Air Force Will Lose Hundreds of Planes in New Pentagon Plan

The Air Force is preparing to trim hundreds of aircraft from its aging fleet in order to meet an Obama administration austerity order. The move will strike many Air Force supporters as ironic. Because just as the fleet is set to shrink, Defense Secretary ...

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ROTC cadet driven to become military pilot despite loss of leg

Matt Pirrello wasn’t about to let a simple drill get the better of him. So what if he had lost a leg?He had been doing “about-faces” — pivoting clockwise 180 degrees while standing at attention — since he joined the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 2009. Now, the once-simple act of raising his right foot, placing it about half a shoe length behind his left heel and then rotating, threw him. “The movement depends on having a knee and foot that bend in ways my prosthetic leg can’t,” said Pirrello, who lost his right leg in a training...

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The last nine seconds of the Galloping Ghost (Ignomini) Reno

A discussion with pictures of the mechanical failure causing the Reno Air Race crash.

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Pollution Fines Irk San Joaquin Valley Drivers

$12 Pollution Assessment To Be Added To Car Registration FeesEvery person who owns a non-commercial vehicle in the San Joaquin Valley will begin paying a fine for violating federal air quality standards starting in October, said the San Joaquin Valley Pollution Control District. The fine will show up as a $12 pollution assessment on a resident's annual car registration bill. "We will pay this fine every year until we go three straight years without violating tougher federal air quality standards," said Anthony Presto, a spokesman for the pollution control district. The reason for the fine is that the San Joaquin...

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DC Circuit Rejects EPA’s Reliance on Guidance Documents in Lieu of Rulemaking in Clean Air Act Case

EPA has recently suffered a series of defeats in court cases challenging its reliance on “guidance documents” that were never adopted as administrative rules. The most recent example has to do with guidance under the Clean Air Act (“CAA” or “Act”). In Natural Resources Defense Council (“NRDC”) v. EPA,[1] the D.C. Circuit held that EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) by relying on interpretive guidance – rather than a regulation – to allow states to propose alternatives to statutorily required fees for ozone non-attainment areas. Background The CAA requires EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards (“NAAQS”) on...

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