Friday, December 6, 2024
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.
Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the Resolute Support mission and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, last week pushed the Senate Armed Services Committee to approve additional funds for the Afghan Air Force, calling airborne fighters key to the continued push against the Taliban.
Air Force Special Operations Command chief Lt. Gen. Brad Webb said Tuesday the command is exploring its options for replacing the U-28A and MC-12 fleets with platforms that can be used in low- and high-intensity operations in an analysis of alternatives slated to wrap up in July.
Defense experts in Washington are mulling what the future of the Obama administration's "Third Offset" investments could look like under President Trump, as the Defense Department begins to shape its near-term budgets and updated national defense strategy.
The Air Force is pushing back its final request for proposals for the UH-1N Huey replacement effort from this month until sometime this summer, a service spokesman said this week, and will release a second draft RFP in April.
Col. Craig Miller, director of the U.S. Special Operations Command J24 intelligence capabilities and requirements division, said Tuesday the U.S. could use new acquisition techniques to speed adoption of technology that would allow coalition partners to share information securely and selectively, amid complaints that clashing approaches to intelligence hurt international combat efforts in the Middle East.
Air Force Air Combat Command is studying the MQ-9 Reaper's service life to shape its retirement time line, a spokeswoman said this week, but she declined to say whether the service may recapitalize the unmanned fleet as contractor General Atomics suggests.
Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson argued the service's effort to modernize its nuclear assets tops the Air Force's other key procurement efforts going into fiscal year 2018 budget discussions, in an appearance before a Senate defense subcommittee Feb. 8.
Follow-on testing and evaluation for the latest version of the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System has been pushed back two years to fiscal year 2018, according to the Air Force.
The Air Force plans to award General Atomics a sole-source contract worth up to $20 million this month to update the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper programs with six urgent mission-readiness initiatives, Inside the Air Force has learned.
The Air Force recently awarded Northrop Grumman a contract modification worth up to $140 million to operate and sustain Battlefield Airborne Communication Node payloads, despite an original plan to give the company a four-year follow-on contract that will now be renegotiated.
The Air Force has stopped "accepting recruit/fill actions" for civilian jobs without a hiring freeze exemption approved by the Air Force secretary, effective Feb. 7, the service said Thursday.
A new Pentagon inspector general's report shows the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center did not find the fairest and most reasonable prices for 11 commercial spare parts for the C-5 Lot 7, valued at $67 million, because the contracting officer lacked enough commercial sales data to negotiate cost.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein indicated this week he is "absolutely" open to the idea of incorporating more tactical nuclear weapons into the arsenal, after the Defense Science Board recommended the Air Force consider that option as modernization efforts proceed.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said this week he and the joint chiefs are cautiously approaching their task of building a supplemental defense budget for fiscal year 2017 as well as an FY-18 budget as uncertainty looms over long-term program funding.
The Pentagon's inspector general announced this week it would investigate the progress of U.S. European Command's and U.S. Central Command's training, advising and assisting efforts to build a sustainable, successful Afghan Air Force.
General Atomics is pushing the Air Force to consider recapitalizing its MQ-9 Reaper fleet rather than retrofitting Block 1 aircraft that have exceeded their service lives, a proposal the Air Force seems willing to pursue, a company official told Inside the Air Force this week.
Boeing will not recommend any new service-life requirements for the legacy Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System as a result of its now-complete widespread fatigue testing, the Air Force said this week.
Sikorsky will build five test HH-60W combat rescue helicopters for the Air Force after the service approved a $203 million contract option to the $1.2 billion engineering, manufacturing and development contract that was awarded in June 2014, the company announced this week.
The Air Force is drafting guidance with the Office of the Secretary of Defense on how to implement and exempt certain workers from a federal hiring freeze enacted Jan. 23 by President Trump, warning the service's civilian workforce could shrink by 3 percent in the next four months.
Raytheon will build about 300 Small Diameter Bomb II munitions as part of Lot 3 low-rate initial production, under a contract option worth more than $62 million, the Defense Department announced last week.