The new “Splinter” camouflage on F-35s assigned to aggressor duty at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., shouldn't negate or interfere with their low observability, meaning they can truly play the role of a stealthy sparring partner for USAF fighters, according to a Nellis spokesperson. The ...
The Stand-in Attack Weapon is to be a pathfinder system in two ways, industry and Air Force officials said. The SiAW will both open a corridor through enemy air defenses and potentially create a new way of buying weapons. The Air Force is looking for ...
Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney military engines unit received a $4.385 billion Naval Air Systems Command contract for 178 of its F135 engines to power all variants of the F-35 fighter. The eventual contract value could be as much as $8 billion. The contract ...
Pledging to pursue “speed without sacrificing discipline” in the acquisition process, Gen. Duke Z. Richardson took command of Air Force Materiel Command on June 13, relieving Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr., who has run the service’s acquisition, research, development, logistics, and test organization since 2019. ...
As the Air Force’s test and evaluation enterprise faces a surge of new weapon systems it needs to test, existing range space must be preserved and ground testing needs to be better resourced, said Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr., outgoing head of Air Force Materiel ...
Three of five competitors for the Stand-in Attack Weapon, or SiAW, got small contracts to get the project going, the Air Force said. Lockheed Martin said it is the lead integrator for SiAW, but L3Harris and Northrop Grumman are also participating. The SiAW will succeed ...
Development of the KC-46 Pegasus tanker might have fared better if it had been a cost-plus, rather than a fixed-price program, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said, "I'll take the hit" for that approach. Though progress has been slower, the KC-46 is now ready ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said lower-cost unmanned platforms are key to closing any capability gaps created by reducing the fleet in the near-term while the service invests in capabilities that will enable it to compete with peer adversary China in the long-term. "By having ...
Admitting Finland and Sweden to NATO would be mean adding two large, modern, and capable militaries with good training and experience to the alliance, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli said in his confirmation hearing to be Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Both are well-equipped, and their addition ...
The Air Force needs stealthy "Aggressor" aircraft to spar with its fighters, and adversary air companies can no longer offer enough of a threat, the Air Force's programmer told the Senate Armed Services Committee. AdAir is "not giving us what we need" at Nellis AFB ...
Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, celebrated the beddown of its full complement of F-35s with a ceremony just weeks after the base received the last of its 54 fighters. The arrival of those F-35s in mid-April gave Eielson the Air Force’s second fully equipped, combat-coded ...
Finnish fighter pilots take off, land, and fly in harsh Arctic conditions routinely—all within range of Russian air defenses. They often share these specialized capabilities with the U.S. Air Force to hone Arctic agile combat employment concepts. But as the Nordic nation contemplates a NATO ...