2017-11-13 By Todd Miller It’s early and the darkness feels more like night than day. Flight crew gathers at the 305th Air Mobility Wings (AMW) base operations, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL), NJ. Paperwork in order and mission plan briefed, we leave base ops for the aircraft. The sun cracks the…
2017-10-09 By Todd Miller “It’s go time!” The crew announcement snaps me from my sleep. It’s near zero hundred and we fly in dark skies over western Missouri. The anticipation amps up on FORCE 26, a 305th Air Mobility Wing (AMW) KC-10 from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, NJ (JBMDL). I hurriedly…
2017-10-14 According to a UK MoD article published on September 26, 2017, the Welsh based RAF Valley Air Station has been modernized to play its role in the introduction of the F-35 and the evolution of the Typhoon-F-35 core to the RAF strike force. The station is primarily used for…
2017-09-26 Recently, the French, Norwegian and German Air Forces have added new tanking capabilities to their forces. And in the Norwegian and German cases did so under a collective European defense acquisition approach. In a press release dated September 7, 2017, Airbus Defence and Space noted the first flight of…
09/25/2017: Two KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport aircraft were together at the main air operating base in the Middle East region recently to conduct a routine aircraft ‘tailswap’. The aircraft, flown in by crews from its home unit, No. 33 Squadron, will begin its service as part of the Air Task Group…
2017-08-31 By Murielle Delaporte Former Transall (C160) pilot and “Touraine” Transport Squadron, Captain Cyril is currently in charge of operations within the 61st Wing at Orléans Air Base. This wing was specifically created for the arrival of the A400M. This interview was done onboard the MSN 31 last Spring while…
2017-08-30 By Murielle Delaporte Onboard the MSN 31 (April 2017) It is just a matter of fact, but not such a well-known one, that the A400M has been used for months as a regular weekly multi-stop shuttle on all the theaters where French armed forces are present. “Ever since it…
2017-08-18 By Robbin Laird During my current trip to Australia, I had a chance to talk again with the Air Mobility Commander of the Royal Australian Air Force, Air Commodore Richard Lennon. We last met earlier this year at Amberley Airbase. During that visit, Air Commodore Richard Lennon, the head…