The KC-46 boom operators stopped talking and leaned in as Maryland Air National Guard F-16s approached on a refueling mission over upstate New York. The fighters were visible on a 1,080-pixel, black-and-white screen. The cockpit went quiet, too, and the pilot flipped to a visual ...
National Security
GE’s AETP offering, called the XA100, delivers 25% better fuel efficiency, twice the thermal management capacity, and at least 10% more thrust than the existing F-35 engine. The XA100’s three test campaigns—including one currently taking place at the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC)—have ...
The Pentagon announced its latest drawdown package for Ukraine, valued at $1 billion and mainly comprising munitions for key systems. But any decision on whether to provide the Ukrainian Air Force with Western combat jets is still to be made, a key Defense Department official ...
The Navy should complete the business cases for its proposed alternatives to GPS navigation so that Congress can properly oversee and fund the programs, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The Air Force’s business-case documents for its Resilient-Embedded Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation ...
President Joe Biden still hopes to shift to a “sole purpose” policy for nuclear weapons in the future, even as his administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review preserves the U.S.’s longstanding policy of “flexible deterrence,” a top Pentagon official said. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin ...
When top Air Force leaders graced the stage at a senior noncommissioned officers' summit to urge attendees from 65 nations to collaborate with the United States, one region was noticeably underrepresented: the Indo-Pacific. Of the 39 partner nations that Pacific Air Forces identifies in the ...
Meeting with reporters, industry leaders, and military officials from across the world at the Farnborough International Airshow, engine-makers Pratt & Whitney and GE Aviation laid out their competing visions for the future of F-35 propulsion. While executives from both companies agreed that the fifth-gen fighter’s ...
The leader of the National Reconnaissance Office said the NRO will follow orders from U.S. Space Command if needed. Meanwhile, the NRO awaits a finding by the Space Force on whether the office’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities “need to expand." In a webinar by ...
Ten Airmen on the South Pacific island of Palau watched intently as an MQ-9 Reaper flew in for an automatic landing recently. Neither of the two air crew members grabbed the controls from the pilot at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. Instead, for the first ...