Air Force officials testifying before the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee on March 7 stated that, as of last month, the service has grounded or restricted 53 C-130 tactical airlifters. Surprisingly, all but one serves with an active unit. Among these bad actors are three C-130E Hercules that would require at least $2 million per aircraft to repair. The Air Force does plan to repair cracked center wing boxes of up to 62 C-130E and H models—at an average cost of $700,000 per aircraft—until it can replace the boxes. It must make these interim repairs to “maintain a combat effective intra-theater airlift fleet.” Still, the joint statement for Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, Lt. Gen. Howie Chandler, and Maj. Gen. Thomas Kane, noted that “vanishing vendors,” safety modifications, and decreased access to international airspace—an avionics modernization program is in the works to correct this problem—“limit the overall effectiveness” of the airlift “workhorse.”
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.