The Air Force awarded contracts to 18 additional companies this week to develop and connect a plethora of technologies as part of the Advanced Battle Management System, after the first round of 28 contracts went out May 29. The ABMS network looks to connect the ...
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 ...
Congress wants to pump the brakes on U.S. Special Operations Command’s effort to buy a new plane for armed overwatch in remote areas, after many lawmakers recently supported a similar Air Force program. Lawmakers call on Pentagon leadership to describe why SOCOM would need such ...
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 ...
If Turkey sells the U.S. the advanced S-400 air defense system it bought from Russia, Ankara could resume its lucrative role in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, under provisions inserted in the Senate's version of the 2021 defense policy bill by Sen. John Thune ...
The head of the House Armed Services Committee calls himself an optimist. This year, he also has to be a realist. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), tried to pack Democratic priorities into his committee’s version of the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill—though not enough, according to ...
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. ...
Air Education and Training Command’s RPA Training Next effort wants to overhaul how the Air Force builds future RPA pilots and sensor operators. More specifically, it wants to give these Airmen more personalized journeys through the RPA training pipeline instead of making them adhere to ...
The first operationally ready Negatively Pressurized Conex arrived in Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, on June 24. The adapted shipping container can fit onto C-17 and C-5M aircraft, and can safely transport up to 23 COVID-19 patients without risking contamination of the aircrew or aircraft, ...
The unprecedented pace of bomber task force deployments to Europe recently has allowed USAF's strategic forces to train with allies they haven’t flown alongside before in areas generally unfamiliar to the bombers, the head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe said. The task force flights, ...
U.S. Air Forces in Europe will host its own Advanced Battle Management System experiment next spring. The exercise will bring in allies and take advantage of new Joint All-Domain Command and Control capabilities to speed up intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance targeting, USAFE boss Gen. Jeffrey ...