US Has Struck Over 1,000 Houthi Targets in Renewed Campaign

April 30, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

U.S. forces have struck more than 1,000 Houthi targets in Yemen since March 15, U.S. officials said, as the Trump administration’s campaign against the militants reached the 45-day mark.

Dubbed Operation Rough Rider, the campaign has drawn on U.S. Navy and Air Force warplanes and drones and shows no sign of slowing down. The Pentagon has devoted considerable resources to the effort under U.S. Central Command, including six B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers, two aircraft carriers and their accompanying strike groups, and other aerial assets.

“CENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders, including senior Houthi missile and UAV officials, and degrading their capabilities,” Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Sean Parnell said in an April 29 statement, a total reiterated by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on April 30. That assessment marked a significant increase from an April 27 estimate of over 800 targets hit provided by CENTCOM.

The campaign against the Houthis has also been broadened to include Britain, which on April 29 participated in airstrikes for the first time since Trump took office. In a nighttime strike, Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4 fighters used Paveway IV guided bombs to attack a “cluster of buildings” used to manufacture drones that the Houthis have used to attack ships in the busy waterways near Yemen, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense. That attack, which was carried out in a joint operation with the U.S., was supported by Voyager aerial refueler tankers.

“This action was taken in response to a persistent threat from the Houthis to freedom of navigation,” British Defense Secretary John Healey said in a statement.

The Houthis have been attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait since late 2023 in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The Houthi attacks have hit commercial ships, leading to a large drop-off in shipping in the Red Sea, which connects to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, forcing commercial traffic to reroute around Africa.

The U.S. military engaged in a long military campaign against the Houthis under the Biden administration, and Trump stepped it up even more, including attacks against Houthi leaders.

“These strikes have killed hundreds of Houthi fighters,” CENTCOM said in a rare update on the operation April 27. “The strikes have destroyed multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities, and advanced weapons storage locations. These storage facilities housed advanced conventional weapons, including anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, unmanned aerial systems, and uncrewed surface vessels, which were employed in Houthi terrorist attacks on international shipping lanes.”

On social media, CENTCOM, commanded by Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, often shares imagery of fighter jets launching, referring to “24/7 operations” and using the hashtag #HouthisAreTerrorists in its posts.

24/7 operations continue against Iran-backed Houthis from CENTCOM forces aboard USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) and USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70).#HouthisAreTerrorists pic.twitter.com/ArFPA86WYo
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 26, 2025

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin struck a similar tone in an April 30 post on social media, saying the service has participated in “continuous strikes against Iran-backed Houthis.”

But in contrast to previous campaigns, the Trump administration and the military have withheld many details about the operations.

“To preserve operational security, we have intentionally limited disclosing details of our ongoing or future operations. We are very deliberate in our operational approach, but will not reveal specifics about what we’ve done or what we will do,” CENTCOM said.

CENTCOM says that Houthi ballistic missile launches have dropped by 69 percent and attacks from one-way attack drones have decreased by 55 percent since the start of the operation.

The missions have involved a sizable commitment of resources. The B-2s have been deployed to the military outpost of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for the last month, an unusually long deployment for the high-maintenance stealth bomber, and have carried out airstrikes on the Houthis. The aircraft carriers USS Harry S. Truman and USS Carl Vinson are both operating in the waters near Yemen. It is extremely rare for two carriers to be operating in the Middle East together for an extended period of time. Pricey munitions, including cruise missiles and guided bombs, have also been employed by U.S. forces.

The Houthis have alleged that the U.S. military has caused hundreds of civilian casualties, particularly in strikes against Ras Isa fuel port earlier this month—one of the few specific targets CENTCOM has publicly disclosed, which the Houthis say caused around 70 deaths—and a strike on April 28 that is alleged to have killed nearly 70 African migrants.

The April 28 strike resulted in “a high number of casualties, many of whom were migrants,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement. Before that strike, there were over 500 civilian casualties—158 killed, 342 injured—reported as the result of apparent U.S. strikes between the beginning of Operation Rough Rider on March 15 and April 22, according to the Yemen Data Project, a nonprofit group.

Asked about the claims of civilian casualties, a U.S. defense official said, “CENTCOM is aware of the reports and is taking them seriously.”

“We are currently conducting our battle-damage assessment and inquiry into those claims,” the official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The U.S. campaign has come at the cost of at least seven MQ-9 Reapers that have been lost over Yemen since the beginning of March—six since the current campaign began on March 15—according to U.S. officials. The Houthis have claimed credit for shooting down the drones. MQ-9s are employed as both strike assets and to surveil targets, and the current U.S. campaign differs from operations under the Biden administration in its focus on Houthi leaders, as well as its scope.

On April 28, one of Truman’s F/A-18E Super Hornets, along with a tow tractor, fell off the carrier and sank, according to the Navy, and an F/A-18F off the Truman was shot down in a friendly fire incident by the USS Gettysburg cruiser in December before the current, more intense operation began. The Sailors involved in both incidents managed to escape relatively unharmed.

