Thursday, May 9, 2024
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, VA -- The Air Force's version of the Joint Strike Fighter has finally been cleared to fly at night and in poor weather, according to service officials from Air Combat Command and the F-35 program's training base in Florida.
Federal agencies involved in export control reform are prioritizing the release of new rules governing the export of satellites, spacecraft and military electronics, according to multiple government officials.
Close to half of the nuclear missile crew force at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana is currently decertified as a result of a cheating scandal at the base, and Air Force Global Strike Command has instituted a variety of inspections and investigations to re-evaluate the way it trains its airmen, service leaders said at the Pentagon today.
Two years after criticizing the Air Force's KC-46 tanker operational testing plan as completely unrealistic and "not executable," the Pentagon's top weapons tester has expressed his approval -- with some reservations -- of the service's testing proposal for the aircraft.
An investigation that began by looking into drug use across the Air Force has ballooned into a discovery by service officials that around 20 percent of the nuclear missile crew force at Malmstrom Air Force Base, MT, cheated on a missile proficiency test or knew about that cheating and did not report it.
In her first public comments since being confirmed by the Senate in December, new Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James revealed today that the service's fiscal year 2015 budget request will increase the role of its reserve components.
An Air Force requirement to sustain the B-1 Lancer aircraft for close to three decades is leading the service to seek upgrades and life-extension options for the bomber's engine, the F101 motor produced by GE Aviation.
The Air Force has moved to restructure the way it sustains the B-1 bomber with this week's award of a sole-source contract to Boeing, worth up to $750 million over five years, that covers an extremely broad set of engineering support.
The defense industry's leading radar providers have submitted their proposals to the Air Force for the final development and production phases of the Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar program.
FORT WORTH, TX -- Joint Strike Fighter prime contractor Lockheed Martin is close to its projected plan to deliver 36 F-35 aircraft to multiple services and international customers in calendar year 2013, although a handful of jets may not be formally delivered until early 2014 because of weather delays.
FORT WORTH, TX -- Air Education and Training Command's recently installed commander told reporters today that the Air Force is looking into the possibility of transitioning a small group of F-22 Raptor pilots to the F-35 program.
House and Senate authorizers have developed a solution for how to redistribute the C-27J Spartan airlifters the Air Force no longer wants, a deal contingent on the shift of HC-130 aircraft to the Forest Service, according to a recently released legislative agreement.
Boeing has agreed to team with Saab to propose a new trainer for the Air Force, potentially rounding out the field for an eventual T-X competition.
The Joint Strike Fighter's senior official said this week that the program does not plan to automatically choose Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney as its product support integrators in the future and is working through legal channels to obtain the data rights it would need to force those companies to compete for sustainment work.
The Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency last week sent members of Congress their tentative plan and cost projections for the Airborne Weapons Layer -- a ballistic missile defense concept in search of funding during an especially difficult budgetary period.
The Air Force has a new space policy chief in the Pentagon.
Just two months after rejecting the Boeing-built F-15 Silent Eagle as its next fighter aircraft and suspending a competition for that acquisition, the South Korean government has relaunched its procurement program, with all signs pointing to an upcoming buy of the Joint Strike Fighter.
Air Force officials today confirmed that the service received only one bid from industry for its Combat Rescue Helicopter program -- from Sikorsky, as widely reported -- and that a contract award on the program would come early next year if CRH is not terminated for budget reasons.
The National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force today held its third and final meeting in a series of closed hearings meant to prepare it to submit a final report to Congress early next year that could recommend reshaping the service and its reserve components.
A plan to radically alter the way the Air Force sustains the Boeing-built C-17 airlifter has unraveled, leading the service to leave the current structure -- a performance-based logistics contract with Boeing, who subcontracts engine work to F117 motor manufacturer Pratt & Whitney -- in place for now.