Apparently when Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told Congress last month that the Air Force expected to award the combat search and rescue helicopter replacement program contract—for a second time—in February, he didn’t have the latest information. Jim Wolf of Reuters reports that Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy said this week that the award would not come before summer. Wolf could not get Cassidy or anyone else to say why the new delay. The Air Force initially awarded the CSAR-X contract to Boeing, but two protests later, the service has started from scratch.
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.