John Q Public is to the Air Force what SSD is to PEO Soldier. He’s been taking a hard look at the Air Force’s most recent efforts to mothball the A10 and dismantle its Close Air Support capability by hosting a CAS summit. Read his latest installment here.
Black Diamond recently completed another successful Forward Air Control Utility Suite (FAC-US) SADL test with the A-10. This test completed full SADL messages to A10. Congratulations to the entire BDAT SW team for completing something that has never been so simple and accurate to use, and also dramatically increasing Sensor Point of Interest accuracy. This is going to revolutionize CAS with this platform.
The US Air Force has adopted a dishonorable policy of publicly misrepresenting the capabilities of the A-10 in order to remove it from service. The goal is to use the funding to pay for the F-35. Unfortunately, estimates are that the F-35’s gun will not be mission capable until at least 2020. As a retired Air Force officer, I am quite unimpressed by these actions. They undermine confidence in the Air Force’s ability to support ground forces with Close Air Support as well as the word of its leaders.
Join me in supporting the A-10.
Samson Equipment did one heckuva job on this new workout facility for AFSOC’s newest Special Tactics Squadron. The new workout facility was built in an aircraft hangar and offers quite a robust capability.
Activated April 24th, 2014 at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, the 26th STS consists of personnel in the combat control, pararescue, tactical air control party and special operations weather careerfields as well as from 18 combat mission support Air Force Specialty Codes.
Here’s one from the AFSOC archives.
The AN/MSR-1 was used by USAF Security Agency personnel during the Viet Nam war to monitor friendly communications in SIGSEC missions. Capable of monitoring HF, VHF and UHF radio transmissions, the AN/MSR-1 could also monitor microwave communications. In addition to three receivers, the system was originally equipped with 12 tape recorders.
This ‘Misery’ is on display at the USAF Museum’s South East Asia War gallery at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.
