Friday, December 6, 2024
Key Issues MQ-25 Stingray USSF pLEO spending cap JLTV funding
The French air force has deployed its first E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft modified to the Block 40/45 configuration to the Persian Gulf to support military operations there, and meanwhile its first two MQ-9 Reapers in Africa are flying far more missions than expected.
The Air Force would shift satellites onto the SpaceX Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance Delta IV rockets if Russia decides to halt delivery of the remaining order of RD-180 rocket engines for the Atlas V launch vehicle, even though that backup plan for maintaining assured access to space would be very expensive.
The head of the Air Force Research Laboratory's directed-energy office believes the new AC-130J Ghostrider gunship could carry a high-power, electric laser weapon, and he plans to meet with Air Force Special Operations Command chief Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold in early May to discuss future requirements.
Boeing expects to deliver its first batch of production extended-range Joint Direct Attack Munition wing kits to the Royal Australian Air Force later this week followed by another delivery in September, approximately tripling the potential range of Australia's 500-pound class JDAMs to more than 45 nautical miles.
The Air Force's use of sole-source information technology contracts was properly justified in the 58 cases reviewed by the Pentagon's inspector general, even though 20 of those files did not contain all of the documents required to comply with certain federal acquisition regulations because contracting staff were not properly trained.
Despite the United States' adoption of the "3+2 strategy" that would whittle 12 nuclear weapon types down to five, there is currently no plan to do away with what would be the sixth nuclear weapon type -- the bunker-busting B61-11 nuclear bomb.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh has raised the prospect of buying a more efficient and deadly manned aircraft to support close-air-support missions in low-end threat environments "in the relatively near- and mid-term if the money would allow it."
Lt. Gen. David Goldfein has been tapped to become the next Air Force vice chief of staff, a position currently held by Gen. Larry Spencer.
The Air Force has sealed the last of its Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile launch silos including one test launcher at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, as the United States and Russia move closer toward compliance with agreed New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty numbers.
The head of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program expects the $400 billion fighter jet program to lift itself out of the concurrency “rut” by about 2017 or 2018 as the number of aircraft and engine faults discovered during developmental testing continues to decline.
Naval Air Systems Command's V-22 joint program office is looking to enlist as many foreign buyers as possible ahead of its third multiyear procurement in 2018 for Navy versions of the Bell-Boeing Osprey to drive down the unit cost.
A future fighter aircraft is likely to need more range and payload than speed and agility as countries like Russia, China and Iran invest in long-range air defenses that can keep high-value support assets including aerial refueling tankers up to 1,000 nautical miles away from their military installations, but stealth remains critical despite advances in radar technology, according to a new Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments study.
As Boeing ends production of its C-17 Globemaster III in Long Beach, CA, Australia has announced the purchase of two more of the heavy-lift aircraft.
The Air Force is looking for a contractor to sustain its largest conventional bomb, the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator produced by Boeing to destroy weapons of mass destruction located in fortified bunkers.
If the Air Force had additional money it would purchase eight more MQ-9 Reapers, 13 C-130J airlifters, keep six Compass Call aircraft marked for retirement, extend the life of 141 B-1B bomber engines and sprinkle more cash across its readiness accounts, according to a detailed breakdown of the Air Force's fiscal year 2016 unfunded priorities list obtained by Inside the Air Force.
The Air Force has determined that hosting critical, national-security surveillance payloads to include the SYERS-2, Optical Bar Camera and MS-177 on the RQ-4 Global Hawk is feasible, and the service intends to submit a High Altitude Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Transition Plan to lawmakers this summer.
The United States and Russia's strategic stockpiles are edging closer toward the New START levels of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads with each side fielding just under 1,600 warheads, new data from the State Department shows.
Five years after issuing a request for proposals, the Air Force has down-selected 17 small businesses for its Network-Centric Solutions II Network Operations and Infrastructure contract, worth up to $5.79 billion, following protests against the original source-selection decision last March.
The latest jammer variant of Raytheon's Miniature Air-Launched Decoy has been approved for full-rate production while the baseline decoy version and missile body have been cleared by the government for export to select countries, minus the sophisticated electronic-attack payload.
The Air Force's $5.5 billion unfunded priorities list for fiscal year 2016 includes money for legacy aircraft upgrades and to retain force structure, but Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh has cautioned lawmakers not to pursue the requests at the expense of other service priorities.