John Stillion

Navy Adm. Richard Correll succeeded Air Force Gen. Anthony J. Cotton as head of U.S. Strategic Command on Dec. 5, stressing the need for the combatant command to understand and embrace new technologies for its deterrence mission.

Air Education & Training Command received its first T-7A Red Hawk when the long-awaited next-generation jet trainer landed at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph on Dec. 5.

An Air Force F-16 Thunderbird crashed Dec. 3 near Death Valley, Calif., with the pilot ejecting safely. In a statement, the Thunderbirds—officially the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron—said the incident occurred at approximately 10:45 a.m. local time “during a training mission over controlled airspace ...

The U.S. Air Force’s KC-46 Pegasus fleet hit a major milestone Dec. 2 with the delivery of its 99th and 100th aircraft at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.

The Air Force’s airlift fleet is in desperate need of modern connectivity, spare parts, and other innovations to keep going amid growing demand and modernization plans still in their infancy, according to a former senior leader and a new research paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. 

Less than two years after previous Air Force leaders announced a sweeping slate of changes, the new top brass is discarding more than half of them.

The Pentagon awarded RTX’s Pratt & Whitney a $1.6 billion contract for sustainment work on the F-35's engine on Nov. 28. The deal includes everything from software maintenance to spare parts for the F135 engine and runs through November 2026, spanning a dozen locations around the globe.

The sinking of 21 boats and killing of dozens of accused “narco-terrorists” by the Trump administration over the past two months has sparked an intense debate among legal experts and lawmakers.

Air Force Futures wants to take its wargaming up a notch, with the help of artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technology.

An MQ-9 Reaper drone belonging to the U.S. Air Force crashed off the coast of South Korea on Nov. 24, according to a statement from the 8th Fighter Wing and local media reports. 

The Air Force has tapped McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base as its preferred location for the next base to host KC-46 aerial refuelers, replacing the KC-135s that have been there since the 1970s. 

An Air Force F-35A successfully carried and dropped inert B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs in flight tests in August, a rare disclosure about the state of U.S. nuclear testing.

An F-22 pilot controlled an MQ-20 drone from the fighter’s cockpit last month, General Atomics announced Nov. 17—a preview of the Air Force’s vision for Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

NATO is abandoning its effort to buy E-7 Wedgetails to replace its aging E-3 AWACS, the Netherlands Ministry of Defense announced Nov. 13—a blow to the uncertain future of the new airborne early warning and control aircraft.  The alliance announced...

The crews of the two-ship F-15E formation that stared down the leading edge of Iran’s massive aerial assault against Israel in April 2024 were presented with the Mackay Trophy last week, further cementing their place in Air Force history.