The Air Force on Thursday issued its list of 11 candidate bases that are the potential beddown locations for the first 250 to 300 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that are scheduled to enter its inventory by 2017. On the short list of operational bases are: Hill AFB, Utah; Mountain Home AFB, Idaho; and Shaw AFB, S.C., as well as McEntire Joint National Guard Base, S.C., and the Air National Guard stations in Burlington, Vt., and Jacksonville, Fla. On the short list of training locations are: Eglin AFB, Fla.; Holloman AFB N.M.; and Luke AFB, Ariz., as well as the ANG stations in Boise, Idaho, and Tuscon, Ariz. The Air Force said it selected these candidate installations out of the pool of more than 200 USAF sites using the “deliberate, repeatable, standardized, and transparent” process that it outlined in September. Continue
If the Air Force is in line for a big budget bump from President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027, the head of Air Combat Command said he would make aircraft spare parts his top spending priority—but cautioned that more money to buy parts won’t equal a…
