The Air Force thinks Collaborative Combat Aircraft can be bought for as little as $1,200 per pound—about a third of the cost of crewed fighters—but mission equipment needs to be aligned to that lower price.
Operational Imperatives
There are a lot of new demands on the government-industry propulsion enterprise—ranging from exquisite new fighter engines to cheap, off-the-shelf powerplants for drones—that will require sustained support, experts said.
Air Combat Command activated three new air task forces this week, bringing the Air Force closer to starting all six of the units that will form the next stage of its deployment model.
It'll take up to 18 months for Lockheed Martin to deliver the 100 or so F-35s that went directly from production line to storage, awaiting the completion of Tech Refresh 3 testing. Customers haven't complained about the order in which the backlog is being delivered.
The Air Force and Space Force will have to manage a delicate balance between building readiness and preparing forces as they conduct more realistic, large-scale exercises, senior leaders said Sept. 18 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
The Air Force is hoping to slash the cost of the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter from hundreds of millions per copy to less than $80 million, secretary Frank Kendall said. It might be done by disaggregating the fighter’s functions and possibly making it uncrewed.
The Air Force stood up a provisional version of the new command to coordinate its ambitious modernization efforts, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin announced. The command is expected to achieve full operational capability in 2025.
In his first three years as Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall has pushed for a sweeping overhaul of the department. During his keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 16, Kendall said he would like to keep working on ...
Schneider Electric completed an $11.2 million task order at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., in 2022 and just two years later, the project is already paying for itself. The upgrades are saving an estimated $700,000 in utility and operational costs per year while improving base-wide ...