Nuclear modernization concerns are again on the table for fiscal 2021 defense policy negotiations, as House lawmakers raise issues about staffing, program delays, and how to use the weapons themselves. The Air Force’s three major nuclear weapon upgrade programs—the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, the Long-Range Standoff ...
As Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. prepares to take the helm as the service’s top officer in early August, he already is thinking about how to best position the Air Force for a potential conflict with China. Brown, who has led Pacific Air Forces since ...
House lawmakers want to ban the Air Force from retiring the E-8C Joint STARS fleet until the service finds a suitable replacement, while seeking more information on the complex network meant to take the jets’ place. The House Armed Services tactical air and land forces ...
The Air Force is implementing a fighter pilot training plan that will regroup training phases and use new technologies to cut between a third and half off the time needed to transform a raw student pilot into a fighter flight lead, according to the new ...
The Air Force recently awarded a contract to begin production of body armor specifically designed for women, as part of a service-wide push for inclusion and gear better suited for female Airmen. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Female Fitment Program Office awarded the ...
The F-15E Strike Eagle is the first Air Force aircraft to prove it is compatible with the refurbished B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, Sandia National Laboratories announced on June 8. “We were able to test the B61-12 through all operational phases and we have extremely high ...
The Defense Department is rolling out 5G technology for experimentation and testing at seven more military bases, including the Air Force’s main training base. The second tranche of bases includes Naval Base Norfolk, Va.; Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii; Joint Base San Antonio, Texas; the ...
Air Force researchers are designing an autonomous aircraft that can take down a manned plane in air-to-air combat, with the goal of pitting the two against each other in July 2021. Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said the ...
U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles are the best in the world, but allied nations are barred from acquiring those systems under a 1987 voluntary non-proliferation agreement that classifies them as equivalent to nuclear weapons. Now a new report from the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies argues ...