Contracts for F-35 airframes in Lot 18 and 19 should be signed in the spring, but an engine deal is still not in hand and could take months longer. The delays don't seem to be driven by anticipation of how the new Trump administration will ...
Operational Imperatives
Much more Space Force enabling all aspects of the Joint force, but perhaps still crewed fighters and stealthy transports are among the forecasts outgoing Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made in a new report to Congress.
Pouring concrete to make hardened shelters for aircraft on the ground may not be as sexy as building next-generation fighter jets, but it may be just as important for the U.S. in a potential conflict with China, according to airpower scholars.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, on the verge of leaving the Pentagon, said he would accelerate production of the B-21 bomber if there was money to do so. But even so, it couldn’t happen right away, he said in an interview with Air & Space ...
In her final address in the Pentagon’s No. 2 job, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks touted her team's work to quickly disperse U.S. military’s capabilities to better challenge China, while cautioning against miscalculation in the competition between the two great powers.
The second version of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft should have more capability than the first but mustn't be an "exquisite" and expensive platform that would defeat the notion of "affordable mass," outgoing Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said.
The appearance of new Chinese combat aircraft in recent weeks—potentially a new bomber and medium bomber, a smaller, fighter-size aircraft, and a new AWACS platform, among others—didn’t influence current Air Force leadership’s recent decisions on the Next-Generation Air Dominance program or the service’s broader strategic ...
Over its 20 years of service, the MQ-9 Reaper drone has typically landed on paved runways, where it is rearmed and refueled by a large group of maintainers and support staff. But a recent Agile Combat Employment exercise saw Air Force Special Operations Command land an ...
The Air Force is collecting data from flight tests of a subscale version of its Blended-Wing Body demonstrator, and using that data to revise the full-scale aircraft’s control software and final configuration—the first flight of which remains on track for 2027. Full-scale test parts, including ...