Operational Pilot Flies B-21 Bomber As Air Force Streamlines Testing

By Stephen Losey
The B-21 Raider stealth bomber was recently flown, for the first time, by an operational pilot as part of its flight test process, the Air Force said June 11. And a top Pentagon official said the move to bring operational testing into the B-21 process earlier than normal shows the way to creating a new and more nimble system for acquiring major new weapon systems.

Radar Sweep

How the Commerce Crackdown on Anthropic Could Impact the Pentagon: Experts

Breaking Defense

The administration’s latest crackdown on Anthropic further complicates the AI titan’s already ambivalent relationship with the Pentagon, which had been simultaneously banning most Anthropic products while carving out an exemption for its latest model, Mythos, analysts told Breaking Defense.

UK Signals GCAP International Contract Due Soon

Aviation Week

The UK indicates a contract for the trinational Global Combat Air Program, or GCAP, will be signed by the end of the month amid uncertainty over the project because of political infighting in London.

Senator Questions Pentagon’s Plan to Revise Autonomous Weapons Policy

DefenseScoop

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is pressing the Pentagon to disclose how it’s confronting potentially serious operational risks to U.S. military personnel as insiders hustle to fulfill the Trump administration’s new 90-day mandate to rewrite the policy for deploying and safeguarding autonomous weapon systems in warfare.

Bunker Busters with Winged JDAM-ER Kits Could Allow for Near Horizontal Strikes on Fortified Targets

The War Zone

The U.S. military wants to see if it can enhance the capabilities of the 2,000-pound-class Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range precision-guided bomb as a bunker-busting munition. ... Interest in expanding the role of the JDAM-ER as a bunker buster is tucked away in a section of the Pentagon’s proposed 2027 Fiscal Year budget covering requested funds for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

One More Thing

Man Loses 200 Pounds to Enlist in the Air Force

Task & Purpose

When Ethan Cobb graduated from high school and started college, he felt that his life lacked purpose. Since his grandfather had served in the Air Force, he decided he wanted to enlist to find a sense of duty. But Cobb weighed 398 pounds at the time. In order to join the military, he needed to lose nearly half his body weight. He accepted the challenge, and over the course of two years he dropped about 200 pounds so he could ship to Air Force Basic Military Training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.