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AIR FORCE LEADERS (e.g., TOP BANANAS ... HEAD HONCHOS) |
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ON A HEAD FOR AN OFFICIAL USAF BIOGRAPHY |
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GATES
Secretary
of Defense
Robert M. Gates became Secretary of Defense on
Dec. 18, 2006. Gates is the
principal defense policy adviser to the President and is
responsible for the formulation of general defense
policy and policy related to all matters of direct
concern to the Department of Defense.
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DONLEY
Future
Secretary
of the Air Force
Michael B. Donley is the new
acting secretary of the Air Force, succeeding Michael
Wynne. He is
responsible for the affairs of the Department of the Air
Force, including organizing, training, equipping and
providing for the welfare of its people.
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SCHWARTZ
Chief of Staff
of the Air Force
Gen. Norton A. Schwartz is Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air
Force. He is the senior uniformed Air Force officer
responsible for the organization, training and equipping
of 700,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian
forces serving in the United States and overseas.
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McKINLEY
CMSgt.
of the Air Force
Chief Master Sergeant of the
Air Force Rodney J. McKinley serves as the personal adviser to the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Air Force on all issues regarding the welfare, readiness, morale, and proper utilization and progress of the enlisted force.
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17 survive
devastating C-5 crash at Dover
All 17
Airmen aboard the C-5 Galaxy that
crashed near Dover Air Force Base, Del.,
April 3, 2006, miraculously survived.
The huge cargo plane crashed at 6:30
a.m. EDT. Television news reports
of the crash showed the aircraft's tail
a distance from the main wreckage, where
the fuselage and nose are adjacent but
separated. The last C-5 crash was
on Aug. 28, 1990, during Operation
Desert Shield. A C-5 crashed after
takeoff from Ramstein Air Base, Germany,
killing 13 of the 17 people on board. |
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View your DOD
Service Information
The Defense Department offers a Web site
where you can view your entire military
service record -- every school, college
credit for Professional Military Education,
job descriptions, AFSC and skill level
descriptions, civilian equivalent
experience, and more. There's stuff in
there you probably didn't even know about
yourself. You'll need your
myPay PIN, so if you don't know what it
is, you'll have to go to
myPay and request another.
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Retirement
Calculator
Before you retire (doing your co-workers a
favor), use
the Air Force Personnel Center retirement
calculator to find out how much the
government will pay you for simply sitting
on your butt. Be warned, you're going
to need some service dates I'm sure you
don't remember, such as TAFMS, DIEMS, pay
date, 1405 date, etc. If you have
access to the
Virtual MPF, search for the service
dates on your personnel data rip.
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Military Pay In's and Out's
What could be more important than the money and services we receive as members of the U.S. CHairforce? Here's a list of useful Web sites related to your pay and benefits:
The CHairforce Financial Services Center maintains an awesome Web site for all your military finance needs. CHECK IT OUT!
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 Learn to read that damn LES
When you get your Leave and
Earning Statement (LES), do you throw it in a kitchen
drawer and forget about it until they pile so high you
can't open the drawer? Then you just toss them all
in the garbage to make room for the next year's pay
stubs? Next time, take a close look at your LES
(chances are, you're receiving too much money and the
CHairforce will discover the mistake two years from now
and deduct $17,500 from your next 12 paychecks.)
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Do you
know?
Annual military
pay raises are linked to the increase in private sector
wages. Beginning with the Jan. 1, 2000, pay raise,
annual pay raises through 2006 were set at one-half
percent above private-sector average increases as
measured by the Employment Cost Index. |
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E-mailing
PIN numbers? What a concept
It may no longer take weeks to receive a new Personal Identification Number (PIN) for your myPay account, according to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. DFAS is finally releasing myPay PINs through official e-mail.
According to DFAS folks, Within two hours of requesting a new or updated PIN on the myPay Web site
(https://mypay.dfas.mil), CHairforce folks can expect to receive the PIN at their official Air Force e-mail. Air Force Directory Services has authenticated approximately 70 percent of Air Force e-mail address based upon the global address list and other sources. Not bad odds, but I guess if you have one of the e-mail that
haven't been validated, grab a good book and prepare to wait awhile to get your
trusty PIN. |
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| AIR
FORCE AIRCRAFT - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE |
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Yesterday's
Air Force
Hands
down, the coolest 'historical' aircraft.
The first SR-71 Blackbird flew on Dec. 22, 1964.
That's 40 years ago, but even by today's standards, the
Blackbird is pretty freakin' slick. Equally
impressive is that an aircraft first flown just 12 years
after the invention of the color TV, could fly more than
2,100 mph. CLICK
HERE for more details.
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Today AND
Tomorrow
The F/A-22 Raptor -- the Air Force's
new air superiority fighter -- will dominate the air
combat arena by integrating advanced avionics, stealth and
super cruise. It looks real cool, too. The
Raptor is the most advanced fighter
aircraft in the world.
CLICK
HERE for more details.
