Daily Report

F-35 Hope and Gory: There are reasons to be optimistic about the F-35 program—and plenty to worry about, F-35 deputy program manager Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said Monday. In his more than 20 years in acquisition, Bogdan said the relationship...

Bogdan Withholds Judgment on F-35 Software Improvements: There are more than 10 million lines of code in the F-35 strike fighter, so it’s not surprising that the program has fallen a bit behind, said Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, deputy program...

Stand Firm: The Air Force will work with Congress to “fine tune” its planned force structure changes, but will “stand firm in our strategic decisions” overall to pursue a substantive rebalancing of its Active, Guard, and Reserve elements, Air Force...

Pull Up, Pull Up: Congress must act to prevent the sequestration demanded by the 2011 Budget Control Act, Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley said Monday. In his keynote address to AFA’s Air & Space Conference, Donley said sequestration will...

Assaults Have “No Place in Our Culture”: The allegations and subsequent prosecutions of sexual assault and misconduct surrounding the basic training wing at JBSA Lackland have roiled the Air Force and struck at its core values, Secretary of the Air...

If Congress does not reach a deficit-reduction deal before January, the Pentagon will have to cut its base budget by $54.7 billion in Fiscal 2013 under sequestration, according to the White House's newly released report to Congress. That's a 9.4 percent reduction to each of the services' discretionary accounts—except for personnel accounts, which are exempt—states the document, issued on Sept. 14 by the White House budget office. Congress mandated the report under the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 in order to understand sequestration's impact on defense accounts and federal non-defense programs in Fiscal 2013. Among the Air Force's cuts would be a $5.2 billion reduction to operations and maintenance activities; $2.7 billion hit to research, development, test, and evaluation work; $2 billion reduction in aircraft procurement; and $167 million less for military construction, according to the report. "While the Department of Defense would be able to shift funds to ensure warfighting and critical military readiness capabilities were not degraded, sequestration would result in a reduction in readiness of many non-deployed units, delays in investments in new equipment and facilities, cutbacks in equipment repairs, declines in military research and development efforts, and reductions in base services for military families," states the report. (Full text of report; caution, large-sized file.)

For reaction to the report, see:

SASC Chairman Levin's statement

Sens. McCain, Ayotte, Lieberman statement

HASC Chairman McKeon's statement

HASC Ranking Member Smith's statement

AIA President Blakey's statement

One of the Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2012, SMSgt. Laura A. Callaway is a physical medicine/emergency department superintendent with the 60th Medical Operations Squadron at Travis AFB, Calif. Callaway led the Air Force’s largest physical...

The F-16C Block 50 aircraft slated to get a 12,000-hour full-scale durability or “torture” test in preparation for a service life extension of some F-16s in the fleet recently offered a surprise to Lockheed Martin engineers inspecting it. They found...

Members of the 4th Space Operations Squadron at Schriever AFB, Colo., are commencing tests with the Air Force’s second Advanced Extremely High Frequency military communications satellite, according to Schriever officials. The satellite reached its intended orbital perch on Aug. 27...

Reductions in the Air Force’s overseas presence “may not provide much in the way of cost savings” unless the airmen and weapons systems from any shuttered installations are also cut from the force structure, announced RAND, citing the findings of...

Members of the 621st Contingency Response Wing and 60th Air Mobility Wing wrapped up the Gladiator Challenge exercise at Travis AFB, Calif. The three-day, in-garrison event centered around members of the 621st CRW responding to a simulated earthquake in the...

Cadet 1st Class Staci Rouse became the first-ever student at the Air Force Academy to make a solo powered flight in the T-53A, announced academy officials. She made history for the academy’s powered flight program by taking off on Sept....

The Air Force Research Lab has selected a Johns Hopkins University-led research team to establish a materials research center of excellence at the school’s Baltimore campus to support the development of next-generation military aircraft structures and turbine engines. “We’ll start...

The Couvillion family of San Antonio earlier this month celebrated a special day as Amn. Basic Patrick Couvillion graduated from basic military training at JBSA-Lackland, Tex., following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father by donning Air Force blue....

The House approved the Stolen Valor Act of 2012 that makes it punishable for anyone to attempt to benefit by fraudulently claiming to be recipient of a military decoration or medal. House members passed the legislation on Sept. 13 by a vote of 410 to three. "Whoever, with intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit, fraudulently holds oneself out to be a recipient of a decoration or medal . . . shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than one year, or both," reads the text of the legislation. This bill is a revised version of the original Stolen Valor Act of 2006 that the Supreme Court in June ruled was unconstitutional because it violated a citizen's right to free speech. The reworked version does not make it a crime to make false claims, but rather to try to gain from them. The Senate has not yet voted on its version of the revised bill, S. 1728. (See also Bloomberg report and Pentagon's Valor Website Adds Service Cross Recipients.)