Thursday, April 25, 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.
Congress is doubling down on its position that the Air Force should pursue a conventional variant of the Long-Range Standoff Weapon, adding new language in the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee's mark of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill.
House lawmakers suggest the Air Force should retire the current presidential aircraft fleet by the end of 2025, shortly after their replacements are ready for operations.
The Air Force will make an announcement in the coming weeks on programmatic changes to accelerate hypersonic weapons development, the service's assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics told reporters this week.
As military officials repeatedly argue the United States needs to field new nuclear weapons as soon as possible, the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee is asking the Air Force to work with the Pentagon's acquisition chief on plans to speed up the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent and Long-Range Standoff Weapon programs.
The Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency plan to demonstrate whether teams of manned and unmanned aircraft can work together in an air-to-ground combat mission, following a series of flight tests last fall.
The Air Force's Compass Call recapitalization program isn't moving fast enough for House lawmakers, who floated language this week urging the service to speed up the move from legacy EC-130Hs to the new EC-37B.
Members of the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee will push the Air Force to continue the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization program by restricting funds for a next-generation battle management network and blocking the service from retiring the legacy aircraft until it awards an engineering and manufacturing development contract.
Lawmakers are questioning Air Force Air Combat Command's ability to manage MQ-9 Reapers on behalf of their special-operations counterparts and want a report on how Reaper aircrews are assigned, managed and developed, according to the House Armed Services emerging threats subcommittee's mark of the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill released this week.
Raytheon recently announced its Small Diameter Bomb Increment II program finished developmental testing, helping clear the way for operational test to start even as the weapon still faces six performance and schedule risks.
Air Force Special Operations Command is fleshing out requirements for a next-generation, manned aircraft to fly intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as the U-28 is phased out.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said this week the service scrutinized nearly 1,200 low-budget programs for potential cost-savings to shape the fiscal year 2020 budget.
Northrop Grumman delivered its first set of software for the B-21 bomber and is working on the second, Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the Air Force's military deputy for acquisition, told lawmakers this week.
The EC-130H recapitalization program faces delays as Congress awaits the Pentagon's assurance that the Air Force properly chose the next Compass Call aircraft, the service's military deputy for acquisition told Inside the Air Force this week.
Two of the Air Force's main sensor providers are focusing on autonomy, on-board processing, wide-area imagery and more as the service lays out its vision of a distributed data-collection environment where capability matters more than which aircraft a sensor flies on.
Dynetics will prove whether it can launch and recover four small unmanned aerial vehicles from a C-130 in 30 minutes during phase three of the Pentagon's Gremlins program, beating out General Atomics for a $32.5 million contract this week.
As the Air Force continues development of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent and Long-Range Standoff Weapon, a new report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments questions whether the next-generation nuclear missiles will be able to stand up to rapidly evolving threats of the 21st century.
Data processing, exploitation and dissemination research will be fast-tracked by a new rapid development team at the Air Force Research Laboratory that calls itself a special-operations team for autonomy.
The Air Force is updating its acquisition baseline for Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munition program for the third time after it again overran expected procurement costs, according to a December 2017 Selected Acquisition Report recently obtained by Inside Defense.
The top uniformed officials of the American and British air forces this week reiterated their commitment to pursuing next-generation command-and-control improvements that allow interoperability between the partner militaries.
Highlights from this week's Inside the Air Force.