5 Things to Start Your Week

Here are five news stories and events to start your week, from the editors at Military.com:

US Flies Powerful Warplanes Amid Tensions with North Korea

Via Hyung-jin Kim at the Associated Press: "The U.S. military flew advanced bombers and stealth jets over the Korean Peninsula and near Japan in drills with South Korean and Japanese warplanes on Monday, three days after North Korea fired a missile over Japan. The United States often sends powerful military aircraft in a show of force in times of heightened animosities with North Korea. The North launched its latest missile as it protested against tough new U.N. sanctions over its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3."

Army Test Report Buries Performance of Magpul PMAG

Via Matthew Cox at Military.com: "The U.S. Army 2015 test report on commercial rifle magazines appears to bury the findings that show that the Magpul PMAG polymer magazine outperformed government magazines and other magazine vendors in the evaluation, according to a copy of the document. U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center evaluated 10 commercial magazine designs and two government magazine designs for Product Manager Individual Weapons. Testers loaded the magazines into M4A1s, M16A4s, and Marine M27 Infantry Automatic Rifles and fired thousands of rounds during the evaluation."

SecNav to Testify Before Senators on Deadly Ship Collisions

Also Tuesday, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer is scheduled to appear 9:30 a.m. before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the deadly collisions involving naval destroyers and commercial vessels in the Pacific. The panel is headed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who's battling an aggressive form of brain cancer and whose father and grandfather are the namesake for one of the ships, the USS John S. McCain. Spencer will testify alongside Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson and John Pendleton, director of defense force structure and readiness issues for the Government Accountability Office.

2 Big Military Expos This Week: AFA and Modern Day Marine

Today marks the start of the Air Force Association's biggest event of the year: the three-day Air, Space & Cyber Conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., outside Washington, D.C. Here's the agenda and here's Military.com's Oriana Pawlyk breakdown of what to expect. In an unusual overlap, tomorrow is the first day of the Marine Corps League's three-day Modern Day Marine expo in Quantico, Va. Both shows will feature panel discussions with service leaders and Pentagon officials, as well as exhibits from defense contractors. Military.com will provide wall-to-wall coverage of both shows.

'A Different Feeling': Navy Pilots Describe Shooting Down SU-22

Via Hope Hodge Seck at Military.com: "The day started out with a close-air support mission and ended with the first Navy air-to-air "kill" since 1991. Three months after an F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to the carrier George H.W. Bush shot down a Syrian Su-22 Fitter near Raqqa, Syria, on June 18, the four Navy pilots who participated in the mission offered a blow-by-blow account during a special panel at the Tailhook 2017 Symposium, held Sept. 7-10. In a recording first uncovered by The Drive on Thursday, the pilots describe an operating environment that had become more unpredictable and dynamic."

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.