U.S. Air Force Archives - The Virginia Star

Air Force Officials Paid About 8,000% More Than They Should Have on Soap Dispensers for Aircrafts, Watchdog Finds

October 31, 2024 Daily Caller News Foundation

The Air Force has been overpaying for basic soap dispensers for its aircraft fleet — to the tune of nearly $150,000 in extra costs, according to the Pentagon’s watchdog agency.

The Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) launched an investigation into the Air Force’s expenditures on spare parts for its fleet of C-17s, the military’s largest transport aircraft. The investigation report, released on Tuesday, found that not only had Air Force officials massively overpaid by hundreds of thousands of dollars for some spare parts, but spent 7,943 percent more than it should have on soap dispensers for restrooms on the aircraft, or “more than 80 times the commercially available cost.”

Commentary: Trump Must Reform the Pentagon’s Acquisition Process

April 30, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

Forget the $500 hammer. The newest report from the Government Accountability Office puts the cost of America’s ailing Lightning II F-35 joint strike fighter at an estimated $2 trillion.

Have all those zeros bought the American taxpayer an invincible flying machine?

Watchdog Files Complaint over Concerns on Top Air Force Gen. Brown’s Diversity Hire Priorities

July 10, 2023 Just the News

A top U.S. Air Force official is making hiring decisions based on race and ideology, in possible violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to a complaint filed Monday by a nonprofit watchdog.

The complaint is being filed by the American Accountability Foundation is in response to public comments made by Air Force chief of staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown about his hiring policies.

U.S. Air Force Abandoned a Social Experiment Designed to Graduate More Minority Pilots: Report

May 8, 2023 Admin

The U.S. Air Force abandoned an experiment aimed at boosting pilot training graduation rates for women and minority pilots after the 2021 initiative failed to achieve the intended results and officers privately warned it could violate anti-discrimination policies, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As part of the larger military-wide effort to promote diversity in the service’s pilot ranks, the 19th Air Force command near San Antonio, Texas, “clustered” racial minorities and female trainees into one class, dubbed “America’s Class,” to find out if doing so would improve the pilots’ graduation rates. However, not only did the effort fail to boost minority and women candidates’ success rates, but officers involved say they were ordered to engage in potentially unlawful discrimination by excluding white males from the class, documents show.

Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Air Force Officer Who Defied Vaccine Mandate

February 20, 2022February 19, 2022 Virginia Star Staff

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Georgia ruled in favor of an anonymous Air Force officer who refused to take a COVID-19 vaccine as per the Air Force’s mandate, scoring another victory for freedom of religion.

According to CNN, Judge Tilman Self issued a preliminary injunction forbidding both the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force from enforcing its vaccine mandate on the female officer, who sought a religious exemption from the vaccine.

Air Force Admits to Lowering Physical Fitness Standards to Allow Woman to Join Elite Unit

January 10, 2022 Admin

The U.S. Air Force allegedly went out of its way to lower the standards of physical fitness tests and other exams in order to ensure that a female candidate could ultimately qualify for the elite Special Tactics team, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The allegations stem from an anonymous memo that was received by the Beacon, claiming that a female candidate who repeatedly failed and quit multiple times when she initially couldn’t pass the training program was allowed to try again until the qualifications were lowered in her favor.

Over 2,000 Vaccine Religious Exemption Requests Denied by Air Force

December 27, 2021 Admin

On Tuesday, the U.S. Air Force announced that it had rejected approximately 2,130 requests from service members for a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, as reported by the Daily Caller.

“More than 10,000 requests from across the Total Force have been received,” the Air Force’s statement read, “of which approximately 2,100 have been disapproved due to military readiness considerations.”