Daily Report

The Air Force anticipates that the F-35A strike fighter will be ready for initial real-world operations by December 2016, service officials told Congress last week. The Air Force intends to declare initial operational capability sometime between August 2016 and December...

During a ceremony at Shaw AFB, S.C., Maj. Gen. Jake Polumbo took command of 9th Air Force from Maj. Gen. Larry Wells. Polumbo comes to Shaw after serving since May 2012 as deputy commander-air for US Forces-Afghanistan. Wells led 9th...

The Air Force has long said that the head of Air Combat Command would determine F-35A initial operational capability when conditions were met. Gen. Mike Hostage, ACC commander, agrees with the forecast issued by Air Force headquarters on May 31...

Based on the current development schedules, the Marine Corps anticipates declaring by December 2015 that its F-35B strike fighter variant is capable of initial real-world operations, according to a newly issued Pentagon report to Congress. The Navy projects that its...

The world is well into a second nuclear age in which nuclear weapons are proliferating for reasons different from the strategic calculations that drove the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War, said Barry Watts, senior fellow at...

Arriving in Singapore last week for his first visit to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security conference, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with his Indonesian counterpart Purnomo Yusgiantoro to discuss closer security ties between the two nations. The two leaders reaffirmed...

The devastatingly destructive potential of cyber attacks has become the security challenge of our age, said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “Cyber is one of those quiet, deadly, insidious unknowns you can’t see,” said Hagel while speaking to about 200 service...

In its mark-up of the Fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee’s readiness panel opted to prohibit the Defense Department “from proposing, planning, or initiating” another round of BRAC. That move came despite the Pentagon leadership urging...

The House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces panel blocked the “premature” retirement of the Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 remotely piloted aircraft fleet in its mark-up of the Fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill. The panel’s...

The Afghan air force took another step toward bolstering its close air support capabilities with the test of GSh-23 guns on the Mi-35 attack helicopter, according to a release from coalition air advisors. Members of the AAF’s 377th Rotary Wing...

The Air Force Band performs on June 7 at 8:00 p.m. at the Air Force Memorial in Arlington Va. It’s the first in a series of 13 performances scheduled through August at the memorial as part of the band’s broader...