CRH Contract Awarded

? The Air Force on Thursday awarded Sikorsky Aircraft of Stratford, Conn., a $1.28 billion contract to develop the service’s Combat Rescue Helicopter, the replacement to the HH-60G Pave Hawk. The Air Force intends to procure up to 112 Combat...

Bomber RFP News to Stay Hidden

Although Air Force acquisition chief William LaPlante recently told Air Force Magazine that the service would release the request for proposals for the Long-Range Strike Bomber as early as the end of June—now only days away—expect no public announcements, said...

Misunderstood and Lean

The number of main operating bases in Europe, along with the number of aircraft and aircraft squadrons in theater, has declined by about 75 percent since the height of the Cold War, while the number of Air Force personnel assigned...

Fiscal 2015 War Funding Request Released

The White House on Thursday asked Congress to provide $58.6 billion in Fiscal 2015 to fund the Defense Department’s activities in Afghanistan and other overseas contingency operations. The funding request is $20.9 billion less than the $79.4 billion placeholder figure...

NATO Ministers Finalize Post-Combat Afghanistan Plans

NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels endorsed the Alliance’s follow-on post-combat mission in Afghanistan, according to a release. They came together on June 25 on the “detailed operational plan” for Resolute Support, the NATO-led mission to train, advise, and assist...

F-35Bs Crawl, Walk, Run to Transformation

The F-35B strike fighter is a “transformational” capability, on par with how the MV-22 tiltrotor platform revolutionized expeditionary operations, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told reporters on Thursday. But some of its capabilities will...

F-35B on Track to Reach IOC in 2015

The Marine Corps is still optimistic it will declare initial operational capability for its new fleet of F-35B strike fighters in 2015, said Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, deputy commandant for combat development and integration, on Thursday. The Marines plan on...

C-130s in Force in Europe

? Eight C-130 units joined together to launch 21 C-130s from Dyess AFB, Texas, as part of a joint forcible entry exercise. The mix of C-130Hs and C-130Js took off from Dyess, home of the 317th Airlift Group, on June...