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AEROSPACE EDUCATION PAGE This page is NOT intended to be an all-inclusive AE page. It is meant to provide some brief topics Cadets may find interesting in the realm of Aerospace. All of these briefs come from the Air Force Association, unless otherwise indicated.
Fighter Pilot, West Point Football Star Dies Retired Colonel Felix A. "Doc" Blanchard, Heisman Trophy winner during his time at the US Military Academy and fighter squadron commander during the Vietnam War, died April 19 at age 84. Fullback Blanchard was a three-time all-American during the mid-1940s at West Point, where he teamed with halfback Glenn Davis and became known as Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, respectively, and the Touchdown Twins on an unbeaten Army team. Although drafted into the NFL out of West Point in 1947, Blanchard later chose to remain with the Air Force, where he would fly the F-105 for 84 combat missions over Vietnam. Earlier he made news—and received a commendation—by electing to stay with and land a burning F-100 rather than eject as he was returning to his base in England. Blanchard retired from USAF in 1971. (20th Fighter Wing report; New York Times report; Associated Press report)
28 Apr 09
Into the Belly of the Beast AA-1, the first F-35 test aircraft arrived last week at Eglin AFB, Fla., to give base officials and residents of the local community a chance to experience the aircraft up close and personal. Two days after touching down on April 21, AA-1 flew over the base and the local area during a sortie with two F-16 chase airplanes before it passed over the Eglin runway for some touch-and-go maneuvers. Afterwards, it was made available for viewing. It's precisely the "up-close-and-personal" part associated with the F-35 that has some local residents at odds with the Air Force after the service announced in February that an initial environmental assessment did not preclude basing F-35s at Eglin, the location stipulated under BRAC 2005 for the F-35 joint training schoolhouse. Concerns among some locals over the health and economic impact of the F-35's noise level-it is admittedly louder than the F-15s that fly today from Eglin-subsequently drove the city of Valparaiso to sue the Air Force in federal court. But there are groups of residents equally enthusiastic about the F-35 mission coming to Eglin because of factors like the positive economic impact they see in the presence of the schoolhouse. (Eglin AFB Report; Destin Log's Report)
An Air Guard First Chief Master Sergeant Allen Usry, the current command chief for the Continental US NORAD Region-1st Air Force (Air Forces Northern) at Tyndall AFB, Fla., will take over as NORAD-US Northern Command's command senior enlisted advisor in Colorado Springs, Colo., from Army Command Sergeant Major Daniel Wood, who is retiring. According to an April 27 Tyndall release, Usry is the first Air Guardsman selected to be the command senior enlisted advisor for a combatant command. "It is a great day for the Air National Guard, 1st Air Force, NORAD-NORTHCOM, and most especially, Chief Master Sergeant Usry," said Maj. Gen. Hank Morrow , commander of CONR-1st AF, where Usry has served since June 2005. Morrow added, "Not only does his selection set a precedent, it's extremely well deserved." Usry joined the Oklahoma Air National Guard in 1988 after six years as a Marine. (Tyndall AFB Story; CMSgt Usry biography)
Hogging the Spotlight Lt. Col. Drew English, test director for the 59th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis AFB, Nev., reached his 3,000th flight hour in an A-10 cockpit on March 26 during a force development mission to the Nevada Test and Training Range. "I consider it a privilege that I've been able to fly this airplane non-stop for over 15 years," said English, a career operational test and instructor pilot, who flew his first A-10 sortie in June 1993. Maj. Neal Sheeran, 59th TES project manager for the A-10, said of English, "His complete dedication to making the A-10 the best possible [close air support] platform, both for the A-10 community and the Air Force as a whole, is unmatched." (Nellis AFB report )
Former Astronaut Glenn Honored Former astronaut and ex-US Senator John Glenn received the 2008 Thomas D. White National Defense Award April 22 at a ceremony at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. Named in honor of former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Thomas Dresser White, the award has been presented annually since 1962 to a US citizen who has contributed significantly to national defense and security. "It's a great honor, especially when I see the list of people who have gone before," said Glenn, now 88. He added, "They are some of the finest people I know." On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He returned to space at age 77 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest human in orbit. Past recipients of the White award include President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, Sen. Barry Goldwater, Sen. John McCain, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, Gen. Colin Powell, and Bob Hope. (Air Force Academy report)
Airship Project Takes Off The Defense Acquisitions Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced Monday that it has selected a Lockheed Martin-led industry team that includes Raytheon to develop a sub-scale stratospheric airship to demonstrate the utility of using high-altitude airborne sensors of unprecedented proportions for theater-wide surveillance. Manufacture and flight testing of this demonstrator airship is occurring under phase 3 of the agency's ISIS (integrated sensor is structure) program. DARPA is conducting phase 3 jointly with the Air Force. In fact, Air Force Chief Scientist Werner Dahm last month outlined the forthcoming demonstration. DARPA said the subscale airship is expected to fly in Fiscal 2013. It will carry an X-band radar system with an antenna about half the size of a roadside billboard and a UHF-band system with an antenna roughly equivalent to the size of a soccer field. A notional, full-size operational airship would have sensors dwarfing these that would be capable of tracking extremely small cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles as well as dismounted soldiers from hundreds of kilometers away, while the host airship remained perched six miles above the Earth's surface for years, said DARPA. ISIS phase 1 consisted of a feasibility study; phase 2 served to mature critical technology.
Deliberate Moves The Air Force's Minuteman III ICBM force likely will be the first of the service's nuclear legs to transfer to Air Force Global Strike Command, followed later by the nuclear-capable bombers, Maj. Gen. Donald Alston, head of the Air Staff's strategic deterrence and nuclear integration office, said April 24 on Capitol Hill. AFGSC, the Air Force's fledgling nuclear-centric major command, is expected to commence formal operations at the end of September at Barksdale AFB, La. However, the missile and bomber assets probably will not be under its operational control until later, Alston said during a National Defense University Foundation breakfast. The ICBMs likely will shift from Air Force Space Command's oversight to AFSGC "closer to the end of the year," while the bombers come over from Air Combat Command "soon after that," he explained. Alston repeated the Air Force's message that the transfer of the ICBMs and bombers is a very deliberate process and will not be rushed to meet an arbitrary schedule. "We will transfer that responsibility when we are ready," he said. (For more on the standup of Air Force Global Strike Command, read The Nuclear Force Revival from the February issue of Air Force Magazine.)
USAF Intel Corps in Demand The Air Force's intelligence career field is in big demand in the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, Col. Eric Holdaway, director of intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance for Air Forces Central, told reporters April 23 during a conference call. So much so, he said, that intel airmen are on a one-to-one deployment/dwell cycle, meaning they can expect to be downrange for six months to a year and get back home for an equivalent period of time. Further, a number of ISR airmen are currently tapped for joint expeditionary taskings with non-USAF units, he said. To ease the strain, the Air Force is looking at the specialties within the intelligence field that could be merged with other fields that don't deploy as often. The demand will remain, but it would help the deployment cycles by sending new people over who have not had the opportunity to deploy yet, Holdaway said. Also, the Air Force is looking at changing up its assignment policy. There is a possibility that a "deliberate assignment policy" could be implemented where an intelligence airman would choose a two-year assignment that is vulnerable to deployment then go into "sanctuary" for a few years for career development, he said. (Read The UAV Advantage.)
