All of the stock AF pictures on the right are airplanes of Travis' squadron, the 22nd Fighter Squadron out of Spangdahlem AFB, Germany.

Capt. Swan writes, “The F-16-1 above is one of our jets taxiing out for a mission. In the photo below, the JDAM is an accessory we put on. Unfortunately this particular one fell off somewhere over Baghdad. This may have been the jet I dropped off of, but there's no way to tell. As far as the other statistics, the jet new is around $30 million, but no one really seems to know. We burn around 6,000# an hour average that ranges between cruise at ~4,000# an hour to 45,000 # an hour at takeoff in full grunt. Ground idle is about 1200# an hour. Costs vary between about $1000 an hour in fuel, who knows how much in mechanics and parts. Every time we launch a HARM, it's about $600,000 and each JDAM is somewhere between $3000 and $30,000 depending on who you ask. The custom paint job is reapplied every two to three years.

Travis is flying out of “somewhere in the Middle East” over Iraq. Sounds as if he is going into Baghdad. We are proud and fearful at the same time, hoping that his very expensive government training will stand the test.

Loading the JDAM for S-DAMN