Author: Michael

The Air Force command that operates and protects nuclear weapons has returned the M18 pistol to service with its Security Forces and other personnel, a month after one of the guns killed an airman at a Wyoming nuclear base.
Out of close to 8,000 pistols inspected by the command, just under 200 were found to have some amount of wear on key firing mechanisms, though none were found to be responsible for any misfires. The M18 and a slightly larger variant known as the M17 are the standard handguns issued across the Department of Defense.

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Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer Jane Rathbun is leaving the federal government after more than three decades of service.
Rathbun announced her departure Friday in a post on LinkedIn.
“It is with gratitude, pride, and humility that I close out this chapter of my career as a civil servant,” she wrote, adding that sone of the best aspects of her career included delivering “game changing capabilities and mission outcomes,” driving strategy, “busting bureaucracy,” and partnering with industry and academia to “solve some wicked problems,” among others.

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Russia has more friends than Western analysts like to admit, even three years into the Russo-Ukrainian War. While many have paid close attention to Russia’s beneficial partnership with Iran, the introduction of North Korea’s legions into the Ukrainian battlespace, or persistent materiel support from China, Russia’s other rising-power relationship is often underdiscussed — that of India.The Russian-Indian relationship is both of longer duration and deeper history than those Russia has with its other key partners.

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At Mach 3 – three times the speed of sound – an SR-71 pilot would be pushing close to the aircraft’s top speed, but the plane would normally have been able to fly at those speeds for more than an hour. But normal flying isn’t what test pilots do. On January 25, 1966, Lockheed test pilot Bill Weaver and his backseater Jim Zwayer took off from Beale Air Force Base in an SR-71 Blackbird to do some abnormal flying on a Blackbird dubbed #952. 
Sadly, Zwayer wouldn’t return from the flight, an occupational hazard for many test pilots of that era.

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