Air Force Times
The Pentagon knew something was coming in Ukraine. Air Force reconnaissance planes had flown over Eastern Europe for months, staffed with military linguists who could interpret what nearby Russian forces were discussing as they prepared to invade neighboring Ukraine. The U.S. had pledged solidarity with Europe’s second-largest country and approved more than $1 billion in military aid. There was just one problem.
Military.com
Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond stood at a podium, the Texas sun shining down, and looked out at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland's parade field. In front of him stood 71 Space Force Guardians decked out in navy and light blue dress uniforms for their graduation day. Two months earlier, they had arrived from all over the country to make history as the inaugural class in the first basic training done solely by the new service branch.
Yonhap News Agency
A subcommittee of South Korea's state defense procurement committee has endorsed a basic proposal to purchase some 20 F-35A radar-evading fighters. The Defense Project Promotion Committee's subcommittee approved it in a push for a 3.9 trillion-won (US$3 billion) project to introduce the fighters, manufactured by the U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin from 2023 through the mid- to late 2020s.
Bloomberg
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he plans a “stronger, bigger, and effective” air force as the Southeast Asian nation contends with territorial spats. “A more modern aerial and surveillance capability is all the more felt given the territorial disputes that we, in the Philippines, are involved in,” Marcos said in a speech at an Air Force event, among the first he attended as president. It would also help the fight against insurgents and extremists, he said.
The Associated Press
A Navy investigation revealed that shoddy management and human error caused fuel to leak into tap water at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, poisoning thousands of people and forcing military families to evacuate their homes for hotels. The investigation is the first detailed account of how jet fuel from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, a massive World War II-era military-run tank farm in the hills above Pearl Harbor, leaked into a well that supplied water to housing and offices in and around the sprawling base. Some 6,000 people suffered nausea, headaches, rashes, and other symptoms.
Breaking Defense
The Defense Department agency responsible for overseeing foreign arms sales would like to have a presence on the ground to monitor the use of U.S. weapons in Ukraine, but when that will happen is still unclear, its deputy director said. “We do think that over time, we would like to be able to extend our insights with a greater presence on the ground going forward,” said Jed Royal, deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
Defense News
The Navy and Air Force research laboratories are wrapping up a five-year joint effort to advance high-power microwave technology with two months of testing in California. The High-Powered Joint Electromagnetic Non-Kinetic Strike Weapon, known as HiJENKS, uses microwave technology to disable electronic systems. The Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research are conducting the capstone tests at Naval Air Station China Lake.
Defense One
Chips designed by U.S. companies are helping China work toward its goal of becoming the world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030, according to a new report from the Center for Security in Emerging Technology, or CSET. But fixing that isn’t as simple as just passing new controls. Some 97 public records of Chinese military purchases of AI chips show that “nearly all of them were designed by Nvidia, Xilinx (now AMD), Intel, or Microsemi”—all U.S. companies, the researchers wrote.
One More Thing
HistoryNet
Mike Fithian approached his re-creation of a 1912 Etrich Taube with compulsive workmanship and attention to detail. That’s because he wanted to build a faithful representation of the airplane his grandfather flew in World War I.