“We will continue to ratchet up the pressure until the objective is met, which remains the restoration of freedom of navigation and American deterrence in the region,” CENTCOM said in its April 27 statement.

A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II returns to combat patrol after being refueled over the Red Sea, April 15, 2025. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Christopher Lyons

Pentagon Poised to Replenish Munitions Stockpiles with Billions from Congress

April 30, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

After years of serving as the bill-payer for other Pentagon priorities, munitions stockpiles are poised to get a major boost from the $150 billion reconciliation package unveiled by lawmakers in Congress this week, along with the defense industrial base to produce them.

The package, approved by the House Armed Services Committee on April 29, includes sections with $20.4 billion for munitions and their supply chain and $13.5 billion for low-cost weapons. That covers money for everything from long-range missiles used by multiple services—particularly anti-ship missiles—to hypersonic missiles to low-cost cruise missiles to one-way attack drones.

The reconciliation bill effectively supplements the 2025 budget being funded by continuing resolution. The Trump administration is projecting a 2026 defense budget of $1 trillion, but the reconciliation adds are not part of that figure.

If approved, the new spending would see large increases to buy or develop long-range missiles applicable to multiple services–particularly anti-ship missiles–with boosts to hypersonic missile funding and one-way attack drones of the kind that have proven effective in the Ukraine war.

The package also includes money to boost the resiliency of the supply base for materials such as rare Earth metals, and to buy Army land-based munitions, Navy torpedoes and mines, and rockets and motors to support missile defense systems.

Missiles

The emphasis on long-range cruise missiles dovetails with posture testimony offered by regional commanders this spring, who all laid out the need to shoot at enemy targets—at least in the initial stages of a conflict—from outside the reach of air defenses, the range of which continues to expand.

The package includes $938 million for such multi-service missiles—$688 million to develop and procure them, and $250 million to expand production capacity. Lawmakers didn’t specify which programs they were targeting with these increases, nor did they spell out how much of the money is intended to support specific branches.

Another combined $780 million would go for development, procurement, and expanded production of Navy and Air Force “long-range anti-ship missiles.” Lockheed Martin’s stealthy AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM, currently dominates this sector.

A total of $584 million would go to development, production, and capacity expansion for long-range air-to-surface missiles used by the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.

One program seemingly poised to expand is the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile built by RTX. Lawmakers want to put $250 million to buy “medium range air-to-air-missiles,” $225 million to “expand the production base” for those weapons, and $50 million to mitigate “diminishing manufacturing sources” that support such missiles, for a total of $525 million.

Another individual winner seems to be Northrop Grumman”s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile- Extended Range, or AARGM-ER. The package includes “$325 million for production capacity improvements for air-launched anti-radiation missiles.”

Even short-range air-to-air missiles like the AIM-9X Sidewinder, also built by RTX, got a boost, to the tune of $50 million to boost the production capacity by establishing “second sources” for weapon parts.

As more and more companies like Anduril and Lockheed Martin unveil new low-cost cruise missiles, Congress signaled interest in growing the market with $500 million for development and production of such weapons suitable for export to allied and partner nations.

The Barracuda-500 cruise missile, one of a variety of advanced products Anduril will likely produce at its new facility near Columbus, Ohio.

Drones

One of the largest single boosts in the package was $1 billion for “expansion of the one-way attack unmanned aerial systems industrial base” to produce weapons similar to those used with great effect in the Ukraine war.

As a mission area, counter-unmanned aerial systems capability was tapped for more than $1 billion, collectively, with $500 million for development, production and integration of such systems, $350 million pegged to development, production and integration of “non-kinetic” counter-UAS and $250 million for “development, production, and integration of land-based counter-unmanned aerial systems programs.” These funds were listed among Army programs, but may not be strictly to support Army efforts.

Industrial Base

The package includes $600 million for “investments in the solid rocket motor industrial base … and emerging solid rocket motor industrial base,” dominated by Northrop Grumman, and $42 million to develop “second sources for large-diameter solid rocket motors for hypersonic missiles.” A possible benefactor of these funds is L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne unit, which is the next-largest maker of SRMs after Northrop.

Another section included $1 billion “for the creation of next-generation automated munitions production factories,” but it wasn’t specified whether these funds supported relatively simple items like artillery shells or new low-cost cruise missile factories like those recently announced by Anduril.

About $1.5 billion, collectively, was provided for joint prototyping experimentation, acceleration of 5G and 6G technologies, and cross-service networking and kill chain development. Some $3 billion was allotted to the Defense Innovation Unit to pursue dual-use “innovative technologies” applicable to both the commercial world and defense, aimed at lowering costs for defense needs.

The package also includes $2.5 billion in funding to assist mines in gearing up to increase their production of critical materials, such as rare Earth elements, through the National Defense Stockpile program.

Meeting the Software Challenge: How the Air Force Is Embracing New Acquisition Rules

April 30, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series exploring the opportunities and challenges facing the Trump administration’s changes to how the Pentagon buys software.

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the Army War College last week, he mentioned changes to the way the military buys software alongside Golden Dome and the F-47 as key to his goal of “rebuilding the military.”

