The Air Force kicked off the process for selecting the contractor for its Next Generation Air Dominance fighter on May 18, releasing a classified solicitation to industry for Engineering and Manufacturing Development. In a release, the service said it hopes to award a contract by 2024.
Operational Imperatives
As the Air Force plans to retire many of its aging intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft in the next few years, it is working with the Space Force and agencies in the Intelligence Community to cover potential gaps and build persistent coverage around the globe, ...
A line of 21 C-5s, C-17s, and KC-10s rolled down the runway and into the skies over Travis Air Force Base, Calif. on May 12 in a “maximum aircraft generation event.” The impressive display of airpower came on the final day of a nearly two-week ...
The House Armed Services Committee's top Democrat endorsed a new Pentagon legislative proposal designed to work around Congressional gridlock to field new technologies faster. Spearheaded by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the DOD is seeking a "rapid response" authority that would allow initial work to ...
Air Force leaders in charge of the nation's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber fleet say they have been working behind the scenes to keep the aircraft ready—even as a “safety pause” on flying approaches six months in length. A quarter-century after its introduction, the B-2 program ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall insists the service needs to modernize rapidly to face the threat of China. But modernization does not just mean fielding new aircraft, Kendall and other service leaders argue—the Air Force also needs to retire its aging airplanes. “The truth is ...
It’s come a few decades later than perhaps it should have, but the U.S. is on the precipice of sweeping and much-needed modernization for its nuclear arsenal, the Air Force's top boss for strategic forces said May 4. The Pentagon is projecting an investment of ...
More than 50 Air Force career fields—from bomber maintenance to cryptologic language analyst to dental hygienist—are eligible for retention bonuses this year, a slight decline from last year. The Air Force’s Selective Retention Bonus program offers extra compensation to enlisted Airmen in career fields with especially ...
China has structured its military to defeat the U.S. “kill chain”—the sequence of steps needed to spot and destroy particular targets—and the Air Force must now ensure its process is agile and resilient, largely by investing in new platforms and networks, an expert from the ...