Pave Low From Son Tay Raid Retires

Pave Low From Son Tay Raid Retires: An Air Force Special Operations Command MH-53 helicopter flew its last combat mission in Iraq March 28 and is being retired after 38 years of service. This particular airframe, tail number 68-10357, has a distinguished past, having been the lead command-and-control platform for the daring raid into North Vietnam in November 1970 to rescue US prisoners of war from the Son Tay prison camp west of Hanoi. Although the raid was a tactical failure because no POWs were found, it was also considered a success because its symbolic significance boosted POW morale and led the North Vietnamese to change the way that they held prisoners. The helicopter, the last of the five MH-53s from the raid still around, will be transported to the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, where it will sit on display in the Cold War gallery. The Air Force expects to retire all of its remaining MH-53s by October. (Includes Hurlburt report by TSgt. Kristina Newton)

4/11/2008

Verbatim

To Be Clear
“Just like in my business, the issues that go badly get all of the attention. I think, to be clear with you, there are many things that are managed well every day in the Air Force.”
—John Young, Pentagon acquisition executive, speaking to defense reporters on the state of Air Force acquisition, Washington, D.C., Nov. 20, 2008.

Verbatim

F-22 Options
“They have two choices. On January 21st, they can obligate the $90 million and decide there's some chance ... that they will buy the airplanes and they'd rather preserve the option to buy [them] at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Or, they could chose not to obligate the $90 million and accept that they still have a decision to be made between then and March 1st. But that decision may cost the taxpayer more money.”
—DOD acquisition czar John Young on how releasing only $50 million of the $140 million authorized by Congress to keep the F-22 production line active until March 2009 still preserves options for the new Administration, Capitol Hill, Nov. 19, 2008.