Airport – home of the famed Tucson International Mariachi Conference! – and get to enjoy the lovely weather of the American Southwest.
Their latest customer? The Royal Moroccan Air Force, which sent four F-5 pilots to train up on the Fighting Falcons. The Moroccans will soon wrap up 15 months of training in Tucson, where they attended courses in basic qualification, flight lead upgrade and instructor-pilot certification. The students averaged three sorties per week and totaled more than 150 hours in the F-16.
Six other pilots are attending the basic F-16 course in Tucson and will graduate in September.
Some of the Arizona Air National Guardsmen will soon travel to Morocco as the first four of the kingdom’s 24-aircraft purchase arrives off the assembly line. They will help stand up F-16 operations at Ben Guerir Air Base, north of Marrakesh.
“It’s a big commitment to be the first F-16 pilots for Morocco,” Lt. Col. Steve Haase, the Morocco program manager for the 162nd, said in a release. “It’s a testament to their positive attitude and work ethic. They are excited about the F-16 and its capabilities yet they understand how much work there will be to build up an F-16 base.”
Tags: 162nd fighter wing, air national guard, f-16, f-5, morocco, training
Good morning, Vietnam. Good night, Fargo.
June 7th, 2011 | Flightlines | Posted by Scott Fontaine
The last of an era: Chief Master Sgt. James Clemenson, a Vietnam war vet, speaks at his retirement ceremony in Fargo, N.D. (Photo by Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp)
One of the last airmen to serve in the Vietnam War retired over the weekend.
Chief Master Sgt. James Clemenson served as a door gunner on an Army UH-1 Huey on two tours in the early 1970s. He left the Army in 1972 and joined the North Dakota Air National Guard the next year.
Clemenson worked in aircraft maintenance and later for an alert detachment and the NGB’s counter-narcotics division. He has been the senior enlisted manager for the National Guard Bureau joint staff since 2007.
It’s unclear how many Vietnam vets remain in the ranks. Clemenson was the last enlisted airmen who served on a deployment to Vietnam. Chief Master Sgt. James Honeycutt of the National Guard Bureau went on a temporary duty assignment to ‘Nam. The release from the North Dakota ANG left open the possibility Vietnam vets could still be serving as traditional Guardsmen.
Tags: air national guard, enlisted, national guard, vietnam