Monday, January 20, 2025
Key Issues MADCAP SPY-6 radars Regional Sustainment Framework
Rachel Cohen was managing editor for Inside the Air Force until January 2019. She previously covered the public health insurance marketplaces for Inside Health Policy and primary, secondary and higher education at the Frederick News-Post in Frederick County, Maryland. She graduated from American University in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in international studies and journalism.
Air Force Materiel Command is driving a study of whether the service can immediately implement multidomain command and control using current systems and where commercial technology could take the service in the next five years, which could lead to experiments next year.
The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board will launch its fiscal year 2018 studies at a Jan. 23 meeting in California, according to a Federal Register notice published Monday.
The Air Force is standing up a new organization called the Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability that is tasked with moving the service toward cross-functional warfare and which takes priority over other future-force planning efforts, according to a recent memo obtained by Inside Defense.
Senate appropriators want to add $92.3 million to modernize the Air Force's Distributed Common Ground System on top of the program's fiscal year 2018 funding request.
Twentieth Air Force, which controls the United States' intercontinental ballistic missiles, is working to grow its ranks of reservists in the next two program objective memorandums as the service prepares to field the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent.
Lawmakers dropped a provision from the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill that would have allowed the defense secretary to let the Air Force issue a sole-source procurement contract instead of continuing an open competition to replace the Bell UH-1N helicopter. (UPDATED)
Senate appropriators are pushing the Air Force to recapitalize its legacy E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System with a new aircraft, and suggest the Army be considered to run an alternative JSTARS follow-on acquisition if the Air Force changes its current plan to replace the platform.
Air Force officials will focus on electronic spectrum dominance for the 2018 Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team study, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mike Holmes said Monday.
The Air Force no longer believes a recapitalized E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft could adequately perform its mission in contested airspace, and is still deciding whether to pursue that multibillion-dollar acquisition for permissive environments, the head of Air Combat Command said Monday.
Lawmakers dropped a provision from the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill that would have allowed the defense secretary to let the Air Force issue a sole-source procurement contract instead of continuing an open competition to replace the Bell UH-1N helicopter. (UPDATED)
Congress is backtracking on earlier language that would have blocked the Air Force from retiring Lockheed Martin's U-2 Dragon Lady and Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk before 2024.
Lawmakers scolded the Air Force but pared back restrictions on the service's program to move EC-130H Compass Call equipment to a new aircraft in the final version of the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill, which the House and Senate passed this week.
The program executive officer for the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization program confirmed to Inside the Air Force this week his team is identifying ways to cut down on the fleet's certification process and is considering other options for saving time and money.
The Air Force and Raytheon are working out issues discovered during developmental testing for Raytheon's Small Diameter Bomb II and expect that phase will last into next year, a service spokeswoman said earlier this month.
The Air Force's logistics chief said Wednesday the service is on track to rebuild its aircraft maintainer force by the end of the year after being short thousands of personnel, though he noted bringing on Lockheed Martin's F-35A will continue to pressure the sustainment enterprise.
The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center announced Tuesday it has finished initial qualification testing on the upgraded B61-12 nuclear weapon.
The Air Force is taking steps to ensure programs can learn from each other as dozens of "agile" pathfinder initiatives move forward and become more common.
Air Force Global Strike Command and the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center will host an industry day Nov. 29-30 to discuss the Mark 21A reentry vehicle, which is planned to hold an interoperable warhead on the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, the service said last week.
The reconciled version of the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill directs the Air Force to report its analysis of why the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization program should be changed or canceled and its impact on the military, if the service plots a new direction for that effort in the FY-19 budget request.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is evaluating "a variety" of mobility platforms for a possible laser demonstration in the next few years, a spokesman recently confirmed.