Saturday, April 27, 2024
Key Issues Optical clocks Prototype funding SPAFORGEN
The Air Force sought to pursue several simultaneous multiyear procurement strategies for its munitions sets in the fiscal year 2024 budget, but Congress has excluded the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile from the plan, Inside Defense has learned.
The Air Force is moving ahead with Anduril Industries and General Atomics to advance their designs into the prototyping stage for the first Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the Air Force announced today.
Boeing's defense unit has logged $222 million in losses since January on two major firm fixed-price contracts with the Air Force, the KC-46A and T-7A, Chief Financial Officer Brian West told investors today during a first-quarter earnings call.
Deliveries of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft are on track to resume this summer, albeit with a truncated version of Technology Refresh-3 software upgrades, top Lockheed Martin executives told shareholders today during a call to discuss the company's first-quarter earnings.
When the Air Force began buying the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter about 20 years ago, it took a total system approach, meaning prime contractor Lockheed Martin earned the rights to total control of the program, including the intellectual property of its technologies and mechanical parts.
The Air Force is not precluding Selfridge Air National Guard Base, MI from receiving another fighter mission after its fleet of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs begins to retire in 2026, but that won’t come anytime soon, service Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers during posture hearings in the House and Senate this week.
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt is “as frustrated” as lawmakers over the various schedule slips temporarily halting deliveries of the Lockheed Martin-made jets enabled with Technology Refresh 3 upgrades, he told a House defense panel today.
The price tag attached to keeping the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's largest-ever acquisition program, in service has long been a point of budgetary contention.
The Air Force's aircraft inventory is on track to remain under 5,000 "for the remainder of the budget horizon," the service's top planner said Tuesday, hinting it could even drop close to 4,000 by 2029.
The Air Force is "definitely not interested" in creating a separate Space National Guard, service Secretary Frank Kendall told lawmakers Tuesday. His remarks follow pushback from the National Guard Bureau over the proposed transfer of Air National Guard space units into the Space Force.
A legislative proposal from the Air Force to shift National Guard space operations directly into the Space Force would create a significant strategic and tactical gap in national security, top National Guard officials told reporters Monday.
Roughly 221 aircraft at risk of being grounded can be saved if Congress approves the Air Force’s $1.5 billion unfunded priorities list request to restock spare parts, Inside Defense has learned.
Skydweller Aero recently flew an unmanned, solar-powered and large-scale aircraft out of Stennis International Airport in Mississippi, according to a news release the company issued today.
As the Pentagon moves to rapidly deploy an affordable mass of uncrewed aircraft to get intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities up to speed for potential future challenges in the Indo-Pacific, Defense Department forces are already facing some drone-related issues amid conflict in the Middle East, according to a top U.S. Central Command official.
The Air Force will write affordability into the requirements for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said last week.
The Air Force has completed initial operational test and evaluation for the F-15 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System, which will provide upgraded electronic warfare capabilities to the fighter jet on schedule, according to a news release from EPAWSS manufacturer BAE Systems.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's sustainment price tag is slowly dropping after being one of the Defense Department's costliest combat aircraft for decades, the F-35 Joint Program Office told Inside Defense.
The Air Force is planning to use a study intended to inform requirements for the Next Generation Air-refueling System to also help set guidelines for a follow-on tanker recapitalization program, Inside Defense has learned.
The Air Force is asking Congress for $3.5 billion to cover unfunded priorities mostly related to the service's recently announced structural shakeup to better prepare for conflict with a near-peer adversary, according to a document obtained by Inside Defense.
The Air Force is again asking Congress to retire legacy aircraft the service deems no longer fit for combat with a near-peer adversary, including China, according to an initial package of legislative proposals sent to Congress this week.