Pilotless jet fighters that can fly 30 feet above the ground to their targets or straight toward a barrage of enemy missiles are being developed by the U.S. Air Force to help deter China. The soaring cost of existing military aircraft and advances in flying software have the Air Force pivoting toward a new generation of pilotless jets to bolster a fleet that its leaders say is the smallest and oldest since it became a separate service in 1947.
The Pentagon will lift the ban on flights by the grounded V-22 Osprey next week, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on March 1, following a high-level meeting where Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin endorsed the military services’ plans for a safe and measured return to operations.
Singapore will buy eight more F-35 stealth fighters, eventually replacing its older F-16s and putting the Singaporean air force “in the premier league” as regional threats grow, the city-state's defense minister said this week. Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) would buy F-35As—a larger, longer-range variant of the Lockheed Martin jets—to complement the 12 F-35Bs it has already ordered.
Boeing was awarded a $439.6 million contract by the U.S. Space Force to build a military communications satellite known as WGS-12. The contract was announced March 1 by the Defense Department. WGS-12 will be the 12th satellite of the Wideband Global Satcom geostationary constellation that provides communications services to the United States and allies.
The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s “embed” at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii—who is tasked with helping service members there more rapidly access and adopt data-driven and digital capabilities to support their missions—is Dan Tadevich, DefenseScoop has learned.
Everyone agree the “tyranny of distance” means any U.S. action against China in the Indo-Pacific will be a challenge for the jets, bombers, and tankers. But that doesn’t mean the issue can’t be addressed. Below, Timothy Walton of the Hudson Institute and Mark Gunzinger of the Mitchell Institute lay out four options they think could help solve the challenge.
The Royal Thai Air Force has laid out its future aspirations in a document released Feb. 29, with counter-drone systems, new fighter jets, and medium-range air defense systems among the most pressing concerns. The 74-page whitepaper, which the service unveiled during its annual symposium this week and which builds on a similar document published four years ago, details planned procurements out to 2037.
Rescue workers in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa pulled the bodies of a mother and baby from the rubble of an apartment building on March 3, as the death toll in a Russian attack two days earlier rose to 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said delays by allies in supplying air defenses had contributed to the deaths.
The move to new and emerging technologies like the cloud are directly clashing with the Air Force’s obligation to keep current systems running. That is why Col. Michael Medgyessy, the chief information officer of Air Force Intelligence Office, said initiatives like the Air Force and Space Force’s Digital University are so important.
The U.S. Air Force has released pictures of a live AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon hypersonic missile, or ARRW, under the wing of a B-52H bomber during a training event at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. This very public showing of ARRW at a highly strategic base in the Pacific comes despite the Air Force announcing its intention to axe the program last year. It prompts new questions about the increasingly ambiguous future of this weapon.
Unlike American comic book superheroes like Superman with his bulletproof body, modern fighter jets are not bulletproof. Fighter jets are not armored because the metal needed to protect the aircraft would make the aircraft too heavy and reduce aerodynamic performance. However, specific subsonic close support ground attack aircraft like the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) and the Russian Sukhoi Su-25, NATO code name Frogfoot, have some features to protect the pilot from small arms ground fire.