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 ...
A pilot was killed late June 30 when an F-16CM crashed upon landing during a routine training mission at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. The crash occurred at the base around 11:30 p.m., with videos posted online showing emergency crews attempting to put out a ...
Three F-35A Lightning IIs arrived at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, on June 25, doubling the size of the base’s F-35A fleet. Eielson will receive 48 more aircraft by December next year, giving Alaska the highest concentration of combat-coded, fifth-generation fighter aircraft of any state. ...
A year after the House Armed Services Committee passed its fiscal 2020 defense policy bill in an unusually partisan fashion, the panel appears to be taking a step back from major fireworks and aerospace programmatic shifts in its 2021 legislation. The full committee’s version of ...
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense spending plan for 2021 would give the Air Force and Space Force largely what they want, with some notable tweaks. “What this bipartisan bill does is straightforward: care for our troops; preserve peace through strength; and defend this great ...
The Wild Weasels at Misawa Air Base, Japan, showed off their advanced armament in the base’s first joint, bilateral elephant walk on June 22. Twelve F-16CMs from the base lined up with 12 Japanese F-35As, two U.S. Navy E/A-18G Growlers, a Navy C-12, two U.S. ...
President Donald Trump has nominated Lt. Gen. Mark Kelly to receive his fourth star and take over as commander of ACC and Lt. Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost to receive her fourth star and take over as commander of AMC. Kelley is the deputy chief of ...
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Air Force's presumptive next Chief of Staff, talked about what's on his mind as Congress considers his historic nomination to be the first black leader of any military service while racial tensions flare across the country following the Memorial ...