Air Force Reveals First Image of LRSO Nuclear Cruise Missile

June 12, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force shared its first-ever concept illustration of the secretive AGM-181 Long-Range Stand-Off missile (LRSO). The missile, being developed by Raytheon, will succeed the AGM-86B ALCM as the B-52’s primary nuclear weapon beginning around 2030.

The image was released on the Pentagon’s media service, Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), without comment on June 2. Little accompanying information was shared, other than to say that it’s an artist’s rendering provided by the Air Force Nuclear Weapon Center.

This first image shows the weapon has a conventional but inverted planform, with anhedral (downward-pointing) wings and elevators and a ventral (bottom-mounted) stabilizer. The wings, elevators and stabilizer edges appear to be designed for stealth, but the nose appears blunt, rather than pointed. The configuration of the tail suggests an exhaust on the upper side of the missile, above the stabilizer, like that on the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM).

Although known to be an air-breathing weapon, no air intake is visible on the bottom-view image, indicating the intake is either on top or its shape has been deliberately obscured for operational security. The Air Force provided images of the JASSM for years that either shielded its bottom air intake from view or showed the missile at such a distance that resolution of the intake’s geometry was impossible. Former service officials called this tactic “hiding in plain sight.”

The LRSO’s size can’t be determined from the image.

The Air Force didn’t provide an immediate answer about the timing of the release. As with most highly classified, low-observable platforms—such as the B-21 bomber—the service withholds imagery until a platform has reached a stage of its development where outside engine runs, captive-carry or powered flights will be visible to non-cleared photographers.

RTX’s Raytheon, which is developing the missile, referred queries about the image to the Air Force.

Raytheon received a $2 billion development contract for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the LRSO in July, 2021. A decision to move to low-rate production is scheduled for February 2027.

Air Force budget documents for fiscal 2025 show LRSO’s funding set to balloon from $295.5 million in fiscal 2026 to $1.22 billion in fiscal 2027, indicating a planned start to production of a future total of 1,087 units. The most recent unit cost estimate is $14 million per LRSO missile.

The missile passed its critical design review in 2023. It will carry the W80-4 warhead with a selectable yield of up to 150 kilotons. The Air Force has said the LRSO is not a hypersonic weapon, and service officials have suggested its top speed is in the high subsonic range.

The LRSO is the second attempt to replace the ALCM, which entered service in the mid-1980s. The Air Force bought 460 of a planned 1,500 stealthy AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles from Lockheed starting in 1990, but retired the type due to budget cuts and arms control agreements in 2012. The stealthy missile was reportedly difficult and expensive to maintain, explaining why the Air Force retained the older ALCM instead. Since then, the inventory of ALCMs has been reduced several times.

Gen. Thomas Bussiere, head of Global Strike Command, said in early June that the LRSO program is doing well and that he anticipates no delay in its entry into service.

Bussiere said the LRSO has utility even if the Air Force retired its B-52s. “We will always have a…capacity to carry the LRSO,” he said. “My guess is when the B-52J model is retired, there’s going to be another long- range strike platform to do standoff weapons carriage.”

JetZero to Build Blended Wing-Body Aircraft in North Carolina

June 12, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

JetZero will invest $4.7 billion in a factory to build its Z4 Blended Wing-Body aircraft in Greensboro, N.C. The company announced June 12 that its investment will create 14,500 jobs in the region, perhaps the largest job announcement in the states history.

Calling it “the factory of the future, “the new facility will be located at the Piedmont Triad Airport. To enhance its hiring pool, JetZero will invest $30 million in the North Carolina Community College system to develop a “customized workforce” pipeline to supply the plant with staff over the next decade, according to a state government press release.

Developed in part with $235 million in Air Force funding, JetZero’s initial BWB demonstrator is supposed to begin test flights in 2027. The objective Z4 aircraft aims to fulfill both commercial passenger and cargo roles, as well as become a potential airlift and tanker aircraft for the Air Force.

The Air Force is trying to diversify its supplier base and invested in the startup because of the potential advantages of its design for both military and civilian use. But the Z4 does not have an inside track to win any future airlift or tanker competition, Air Force officials have said.

