Air Force Tour - Alternative Fuel Sources

August 30-31, 2006, McGuire AFB, New Jersey and Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio
Contact: New York Foreign Press Center
Telephone: 212-317-8325; email: nyfpc@state.gov

Twenty-two journalists representing 17 countries attended the event, which included briefings at New Jersey's McGuire AFB, as well as Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, Ohio.  The focus of the tour was alternative fuel sources, which AF personnel have been working on as a long-term solution to U.S. dependence on foreign oil.  Journalists were granted extensive, on-the-record interviews with scientists, and were allowed access to laboratories where military rocket-propulsion research was being conducted.  The tour also included flying from McGuire to WPAFB on a KC-135 aircraft, where journalists were able to visit the cockpit, speak with the pilots, and photograph an F-16 being aerially refueled by the 108th Air Refueling Wing of the Air National Guard.