In a memo last month, Hegseth doubled-down on a new rule book for the way the U.S. military buys software. The memo mandates the use of the Software Acquisition Pathway, a five-year-old effort to reshape a military procurement process built for industrial age military hardware like tanks and ships, and fit it to buying modern software.

And Lt. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey, who heads the Air Force’s most consequential IT acquisition programs, says he’s already using the authorities that Hegseth foot-stomped in the memo to contract directly with commercial startups and bring cutting edge software into the huge, complex programs he manages.

The Software Acquisition Pathway was developed by a blue-ribbon commission and passed by Congress in 2019 to address concerns about huge delays and budget overruns in software-heavy acquisition programs like the F-35. But the pathway was a voluntary option prior to Hegseth’s memo and only a small number of programs are using it so far.

Hegseth’s memo says it should be the “preferred option” for all major software purchases going forward.

And the memo also mandates the use of new, much more flexible acquisition tools, which aim to short-circuit long-established rules about how the government spends taxpayer dollars, to help the military buy cutting edge technological capabilities more quickly.

Almost no one seems to think that the way the U.S. military currently buys software is effective. But while the Software Acquisition Pathway has existed for nearly five years now, government auditors have noted that it is rarely used by major weapons programs because of gaps in training and resources—suggesting Hegseth may face big challenges in his push to make it the default option.

Of 53 software-intensive major weapons programs looked at by the Government Accountability Office last year, only one reported it was using the pathway. And GAO Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions Shelby Oakley told Air & Space Magazine that program was no longer using the pathway.

“We would like to see more use of that pathway by these programs, but we’re just not seeing that at this point,” she said.

When program managers were asked why they weren’t using the then-optional software pathway, Oakley said, their response varied.

“Some said, ‘Oh, it’s not applicable to us,’ or, ‘The contractor is doing the software, we don’t have any insight,’ all sorts of things like that,” she said.

But one reason that stood out, she said, was resources. “Programs told us, and told [the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment] that they felt like they didn’t have specialized people to do this, that they didn’t have the expertise,” she said. They ended up relying on contractor support. “In order to do these modern, agile developments, you need a program office and a program manager that have the skills to oversee these activities,” Oakley said.

There was a “disconnect” between the policy and the resources, she added. “It is a little bit unrealistic to think that folks will just magically know exactly how to do this and understand what this might look like for what they see as a more traditional weapons program effort.”

Lt. Gen. Luke Cropsey is responsible for developing the overarching architecture that can turn Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) from a concept into an operational reality. **Mike Tsukamoto/staff**

A New Way of Buying Software

Cropsey, who heads the Air Force Program Executive Office (PEO) for Command, Control, Computers, and Battle Management (C3/BM) told Air & Space Forces Magazine he was already using many of the authorities Hegseth is promoting as part of a drive to embrace software innovation. “What we’re doing with [Cloud-Based Command and Control] is exactly the direction the SecDef’s memo is pushing us,” Cropsey said.

CBC2 is the modern, cloud-based software replacement for the aging Battle Control System–Fixed—the Cold War-era system used to defend North American airspace by NORAD, the joint U.S.-Canadian air defense organization. Ground stations across North America monitor and track possible airspace intrusions, said Cropsey, and feed that data to NORAD HQ. “But the equipment that they’re using has been around for decades and decades and decades,” he said.

In the industrial age model of contracting, Cropsey said, the Air Force would award a contract for a new air defense system or a jet fighter to a single company which would produce it for decades, on the assumption that, with the resources of the United States behind it, it could outpace any technological competitors. But in the new innovation era, the service had to be ready to be a “fast follower,” adopting new technological advances, from wherever they spring, as quickly as possible.

“The paradigm is rapid, incremental, buys of emerging capabilities,” Cropsey said.

The capabilities he hopes to leverage in CBC2, he said, “grew out of a number of prototype collaborations that we have with folks like DIU” and other innovation shops.

The new authorities in the Software Acquisition Pathway and the novel contracting tools mandated in the Hegseth memo “allow us to contract directly with those non-traditional cutting edge software providers in the commercial market for the things that we needed,” Cropsey said.

Industry software teams participate in the Department of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System Cross-Functional Team first software sprint experiment to examine software solutions for enhanced command and control in conjunction with the Shadow Operations Center – Nellis, at the Howard Hughes Operations, or H2O, facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 9-13, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo

From Pathway to OTA

Traditionally, Cropsey explained, the way major weapons systems would seek to leverage a startup with exciting new capabilities would be as a subcontractor to a large defense prime, because the small, new company would not be able to meet the onerous requirements to qualify to bid on government contracts.

But the Hegseth memo directs all software programs use two alternative acquisition tools: Other Transaction Authority (OTAs) and Commercial Solutions Offerings (CSOs), which dispense with many of those requirements.

Cropsey said the CBC2 team used a different alternative acquisition tool, Small Business Innovation Research contracts (SBIRs) Phase III, to directly engage software vendors and bring them onto the program quickly.

