Daily Report

Air Force Chief Scientist Werner Dahm on Wednesday rolled out the much-anticipated Technology Horizons report that lays out the service’s science and technology priorities for the next decade and beyond. It comes after the service conducted a year-long, comprehensive review....

The recent completion of the Technology Horizons review and subsequent formulation of well-defined science and technology priorities come at an important juncture for the Air Force, says Werner Dahm, the service’s chief scientist. Prior to Technology Horizons, the service had...

In his newest "Vector" to airmen, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz says he's "pleased with the progress" made by the service to date in restoring its nuclear enterprise, enhancing its contributions to the joint fight, and recapturing acquisition excellence. However, he adds, "We must seize this moment and look ahead." To that end, he lays out numerous ambitious goals for the service. Among them, he wants the Air Force to craft "a comprehensive deterrence and crisis stability vision" that builds on the recently completed nuclear posture review. Regarding modernization, he calls for reestablishing the Air Force as "a leader in electronic warfare." and for taking directing energy systems "out of the lab." Further, he seeks more training and operational flexibility so that airmen are adaptable to the needs of any combatant commander or joint task force. (San Antonio report by Janie Santos)

The Air Force has been heavily invested in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles since the 1950s, often in secrecy, Thomas Ehrhard, special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff, said Wednesday. Yet UAVs have been “a cyclical phenomenon”...

The scheduled July 30 launch of the Air Force's first advanced extremely high frequency communications satellite has been pushed back by 10 days to August 10, service officials announced Wednesday. "This delay was necessary to provide engineers more time to perform confidence testing on a launch vehicle component associated with releasing the fairing support structure," reads a release from the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB, Calif. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster fired from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., will carry AEHF-1 into orbit. Lockheed Martin is building a small fleet of AEHF satellites to replace the current Milstar constellation. Like Milstar, AEHF satellites will provide secure and protected communications to military users. But a single AEHF satellite will provide greater total capacity than the entire five-satellite Milstar constellation.

Remotely piloted aircraft development worldwide is not progressing at the same pace as the “dizzying spectacle” seen in the United States today, says Thomas Ehrhard, special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff. In fact, it “has been really...

The co-chairs of the Senate National Guard Caucus want the Defense Department to buy more C-27J transports than currently planned. In a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Army Secretary John McHugh, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Sen. Patrick Leady (D-Vt.) say they are concerned about the air mobility force structure that, as it stands, calls for the purchase of only 38 C-27s for direct support of ground troops in austere areas. "We believe that future budgets should increase the C-27 buy," write the two senators in their July 7 missive. DOD's original C-27 plan called for 78 airframes. Senior Pentagon officials have already said a fleet of 38 C-27s is sufficient, when augmented by C-130s employing techniques and tactics optimized for direct support. The Air Force intends to make 40 C-130s available to serve in that role.

The Air Force hasn’t specifically identified all 22 of the “least capable” C-5A transports that it would retire from the fleet if Congress grants the service’s request, says Maj. Gen. Susan Desjardins, Air Mobility Command’s strategic plans director. “Not all...

A new public Web site is now available to airmen to help educate and inform them about the Air Force’s dress and appearance standards and policies, service officials announced Wednesday. The Air Force Dress and Appearance Web site is designed...

BAE Systems has unveiled a prototype of the Taranis, an unmanned strike aircraft designed to precisely attack targets at long range. “Taranis has been three and a half years in the making and is the product of more than a...

Air Sorties in Southwest Asia, July 6-7, 2010 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 43 114 157 12,593 CAS/Armed Recon 42 159 201 17,814 Airlift 396 396 32,339 Air refueling 109 109 8,427 Rescue 66 66 3,765 Total...