Flight testing of top-priority programs is ramping back up this week at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and other locations around the Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr. said. New procedures are balancing urgent operational needs with the safety of ...
Air Mobility Command is pursuing a contract for privately operated tankers to meet the unrelenting need for booms in the air as the service proposes cutting 29 KC-135s and KC-10s. The command is wrapping up a feasibility study on the plan this month with the ...
The Air Force is moving ahead with contracts for both finalists involved in its exploration of light-attack aircraft, issuing awards to both Textron’s AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s A-29 over the past few weeks. Formal funding is the latest step in the Air Force’s light-attack ...
The F-35’s troubled Autonomic Logistics Information System has somewhat improved over the past five years, but still causes significant challenges for the Joint Strike Fighter enterprise every day, according to a new Government Accountability Office report published March 16. The F-35 program office hopes that ...
The Air Force’s plan to cut MQ-9 Reaper production and some air patrols in the fiscal 2021 budget request would negatively impact the ability to conduct operations and provide enough over watch in hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, the top officials responsible for ...
Either Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, or Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., will be the first base to host the B-21 Raider bomber. The service announced the start of environmental impact analyses in both locations to see which will be first to operate the Raider. ...
Air Force leaders are urging members of Congress to sit down with them in a classified setting so they can better understand the service’s thinking behind its fiscal 2021 budget request, which once again attempts to retire a host of legacy platforms to free up ...
The Air Force needs 2,100 more pilots to reach its goal of 21,000 aviators, indicating that efforts to stem the pilot shortage have not yet been successful. “Increasing production of new aviators remains the most significant lever we have to arrest aircrew shortages,” service officials ...
Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told Senate legislators March 3 the service will not use the new KC-46 tanker unless absolutely necessary to fight a powerful adversary. The wide-ranging Senate Armed Services Committee hearing—the first of multiple chances the Air Force has this week ...
In a first for Spark Tank, the Air Force’s Airman-powered innovation competition, two teams were named co-champions. The winning ideas that bested over 200 other submissions—six of which were live-pitched onstage at the Air Force Association’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium here on Feb. 28—look to ...
The Department of the Air Force has submitted a $4.2 billion unfunded priorities list to Congress for fiscal 2021, which includes roughly $3.2 billion for the U.S. Air Force and $1 billion for the fledgling U.S. Space Force. The USAF request, which is significantly more ...
Heading into budget negotiation season, the three civilian heads of the armed forces outlined their looming struggles with Capitol Hill at a Feb. 21 Center for Strategic and International Studies panel. Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said it’s harder to convince lawmakers of the merits ...