What it Takes

F-16s assigned to the New Jersey Air National Guard will live forever in the popular video game Microsoft Flight Simulator, thanks to an audio producer who records aircraft sounds to help make virtual flight as realistic as possible.

The Air Force is leaning toward a less-sophisticated autonomous aircraft in the second increment of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the services chief futurist said. He also suggested that the next increment of CCA may be air-launched, a la the "Rapid Dragon" experiments conducted by the service in recent years.

After the first tranches of its ambitious low-Earth orbit constellation faced production and supply chain issues that delays launches, the Space Development Agency is trying something new for its next round of satellite procurement. The agency awarded a $55 million contract to SAIC on April 22 for “system engineering and integration…

The U.S. Air Force will ramp up its fighter presence near North Korea by sending more than two dozen additional F-16s and 1,000 Airmen from Kunsan Air Base to Osan Air Base, South Korea.

Lockheed Martin's suggestion to upgrade the F-35 with technologies developed for the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter could come in a number of areas, several of which are already in hand.

A new fast-track approval process for software on Defense Department networks will use AI tools to radically shorten a process that currently takes months or years, Acting Pentagon Chief Information Officer Katie Arrington said April 23.  

Air Mobility Command, responsible for the Air Force’s airlift and tanker fleets, got some refueling help of its own from a commercial provider for the first time earlier this month. The milestone came when a KDC-10 tanker owned by Omega Air Refueling passed fuel onto a C-17 over California on April 10.

A dozen F-16s from Misawa Air Base are joining back-to-back exercises across the Philippines’ vast archipelago, including the northernmost major island less than 200 miles from Taiwan.

When acting Air Force Secretary Gary A. Ashworth rescinded service-wide “Family Days” last week citing the need to build readiness, he left it up to commanders, directors, and supervisors to decide if they would still permit extra days off. Here’s how Air Force major commands are taking that guidance.