Friday, April 19, 2024
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The Air Force's latest attempt to develop a long-range strike capability will feature a mix of legacy and next-generation technologies that will be able to address myriad threat scenarios while keeping the effort cost-effective, according to the service's top uniformed official.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- NATO and Northrop Grumman officials are close to inking a deal that would place the company's RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft as the centerpiece of the alliance's next-generation air and ground surveillance system, company officials said this week.
As the Air Force continues to develop requirements for its long-range strike family of systems, its work will be focused on fielding a conventional weapon, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said today.
Pentagon officials and their counterparts at the Federal Aviation Administration must expedite efforts to set up the necessary protocols to allow unmanned aircraft operations above the continental United States, a senior military official said this week.
The White House has nominated Lt. Gen. Phillip Breedlove to become the Air Force's vice chief of staff, according to an internal service announcement.
Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter will soon identify a slate of initiatives designed to save billions within the Pentagon's procurement shop, according to a senior defense official.
Global Strike Command's recently released guidance on B-52 intelligence operations is the first of many the command plans to issue in the coming months, which will act as a gapfiller until the Air Staff issues permanent instruction for those operations, Inside the Air Force has learned.
As U.S. troops prepare for a limited draw down in Afghanistan starting next July, American air advisers working to stand up the Afghan National Air Force continue to wrestle with significant technological and cultural hurdles within that nascent force, a senior service official tells Inside the Air Force.
This week's announcement that Iran has successfully developed an unmanned strike capability has raised the stakes in an already tenuous relationship between Tehran and Washington.
The Air Force plans to open up its network of intelligence analysis centers to a handful of partner nations as a way to further streamline information sharing between U.S. and coalition forces, according to the air service's outgoing intel chief.
Senior officials from EADS North America are confident that Pentagon decision makers conducting the multibillion dollar aerial tanker competition will stick to its metrics-driven approach, an approach, they claim, will lead to the selection of an Airbus-built aircraft.
While the Air Force is confident it can meet the cost-cutting goals laid out by Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this month, emerging warfighting requirements and an increasingly stringent budget environment will make the process painful, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said today.
Despite an ongoing Defense Department review of potential follow-on options for the Air Force's premiere intercontinental ballistic missile program, development of a new ICBM system will not be one of those options, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said today.
Over the next three months, Pentagon officials will begin to break down the slate of independent task forces designed to close key warfighter capability gaps and return those authorities back to the proper directorates within the Defense Department.
The Pentagon's proposed cancellation of the C-17 airlifter next fiscal year will not have a negative impact on the industrial base that supports the aircraft's production, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers today.
Time is running out for the Defense Department, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
With U.S. and coalition forces months away from beginning one of the largest counterinsurgency operations of the Afghan war, one senior military commander is concerned that the Defense Department's overall COIN strategy may be headed in the wrong direction.
This week, the first cadre of Afghan Special Forces were graduated from the training and qualification course run by U.S. and coalition advisers, according to U.S. Special Operations Command chief Adm. Eric Olson.
The Defense Department wants to eliminate competition from the Pentagon's largest acquisition program and "earmark" $100 billion for a single defense contractor by canceling the F136 alternative engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter, which lawmakers are seeking to fund for a fifth consecutive year despite executive branch objections.
The Pentagon announced this month that Brig. Gen. Kevin Magnum will head its new aviation subordinate command, headquartered at Ft. Bragg, NC.