The Pentagon is short-sighted with its plan to end C-17 production at 205 aircraft, so says defense analyst Loren Thompson in a new Lexington Institute issue brief. Congress likely would not face an Obama Administration veto threat over the C-17,...

In 2013, China would likely prevail over the US and Taiwan in an air war over the Taiwan Strait, potentially clearing the way for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, finds the new RAND study “A Question of Balance,” released Wednesday....

The Air Force has decided it will not proceed with a plan to create five regional installation contracting centers, and instead will stand up a new strategic sourcing organization under Air Force Materiel Command to focus on service-wide contracting needs...

Officials at Malmstrom AFB, Mont., activated the 16th Munitions Squadron Aug. 4 to handle weapons storage area logistics, according to a report by the Great Falls Tribune. The newspaper reports that the unit is aligned under the 798th Munitions Maintenance...

According to an Aug. 5 report by the Russian news service Ria Novosti, the Russian Air Force commander, Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin, says he expects 70 percent of the force to comprise new and modernized aircraft by 2020. Zelin told...

Five FAA representatives visited Creech AFB, Nev., last month to see first-hand the 432nd Wing’s MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles and learn about the capacity of these UAVs to operate safely in the national airspace (NAS). The...

The Air Force on Aug. 5 announced the formal separation of 9th Air Force and Air Forces Central, in what services leaders had told Congress will be a temporary split to enable AFCENT to focus exclusively on the on-going operations in Southwest Asia, particularly as things ramp up in Afghanistan. The stateside 9th AF, still based at Shaw AFB, S.C., will continue to provide management oversight for six wings and one direct reporting unit and be led by Maj. Gen. William Holland. AFCENT, which will have about 50 personnel on its headquarters staff and will be forward deployed in the US Central Command area of responsibility, is now led by Lt. Gen. Gilmary Hostage III. According to the Aug. 5 announcement, the service temporarily redesignated 9th AF/AFCENT as AFCENT and activated a new 9th AF.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk high-flying reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle has surpassed 25,000 combat flying hours, the UAV-maker Northrop Grumman announced Aug. 5. The milestone sortie came on July 8-9 during a flight from a deployed location. “This is a significant...

Col. Eric Mathewson, head of USAF’s unmanned aircraft system task force, who recently helped brief reporters about the service’s new long-range UAS flight plan, is on the road drumming up help on designing the next-generation of unmanned aerial vehicles. According...

Aug. 2, 2009 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 25 24 49 9,008 CAS/Armed Recon 22 80 102 20,423 Airlift 148 148 27,810 Air refueling 54 54 9,880 Total 353 67,121 OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance...