Flight testing of the F-35 and other aircraft has been paused at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief Ellen Lord declined to say whether this will delay the F-35's full-rate production decision, which is expected ...
Air Combat Command plans to award multiple adversary air support contracts for six bases as early as April, but the contracts are just a fraction of what was originally anticipated. “The math for the original plan was based on what we can do to maximize ...
More than 500,000 aerospace production jobs are at risk in the COVID-19 slowdown, wrote the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the principal aerospace workers’ union, in a March 23 letter to members of Congress. The union has asked for government help to preserve ...
England's Farnborough International Airshow and Royal International Air Tattoo, both originally slated to take place in July, have been canceled due to the new coronavirus pandemic, indicating the outbreak may have a long-term impact on the global defense industry. “After very careful consideration, the unprecedented impact ...
The Air Force is moving ahead with contracts for both finalists involved in its exploration of light-attack aircraft, issuing awards to both Textron’s AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s A-29 over the past few weeks. Formal funding is the latest step in the Air Force’s light-attack ...
The nation’s nuclear triad is working to get ahead of the new coronavirus outbreak by placing key personnel in “protective self-quarantines.” U.S. Strategic Command also is prescreening service members and depending on long-established redundancies in a community designed to operate independently, Adm. Charles Richard told ...
The Pentagon has started a daily dialogue with its top vendors as it attempts to measure and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the defense industry. Meanwhile, Boeing and Lockheed Martin said production on major acquisition systems like the KC-46 tanker and F-35 ...
The F-35’s troubled Autonomic Logistics Information System has somewhat improved over the past five years, but still causes significant challenges for the Joint Strike Fighter enterprise every day, according to a new Government Accountability Office report published March 16. The F-35 program office hopes that ...
The planned purchase of the F-15EX to replace aging fighters is needed to maintain the homeland defense mission as aging F-15Cs continue to see reliability issues, the head of U.S. Northern Command told lawmakers. USAF Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander of NORTHCOM and North American Aerospace ...
The first 747-8 aircraft has begun the modification process to become a VC-25B, or the next Air Force One. The process, which began Feb. 25, will include cutting out parts of the aircraft’s skin and structure in the forward and aft lower lobes to install ...
A March 10 U.S. airstrike killed five al-Shabab targets in Somalia without harming any civilians, U.S. Africa Command reported later the same day. The attack—the fifth U.S. strike in Somalia this month—brings the number of al-Shabab militants killed by American airstrikes in March into the ...
The Air Force’s plan to cut MQ-9 Reaper production and some air patrols in the fiscal 2021 budget request would negatively impact the ability to conduct operations and provide enough over watch in hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, the top officials responsible for ...