The factory is planned to be “fully-digital and AI-driven to outpace legacy original equipment manufacturers by ramping up faster, cutting unit costs, boosting quality and hardening the supply chain,” the company said. The airliner version of the Z4, which the company hopes to begin delivering in in 2030, would carry about 230 passengers.

JetZero said it has “secured investments and conditional purchase agreements from Alaska Airlines and United Airlines.” About 14 airlines “have joined JetZero’s Airline Working Group to provide input on their needs, including the requirement for the Z4 to readily fit into today’s airport infrastructure.”

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein’s office said the state’s 2.25 percent corporate tax rate and its low cost of living helped attract JetZero, and the company will also partner with Siemens’ Smart Infrastructure, Electrification, and Automation divisions, which are also headquartered in North Carolina, to design its factory with the most efficient technologies possible.

“Siemens also supports JetZero’s design/build/test model for the demonstrator aircraft, a full-scale prototype slated for first flight in 2027,” the governor’s statement said.

JetZero is readying a non-flying ground version of the Z4 for testing and test flights are already underway using a subscale model. Full-scale fuel tanks are undergoing tests and a wing test article is being evaluated. Cockpit tooling is complete, company officials said, and the critical design review for the demonstrator is expected “soon.”

Once the North Carolina facility is completed, the company will move its headquarters to the new site.

The company describes the Z-4 as “a game-changer, slashing fuel burn, emissions and costs with its ultra-efficient all-wing body design. By maximizing lift and minimizing drag, it will deliver up to 50 percent greater fuel efficiency and associated emissions reduction.” The aircraft will also deliver “a cleaner, quieter and improved travel experience” in airliner service, and be able to operate out of airfields with shorter runways, JetZero said.

The aircraft is being designed and developed in California with the help of Northrop Grumman’s Scaled Composites unit, and is expected to enter commercial service “in the early 2030s.”

Northrop and JetZero are expected to offer a “KC-Z4” version of the aircraft for the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Refueling system (NGAS) requirement. The concept aircraft would have a gross operating weight of 362,000 pounds, with a total fuel load of 200,000 pounds; that’s comparable to today’s KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling jets. But the efficiency of the blended wing-body promises greater range and its cargo capacity is anticipated to exceed the KC-46, 21 pallets versus 18, a difference of about 17 percent.

A cargo-only version would also require a rear ramp, which is not part of the prototype effort, and would require a different tail design, company officials said.

Air Force Aid Society Launches New Financial Aid, Child Care Programs

June 11, 2025 | By David Roza

The official charity for the Air Force and Space Force is implementing major changes to help Airmen, Guardians, and their families with child care, health care, permanent change-of-station (PCS) moves, and other stressful or expensive life needs.

The Air Force Aid Society announced earlier this month that it is streamlining the application process for financial aid, expanding the ways in which aid recipients can use the funds, and making it easier to access child care.

“These are some of the most sweeping changes we’ve made in decades to adapt to the needs of Airmen, Guardians, and their families,” AFAS Chief Executive Officer Ed Thomas Jr., a retired major general, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

New Financial Aid Options

AFAS has merged its loan and non-repayable grant programs to create a single pathway for Airmen, Guardians, family members, or retirees to request financial aid. The aid takes the form of a loan with a 0 percent interest rate, a non-repayable grant, or a combination of the two.

“Instead of taking [out] a loan on your credit card with 18 percent interest, or 39 percent interest on a payday loan, you can get a 0-interest loan paid back within two years,” Thomas explained. “It’s just a way to be able to help more Airmen and Guardians.”

Applicants can receive multiple loans if AFAS believes the need is justified and their budget supports repayment, the organization said on its website. Chief Operating Officer Kris McBride, a retired chief master sergeant, said the size of the loan is decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on the needs of the service member.

The charity is allowing its beneficiaries to request loans for a broader range of financial needs as well. Those now include adoption expenses, basic furniture costs, overseas car rentals, car seats or booster seats, essential home repairs, immigration expenses, mental health support, and vehicle shipment costs for PCS moves. The aid can still be used to help with basic living expenses (including rent and utility bills), medical or dental care, funeral expenses, vehicle repairs, family members with special needs, PCS costs, or emergency veterinarian visits. AFAS may also be able to help with other issues or direct members to other resources that can.