“A Phase III basically allows anybody to come get you [the vendor] on contract as a sole source, very, very rapidly,” he said. “So we had a direct contractual relationship with them, not a typical prime to sub relationship that a lot of these different contracts have had historically.”

That meant the CBC2 team could use the startups to deal with issues or bugs as incremental capabilities were rolled out to users, while also developing the next generation of capabilities. “We could go in and very, very rapidly pivot those software providers to the things that were getting curated in that DevSecOps backlog and that pipeline,” he said.

These alternative acquisition tools make it easier to get vendors, especially non-traditional ones like the software startups working CBC2, on contract and working, Cropsey said.

“The drawback,” he said, “is you need contracting officers that understand the authorities associated with these contract vehicles, because they’re outside of the typical Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations that most contracting officers grow up doing. So it’s a different skill set.”

Writing and managing OTA contracts is taxing, and not just because they’re different from conventional procurement tools, said Oakley. They’re also less proscriptive and less structured, meaning it takes more work to create them.

Oakley compared drawing up an OTA contract to “creating it from scratch versus following the formula of a regular, DFAR-based contract.”

They can also be harder to manage, she added, and GAO had “raised some concerns about the ability to effectively oversee these OTAs and really structure them in a way that gets the government what it wants.”

Part 2 will probe the origins of the Software Acquisition Pathway as part of an acquisition reform movement in DOD. Part 3 will look at questions about the pathway and the flexible acquisition tools that accompany it.

Many US Bases Still Lack Sufficient Tech to Track Drone Incursions: DOD Officials

April 29, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

Pentagon officials overseeing homeland counter-drone strategy told lawmakers that even with preliminary moves to bolster U.S. base defenses, the military still lacks the capability to comprehensively identify, track, and engage hostile drones like those that breached the airspace of Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 days in December 2023.

Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voiced frustration during the April 29 hearing that the chaotic Langley episode paralyzed commanders’ ability to respond and ultimately forced F-22 fighters to be relocated to other bases. More drone incursions were later reported around other military bases, including USAF installations from Utah to the United Kingdom.

“There were over 350 detections of drones at 100 different military installations last year alone,” Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) said. “These incursions are not from hobbyists being blown off course. The multitude of drones reported flying over bases in the past several years revealed a coordinated effort by our adversaries to collect valuable intelligence and surveillance of some of our most sensitive military equipment.”

Timmons added that it shows that base commanders have “inadequate or nonexistent monitoring capabilities” and a lack of counter-drone capabilities.

Mark Ditlevson, acting assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, told lawmakers that defense officials have made progress identifying solutions designed to more effectively identify and understand “what is flying in our airspace and how to separate the negligent from the nefarious.”

The Pentagon is working with the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell to rapidly acquire the right equipment and to give commanders better tools to “understand the operating environment and the ability to effectively conduct nonkinetic and kinetic mitigations.”

Despite the progress, Ditlevson admitted that responding to hostile unmanned aerial systems in the homeland is much more difficult than in war zones.

“The systems that have proven effective at countering UAS in the Middle East are not appropriate for the homeland given the intelligence collection required to enable these mitigation operations and the potential for collateral damage, [for example] radio frequency jamming can interfere with emergency responder radios and weather radar,” Ditlevson said in his written statement to the committee.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) asked Rear Adm. Paul Spedero, vice director for operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if there are capability gaps when it comes to developing “technology for trying to address kinetic and nonkinetic” to engage advanced drone technology.

Spedero admitted that the technology for drones has “far outpaced” the tech to defeat them.

“It’s a much wider, broader, deeper market for drone application, for commercial and recreational purposes. So hence that technology has evolved very quickly from radio controlled drones to now fully autonomous drones that may or may not even rely on reception of a GPS signal, which would make it very challenging to intercept so on the counter drone activity,” Spedero said.

“You have to come back to agencies that would be interested in that like the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, you know, law enforcement agencies. So we have to partner, and we have to create that demand within industry to get technology back on pace to counter this ever increasing emergence of drone technology.”

Spedero told Timmons that the technology many commanders have to track drones over their installations “is not sufficient. The development and fielding of “domain awareness sensors is a critical first step.”

“Obviously, we need a method to exert command and control so that we can build a common operating picture, because it will take layers of different sensors, because one sensor may be better against certain UAVs and certain flight profiles, and you may have to rely on different sensors to round out the picture,” Spedero said.

“So yes, we do need more sensors. We are addressing the shortfall right now with the fielding of flyaway kits. So these will be kits that will be available for bases that have very limited capability to detect on their own and build domain awareness.”

Spedero added, however, that commanders would first have to request the capability from U.S. Northern Command and a “flyaway kit, as well as expertise and additional resources that would be required, would be immediately deployed to that location.”

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) said one of his biggest concerns over this issue is the amount of funding legacy aircraft programs are receiving as opposed to funding drone and counter-drone technology which already plays a significant role in modern warfare.

“It seems like we’re spending about $22 billion … in the last budget on fighter jets and maybe a billion dollars on drone and counter drone technology together,” said Cloud, explaining that his numbers may be “off a bit” because funding is coming from different buckets.

