Anecdotal evidence, yes, but I think their corporate cover up makes sense
culturally because of the USAF's very tight regulation and zero tolerance
for mistakes.

I agree, the Air Force has always been better at PR then the other services.

As long as we are on the subject, there was an incident a few years back
when a younger F-14 pilot was on a cross country flight and stopped to
re-fuel at his home town airport, just so his family could see him. The
F-14 crashed on either takeoff or departure while leaving the hometown
airport. Not sure how he justified landing at a non-military airfield for
re-fueling unless there weren't any military airfields around - I think that
was one of the focal points of the accident investigation. Not sure if he
was hot-dogging it when departing or if something just went wrong. Perhaps
someone else has more accurate details.

JD