The Air Force should build its capacity and striking power with collaborative combat aircraft but must put the teaming aspect of the new class of weapons first, getting the concepts and software right at the outset to ensure that autonomous airplanes do what’s needed and ...
F-22s from the 1st Fighter Wing landed at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, on Feb. 12, fulfilling a pledge by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to deploy fifth-generation aircraft to the Gulf nation. The decision to deploy fifth-generation fighters, instead of F-15s ...
The range of current Air Force weapons compels pilots of stealth aircraft to get too close to their targets, risking that they’ll be seen and shot down, Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly said Sep. 22. The service must have longer-range “fifth-generation weapons” ...
The Air Force's first application of low-cost attritable aircraft systems will be as stealthy, jamming adversary systems for F-22 and F-35 fighters to practice against, Gen. Mark D. Kelly, head of Air Combat Command, said in a virtual seminar presented by the Air Force's Life ...
The two-war force-sizing construct should be restored in the next National Defense Strategy being developed by the Biden administration, according to a new paper from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. The authors argued that a one-war capacity invites adversaries to take advantage of U.S. ...
The Air Force plans to begin evolving its fighter fleet to one that can win a Pacific war by retiring 421 old jets and buying 304 new ones, transitioning away from the F-22 and A-10 to an advanced, sixth-generation fighter and an F-16 replacement in ...
The Air Force will soon embark on a major new analysis of its tactical fighter mix, looking for the right capabilities in the high-, middle- and low-end spectrum of warfare, service Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said Feb. 17. The study will ...
The Air Force’s first overseas F-35A unit has a nickname: the Valkyries. The 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., announced Feb. 16 that Valkyries is the winning nickname for the 495th Fighter Squadron, picked from about 700 different suggestions submitted by the public in ...
The U.S. Air Force Advanced Maintenance and Munitions Operations School is changing the way it molds maintenance and logistics experts in response to the service’s embrace of agile combat employment and to help USAF maintain its competitive edge amid great power competition, 57th Wing Commander ...
The first F-35 Joint Strike Fighters landed at Eielson Air Force, Alaska, on April 21, marking a historic shift for the 354th Fighter Wing, which will now take on a combat mission in addition to its role training U.S. and partner forces through major exercises ...
Two Air National Guard bases in Alabama and Wisconsin will officially host the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter starting in 2023, the Air Force announced April 15. Truax Field’s 115th Fighter Wing in Wisconsin and Dannelly Field’s 187th Fighter Wing in Alabama join Burlington Air National ...