Daily Report

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley has agreed to stay on the job as SECAF under the Obama administration. Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff, made the announcement, with Donley sitting next to him, Feb. 26 during a press briefing at...

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley gave no specifics regarding the Air Force’s coming budget in his address Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. No word, for example, on the fate of the F-22. But he did provide...

The Air Force’s 12 core functions established this year as part of the Pentagon’s recently released quadrennial roles and missions review form a reference point for helping the service mold its strategic priorities, risks, and tradeoffs, Air Force Secretary Michael...

The Air Force has already achieved great synergies by integrating its active duty and reserve components more closely. But Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando that he wants more of this. “We...

Hitting on the theme of AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said there are two important aspects to achieving cross domain integration between air, space, and cyberspace: USAF’s efforts within its...

The Air Force needs to foster innovative ideas wherever they come from and recognize that no group of airmen has a monopoly on good ideas, said Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff, during a Feb. 26 meeting with reporters at...

Despite a disintegrating security environment and rampant drug-related violence inside Mexico, US Northern Command’s top general expressed confidence in his Mexican partners at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium Thursday. While saying the situation is being tracked closely by NORTHCOM and that...

Calling it both incredibly rewarding and occasionally frustrating, Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of NORAD and US Northern Command, told the audience at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., that a great deal of progress has been made...

US Strategic Command has made “great strides” this past year in strengthening the nuclear deterrent, but the age of nuclear weapons remains a pressing concern, Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of the command said Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare...

Northrop Grumman is mulling how it can work best with the Air Force and Navy to maximize synergies and avoid duplication of effort in the services’ respective Global Hawk and broad area maritime surveillance programs, says Ed Walby, a company...

Going over the modernization roadmap for the B-2 program, Northrop Grumman’s Harry Heimple told the Daily Report that the Air Force has decided to bypass Small Diameter Bomb I and go straight for the next-generation SDB II, a longer reaching...

Weight growth, historically has been one of the biggest nightmares in aircraft development, but it is well under control in the F-35 program, according to Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin’s executive VP and F-35 general manager. Crowley told the Daily Report...

Besides weight, software has been the worst offender in driving aircraft development costs through the roof. Thanks to lessons learned on other programs, notably the F-22, the F-35 is not having those issues, said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin VP and...

The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter program will wrap up all remaining system development and demonstration aircraft production this year, Lockheed Martin officials told reporters Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., and will deliver the first...

F-35 orders for both Israel and Singapore—now security cooperation partners on the Joint Strike Fighter program—won’t kick in for a few more years, said Lockheed Martin F-35 program manager Dan Crowley. Israel, for example, has requested 25 airframes (with an...

Live airdrop testing on a new conventional penetrator weapon began earlier this year, with one live drop already carried out by a B-52 in January, said Harry Heimple, Northrop Grumman’s manager of government requirements, Thursday at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium....

The Air Force has agreed to give NASA a third Global Hawk air vehicle for the civil agency’s high-altitude environmental science research efforts, Ed Walby, Northrop Grumman’s director of business development for high-altitude, long-endurance systems, said Thursday at AFA’s Air...

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and his Army counterpart Gen. George Casey Jr. have approved the Army/Air Force multi-role unmanned aircraft system enabling concept that seeks to improve how each of the two service’s theater-capable, larger-sized UAVs...

More than 250 airmen and six B-52H bombers from the 23rd Bomb Squadron will return home to Minot AFB, N.D., at the end of the month after a five-month deployment to Andersen AFB, Guam. They will be replaced by airmen...

Air Force Special Operations Command has released more information about SSgt. Timothy Davis, the airman who died from wounds received when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device last week. Davis, who was a combat controller with the 23rd Special...

SMSgt. David Duncan of Kadena AB, Japan, is the first US airman to attend the three-week advanced leadership program at Singapore’s Armed Forces Warrant Officer School. Duncan, who is director of operations at Kadena’s Erwin Professional Military Education Center, is...

With the opening of the Bagram Freedom Restoration Center at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, US service personnel now have their first rehabilitation center in that nation. Staffed 24/7 by Air Force and Army mental health and occupational therapy professionals, the center’s...

US airmen, friends, and dignitaries gathered Feb. 20 at the Henri-Chappelle American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium to honor an Army Air Forces B-24 bomber crew of nine who were listed missing in action more than 60 years ago and...

Raytheon announced Feb. 18 that it has supplied the fifth and final Sentinel R Mk 1 aircraft to the Royal Air Force at RAF Waddington, Britain, thereby completing delivery of all equipment for the airborne stand-off radar air-to-ground surveillance capability,...

Feb. 23, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 29 13 42 2,111 CAS/Armed Recon 28 75 103 5,447 Airlift 130 130 6,908 Air refueling 48 48 2,504 Total 323 16,970 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...