A retired F-15 housed at JB Langley-Eustis, Va., is scheduled to leave the base next month on a transcontinental road trip to its new home at the Chico Air Museum in northern California. “This is the longest movement of a military aircraft of this size on a truck ever attempted,” said museum founder Noel Wheeler, reported the Chico Enterprise-Record. Early last year, the Air Force approved the museum’s request for the F-15 with the stipulation that the museum move the aircraft from Langley to Chico at its own expense. Disassembled at Langley, the F-15 will traverse 10 states on two tractor trailers, just clearing the height required to safely pass under several overpasses along the way, said museum officials. Langley’s last operational F-15s departed the base last September as part of the Air Force’s drawdown of some 250 legacy fighters.
General Atomics, the maker of one of the Air Force’s first Collaborative Combat Aircraft, has ambitious plans for its family of semi-autonomous drones beyond the FQ-42, including a flying-wing aircraft capable of carrying out both reconnaissance and strike missions. Meanwhile, the Air Force Research Laboratory announced a new program to…