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Tomorrow's
Air Force
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a stealthy, supersonic
multi-role fighter designed to meet the requirement for a
new generation of transformational weapons. 2,593 F-35s
are currently planned for the U.S. and U.K. With stealth
and a host of next-generation technologies, the F-35 will
be far and away the world’s most advanced multi-role
fighter. |
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For years,
the Air Force has attempted to purchase a new strategic
refueling aircraft, a program called KC-X, to
replace the aging KC-135 Stratotanker (the KC-135
celebrated its 50th birthday last year) . Thanks to a
convoluted contracting system, the aircraft still has not
been selected. The
leading aircraft include Northrop Grumman’s KC-30 Tanker,
and Boeing’s KC-767 Advanced Tanker. Checkout the
Wikipedia KC-X page for all the details. |
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The notional
Global Range Aircraft (based on a mission of
150,000 pounds payload and over a 12,000 nautical mile
range) will allow America to project its airpower without
relying costly overseas bases or pre-positioned supplies.
Design concepts include everything from evolutionary two-
and four-engine designs to revolutionary designs like the
Box-Wing (pictured at left) and Blended-Wing-Body (much
like the B-2 stealth bomber). |
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Is there a future without pilots? The
Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System X-45A successfully completed its first weapons release from the unmanned aircraft's internal bay above Edwards AFB, Calif., March 20, 2004. This marks the first weapons release from the internal bay of the high-speed, stealthy, unmanned aircraft. |
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Web sites help spouses of deployed personnel
 For those who haven't heard about Operation Homefront, checkout their Web site at
www.operationhomefront.net. Operation Homefront is an organization which offers people an opportunity to contribute to the War on Terrorism by helping the military families at home. Operation Homefront maintains more than 20 chapters scattered throughout the United States.
On the Operation Homefront Web site, they also tout another site for spouses of deployed personnel. Follow this link
(www.cinchouse.com) to
"CINC House," a community devoted to spouses of
deployed service members.
After reviewing both Web sites, I discovered the two organizations offer some interesting and useful information for military spouses. However, CINC House's "Military Monthly Paycheck Estimator" was a tad
condescending. It let's users type in amounts of BAH, BAS, COLA, etc., and then presents the total gross income so spouses can see how many greenbacks their military spouse pulls in each month. I guess it would be handy if the spouse didn't have
... let's say ... a bank statement, perhaps.
Ok, I might have poked a
little fun at the Paycheck Estimator, but the truth is, CINC House offers a
truckload of useful information for military folks and their spouses. Just make sure your Internet Service Provider bill is paid and your spouse has the address to both Web sites before you jump on that plane bound for Baghdad. |
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| OFFICIAL
AIR
FORCE FACT SHEETS (LINKED TO
AIR FORCE WEB SITE) |
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Checkout the
latest Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) policy
(as of September
2007)
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Here's some more guidance on
how to take care of your sparkling new ABUs.
Optical Brighteners bad.
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The mission of the U.S. Air Force
is basically to defend the United States and protect its interests using a kick ass
arsenal of aerospace power. VIEW
FACT SHEET
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Need a reason to drink
beer? Raise your glass to a moment in Air Force
history.
For instance, on March 1,
1954, the United States exploded its first hydrogen
bomb. Yep, have a drink in honor of mass
destruction.
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December |
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Acronym
List
The
Department of Defense uses acronyms to describe everything
from weapons systems and programs to contingency
operations and office equipment. Need to find out
what an acronym means? Chance are good you'll find
it on our list. CHECK
IT OUT! |
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Military Phonetic
Alphabet
Trying to figure out what all that alpha, bravo, tango
crap is? Here's an abbreviated history of the
military's unique alphabet, including past and current
versions of the special code ...
CLICK HERE.
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For CHairforce supervisors who need more than a baseball bat and a box of crayons to do their job, here's a Microsoft Word doc that lists a truckload of useful
information. So, when Airman Smith asks you when he'll be
testing for
staff sergeant, the answer is only as far as your computer monitor (but
as far Airman Smith knows, it took you 12 phone calls and four trips to the MPF to
find the answer).
DOWNLOAD
DOCUMENT
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CHairforce
Uber Links
This is a page
packed full of Web links related to the Defense
Department. At last count, there were more than
150 links, to everything from the Air Force-related
sites, to pay and finance sites, to other armed services
Web sites, government sites, and more. |
Air
Force Bases
This page is packed full of links
to every Air Force base, from Alexandria to Yokota. |
Air Force
Link
The U.S. Air
Force's official Web site for news, images, art,
biographies, fact sheets and more. |
Air
Force Portal
The Air Force
Portal is the Air Force's newest Internet technology, in
which Air Force people can access a variety of AF
products and services (registration required), including
MyPay, Virtual MPF, and more. |
Air
Force Crossroads
Saying that Crossroads
is a sort of online Family Support Center doesn't quite
give the site enough credit. It has tons of
information for airmen and their families. |
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Need something to
throw darts at as you're filling out your dream
sheet? Check out this map of stateside Air
Force bases. |
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Learn the "Army-proof"
method of hand-to-hand combat. In a few years --
when we're the Army Air Corps again -- you'll be a
step head of the rest. |
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Here's something I didn't know about until
recently. Airmen can download their
basic training photo from AFLink's new
USAF Basic Military Training Flight Photograph Project Web
site. They have most photos from
2003 to present, but the last time we checked,
it was pretty hit and miss
prior to '03. |
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