Air Force Global Strike Command has retired the last of 17 B-1B bombers from its inventory, leaving a fleet of 45 aircraft that will serve until the new B-21 stealth bomber is ready for duty, the command announced. Most but not all the airplanes went ...
There’s a new X-plane in the Air Force’s fleet. The Air Force Test Pilot School in June redesignated the NF-16D Variable In-flight Simulator Aircraft as the X-62A, allowing the aircraft to be used for testing the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Skyborg program. The aircraft, originally ...
The Air Force needs to move quickly as it brings on the B-21 and modernizes the B-52 because operating four bombers at a time is not sustainable. This means the venerable B-1s and B-2s need to head to the boneyard ASAP, the service’s top planner ...
The Air Force’s newest rendering of the secret B-21 bomber suggests an exotic layout of cockpit windows. The image, the third released so far, offers a new oblique view of the aircraft from below its port side, suggesting a deeper keel and wider weapons bay ...
As the first flight of the B-21 Raider bomber draws closer, Gen. Timothy M. Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, toured Northrop Grumman’s production facility and the test enterprise that will put the jet through its paces beginning next year.
The first booster flight test of the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon failed April 5. In a release issued April 6, the service acknowledged the failure is a “setback” for hypersonic progress, but said the test still provided “valuable information” for the program’s ...
The United States is on a crash course to field prototype hypersonic weapons within three years, with more elaborate and mature systems to follow soon after. Flight tests will ramp up quickly this year, with follow-on tests as frequently as every six weeks over the ...
An aircraft that took off from the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, Calif., crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on the morning of March 5, the 412th Test Wing confirmed. The “non-military aircraft” came down “in an uninhabited area” of the California ...
Boeing is assembling the first T-7A static ground test article and should have it completed in a couple of months, company officials said Feb. 23. The ground test article will serve to guarantee an 8,000-hour service life on the production aircraft, the first of which ...
The AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon hypersonic missile didn't fly by the end of 2020 as forecast by service acquisition executive Will Roper. Instead, the Lockheed Martin-built prototype made a third captive-carry test, which ended up being yet another dress rehearsal. The Air Force couldn't ...
A B-1B bomber on Dec. 4 released a JASSM stealth missile from its Sniper targeting pod pylon. The demonstration follows a captive-carry dress rehearsal in November, and paves the way for the B-1 to carry a variety of munitions, but especially hypersonic missiles, on external ...
The Space Force plans to swear in NASA Astronaut and Air Force Col. Michael S. Hopkins while he’s aboard the International Space Station as part of the upcoming Crew-1 Mission, a service official confirmed to Air Force Magazine on Oct. 29. Hopkins is slated to ...