The proposed Fiscal 2010 reduction of 250 legacy fighters from the Air Force’s inventory, announced April 6 by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, will not diminish the need for a new tanker, nor even decrease the numbers required in early batches,...
According to a report in the Spokesman-Review, the Air Force expects to have draft requirements ready to go by the end of this month for the controversial KC-X tanker program. Service officials, who have said they expect to release a...
Key House defense appropriator Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) has decided he cannot force language into the Fiscal 2009 war supplemental to direct the Pentagon to work a dual buy for USAF’s KC-X tanker program, but he does plan to pursue...
The Air Force has turned over the first of its new Liberty Project Aircraft to the Mississippi Air National Guard’s 186th Air Refueling Wing at Key Field in Meridian. The plan unveiled last fall will place seven of the intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance-modified...
Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for F-35 business development, said Friday the stealth fighter program is performing up to snuff. “We are making all our KPPs [key performance parameters] on the F-35,” O’Bryan told reporters during a briefing on...
The first three Air Force pilots selected to proceed directly to unmanned aerial vehicle training after completing undergraduate pilot training are now full-fledged UAV pilots, according to an April 28 release from UAV-central Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The...
Technicians at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla., managed to repair a 28th Bomb Wing B-1B at Ellsworth AFB, S.D. that suffered extensive damage in January when a maintenance stand fell and pierced its fuselage, causing...
Northrop Grumman has delivered the center fuselage for the first production F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, according to an April 30 company release. The AF-6 F-35 will be the Air Force’s conventional takeoff and landing variant. Northrop plans to...
Pratt & Whitney announced April 27 that its F119 engine, the power behind the only fielded fifth-generation fighter—the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor—has surpassed 100,000 operational flight hours of service. “With more than 100,000 operational flight hours, the F119 engine is...
The Defense Department has announced that Hurlburt Field, Fla., is among the top five defense facilities that will receive the 2009 Commander in Chiefs Installation Excellence Award; Hurlburt plans to use the money that comes with the distinction to upgrade...
April 29, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 15 20 35 4,695 CAS/Armed Recon 24 79 103 11,673 Airlift 160 160 16,041 Air refueling 47 47 5,247 Total 345 37,656 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...