With a long-awaited $1 billion multiyear contract in hand to deliver 32 C-130J aircraft, Lockheed Martin is poised to sustain its Hercules production line at least through the end of the decade.
Friday, May 3, 2024
Friday, May 3, 2024
Key Issues Budget 'parity' Summer CUAS demo EW in Ukraine
Courtney Albon was senior editor for aviation and space at Inside Defense until December 2021. She covered the Air Force since 2012, reporting largely on space programs and fighter aircraft acquisition, development and budget from inside Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and from military installations around the United States. Courtney previously worked as a general assignment reporter at The Ashland Times-Gazette in Ashland, OH, covering education and local government. She graduated from American University in 2008, where she studied journalism and sociology.
With a long-awaited $1 billion multiyear contract in hand to deliver 32 C-130J aircraft, Lockheed Martin is poised to sustain its Hercules production line at least through the end of the decade.
The Air Force is preparing to compete a 25-year-old T-38 trainer maintenance contract, and while the service is pleased with the current competitive outlook, it anticipates that transitioning to a new prime contractor could pose risks, according to an Air Combat Command spokesman.
The Air Force's acting acquisition executive said this week that the service's execution of the Defense Meteorological Satellite program is "an unfortunate example" of its ability to manage space programs, after taking heat from House lawmakers for alleged mismanagement of the program.
The Air Force has announced a plan to reduce 1,000 civilian positions as part of an effort to save money and "rebalance" its civilian workforce.
BAE Systems has been awarded an initial $20 million contract to develop an electronic warfare suite for U.S. Special Operations Command's C-130Js.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James will brief the Defense Space Council in early 2016 on the status of efforts to develop a Defense Department-wide satellite ground architecture.
As the Government Accountability Office measures the merits of the Air Force's Long-Range Strike Bomber competition, the rival teams continue to battle publicly over the highly sought program.
The F-35 joint program office and Lockheed Martin delivered 45 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in 2015, meeting the program's goal for the year, and surpassing last year's deliveries by 25 percent.
Enlisted airmen are now eligible to fly the RQ-4 Global Hawk, the Air Force announced Thursday -- part of a larger move to boost the remotely piloted aircraft workforce and reduce strain on operators.
The fiscal year 2016 omnibus appropriations legislation contains funding for 11 additional Joint Strike Fighters -- including six to replace AV-8B Harriers that were lost in Afghanistan in 2012.
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) condemned appropriators for including language in their draft fiscal year 2016 omnibus appropriations bill that would lift restrictions on the Defense Department's use of the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine -- restrictions that McCain and the Senate Armed Services Committee strongly supported.
The Air Force has issued two more contract awards to develop a new, domestically produced rocket engine.
Some must-reads from this week's issue of Inside the Air Force.
The Air Force is looking to transition sustainment of a key component of the National Capital Region's air defense system from a federally funded research center to industry -- a move the service expects will bring significant cost savings and stability to the program.
The chief architect of the Defense Department's effort to craft a "Third Offset Strategy" has branded a relatively new entity formed this fall in Colorado to prepare for conflict in space -- the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center -- as the first operational and organizational instantiation of the new strategy to strengthen U.S. conventional deterrence against Russia and China.
Air Combat Command on Thursday released the results of a study meant to develop strategies to better support the strained Remotely Piloted Aircraft workforce, recommending that the service double the number of RPA flying squadrons and increase manning by 3,000 airmen.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee is calling on the Defense Department to evaluate whether the United Launch Alliance's assertions that it cannot compete for an upcoming Global Positioning System launch have merit.
The next-generation Global Positioning System development program will be delayed by two years, the Air Force said Tuesday, due to continued challenges establishing the program's foundational software.
Lockheed Martin is working with the F-35 joint program office to craft a proposal to integrate the Joint Strike Fighter's full mission simulators with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps' virtual training environments and expects to be on contract next year.
The Air Force is developing a strategy to help it better forecast and anticipate the needs of its foreign allies in order to facilitate a less complicated, more expedient foreign military sales process.