“We’re talking about one drone coming and what we can or can’t do about it. I think from the American taxpayer who’s sitting at home going, we’re spending [more than] $800 billion roughly on defense, and we can’t shoot a drone down.”

Trump: Selfridge Getting F-15EX Fighters to Replace A-10s

April 29, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base will become the home of 21 F-15EX Eagle II multirole fighters, a move that will enable the base to retain a fighter mission after the looming retirement of its A-10 attack planes.

President Donald Trump announced the move in a joint visit to the base with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and others April 29.

“As Commander-in-Chief, I’m proud to announce that very soon, we will replace the retiring A-10 Warthogs with 21 brand-new F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets—the best in the world,” Trump said. “This will keep Selfridge at the cutting edge of northern American airpower.”

Whitmer, a Democrat who visited Trump at the White House earlier this month, has been pushing for Selfridge to maintain a fighter mission along with other Michigan lawmakers. The Air National Guard previously passed over the base when it was deciding where to base its F-35A Lightning II multirole stealth fighters.

“I’m really damn happy we’re here to celebrate this recapitalization at Selfridge,” Whitmer said. “It’s critical for the Michigan economy, for our homeland security, and our future.”

F-15EXs will begin arriving in fiscal 2028 and will be on top of previous bases slated to receive the jets, Whitmer’s office said.

“According to the Department of Defense, the F-15EXs will begin arriving in FY28, and this basing decision will not overturn other F-15EX basing actions in other states, but is rather additive,” the Michigan Governor’s Office said in a statement.

The projected F-15EX fleet had been trimmed to 98 under the Biden administration. But the plane received a boost in recent days when the Senate and House Armed Services Committee released a reconciliation package that includes $150 billion in new defense spending in fiscal 2025. That package includes $3.15 billion for more F-15EXs and could be used to fund an additional squadron, expanding the fleet to about 125 aircraft.

The F-15EX, made by Boeing, will form the backbone of the Air National Guard’s fighter fleet along with the F-35.

Portland Air National Guard Base, Ore., has started to operate the F-15EX and the plane is coming to Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans, La., and Fresno Air National Guard Base, Calif. Now Selfridge is joining the club.

On the Active-Duty side, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., operates a test fleet of F-15EXs and Kadena Air Base, Japan, will eventually receive the aircraft to replace its aged-out F-15C/D Eagles.

A 142nd Wing F-15EX Eagle II takes off from Portland Air National Guard Base, Ore., on July 12, 2024, during a ceremony to welcome the aircraft. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Nichole Sanchez

Selfridge’s fighter mission has consisted of the A-10s in its 107th Fighter Squadron, which are due to be retired over the next several years.

Some A-10s from Selfridge deployed to the Middle East last fall, according to imagery released from U.S. Central Command. Photos of some A-10s in the region sported Selfridge’s “MI” tailflash, and other photos showed Airmen from the 107th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron and the 107th Expeditionary Fighter Generation Squadron.

Selfridge is also due to get a new squadron of KC-46 Pegasus tankers as its fleet of KC-135s is retired. Trump also expressed support for that move, which was decided by the Biden administration.

‘Blind Trust’: Netflix Drops Trailer for Air Force Thunderbirds Movie

April 29, 2025 | By David Roza

An upcoming Netflix documentary promises an inside look at the Air Force’s premier aerial demonstration team. Premiering May 23, “Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds” will showcase the skill, trust, and hard work it takes to fly six F-16 fighters in tight formation nearly every week for eight months, judging by a trailer released April 29.

“If you don’t have blind trust, this show will not work,” Lt. Col. Justin Elliot said in the trailer. Elliot commanded the team from 2022 to 2023, before the current commander, Lt. Col. Nathan Malafa, took over in 2024.

The trailer emphasizes the high stakes and slim margins of Thunderbird performance.

“Six jets flying 18 inches apart, nearly at the speed of sound … you are microseconds of lag from a life-threatening situation,” an interviewee says over scenes of the pilots strapping into the F-16s and taking off.

“They’re already the best combat pilots the Air Force has to offer, but air demonstration is a completely different animal,” Elliot added.

“We are always under a little bit of like, the ‘I’m going to die’ factor,” said then-Thunderbird 6, Maj. Eric Tise.

The 90-minute documentary comes exactly a year after the streaming premiere of Amazon Studios’ “The Blue Angels,” a documentary of the same length about the Navy’s flagship aerial demonstration team. One of the producers for that film was Glen Powell, who starred in the 2022 film “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the 1986 naval aviation classic.

“Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds” has an even higher-profile producer team: former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama. Their company Higher Ground Productions has a history of working with Netflix on shows and movies, both fiction and nonfiction.

The documentary was directed by Matt Wilcox, who has directed at least two basketball documentaries, according to the Internet Movie Database. That background may help with a documentary about the Thunderbirds which, like a professional basketball team, involves talented individuals working long hours to put on dazzling performances on a regular basis. Except with the Thunderbirds, any mistake can end lives.

“As a newbie, there’s immense amount of pressure to get this right,” Capt. Jacob Impellizzeri said in the trailer. “You don’t want to be the reason the team fails.”

