There is fresh concern that the Air Force plans to abandon development of the E-10 multi-mission aircraft that would potentially have replaced three older intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance assets. Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said this summer that even the single test aircraft would disappear from the 2008 budget, and he repeated that belief at AFA’s Air & Space Conference last week. Now, Reuters news service not only quotes Thompson but an unnamed “senior defense official” who said the E-10 falls into the category of “things that we would like” but don’t have the money for. Hmmmm.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.