There’s a new X-plane in the Air Force’s fleet. The Air Force Test Pilot School in June redesignated the NF-16D Variable In-flight Simulator Aircraft as the X-62A, allowing the aircraft to be used for testing the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Skyborg program. The aircraft, originally ...
Air
A maintenance error, committed after an F-22 was washed, affected its control inputs and caused the Raptor to crash May 15, 2020, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. The pilot safely ejected, but the aircraft was totaled, with an estimated loss of $201 million, according ...
Firefighting technology hasn’t changed much from the days when Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson dropped buckets of water from a UH-60 Black Hawk, and his brother, a smokejumper, parachuted in to fight wildfires on foot. What has changed is the ...
The Air Force Research Laboratory is looking for contractors to build a fieldable high-powered microwave counter-drone system to defend air bases, AFRL announced July 29. It will spend $20 million on the program, the prototype for which it wants in 2023. The program is called ...
After six straight quarterly losses, Boeing reported profits of $755 million in the second quarter of 2021, a year after posting a $3.32 billion loss. Company officials reported no new loss on the KC-46 tanker, on which the company has lost $5 billion so far. ...
A pair of House Armed Services subcommittees, in markups of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, pushed back on some Air Force efforts to divest of legacy platforms while also pressing the service to examine the issue of ejection seat safety. On July 27, the ...
Air Force Lt. Gen. John F. Thompson retired July 27 as the longest-serving commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center ahead of its redesignation as Space Force’s Space Systems Command later this summer. Thompson paved the way for the standup of the Space Force ...
The Air Force spends around $6 billion a year on systems and priorities focused on the Arctic, a number that is expected to grow as the region’s importance rises and the Department of the Air Force’s first-ever Arctic Strategy hits its one-year anniversary. While the ...
U.S. aircraft are increasing the pace of airstrikes targeting the Taliban in Afghanistan after nearly all American troops have left the country, as the level of violence continues to rise. More than 95 percent of the U.S. withdrawal process is complete—a number that has stayed ...