Defense One
It will likely be months before the United States grants approval for European allies to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, a top U.S. State Department official said. There is “a lot of discussion ongoing,” and “a lot of work that needs to be done,” Stanley Brown, principal deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, said June 19 at the Paris Air Show. “It'll be measured probably in months to get things done versus very quickly.”
NBC News
China and the U.S. hailed “progress” and pledged to stabilize a spiraling relationship June 19 but stopped short of achieving a significant breakthrough after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Xi Jinping. The 35-minute meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China's capital, capped the second and final day of a high-stakes visit by America’s top diplomat aimed at easing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
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Bloomberg
Aviation executives arrived in Paris on June 19 for the first air show in the city in four years. The industry’s biggest conclave was expected to yield a bounty of jetliner orders for Boeing Co. and Airbus SE, and India’s IndiGo starting things off with a record-breaking splash. The industry is struggling to manage a surge of growth after travelers stormed back to the skies in force after the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief among the challenges are persistent supply chain kinks that have slowed output. That’s left some airline executives wondering when they’ll finally get the jets they’re ordering at the show, while Airbus and Boeing are pushing to raise production as fast they can to help alleviate the bottleneck.
Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
In Episode 133 of the Aerospace Advantage, Doug Birkey chats with Even Rogers, CEO of True Anomaly; Steve Kitay, Senior Director of Azure Space at Microsoft; and THE Mitchell Institute’s Tim Ryan. The insatiable demand for capabilities in orbit launched a new generation of spacepower. A key element to this evolution is the ascent of commercial capabilities to secure national security effects in, through, and by space. Want proof? Just look at operations in Ukraine. Missions that were once the sole domain of government-owned and operated military space architectures are now being executed through a hybrid approach highly reliant upon commercial providers. We talk about the rise of private actors in the national security space world and key considerations you should be thinking of as we track this important trend.
Federal News Network
A new career track for Air Force cyber professionals could see its initial cohort as early as 2024. The cyber tech track will start as a beta testing program using an existing group of officers in the cyber workforce. The initial testing phase will also explore offering a similar program to other technical specialties. As part of the cyber track career path, service members can stay in cyber billets throughout their careers instead of rotating to other positions in a line officer progression.
Defense News
Raytheon Technologies, the world’s second largest defense contractor by revenue, is reorganizing Collins Aerospace, giving its subsidiary a greater volume of work related to Joint All-Domain Command and Control. The shuffle, effective July 1, will shift 4,700 positions and $2.7 billion in business to Collins, which will also continue its commercial aviation programs. Leadership at Collins is not expected to change.
Defense One
The U.S. Space Force is not worried if a few makers of light-lift rockets go out of business, the service’s No. 2 officer said June 15. “I will say there are a lot of launch providers out there. … You do wonder if all of those launch providers can be sustained over the long term, but I would say for sure, there's certainly enough capability available today to meet our needs for the foreseeable future,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson said during the annual Defense One Tech Summit.
DefenseScoop
NATO’s new Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) initiative is set to officially go into operation on June 19, with the kickoff of its first-ever pilot challenge. First unveiled in 2021 as a strategic new mechanism to sharpen the alliance’s innovative edge, DIANA is designed to accelerate transatlantic cooperation on emerging technologies and generate a network of national security-focused startups to enable NATO-relevant capabilities via grant programs.
The War Zone
AU.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone has conducted a landing on a remote dirt strip for the first time. Connected with the landing, the service also demonstrated the MQ-9's ability to carry small, but critical cargoes. This comes as the Air Force and others look for new ways to utilize the Reaper amid concerns about its vulnerability in higher-end conflicts, namely with a near-peer competitor like China or Russia.
Breaking Defense
As the F-35 program approaches a two-pronged effort to modernize both its engine and Power and Thermal Management System (PTMS), Raytheon Technologies is offering solutions for both problems—a move that, if successful, could supplant Honeywell International as a supplier of a key subsystem for the Joint Strike Fighter.
Air & Space Forces Magazine
Driven by advancements in technology and research, the Air Force and Space Force are adapting how they train their warfighters to complete the missions at hand. Keep up with all the latest news on changes and improvements to the services’ training enterprises.
Air Force Times
The Air Force has started teaching student pilots to fly the F-22 Raptor fighter jet at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, the service said June 14. It’s a new start for the F-22 training enterprise after Hurricane Michael destroyed the mission’s sole home at Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018.
One More Thing
Military.com
Military households moving to a new duty station this summer may not get to claim a new pet transportation entitlement that was created by Congress in December. The proposed rules allowing the reimbursement of pet travel are still sitting on a desk at the Pentagon. The Defense Department confirmed in an emailed statement June 16 that the draft regulation authorizing the military services to pay the reimbursement awaits the approval of the chair of the Pentagon's Per Diem Travel and Transportation Allowance Committee.
