The Air Force expects to cut its procurement of the Joint Strike Fighter this fiscal year by as many as five aircraft as a result of sequestration, a top service official said today.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
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The Air Force expects to cut its procurement of the Joint Strike Fighter this fiscal year by as many as five aircraft as a result of sequestration, a top service official said today.
ORLANDO, FL -- Air Education and Training Command will be able to continue Joint Strike Fighter training at Eglin Air Force Base, FL, during sequestration even though JSF instruction is classified as advanced training, according to AETC's commanding officer.
ORLANDO, FL -- Looming budget cuts are likely to push the Air Force into a state of tiered readiness, an operational strategy employed by the Army and Navy but contrary to the air service's requirement to react quickly to global conflicts, according to a senior Air Force official.
ORLANDO, FL -- The Defense Department should alter the way it approaches base closures to emphasize the likelihood of the facility successfully converting to civilian use rather than attempting to eliminate those with the lowest military utility, according to Air Force Gen. Mike Hostage.
ORLANDO, FL -- The Air Force's chief of staff today quantified the impact of civilian furloughs on the service -- 31.5 million man-hours in what remains of fiscal year 2013 if those furloughs are exercised to their maximum legal extent.
Joint Strike Fighter program officials have lifted a ban on flights of the F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing aircraft nearly a month after an incident in Florida led to the fleet's grounding.
The combination of sequestration and a full-year continuing resolution will force the Air Force to buy at least two fewer Joint Strike Fighters than it planned in fiscal year 2013, while cutting $2 billion from sustainment and likely breaking its contract with Lockheed Martin to re-engine the C-5 cargo fleet, according to two senior service officials.
Air Force Global Strike Command has decided to trim the flying hours of its workhorse B-52 fleet by 10 percent, effective immediately, in an effort to prepare for sequestration-related budget cuts that could come next month.
The Joint Strike Fighter program office is mindful of the potential risks in shifting test points within its planned test program and believes it is making progress on a number of troublesome F-35 items, including the carrier variant's tailhook, the program's logistics system, future software blocks and the next-generation helmet to be used on all three versions of the jet.
Joint Strike Fighter program officials have formally identified a "quality discrepancy" related to the aircraft's engine -- introduced by one of engine provider Pratt & Whitney's suppliers -- as the root cause of a recent failure on the F-35B, the Marine Corps' short-takeoff-and-vertical landing version of the aircraft.
Officials from the F-35 joint program office and the Defense Intelligence Agency have determined that security concerns about some material included in F-35 academic courseware are not serious and have been resolved.
The Marine Corps variant of the Joint Strike Fighter is likely to remain grounded for "several weeks" until program officials are confident they have explained and corrected an issue with the F-35B's fueldraulic system, according to a senior program official.
Air Force leaders yesterday instructed the service's major commands to begin implementing small-scale cost-saving actions linked to sequestration, moves laid out by the secretary and chief of staff last week.
The Pentagon's top weapons tester has praised the Air Force for stretching out its KC-46A tanker developmental schedule to reflect a more realistic duration but warned that many of the service's assumptions on the pace of that program are still too optimistic.
The Air Force's secretary and chief of staff this week described in detail the cuts, reductions and delays the service would have to put in place to mitigate the negative impacts of sequestration, the most eye-popping of which is a possible flying stand-down this summer.
Helicopter builder Sikorsky has decided to bid for the Air Force's Combat Rescue Helicopter program with a version of its H-60 aircraft, the likely favorite to win the competition.
Air Force officials conducting a study on the viability of merging commercial and military terminals for the Wideband Global Satellite Communications constellation hope to have those terminals installed aboard aircraft within five years of the study's conclusion, depending on the results of the analysis.
As Air Force officials review data from the recent Orbital Test Vehicle launch to inform an ongoing accident investigation board, NASA -- which is contributing to that analysis -- plans to move ahead with a scheduled January launch without making significant changes to its rocket booster as a result of that AIB.
The commanding officer of the Air Force's training arm has certified the results of a recently completed F-35A training curriculum evaluation and given his command the go-ahead to begin formal Joint Strike Fighter pilot training in January.
The field of competitors for the Air Force's Combat Rescue Helicopter narrowed to one today as a trio of potential competitors announced they would not submit bids on the program.