Latest news with #T-38s
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Community leaders join ENJJPT trainers to foster relations
WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — It turned out to be a beautiful morning to fly over Wichita Falls. From briefing to takeoff and more, three area mayors got to experience ENJJPT. An experience they call continuing to build community relations. 'I actually thought I might [be getting] pranked,' Wichita Falls Mayor Tim Short said when asked about his reaction to the invitation. Short, along with Holliday Mayor Brad Litteken and Iowa Park Mayor Jeff Pogatshnik, took to the sky inside T-38s, an opportunity Short was quick to accept when invited. 'This shows just an added level of support between our community and our NATO partners to be able to come out and have this kind of experience is quite an honor,' Short said Littleken said Sheppard is sewn in all surrounding communities. As Holliday's mayor, getting a glimpse of ENJJPT helps him better his community. 'It's a big outreach,' Litteken said. 'It's definitely necessary, but we need to build those bridges with them. We've got plenty of pilots and things that live [in Holliday], so they're obviously directly connected to it.' Flights took off around 10:50 a.m. and lasted a little less than an hour. 80th Training Wing Commander Colonel Jeffery Shulman said bringing community partners on base will be a win-win for everybody. 'It's nice to be able to share some of that with them. To bring the military family together with the community. That's why we do these kinds of things,' Shulman said. 'We cannot do our mission; our families cannot be successful without the support of the communities around the base.' As communities come together, they continue to support the mission of ENJJPT. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Unbelievably dangerous': Delta flight to Minneapolis has close call with Air Force jet
Only 58 days after 67 people were killed in a mid-air collision between a passenger jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River, another air disaster was narrowly avoided Friday when a Delta jet bound for Minneapolis had a close call with an Air Force T-38 jet. According to CNN, warning signals sounded in cockpit of Delta Flight 2983 as it was departing Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport around 2:15 p.m. CT Friday. Delta has confirmed that 131 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots were on the plane, and CNN is reporting that the Air Force jet buzzed by at an altitude of 800 feet and a speed greater than 350 mph. According to CNN, citing air traffic control audio from says a pilot on the Delta plane asked air traffic controllers if there was "an actual aircraft about 500 feet below us as we came off the DCA (DCA is the code for the airport). The controller responded: 'Delta 2983, affirmative." "Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people," Delta said in a statement. "That's why the flight crew followed procedures to maneuver the aircraft as instructed." .U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar called the reported incident "unbelievably dangerous." "Unbelievably dangerous and thank God people are safe," Klobuchar posted on X. "My first call to Department of Defense tomorrow: why are your planes flying 500 feet below passenger jets full of Minnesotans headed from DCA to my state." Flight Aware says Delta Flight 2983 landed safety at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at 4:46 p.m. CT Friday. CNN says the Air Force jet that allegedly flew close to the Delta flight was one of four T-38s that were participating in a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's anti-DEI purges are wiping out stories of my Air Force service. It's un-American censorship.