Like the Blue Angels documentary, “Thunderbirds” seems to take viewers into the no-holds barred post-practice debrief sessions.

“We’re going to pick apart everything that went wrong, and it’s going to feel like you’re getting crushed,” Elliot said in one of those sessions featured in the trailer.

The United States Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron “Thunderbirds” perform at the California International Air Show in Salinas, Calif. Staff Sgt. Andrew Sarver

One reviewer called the Blue Angels documentary a “visually stunning recruitment ad,” but it was well-watched, topping Amazon Prime Video’s charts over Memorial Day weekend, according to The Aviationist.

“Thunderbirds” appears to follow the same formula, and more exposure to Air Force aviation may help shore up a long-running pilot shortage that leaves experts wondering if the service has enough fliers to win a war.

To what extent airshows help with that shortage may soon come under scrutiny: in December, federal lawmakers asked the Department of Defense to study how military air shows affect recruiting and readiness, and to look into performing at more rural areas across the country.

Congress Eyes Nearly $25B to Jump Start Golden Dome

April 29, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Lawmakers in Congress are working to inject tens of billions of dollars into President Donald Trump’s ambitious “Golden Dome” plan for comprehensive missile defense of the U.S. homeland in the coming months.

On April 29, the House Armed Services Committee passed a new $150 billion reconciliation package that includes $24.7 billion for Golden Dome in fiscal 2025. The package still faces many hurdles before it is approved, but at the same time, the Pentagon will soon release its 2026 budget request. Lawmakers have already started work on funding Golden Dome for that fiscal year—in February, Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) proposed a bill earmarking nearly $18.5 billion in ’26 funds for the idea, then called Iron Dome for America.

While Sullivan and Cramer’s bill focused mostly on upgrading and expanding existing missile defense systems, the reconciliation package’s biggest adds for Golden Dome focus on developing a novel defense architecture in orbit and accelerating efforts to position additional satellites for sensing and tracking missile threats.

The package includes $5.6 billion specifically for the “development of space-based and boost-phase intercept capabilities,” a concept pursued over decades that Lt. Gen. Shawn W. Bratton, the Space Force’s top officer for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements, has called “no joke of a physical problem.”

Retired Space Force Col. Charles Galbreath, senior resident fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, explained that “from initial detection through relay, tracking, and targeting—all of that takes time, creating a very narrow window for either ballistic or hypersonic systems. If the Pentagon opts for a kinetic interceptor, it must also account for the object’s time of flight from space to the target.”

Given the substantial $5.6 billion allocation, the Department of Defense will likely at least invest in researching and demonstrating kinetic solutions, Galbreath said.

A more feasible option, however, might be non-kinetic interceptors such as directed energy weapons. The reconciliation package includes a separate $2.4 billion for non-kinetic missile defense programs.

“Directed energy reduces travel time, which gives you a bit more margin,” Galbreath said—an important advantage when the boost-phase window lasts only a few minutes. “That’s why in the 1980s and into the 1990s, there was strong interest in space-based lasers for boost-phase intercept; it was a logical path to pursue given the constraints.”

An artist’s concept of a Space Laser Satellite Defense System. U.S. Air Force illustration

Under President Ronald Reagan, the Strategic Defense Initiative spurred extensive research into advanced missile defense, including experiments with lasers, particle beams, and gamma rays to disable threats in their early flight phase.

The largest allocation in the new Golden Dome package is $7.2 billion for military space-based sensors—funding that could boost efforts already underway, led by the Space Development Agency through its Proliferated Warfighting Space Architecture program. This initiative aims to populate low-Earth orbit with cost-effective satellites for tracking missiles and relaying data.

The package also includes $2.2 billion to expedite the development of hypersonic defense systems, with Galbreath suggesting that much of this funding will likely bolster the command-and-control capabilities of these systems.

Another $2 billion is allocated for air-moving target indicator (AMTI) military satellites. The Space Force announced last year that it plans to begin deploying satellites capable of tracking airborne threats by the early 2030s.

Additionally, $1.9 billion is included to enhancing ground-based radar systems, including the SBX Radar managed by the Missile Defense Agency and the Patriot Radar used in the Army’s missile defense operations. The funding will help improve their range, sensitivity, processing power, and overall reliability.

Golden Dome is still in its infancy, however; the Pentagon is still assessing which existing capabilities to enhance and which new technologies to develop. The added funding is expected to provide with a much-needed boost for the project, enabling industry to begin demonstrating and testing new technologies.

In a statement touting the Trump administration’s accomplishments after 100 days in office, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell said the Pentagon has “submitted Golden Dome for America plans to the President.” A DOD spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine the department had nothing else to announce at this time.

Space Force and Missile Defense Agency leaders have emphasized that organizational cooperation will be critical to the project’s success, given its scale and the need for cross-agency coordination. While both plan to host a summit in the coming months with commercial partners, no lead agency has yet been designated to spearhead the project.

