“Take a quick look at the Department of Defense budget request for fiscal year 2022, and you would think that the Department of the Air Force is the best funded of the three military departments—Army, Navy, Air Force. You would be wrong. In fact, the Pentagon invests the least real service budget authority in the Air Force compared to the Army and Navy as services and all the other defense agencies as a group. Only the U.S. Marine Corps and nascent U.S. Space Force as services receive less,” writes retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
When Tech. Sgt. Nancy Thompson gave birth to her daughter Isabel in 2019, she found herself lost and overwhelmed in a sea of information for new mothers that was spread across the Air Force. She thought she had one year to spend with her baby before the Air Force could assign her to a new job overseas. Then she got orders to ship out to South Korea after only six months.
A 70-year-old Defense Department panel focused on women's personnel issues that has advocated for expanded opportunities for female service members must be preserved, say the six female veterans currently serving in Congress. The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) has been suspended temporarily and its membership dissolved as part of a cost and efficiency review of the Defense Department's 42 advisory committees that began in January.
In episode 29 of the Aerospace Advantage, The Rendezvous, host John Baum speaks to members of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ team about how Congress is responding to the Air Force and Space Force budget submissions. This episode covers a broad range of important air and space topics that have been dominating recent Congressional defense hearings, including discussions on specific programs like the F-35 and GBSD, as well as Space Force priorities, readiness issues, and individual member perspectives.
The Air Force would like to make its already-tiny M18 service pistol even smaller, according to a bid posted last month on the U.S. government’s contracting website. The M18—a compact version of the M17 that came out of the Army’s Modular Handgun System program—is the Air Force’s first new service pistol in 35 years. It replaces the M9, which Airmen have wielded since 1985.
Aerospace engineers at Wichita State University will soon have another U.S. military aircraft to disassemble and turn into a 3D replica. Two Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons will be delivered to WSU by the end of September as part of a “digital twin” program at National Institute for Aviation Research, university officials announced Wednesday in a news release. The 3D replica created by NIAR through the four-year project will help extend the operational lifetime of the fighter jet.
The Air Force’s 2020 Male and Female Athletes of the Year both hail from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Capt. Amber Hansen, commander of Global Activities Squadron Detachment 4 at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, and Airman 1st Class Michael Mannozzi, who works in Religious Affairs at the 88th Air Base Wing Chaplain’s Office, competed against other highly qualified athletes throughout the Air Force for this prestigious award.