Child Care

Two AFAS programs aim to provide some relief for military families amid a nationwide child care provider shortage. The first, Give Parents a Break, offers members $40 per dependent child per month for up to three months to spend on any form of child care—even to help fly in a family member. The goal is to offer parents a few hours of respite from the stresses of parenting, AFAS said on its website.

Give Parents a Break requires a referral from a commander; chaplain; medical professional; family advocate; military-and-family readiness center worker; or first sergeant, a senior noncommissioned officer who oversees morale, health and quality-of-life issues within a unit.

“Maybe a family has a service member deployed and the spouse needs extra help, or they’re going through a particularly stressful time with medical issues,” Thomas said. “If the first sergeant says, ‘Hey, this family needs some extra help,’ we’re going to help them.”

The other option is Child Care for PCS, which provides $200 per child up to age 12 for a maximum of $1,000 per household during a permanent move, retirement, separation, or transfer to the Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard. The funding is available for any Airman or Guardian, regardless of rank. All they have to do is upload their PCS orders and identification.

“The PCS season can be a stressful time, and this is one of the ways that we can come alongside our force and help,” Thomas said.

Many of these changes were inspired by a listening tour where top AFAS officials heard the concerns of troops across the Air Force and Space Force. A common theme was that the financial aid application process was not straightforward, and that PCS season and a shortage of child care providers continued to be major stressors.

Last year, AFAS provided over $200,000 for child care support and $4.9 million for emergency financial aid. The charity is prepared to meet an even larger need this year, McBride said.

“We have budgeted significant funds for this, and we also understand that we are probably going to need to raise significantly more funds,” Thomas added.

But the listening tour reminded Thomas of those the money helps. A 19-year-old Airman suddenly needed to take custody of his two teenage sisters—a difficult task on a junior enlisted salary. A staff sergeant struggled to pay bills amid a daughter’s long-term hospital stay.

Besides providing financial assistance, AFAS also partners with military-and-family readiness centers and other organizations to help Airmen and Guardians build budgets and work to regain solid footing.

“Often, much of the work we do is when life happens and when the exceptional happens, and helping fill that gap to get that Airman or Guardian to a better place,” Thomas said.

What Might the Future Hold for the F-35?

June 11, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

As futuristic aviation programs gain priority, the F-35—the only in-production, fifth-generation American fighter—is facing new headwinds. Fresh debate over its challenges and its potential in the coming months will shape its future role in the force.

The House’s $150 billion reconciliation package of defense add-ons contains $7.2 billion for cutting-edge tactical aviation accounts, including USAF’s new sixth-generation F-47 and its autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), and largest of all, $3.15 billion for additional F-15EX fighters. Notably absent: even a single penny for the F-35.

“Think about it: It’s the largest acquisition program in DOD,” said Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute. “Congress gets an extra $150 billion, and they don’t put any of it toward that program? That says something about the sentiment around the F-35.”

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin said only that: “We appreciate the additional investment in national defense that Congress is considering through the budget reconciliation process, as well as the strong and continued support for the F-35 program.”

As Congress put the final touches on the reconciliation package in April, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) released an unasked-for explainer in defense of estimated lifetime program costs that have swelled to $2.1 trillion. The estimate includes the cost of 2,456 aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, plus operations, sustainment, upgrades, military construction, personnel, and inflation over 94 years. Fully half the estimate is inflation, the JPO said. This calculus is unique; F-35 is the first major defense program required to predict all those future costs.

A JPO spokesperson said Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt “wanted to provide a breakdown of costs and … context directly from the program.” To date, the F-35 program has delivered nearly 1,200 aircraft to the three U.S. branches and foreign allies and partners; of these, the Air Force has more than 450 jets, or about a quarter of its planned 1,763.

Chronic Irritants

With a sprawling supply chain and shifting annual buys, it’s not surprising that the F-35 is in constant flux, or that Congress is impatient.

From mid-2023 to mid-2024, the government wouldn’t accept delivery of F-35s until new processors, software and displays, included with the Tech Refresh 3 upgrade had been fully tested. Then Schmidt cleared deliveries to resume last summer, even though TR-3 testing was still underway, saying the software was safe for flight and required less in-flight reboots.