Galbreath emphasized the need for a single, dedicated organization to take accountability for Golden Dome, warning that without it, the project could repeat the missteps of JADC2—the Pentagon’s effort to connect sensors across all military branches into a unified, AI-powered network. That initiative initially struggled due to the absence of a central coordinating authority, with parallel efforts by the Army, Navy, and Air Force leading to multiple incompatible systems.

Anti-Jamming GPS Upgrades Coming This Year

April 29, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

Everything’s coming together to make 2025 a pivotal year in the Space Force’s long-running effort to make GPS more resistant to jamming, a senior service official said April 29.

“That entire architecture is really focused now on meeting the anti-jam and spoofing threat,” said Cordell A. DeLaPena, program executive officer for military communications and position, navigation, and timing, said during a virtual Schriever Spacepower talk with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

GPS remains the gold standard among Global Navigation Satellite Systems, DeLaPena said: “We’re the best in the world” in terms of accuracy, integrity, and availability.

But jamming and spoofing are growing challenges, highlighted by Russia’s aggressive electronic warfare in Ukraine as well as concerns about China’s potential to try to deny GPS access to U.S. and allied forces. GPS signals can be drowned out with powerful radio frequency signals broadcast at the same frequency, jamming the signals that users leverage to find their location.

The Pentagon has been working on countermeasures by upgrading GPS satellites, software, and receivers, but each effort has been plagued by its own set of delays.

Now the wait is almost over, DeLaPena promised. “All three of those lanes in the road … converge in 2025 and enable the warfighter to start depending and training with anti-jam,” he pledged.

Satellites

At the end of May, the Space Force plans to launch the eighth of 10 GPS III satellites, just a few months after launching the seventh spacecraft in the series. USSF is using a new rocket—SpaceX’s Falcon 9—and accelerating integration and readiness checks.

The seventh through 10th satellites in the constellation were built months ago and put into storage as the Space Force waited for the original launch vehicle, ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, to be certified.

The GPS III birds take full advantage of M-code, a more robust, encrypted, jam-resistant signal for military use. While other GPS satellites can transmit M-code, GPS III can beam the signal at target areas. But the real key is having a large enough constellation.

With seven spacecraft in orbit, “we have sufficient on-orbit capacity for anti-jam,” DeLaPena said. The remaining two satellites in the series will be launched over the next year and a half.

After that, comes GPS III Follow-On, which will have even better anti-jamming tech.

“The next era of anti-jam: a higher power, tighter beam called RMP, which stands for regional military protection,” said DeLaPena. “And because GPS is occurring in L-band, optimized for that orbit, we counter jamming by concentrating our power and we blast our way through it. That makes it very, very hard for our adversary to go against that power, because they’d have to build multiple, enormous jammers that are vulnerable in other areas as well.”

With M-code and RMP, the Space Force will be “almost all the way” to having a jam-resistant capability. Beyond that, DeLaPena said his office is exploring new technologies through contracts with the Space Force’s innovation incubator SpaceWERX.

OCX

While GPS III satellites started going up several years ago, the software system to control them proved bedeviling. The Next-Generation GPS Operational Control System, or OCX, has been a “tough, tough program,” said DeLaPena, who first started managing programs in 1990. “I’ve been in this business a while. … OCX is the hardest I’ve ever worked.”

Since contractor Raytheon was tapped for OCX in 2010, the program has been delayed again and again and even incurred a “Nunn-McCurdy” breach due to soaring costs.

Former Space Force acquisition executive Frank Calvelli called the failure to deliver OCX his biggest regret, but DeLaPena says it’s coming soon.

“Raytheon is scheduled to submit their DD-250 within the next 30 days, which will allow government testing and operational testing,” DeLaPena said, referring to the form that signals the Pentagon has accepted ownership of a system. “And the PEO will certify it’s ready to transition to operations by the end of the year. Huge milestone.”

MGUE

The last pieces in the puzzle are the terminals that receive the GPS signal. The Pentagon has been working on its Military GPS User Equipment program for more than a decade, another of the the programs Calvelli bemoaned as “problem children” in his portfolio.

The first increment of MGUE terminals are being tested now. “We’re flight testing with an Army UAV, we’re taking it to the jamming range. Next week, we’ll fly it against the jammers, and we’re scheduled to certify the final variants of MGUE Increment 1 in July of 2025,” he said.

MGUE is needed to receive M-code, making it part of the anti-jamming solution. And moving forward, DeLaPena said a second increment will help even more by allowing users to tap into position, navigation, and timing signals from non-GPS satellites.

“What increment two brings is incorporation of other PNT sources, not only just U.S. GPS, but it’ll incorporate some alternate PNT sources that the Army uses,” DeLaPena said. “It’ll incorporate international GPS, multi-GPS from space, things like from our allies, incorporating the Europe solution, incorporating the Japanese solution, and it’ll blend those solutions.”

The key to doing so is moving toward software-defined receivers, with antennas that can be reprogrammed quickly to tap into more signals. Flexibility in general will be key to future anti-jamming efforts, DeLaPena said.

