The Air Force has employed 19 Lockheed Martin technicians in Southwest Asia for nearly two years to perform the extensive inspections the U-2 Dragon Lady aircraft need every 400 flying hours. The high-flying reconnaissance aircraft are in demand, so the Lockheed technicians work round-the-clock to complete each “phase inspection” within 14 days. They comb through the aircraft, looking for “things such as cracks, leaks, system failures, or wear patterns,” says Lockheed’s U-2 dock chief Bill Bonnichsen. Since Lockheed started doing the inspections in SWA in January 2005, the contractor team has completed 26 inspections, fixing problems along the way.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. may have moved on from Air Force Chief of Staff to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but he is keeping an eye on the Air Force’s effort to “re-optimize for great power competition”—and is pleased by what he sees. At a Defense Writers Group meeting March…