The Air Force is going “back to basics” in the way it conducts business, particularly in the nuclear enterprise and in acquisition, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said Tuesday. He also announced new cultural and operational directions for the...

The Air Force will for the first time this month begin assigning pilots directly to operational unmanned aerial vehicle units as first assignments. The short term goal is to increase the number of unmanned aircraft operators from 300 to 1,100,...

Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz suggested Sept. 15 he thinks the C-17 and F-22 should stay in production, at least until their approximate successors start ramping up in production. Schwartz, in a press conference at AFA’s Air & Space...

On Monday, Acting Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley spelled out the top priorities for the Air Force in the months before a new Administration takes office. Speaking at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in Washington, Donley said the top...

The Air Force’s drawdown is to be halted at 330,000 people, versus an earlier plan to drop to 316,000, but the billets spared the budget axe appear to have been largely spoken for already, acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley...

A restarted KC-X tanker program under the new Administration could take as little as eight months and as long as 48 to produce a new winner, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said at a press conference Monday....

Despite the House Armed Services Committee’s sense that the Air Force hasn’t yet shown that it needs the C-27J Joint Cargo Aircraft, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said Sept. 15 that the requirement for such an aircraft is “inescapable.”...

Asked at a Sept. 15 press availability at AFA’s Air & Space Conference if the service can award a contract in the Combat Search and Rescue helicopter competition this year, Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, said, “I believe so.”...

Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, commander of Air Force Special Operation Command, told attendees at AFA’s Air & Space Conference Sept. 15 that his command is facing a steep challenge in recapitalizing its small but in-demand fleet of aircraft in the...

Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, isn’t ready to say the command should buy more than 50 CV-22 Ospreys and instead intends to keep focus on getting the current buy of those new tiltrotors fielded...

Air Force Special Operations Command’s 3rd Special Operations Squadron at Cannon AFB, N.M., the command’s sole unmanned aerial vehicle squadron, is one of the most in-demand units for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, AFSOC boss, called...

Top Air Force leaders have been in “constant dialog” with the Schlesinger Commission, which reported last week with suggestions on how to fix the Air Force’s nuclear enterprise, acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Monday. At a press conference...

Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command rescue helicopters have been bringing to safety residents of areas of the southeastern Texas coast that Hurricane Ike ravaged this past weekend. Joint Task Force 129, a rescue unit of four HH-60G...

In addition to combat search and rescue crews (see above), the Air Force contributed special tactics, airlift, aeromedical evacuation, and more to support joint military operations for Hurricane Ike and earlier storms. Air Force Reserve Command’s Hurricane Hunters from Keesler...

The Air Force’s Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, operated by the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB, Calif., covered last year’s California wildfires and, adding to its homeland defense repertoire, this year Global Hawk has supported hurricane watch activity along...

On its own dime, Boeing is paying for long-lead items on 30 C-17s, expecting the Air Force to buy them, company VP and C-17 program manager Jean Chamberlin said Tuesday. The first 15 are pretty much a done deal; they’re...

Despite the fact that Volga-Dnieper has all the work it can handle renting out Antonov AN-124 heavy lifters to various world agencies, including the US Air Force (which uses them to help transport Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to Iraq),...

Boeing’s VP for global mobility programs backed away from the suggestion that it was pursuing the Army as a buyer for its proposed C-17B variant, a version of its workhorse airlifter that could take off and land on shorter fields...

The Air Force must rebuild its acquisition relationship with the defense industry, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said Sept. 16. Acquisitions must be “fundamentally decided on the merits” and getting needed capabilities to the field at a fair and...

The relationship between South Korea and the US has endured a decade of strained relations and may be heading into a period of upheaval, according to William Drennan, an expert on Korean Peninsula security issues. The US military presence in...

South Korea’s security concerns are not all caused by the massive North Korean military machine just to the north of Seoul. Many of the problems are self-induced. William Drennan, a retired Air Force colonel and defense consultant (see above), said...

The challenges that the Air Force faced in winning air superiority over Vietnam illustrate the need for the service to remain flexible in the way it trains and is equipped so that it can deal with a wide range of potential threats, two retired senior Air Force generals said Sept. 15 at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in Washington. “Strategically we just better be ready for whatever the world hands us in the future and not be locked in on a particular mission or set of missions,” said retired Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 2001 to October 2005, during a panel discussion on the evolution of fighter aviation. Retired Gen. Ronald Keys, former head of Air Combat Command, agreed, saying “All these people who talk about [how] they know what the future holds, I don’t think do.” He continued, “I don’t know what it holds, but I know that the equipment, training, and people we are getting today are going to have to carry us for the next 30 years.” Accordingly, Keys said the Air Force needs to have “the flexibility to adapt to whatever the situations are.” That is “the lesson we ought to take out of Vietnam,” he said.

Peter Baker, long-time Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, told attendees at AFA’s Air & Space Conference Sept. 15 that there is no new Cold War, despite claims to the contrary, but the Russians are not “the partner we...

The Air Force demonstrated the 500-pound laser joint direct attack munition for the first time off of the B-52H bomber during a recent test, Boeing, the bomb’s maker, announced Monday. This was the first time the LJDAM had been carried...

Elected officials got assurances Friday that an option under consideration to move all or part of the 139th Airlift Wing from St. Joseph to Knob Knoster near Whiteman Air Force Base was “dead,” reports the News-Press. We reported Monday that...

The newest variant of the Air Force’s high-altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle—the Block 30 Global Hawk—is due to fly for the first time this month, according to Ed Walby, head of Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk business development. Walby told...

Northrop Grumman has begun development of new advanced electronically scanned array radar for the F-16 fleet that the company believes will help keep the fighter’s edge until the end of their planned service lives. The Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR)...

The Pentagon’s cutting-edge research shop, the DARPA, issued a broad area announcement earlier this month for ideas on how to convert coal from the nation’s abundant reserves to liquid fuel in a manner that is far more economical and environmentally...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaSept. 12-13, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 63 35 98 9,100 CAS/Armed Recon 90 125 215 26,183 Airlift 283 283 33,233 Air refueling 112 112 12,884 Total 708 81,400...