“In the future, we’ll look at making sure that we’re not designing our anti-jam solution to be optimized just in one orbit in one waveform,” he said. “We need diversity in terms of the spectrum to allow flexibility into the other orbits as well, and a lot of that can come through these software-defined terminals that are being investigated across all the services.”

Lawmakers Eye $7.2B for New Fighters, CCAs and More—but Nothing for F-35

April 28, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Within the $150 billion reconciliation package unveiled by top lawmakers this weekend, Air Force and Navy aviation accounts would receive $7.2 billion.

Those funds would go to everything from accelerated work on advanced stealth fighters and Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones to buying more F-15EX fighters, electronic warfare jets, and tactical airlifters; from connectivity improvements for the mobility fleet to funds to keep operating older F-22 and F-15E fighters the Air Force has asked to retire.

Yet the F-35, the Pentagon’s current premier fighter program, received no increase.

The reconciliation package is effectively a supplement to the fiscal 2025 budget, separate from the usual appropriations process and the upcoming 2026 defense budget request. Any elements of the reconciliation bill that conflict with the Fiscal Responsibility Act take precedence.

House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and his counterpart Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) are touting the spending package as a “generational investment in our national defense.”

For aviation in particular, the plan would inject extra dollars into a wide-ranging set of projects.

Fighters

The F-15EX, Boeing’s new-production version of the F-15, was the biggest winner of the congressional package, with $3.15 billion going to increase the fleet size from the 98 aircraft the Air Force proposed in the fiscal 2024 budget. Depending on what’s included, those monies could fund more than an additional F-15EX squadron, bringing the F-15EX fleet up to about 125 airplanes.

Another major add was $400 million to “accelerate” the Air Force’s new F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, the contract for which was awarded to Boeing in March. The Navy’s counterpart program, the F/A-XX, would receive even more with $500 million, even though the winning contractor for the program still has not been announced. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are the finalists.

The package also includes some $488 million to help the Air Force keep operating fighters that Congress refuses to let them retire—$127.5 million to continue operating 14 F-15Es, and $361.2 million to keep flying 32 of its oldest and least-improved F-22s.

0125_World — F-22 Raptors spent several months in 2024 deployed to the U.S. Central Command AOR as part of a rotation to address threats posed by Iran and Iranian-backed groups. **USAF**

The CCA program—the Air Force’s major push to build semi-autonomous drones that fly alongside manned fighters—would see a boost of $678 million.

The Air Force could be poised to get more of its new electronic warfare/electronic attack jet, the EA-37B Compass Call, with an add of $474 million. The service has a requirement for between 12 and 20 of the systems, built by L3Harris and BAE Systems on a converted Gulfstream G550, but it trimmed the program to 10 due to budget constraints. The Air Force was potentially going to put more EA-37Bs on its Unfunded Priorities List for 2026.

The Lockheed-built F-16 fleet would also get $50 million for an electronic warfare upgrade.

Mobility Fleet

An Air Force goal of equipping its mobility aircraft as “internet providers in the sky” for allied forces would get a significant boost under the deal, which provides $116 million to add connectivity upgrades to the C-17 fleet and $84 million in similar gear for the KC-135 tanker fleet.

Congress is clearly not ready to stop buying C-130J tactical airlifters for National Guard units, and added $440 million to keep production going.

Lawmakers also provided $100 million to “accelerate” the Boeing MQ-25 carrier-based autonomous tanking aircraft program and $160 million to accelerate improvements to the Bell-Boeing V-22 fleet’s engine nacelles, which have been faulted in a series of accidents with the tiltrotor transport.

Secret Air Force aviation programs would get $300 million under the reconciliation, while the Navy would get a $230 million boost for its classified aviation efforts.

No F-35

The conspicuous absence of any adds—or even reference—to the F-35 in the reconciliation is “very, very worrisome,” said Mark Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

The F-15EX “is a great aircraft,” Gunzinger said, able to carry hypersonic missiles externally and other air-to-ground weapons needed to close long-range kill chains.

“Great. We need that capacity. Buy them as fast as we can,” he said. “But neglecting the F-35 does not make sense, given that what is now rolling off the line” has the Tech Refresh 3 upgrade to its processors, and “the software is almost there as well. So, pushing F-35 buys to the right or decrementing doesn’t make sense, given the requirement. They are in production, they’re what we can buy now to enhance deterrence, to create a much more capable force.”

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning IIs assigned to the 421st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, taxi after landing at Kadena Air Base, Japan, April 24, 2025. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Arnet Tamayo

Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute said the F-35’s absence from the package speaks volumes about the how members of Congress feel about the fighter.

“If you step back and think about it, it’s the largest acquisition program in DOD. Congress gets an extra $150 billion, and they don’t put any of it towards that program? That says something about the sentiment around the F-35,” he said.

A former Air Force official said there is “widespread frustration” with the F-35 for its litany of challenges, ranging from sustainment costs to testing delays, and a “general lack of awareness of just how bad the decline in the size of the Air Force really is.” Meanwhile, he said, the reconciliation bill includes a huge boost to shipbuilding, a result of the Navy having been “much more vocal” about “the plight of shipbuilding” than the Air Force has about “the plight of its force structure.”