A Department of Defense memo on February 26 mandated that all content related to DEI be removed from DoD websites. Jessica Peterson, a flight test engineer with the Air Force for nearly 20 years, has seen her work removed. She says history shouldn't be removed and is concerned about future opportunities for women and minorities. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jessica "STING" Peterson, a 42-year-old flight test engineer who has worked with the Air Force for nearly 20 years, first as a civil servant and later as a contractor. In February, Peterson found out that many articles highlighting her accomplishments or written by her would be removed following orders in a memo from the Office of the Secretary of Defense about the removal of content related to DEI from Department of Defense websites. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I've been a flight test engineer for nearly 20 years, and it's been amazing. We're the bridge between design engineers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman who are designing the system, and users — the warfighters and pilots — who will use the system. When I very first started working for the Air Force 20 years ago as a college intern, I was the only woman on my team. Throughout my career, I've sometimes been the only woman in the room. But to be honest, I usually don't even notice it. As I've gotten more experience and more credentials — like graduating from test pilot school, which is very hard to get into — my confidence has grown. For most of my career, the gender divide hasn't been that big of a deal to me, which is one of the reasons that the removal of content about me has been so shocking. In articles written about women, even if the focus wasn't on someone being a woman, there was often a side note about their gender and the things they had to overcome because it was unique, making them susceptible to now being removed. It is un-American and incorrect to remove historical context; no history should be removed. As test flight engineers, we collect data and evaluate the systems to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to. The exciting part is flying in airplanes; I've flown in over 40 different types of airplanes, including F-16s and T-38s, which are supersonic fighter aircraft, and C-12s, which are cargo planes. I had friends in the public affairs office who warned me that several articles about and by me would be removed, such as one about a flyover by our female crew to send off the US women's soccer team to the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2023. When I first found out, I honestly thought, Oh, that's a bummer. But I wasn't majorly upset; we already had the benefit of doing the outreach and getting kids excited about flying and about STEM. When the articles started getting removed, it became more emotional. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I told my family, and my daughter was devastated. I saw the impact that this will have on the next generation. It isn't just about removing the stories — it's about the message that it sends to the next generation of kids. I'm concerned that there will be fewer opportunities for them, especially females and minorities, in the future. It was unfortunate to see one of our factual articles about the testing of aircrew flight equipment that fits females removed. For years, women didn't have bladder relief systems while flying, so many were having medical issues and dealing with tactical dehydration from not drinking water. I was so encouraged when there started to be a focus on getting these systems for women in the last four or five years. As an engineer, I want to solve problems. That was a problem we were trying to solve, and then the article was removed. It was sad. When I first started flying about 10 years ago, I remember specifically asking for a female flight suit, and I was told no because they were more expensive. I didn't question it because I felt so happy and fortunate to get to fly. I don't want any woman to have to deal with that in the future. I decided it was important to let people know that this was happening, so I posted my experience on LinkedIn. The response I've gotten has been so positive. Many previous coworkers, including male fighter pilots, have reached out to tell me how much they appreciate my contributions and how shocked they are about what's happening. Last year, I took students from the aerospace engineering club of the University of Nevada, Reno, where I'm currently working on my Ph.D., on a tour to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert to see how flight tests work. Several of those students have reached out to tell me how much they support me. That's been encouraging. I've also had many Department of Defense civilians and military members reach out and express frustration and fear over what's happening. They feel they can't publicly speak out, and I fear there's been extensive damage to the morale and trust in the DoD workforce. With the recent statement from the DoD on the reassessment of archived content, I'm hopeful that all historical content will be restored, but I haven't seen any action yet. Within the last two weeks, two more news blurbs about our US women's soccer team flyover were deleted from other Air Force websites. I want people to contact their representatives and say, "We should not be removing history. We should not be removing articles based on specific words that are in them." I believe that the vast majority of the US population, independent of their political beliefs, thinks that censorship and removal of history aren't right but people just don't know it's already happening. A Department of the Air Force spokesperson told BI: "In response to President Trump's Executive Orders and Secretary Hegseth's priorities, all Military Departments received guidance from the Department of Defense to review and remove DoD news and feature articles, photos, videos and social media posts that promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion." The spokesperson said that public affairs teams across the Department of the Air Force (DAF) used keywords to identify and remove content from service websites and social media accounts that did not align with the DoD memo's guidance, adding that part of the process involved consulting the DAF historian. The spokesperson did not specify which keywords were used to locate the content for removal but said that the review was based on the February 26 memo and that around 45,0000 pieces of content have been removed. Regarding the March 21 statement that the DoD will be reevaluating content that was archived that should not have been, the spokesperson said: "We are not tracking the items that have been or are being restored. Our intent is to restore purely historical content after we review to make sure it complies with the guidelines." Do you work in the federal government and have a story or tip? Contact this reporter via email at janezhang@ or Signal at janezhang.01. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely. Read the original article on Business Insider
