2024 USAF & USSF Almanac: Weapons & Platforms

Aeromedical evacuation Airmen are preparing for future conflicts in which scores more wounded troops may be forced to grow sicker as they wait for help to arrive across thousands of miles of ocean protected by advanced air defenses.

The Air Force is reorganizing the office that runs some of its most complex and expensive combat connectivity programs, hoping a fresh start can repair trust with troops after failing to deliver new capabilities to the front lines in a timely manner, the two-star general in charge said this week.

Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb attack on Russian air bases is causing the Pentagon to revise its approach to air and homeland defense.

The U.S. can’t assume that exercising long-range airpower will always mean one-off strikes such as the recent Midnight Hammer operation against Iran, the two-star general overseeing the Air Force bomber fleet said Aug. 7, arguing that the military must invest now in options for high-tempo operations many years away.

A hydraulic system failure is to blame for the December 2022 accident that sparked the fire that torched a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber beyond repair at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the Air Force said in an accident investigation report published Aug. 5.

New artificial intelligence technology powered by in-flight internet kept C-130 transport crews ahead of the curve this summer at a massive Pacific wargame.

A year away from its likely retirement—and 70 years to the day after the first U-2 flight—a two-seat version of the Dragon Lady from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force, Calif., set records for distance covered and endurance on a single mission, demonstrating the venerable type’s continuing capability.

In late June, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman’s official portrait got a slight update: his space operations badge, given to Guardians in the space ops career field, vanished. That wasn’t an oversight, Lt. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, the Space Force’s chief operations officer, revealed. Rather, it was a…

The Space Force will finish an analysis of alternatives for how to do airborne moving target indication from orbit this fall and rely upon early lessons learned from its still new effort to target objects on the ground as it forges ahead, the service’s chief operations officer said Aug. 4.