Sunday, June 16, 2024
Key Issues Long-endurance sUSVs AFRL and AI Army drones
The Senate last night confirmed President Bush's nominee for director of the Air National Guard, Maj. Gen. Daniel James, by a voice vote, and approved his promotion to lieutenant general, four days after Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) released a hold on the nomination.
In what could be a blow to the Air Force's plan to lease 100 Boeing 767 refueling tankers this summer, the Office of Management and Budget found that upgrading the service's current fleet of KC-135E model tankers would provide greater fuel capacity at a significantly reduced cost.
Citing a breach of what he says was a promise made last year to transfer newer F-16 fighters to Minnesota, Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) has placed a hold on President Bush's nominee for director of the Air National Guard, Texas Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Daniel James.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) this week asked two government agencies, the Defense Department inspector general and several taxpayer watchdog groups to further review a possible Air Force lease of 100 767 Boeing air refueling tankers.
During a briefing yesterday on Capitol Hill, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs Lt. Gen. Duncan McNabb discussed the service's future mobility force structure and highlighted beddown plans for service's planned fleet of 180 C-17 airlifters, according to documents obtained by InsideDefense.com.
The Air Force announced today that it would move ahead with negotiations to lease 100 Boeing 767 aerial refueling tankers, after determining that a tanker supplied by the European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Co.'s Airbus Industries does not meet requirements.
While the Air Force continues to negotiate a lease of 100 767 tankers from Boeing, the service has officially asked for information on a possible Airbus alternative.
With European rival Airbus making noise about competing for a multibillion-dollar Air Force contract to replace the service's aging fleet of airborne refueler aircraft, top Boeing executives today argued their 767 variant is the best aircraft for the job.
The Defense Department has awarded Boeing a $485 million contract for the engineering and manufacturing development of the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program, as well as a separate $1 billion contract for aircraft modifications, support, and other services that will complement the AMP upgrades, according to a July 30 DOD statement.
The commander-in-chief of U.S. Transportation Command believes the Air Force should consider taking advantage of Boeing's unsolicited offer to produce 60 additional C-17s to close the gap between wartime requirements to haul oversize and outsize materiel and available airlifters.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Ryan believes the Airborne Laser, which is being developed for use on a specially modified Boeing 747 airplane, could one day be fitted onto fighter aircraft like the F-16, Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, ABL program director, told an audience this morning at a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association.
Export controls on computers are a vestige of the Cold War era, ineffective, and therefore should be scrapped, according to a new report released today by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
If President Bush fully implements the current defense modernization plan he inherited from the Clinton administration, it would require average annual procurement budgets of nearly $80 billion (in fiscal year 2002 dollars) over the next 15 years, according to Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, today called for more aggressive military transformation efforts and joint experimentation in the face of major changes to the threat environment, a growing level of geopolitical uncertainty and rapid changes in technology.