Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley spoke with his Russian counterpart Dec. 22 amid border tensions with Ukraine and mounting concerns of a Russian invasion in January. The call follows comments by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that high-level dialogue ...
Air
The Air Force selected MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., as its next preferred location for the KC-46 on Dec. 21, setting up the Florida installation to receive 24 of the new aerial tankers in the coming years. The KC-46 will replace Active-duty KC-135s currently at ...
The Pentagon released previously withheld statistics Dec. 17 indicating changing demand for airpower in Afghanistan as the U.S. prepared to withdraw from that country last spring. U.S. Air Forces Central (AFCENT) withheld the data for the months February 2020 through November 2021 "due to sensitivity ...
A raft of strategy and posture reviews are coming in 2022 that will significantly shape the Air Force, even as the service is slated to make major strides on programs and conduct critical tests. The B-21 is expected to take to the air mid-year, and ...
Preparing for conflict in the Pacific will require more than learning to fly fighters out of austere locations—it will also call for small bomber crews to go on quick consecutive missions at unfamiliar locations. In a "bomber agile combat employment" (BACE) exercise Dec. 6-8, two ...
BAE Systems will upgrade the F-35’s electronic warfare system for the jet’s Block 4 upgrade under a $493 million contract awarded by Lockheed Martin, BAE systems said Dec. 15. The new system will go into F-35 production starting with Lot 17 in 2024.
The U.K.'s. RAF Lakenheath on Dec. 15 became the first European base to receive a U.S. F-35A Lightning II six years after plans for the delivery were announced as part of an eventual basing of two squadrons of the fifth-generation aircraft. “The Valkyries are leading ...
The Senate passed the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on Dec. 15, sending the annual policy bill to President Joe Biden’s desk with a host of provisions affecting the Air Force and Space Force and ensuring that Congress’s long-standing record of passing an NDAA every ...
The Air Force announced the release of its first doctrine publication on agile combat employment Dec. 14, laying out its core frameworks and concepts as the service looks to codify and develop the new operational approach.