Members of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., recently took special note of the fact that their F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters have amassed 250,000 hours of operation. Col. John Forsythe, commander of the 49th Operations Group, flew the record flight on July 25. The Air Force wants to move up retirement of its F-117 fleet to 2008 and has extended an olive branch to New Mexico lawmakers by announcing it plans to station a unit of its new F-22A stealth fighters in New Mexico.
The Pentagon is counting on Congress to navigate a legislative tightrope and pass a party-line bill to fund nearly a quarter of its $1.5 trillion budget request for fiscal 2027, including billions of dollars for top priorities like Golden Dome, the F-35, munitions, and unmanned systems. Experts and lawmakers from…