Brig. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey, or whoever succeeds him as the Department of the Air Force’s top acquisition official for command, control, and communications/battle management, is poised to take command of the new Air Force Information Dominance Systems Center. The service will also establish a program ...
Lt. Gen. Donna D. Shipton officially took command of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center on Jan. 17, vowing to push forward on “continued investment and development to prepare for tomorrow's conflicts.” Shipton is the fifth commander of AFLCMC and first woman to lead the ...
Whether it be civilians pointing commercial laser pointers in the sky or adversaries using military-grade lasers, USAF aviators face eye damage or potentially fatal distraction. Looking to counter these threats, members of the Aircrew Laser Eye Protection Program are working to roll out “Block 3” of ...
The Department of Defense and the Army last month revived a dormant effort to build a target drone that can mimic cutting-edge adversary aircraft—and perhaps breathing new life into the Air Force’s own plans for a “Next Generation Aerial Target.”
The Air Force has ordered safety inspections for its entire fleets of KC-135 tankers, RC-135 reconnaissance planes, and WC-135 “nuke sniffers” over poorly-made tail pins, preventing aircraft from flying until they are cleared. The Time Compliance Technical Order (TCTO), issued Feb. 14, affects hundreds of aircraft. ...
The Air Force awarded Boeing a $2.2 billion contract for 15 KC-46 tankers, the ninth lot of the aerial refuelers, just days after the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center acknowledged a previously undisclosed deficiency with the aircraft. The latest purchase order is roughly the ...
The Air Force is considering making aerodynamic retrofits to one of its flagship cargo planes in an effort to save on fuel and be kinder to the environment. As part of a project that has been in the works for years, the Air Force Research ...
Initial planning has begun for the retirement of the B-1 and B-2 bombers, but the game plan depends largely on progress in fielding the B-21 Raider—and on Congress—the Air Force’s bomber program executive officer said. In an Air Force bomber roadmap from 2018, the service ...
Skyborg, the Air Force’s effort to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled system to control unmanned aircraft, is ready to “graduate” and contribute to key programs such as the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, a top program executive officer said. But while the so-called “Vanguard” ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall distilled the top fighting priorities of the Air Force and Space Force into seven “operational imperatives” chiefly as a mechanism to identify the spending transitions needed in the fiscal 2023 budget. But they are likely to persist, and more—on electronic ...
Looking to address Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives, cyber leaders with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center recently analyzed their networks and systems to see how they would hold up against cyber threats. The leaders came away with a “sobering” observation: Key ...
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has launched a new application allowing all Airmen the ability to provide feedback on their gear beyond the unit level. The hope of the program, called GearFit, is to reduce the number of administrative layers that feedback has ...