Boeing will build a prototype E-7A Wedgetail air battle management aircraft for the U.S. Air Force under a $1.2 billion contract awarded Feb. 28, the service announced. Production is set begin in 2025 and the first E-7A will be operational by 2027.
Rapid Acquisition & Sustainment
Pratt & Whitney has developed a fix for F135 engines afflicted with “harmonic resonance,” which should only take 30 minutes per affected engine to correct, company officials said. Deliveries of the engine, which powers the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, resumed Feb. 18 after nearly ...
Inflation bit deeply into world military budgets in 2022, with only China, Europe, and a few other countries achieving real growth in defense spending, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. China's spending level was a new record, but the IISS noted that its ...
In need of faster and greater surge weapons production capacity, the Air Force is looking to new technologies for new munitions, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. said. More weapons capacity may mean less efficiency, he acknowledged.
There’s a growing “mismatch” between what the National Defense Strategy says is needed for the coming years and the state of the defense industrial base, which is shrinking, less able to surge production, dealing with ever-greater uncertainty, and facing a worsening shortage of workers, according ...
The growing crisis in surge weapons production can be laid at the feet of Congress, and the unpredictability and uncertainty of chronically delayed budgets, defense industry leaders said in a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Members said the Biden administration isn’t using the tools Congress ...
The Air Force's ARRW hypersonic missile would cost about $15 million per shot across a production run of 300 missiles, but that’s a third of the cost of the Army's ground-launched hypersonic missile, the Congressional Budget Office said. The CBO relied on open sources to ...
DARPA and the Air Force conducted the final test of their scramjet-powered Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) missile, DARPA announced Jan. 30, and said the program’s “findings will now be used in follow-on efforts.” The Air Force is moving forward with two hypersonic weapons—the AGM-183 Air-Launched ...
Boeing’s defense business has stabilized following a series of massive quarterly losses that put the company in a precarious position, top executives said on an earnings call Jan. 25. Now, officials said they are focused on moving forward with new technology in the Boeing Defense, Space, ...