Courtney Albon

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.

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Daily News | September 15, 2015

The head of the Air Force's KC-46 program office said Tuesday the aircraft's first flight is slated for next week, and he remains "cautiously confident" that Boeing will meet its contractual mandate to deliver 18 new tankers by August 2017, despite recent schedule slips.

Daily News | September 15, 2015

A change in acquisition strategy for an F-16 radar upgrade could set the Air Force back as much as one year in its plans to modernize a narrow set of Air National Guard aircraft, according to the head of Air Combat Command.

Daily News | September 14, 2015

The Air Force will not be prepared by 2018 to participate in a proposed F-35 block buy deal, according to the director of the service's F-35 integration office.

Daily News | September 14, 2015

As the F-35 Joint Program Office works to finalize a plan for the aircraft's Block 4 follow-on capabilities, the Air Force's Joint Strike Fighter integration office is concerned about how a long-term continuing resolution could impact that plan.

Daily News | September 9, 2015

Comparison testing that would pit the F-35 against the decades-old A-10 to measure the fifth-generation fighter's close-air-support capabilities was not in the Joint Strike Fighter's testing plan until this year, according to F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan.

Daily News | September 3, 2015

Air Force officials disclosed this week that the service has completed major subsystem risk reduction on its Long-Range Strike Bomber, which they expect will shorten the time frame required for the engineering and manufacturing development phase.

Daily News | August 31, 2015

In separate letters to Defense Secretary Ash Carter released Aug. 31, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) criticized two top priority Air Force programs, the Long-Range Strike Bomber and the KC-46 Tanker -- both of which have been under increased scrutiny recently for delays and cost projection errors.

Daily News | August 26, 2015

The Government Accountability Office has denied Lockheed Martin's protest of a $700 million award to Raytheon to sustain the Air Force's Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado.

The Insider | August 25, 2015

After confirming last week that the Air Force had delivered to Congress inaccurate 10-year cost projections for the Long-Range Strike Bomber two years in a row, service Secretary Deborah Lee James said Monday that the Air Force has double-checked the other numbers in the report and believes them to be correct.

Daily News | August 24, 2015

The Air Force is closely reviewing Boeing's KC-46 tanker schedule to determine whether the company can still deliver on its contractual obligations after a series of schedule delays.

Daily News | August 17, 2015

Boeing confirmed Monday to InsideDefense.com that a fuel tank erosion incident involving its first militarized KC-46 test aircraft will delay that tanker's first flight by "roughly a month."

The Insider | August 14, 2015

As the Air Force looks ahead to formal bid solicitations for the next-generation trainer family of systems in fiscal year 2016, the service on Friday released a sources-sought synopsis, asking industry to respond to a series of questions about general capabilities, production processes and engineering and integration.

Daily News | August 11, 2015

If not implemented correctly, the Air Force's approach to the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle acquisition could mean sacrificing contractor insight for competition, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

Daily News | August 3, 2015

A recent study found that the Air Force could broaden the utility of its MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned vehicle operations in non-permissive environments using existing, off-the-shelf technology.

The Insider | July 31, 2015

From this week's issue of Inside the Air Force:

Daily News | July 31, 2015

The Air Force is actively following the Federal Aviation Administration-led investigation of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch failure, a process that will feed its own review of the launch vehicle's reliability.

Daily News | July 28, 2015

The Air Force and Missile Defense Agency are "very close" to wrapping up an analysis of alternatives for a follow-on to the Space-Based Infrared System constellation, and officials expect that the next-generation solution will need to meet a range of needs from multiple organizations.

The Insider | July 24, 2015

From this week's edition of Inside the Air Force . . .

Daily News | July 20, 2015

A rupture that occurred last February onboard a legacy weather satellite has created at least 147 pieces of debris -- some as small as a baseball and others as large as a basketball -- according to an Air Force review of the incident.

The Insider | July 17, 2015

From this week's edition of Inside the Air Force:

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