A document justifying the Air Force's purchase of potentially $23 billion worth of F-15EX fighters from Boeing indicates the Air Force could buy even more, replacing not only the aging F-15C/D fleet but also its somewhat younger F-15E ground attack stablemate. The heavily redacted document ...
Air Combat Command on July 21 awarded three companies contracts worth up to $433.6 million to provide 5,418 annual sorties of adversary air support at five bases over the next four and a half years, a command spokesperson told Air Force Magazine. The contracts with ...
USAF F-16s, KC-135s, MC-130Js, and MQ-9s linked up with U.S. Navy aircraft and ships as well as support from U.S. Space Command during a large-scale exercise in the Black Sea on July 22. The mission in Eastern Europe, with Russia watching, “was designed to train ...
A downturn in defense spending may create some “attractive” pricing on companies Lockheed Martin may want to acquire, and it has the cash to pick up some bargains, company President and Chief Executive Officer James D. Taiclet said in a second-quarter earnings call July 21. ...
The Department of the Air Force unveiled its first-ever Arctic Strategy on July 21, with Secretary Barbara M. Barrett citing the Arctic’s increasing strategic importance as Russia builds up its military presence in the area, China looks to normalize its presence there, and melting ice ...
After 1st Lt. David Schmitz died during a routine training exercise in June, his former best man and fellow F-16 pilot vowed to keep his legacy alive by setting up a scholarship foundation in his memory. “He had an impact on so many people. I ...
The 54th Fighter Group at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., is pressing pause on some of its flying operations so it can “assess and reset” following a July 13 F-16 crash at the installation, base spokesperson Denise Ottaviano told Air Force Magazine on July 14. ...
Japan has gotten a green light from the State Department to buy 105 more F-35s in two variants, which will make that country the largest operator of the Lightning II outside the U.S. The news comes the same week Japan's defense ministry informed the country's ...
A bipartisan group of four senators are demanding that the Pentagon explain why Turkey's expulsion from the F-35 program—to have been completed in March—now isn't expected until 2022. The senators said the sense of Congress on the matter is clear, and they want no further ...
The F-16 pilot killed in the June 30 crash at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., has been identified as 1st Lt. David Schmitz. Schmitz, assigned to the 77th Fighter Squadron at Shaw, was flying a local training sortie as his squadron is preparing to deploy ...
Bigger fleets of aircraft are easier and less costly per aircraft to manage than small ones, but that may change as the Air Force moves toward the new Digital Century Series, Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. said July 1. The ...
The Air Force formally accepted delivery of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Distributed Mission Training capability, following a capstone event at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., where four Joint Strike Fighter pilots flew alongside F-22s, F-16s, and an E-3 Sentry virtually for the first time. The DMT ...