The Air Force’s share of the $26 billion “Opportunity, Growth, and Security” initiative—an add-on to the defense budget being proposed with the Fiscal 2015 budget—would be $7 billion “if we get it,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Wednesday. Should the money come through, it would be directed to aircraft modifications, facilities repair, training range improvements, and “other modernization items,” James told attendees at a Bloomberg budget conference in Washington, D.C. It’s iffy, though: USAF only gets the money “if Congress passes offsets” from taxes and other programs to make the funds available, she said. Last week, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told reporters that it was still being decided whether to give Congress an unfunded priorities list. He said if one service did it, “we all will,” or no one will.
New B-52 Radar Makes First Flight
Dec. 12, 2025
The Air Force’s radar modernization effort for the B-52 Stratofortress entered flight testing recently, a “milestone” for the once over-budget system that senior leaders call the start of a new era for the Cold War bomber.