Overall procurement costs per jet are low, but costs per flying hour have remained stubbornly high across all variants. That’s led the Air Force and Navy to fly their F-35s much less—19 percent less for the Air Force and 45 percent less for the Navy—over the life of the program. They intend for pilots to make up for lost flying time in simulators.

It took until 2024 for the Pentagon to declare initial development complete, 23 years after the program got underway. Achieving “Milestone C” cleared the F-35 for full-rate production, but production has essentially been at full-rate capacity for several years. The last few years of delay in achieving Milestone C were pegged to challenges integrating the F-35 into the Joint Simulation Environment.

No Deal Yet

One ongoing hangup is that the JPO and its suppliers have not settled the details for the next two lots of F-35 production. Negotiations on Lots 18 and 19 dragged on nearly three years before Lockheed and the JPO reached a “handshake agreement” on the price last November, but the two parties have yet to achieve a “definitized” contract that spells out unit costs.

Inflation, supply chain, and labor cost issues dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic have often been cited for the extended bargaining, but more recently tariffs imposed by President Donald J. Trump have added additional concerns. The JPO declined comment on how tariffs could affect costs for imported raw materials and parts, referring questions to the State Department, which did not respond to calls and emails. The F-35 is globally sourced, with production contracts spread among dozens of countries, most of which are developmental partners or customers for the aircraft.

“The tariff situation changes almost by the day, if not the hour,” said one industry source. “How do you plan in this environment?”

Chauncey McIntosh, Lockheed’s F-35 chief, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in March that “working with our supply base, we’ve really been able to keep the price of the airplane under that inflation curve [despite] inflation.”

The last negotiated unit cost for the F-35A—the Air Force’s conventional takeoff and landing variant—was about $85 million per airframe. Pratt & Whitney’s F135 powerplant—which is purchased separately and arrives at Lockheed’s factory as government-furnished equipment—is believed to cost about $15 million per engine. The engine cost, which Pratt says is proprietary, is the sticking point. Industry sources said negotiations could drag into late summer or fall.

Lockheed officials say Lot 18 and later jets are more capable and will cost more, which could push the unit price of the F-35 over the $100 million mark.

Once Lots 18 and 19 are finalized, multiyear contracting can begin with Lot 20 and beyond. Lockheed Chief Financial Officer Evan Scott said in May the two lots now under negotiation could be combined into a single contract.

Mixed Messages from the White House

The White House could be a wildcard for the F-35 program. Elon Musk has posted derogatory remarks on “X,” his social media site, calling the F-35 obsolete and a “jack-of-all-trades, master of none.” He champions autonomous, uncrewed aircraft, even as the Air Force sees such equipment as complementary, rather than replacing the Lightning II.

Trump, on the other hand, has praised the F-35 as the “greatest fighter jet in the world,” touting its stealth as “almost … invisible,” while acknowledging that it is “more expensive than we expected it to be.”

He has also expressed misgivings about the international nature of F-35 production. “We have the wings built in one country, we have the tail rudders built in another country, we have the seats built in another country, we have the electronics built in seven countries,” he said in September 2024. “What the hell would we do if there’s a war, and we’ll end up fighting half those countries?”

Trump promised instead, that “we will require all essential materials for our national security to be produced here in the United States,” which he said would create “millions and millions of manufacturing jobs.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to find 8 percent savings annually for five years, and provided a list of priority programs and activities excluded from the cuts. Those included CCAs, munitions and shipbuilding, but made no mention the F-35.

A ‘Ferrari’ F-35

Meanwhile, Lockheed is still smarting from losing the competition to build the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter now known as the F-47. Boeing won that deal in March. Lockheed has also been eliminated from the competition to build the Navy’s NGAD counterpart, the F/A-XX, and it lost out to Anduril Industries and General Atomics on the Air Force’s CCA program.

Now Lockheed is touting a proposal to soup up the F-35 as either a cost-saving complement or alternative to the F-47.

Company CEO Jim Taiclet told analysts on an earnings call that the technologies Lockheed developed for NGAD can be applied “fairly quickly” to the F-35, creating a “supercharged … fifth-generation-plus” fighter.

