The Air Force plans to start buying 226 Oshkosh Joint Light Tactical Vehicles in fiscal year 2017 to replace earlier humvees.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Monday, April 29, 2024
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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.
The Air Force plans to start buying 226 Oshkosh Joint Light Tactical Vehicles in fiscal year 2017 to replace earlier humvees.
The House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee wants to block any progress the Air Force is making in moving EC-130H Compass Call equipment to a new aircraft until Pentagon leadership signs off on the service’s acquisition strategy, following three bid protests and a program delay.
The House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee’s mark of the fiscal year 2018 defense policy bill directs the Air Force and defense secretaries to study whether it would be more cost-effective to improve the MQ-9 Reaper fleet by upgrading existing Block 1 aircraft to the Block 5 design or by buying new aircraft altogether.
Some must-reads from this week's issue of Inside the Air Force.
The Defense Digital Service, Defense Innovation Unit Experimental and Air Operations Center Weapon System program office are collaborating on a "pathfinder" effort to drive improvements to the troubled air war planning system forward, attempting to salvage a system whose future is key to next-generation operations.
The Air Force is designing a new munition, designated the BLU-136/B next-generation area-attack weapon increment II, to replace its older cluster bombs in the next three years following a 2008 Pentagon policy to do away with more than 111,000 area-attack weapons by the end of 2018.
The head of Air Force Global Strike Command told senators this week he needs a "full-court press" to hire 50 or 60 more staffers to handle the service's Nuclear Weapons Center and nuclear command, control and communications portfolio.
An RQ-4 Global Hawk's recent arrival at Robins Air Force Base, GA, may set the stage for new approaches the Air Force could take to maintain the remotely piloted aircraft fleet.
The Air Force wants to buy 16 new Block 5 MQ-9 Reapers from General Atomics in fiscal year 2018, a move that comes after the service had not planned to purchase more of the unmanned aerial vehicles that year.
Lockheed Martin is trying to leverage its experience with command-and-control systems to be a key player in the Air Force's effort to move to multidomain war planning and operations, launching biennial exercises and holding conferences to bolster this year's Enterprise Capabilities Collaboration Team study.
Bombardier has filed its second bid protest against the Air Force's effort to move EC-130H Compass Call equipment to a new platform, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The Air Force plans to expand the ranks of its digital-domain leadership by adding a new chief data officer position, the service's chief information security officer said today.
Each of the Air Force's 39 new cyber mission force teams will be fully operational in fiscal year 2018, the service's secretary told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.
Lockheed Martin this week won a nearly $414 million contract to build the 15th lot of its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, the first batch that will consist only of the extended-range variant.
Munitions procurement, largely funded through the overseas contingency operations account to continue the fight against insurgent groups in the Middle East, would soar if the Air Force's fiscal year 2018 budget request is approved.
The Air Force is working toward buying a strike weapon, flown on next-generation fighters and bombers, to pursue "rapidly relocatable" targets in denied combat zones, according to the service's fiscal year 2018 budget request, which was released last week.
The Air Force's fiscal year 2018 budget request appears to solidify plans to award one company a technology-maturation and risk-reduction contract for the Long-Range Standoff Weapon and contracts to two companies for the same phase in the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program.
The Air Force is asking for $354.5 million in its fiscal year 2018 research and development budget for the Combat Rescue Helicopter program, which passed the critical design review for its platform in May.
Boeing last week filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office to oppose the Air Force's decision to choose L3 Technologies as the lead systems integrator for the Compass Call cross-deck effort, becoming the second company to contest the award.
The Air Force's fiscal year 2018 budget request sheds new light on how much the service expects to spend over the next five years on research and development to replace its ground- and air-launched nuclear missiles, after adjusting its figures to reflect new cost estimates.