The appearance of new Chinese combat aircraft in recent weeks—potentially a new bomber and medium bomber, a smaller, fighter-size aircraft, and a new AWACS platform, among others—didn’t influence current Air Force leadership’s recent decisions on the Next-Generation Air Dominance program or the service’s broader strategic ...
Air & Space Forces Magazine traveled the the globe in 2024 to cover the biggest stories involving the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, from Ukraine to the Middle East, from Florida to California. Now, as we head into 2025, here are some of the ...
Outgoing Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall thinks accelerating the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program will be his biggest legacy, as they will be "transformative" of how the service fights.
The Air Force is deferring decisions on the Next-Generation Air Dominance stealth fighter program to the incoming Trump Administration, the service announced. It will continue its review of the program in the meantime, as well as continue the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction phase being ...
The Air Force cannot afford its three marquee air combat and mobility programs simultaneously, but should be given the resources to do so, Secretary Frank Kendall said.
The blue ribbon panel that is set to determine the fate of the Air Force’s future manned fighter will provide its recommendations by the end of the year, the service’s top officer said Oct. 25.
The Air Force is working on a sweeping force structure review mandated by Congress and reconsidering its approach for the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter. Key to both, however, could be another question: just how large will the service’s B-21 bomber fleet be? During an Oct. 24 earnings ...
In the race to field the first sixth-generation fighter, the U.S. Navy is pressing ahead as the Air Force pauses its program amid concern that it's too expensive and might not be the best answer to emerging threats.
The Air Force is hoping to slash the cost of the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter from hundreds of millions per copy to less than $80 million, secretary Frank Kendall said. It might be done by disaggregating the fighter’s functions and possibly making it uncrewed.
The Air Force’s top acquisition official said Sept. 16 that longstanding plans to replace the KC-135 Stratotanker refueling jet with a similar airframe hinge on the progress of the service’s search for a more futuristic tanker.
The Air Force is reconsidering how it gains air superiority—and whether it needs a manned sixth-generation fighter to achieve it, acquisition boss Andrew P. Hunter said.
New, classified sensors for the F-22 are being tested successfully, a service official said, making the Raptor's 2030 retirement increasingly less likely.