Air Force Materiel Command has opened at Edwards AFB, Calif., a range mission control room built specifically to monitors tests of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35 Integrated Test Force, comprising military, government civilian, contractor, and foreign partner personnel, are conducting testing of the F-35 and will have about 40 flight test engineers manning the control room. SrA. Jason Hernandez reports that the new control room is unique because it is “entirely personal-computer based.” The 412th Range Control Squadron, which maintains and operates all the Edwards control rooms, decided that existing control rooms simply didn’t have enough capacity to incorporate JSF testing.
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.