Seeking Successor Claw The Air Force has begun exploring the best attributes for a future trainer aircraft to replace the T-38 Talon, including asking late last month for industry input. The Air Force expects to field this notional aircraft, which would be part of a new advanced pilot training family of systems, in the 2017 timeframe to help train the F-22, F-35, and bomber pilots of tomorrow, according to the service's March 31 request for information. According to the RFI, one of the issues to tackle with the new trainer is how to best prepare student pilots for requirements like sustained high-G operations and air refueling that are best learned with the aid of an instructor pilot on board, considering there will be no two-seat versions of the new F-22 and F-35 fighters. The Air Force just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first T-38 flight. It still has nearly 550 Talons in its inventory. While the service expects to fly T-38s until around 2020, some sustainment issues are emerging. For example, mechanical failure of the right aileron caused the fatal crash of a T-38C last April, leading to the replacement of aileron actuator levers in the Talon fleet. (Read Flight Magazine's April 22 report.)
Joining Blue and Green As manpower and resources pour into Afghanistan, Air Force and Army intelligence-gathering capabilities are also getting ramped up, with more cooperation expected in this area between airmen and soldiers there, says Col. Eric Holdaway, director of intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance for Air Forces Central. This will especially be the case with next month's arrival of MC-12W manned overhead surveillance aircraft and the processing and dissemination teams that will support them in theater, he told reporters April 23 during a teleconference. Included in the Army's ISR buildup is the much-bandied Task Force ODIN, which the land service used to counter improvised explosive devices in Iraq. While the Army's model is very effective for its purposes, the Air Force's ISR mission differs a bit and is broader, Holdaway said. "They've developed a very strong capability for working very closely with a brigade combat team . . . to work a specific problem" he said. Conversely, the Air Force's responsibility includes tactical reconnaissance support as well as expanded ISR support to the theater commanders, he explained. Still, "There's a very good complement between TF ODIN and what the air component brings to theater ISR," he said. (For more, read April 24's Daily Report entry The UAV Advantage) (For more on plans for the MC-12W, read Project Liberty Heads Downrange)
Parajumper's Death Explained Air Mobility Command and US Special Operations Command investigators have concluded that a series of human errors led to the death of an Army parajumper who jumped from a C-130H transport during a joint training mission at MacDill AFB, Fla., on Jan. 29. The parajumper, Col. James Merchant III, 46, drowned after landing in a retention pond adjacent to the base perimeter north of the intended drop zone. In a joint release April 23, the two commands said the mishap was the result of a combination of events, including "inaccurate airdrop calculations" and "delays" in executing the airdrop sequence that resulted in Merchant departing the C-130 later than he should have. Merchant also did not turn into the wind during descent, causing additional drift from the drop zone, and, for reasons unknown, did not activate his functioning life preserver upon landing in the water. Further, there should have been a manned safety boat on the lake and the body of water should have been identified as an obstacle in the drop zone survey, the command investigators said. The C-130 was assigned to Air Force Reserve Command's 302nd Airlift Wing at Peterson AFB, Colo. (SOCOM's release on Merchant's death.) (For more, read the Tampa Tribune's Jan. 29 report.)
USAF Awards Four Bronze Stars The Air Force has awarded four Bronze Stars to one airman at Dyess AFB, Tex., on April 17 and three at Robins AFB, Ga., on April 13.
They are:
- Major Seth Graham received his medal at Dyess for his actions during deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Dyess AFB photo release)
- Master Sergeant William Craig, a member of the 78th Security Forces Squadron at Robins, received his Bronze Star April 13 for his actions during deployment to a forward operating base in Iraq, where he revamped security procedures and helped plan and design entry control point improvements for a theater internment facility.
- Master Sergeant Carolos DoRego, also a member of the 78th SFS, led a 14-person team on deployment to Kirkuk Regional Air Base in Iraq, where he provided oversight for 130 combat missions and personally executed four high-risk raid with US soldiers.
- Technical Sergeant Edward Cannell, 78th SFS, also deployed to Kirkuk, where he supervised or participated in more than 130 outside-the-wire combat patrols to collect threat information, and he led 10 high-risk capture missions, helping cause disruption to major terrorist cells. (Robins AFB report)
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