“I feel that we can have 80 percent” of the NGAD capability “potentially, at 50 percent of the cost-per-unit,” Taiclet said, “by taking the F-35 chassis and applying numerous advanced technologies, some of which are already in process” as part of the Block 4 upgrade.

“There will be 3,500 of those chassis out there, at various stages of technology and capability,” he added, including both U.S. and partner fleets, and “we can get most of the way to sixth-gen” with them.

If F-47 is to cost some $300 million per copy—an estimate offered by former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall—Taiclet’s “Ferrari” version of the F-35 could be had for perhaps $150 million per copy.

Many of the technologies that could be applied to an uprated F-35 have already been paid for, Taiclet said, both through government and Lockheed’s own investment. Taiclet described passive infrared sensing and long-range missiles, but otherwise didn’t elaborate on specifics. He said it would employ “key techniques and approaches that [the] fighter pilot needs to have to be competitive and win,” he said.

The JPO had no comment on the proposal, which it called “notional.”

The Bird in Hand

Mark Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, called the exclusion of extra funds for F-35 in the reconciliation package “very, very worrisome.” Neglecting the F-35 “does not make sense,” he said, given that the Tech Refresh 3 jets are “rolling off the line” now, and “the software is almost there, as well.”

The F-15EX has a useful role to play as a munition truck and a platform for hypersonic missiles, he said, and USAF should “buy them as fast as we can,” they should not be prioritized over the F-35.

“Given the requirement” for a stealthy, penetrating, stand-in fighter and the long development pipeline to fully prove out F-47 and CCAs, “pushing F-35 buys to the right” is the wrong approach, Gunzinger said.

“They are in production. They’re what we can buy now,” he said. “They … enhance deterrence [and] create a much more capable force.”

Defense Budget Debate Spotlights Republican Divide on Ukraine

June 11, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Efforts to craft the Pentagon’s next budget has highlighted disagreement among Republicans on whether the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine in its three-year war with Russia, pitting some key GOP defense hawks against the Trump administration on questions of military aid and larger concerns about America’s role on the world stage.

Republican support for Ukraine has been a steady refrain as lawmakers consider the Pentagon’s $832 billion base spending request for 2026—which the department hasn’t yet made public—and a rare point of contention on defense between the GOP-controlled legislature and White House.

The standoff came into view at a Senate defense appropriations hearing where, in the absence of budget details, senators urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth not to let Ukraine fall into Russian hands.

Subcommittee Chairman Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a vocal critic of Moscow, opened the hearing by asking the secretary which country is the aggressor and which is the victim. Russia is the aggressor, Hegseth answered.

“Which side do you want to win?” asked the former Senate majority leader.

“This president is committed to peace in that conflict,” Hegseth said. “Ultimately peace serves our national interests and, we think, the interests of both parties, even if that outcome will not be preferable to many in this room and many in our country.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine testify at a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing to examine the Pentagon’s proposed 2026 budget, Washington, D.C., June 11, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

McConnell continued: “Which side is [Chinese President Xi Jinping] pulling for?”

“Under the previous administration and the policies they’ve pursued, it has driven Russia and China closer together,” Hegseth said. “There’s no doubt that China would prefer that Vladimir Putin have a good outcome. But it would also prefer a prolonged conflict that would keep us and other countries tied down and incapable of paying attention to the malign influence of China elsewhere.”

Hegseth argued that Democratic administrations emboldened Russia’s gradual invasion of Ukraine starting in 2014, and that Putin’s respect for President Donald Trump will help lead to a peace agreement.

“A negotiated peace in Ukraine makes America look strong, makes us look like we understand the state of the world and where we want to be focused, even if we understand that Russia’s the aggressor and we applaud the efforts of the Ukrainians,” Hegseth said. “There is a moment where you have to recognize what exists on the battlefield and that a better outcome is a negotiated peace to stop the killing. … Our budget reflects that perspective.”

McConnell countered that the Russians don’t seem interested in negotiating, and the U.S. is risking its reputation by withdrawing support. “Will we defend democratic allies against authoritarian aggressors?” he asked.

No answer followed.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth meets with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 12, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander C. Kubitza)

Trump promised as a candidate that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, but diplomatic efforts have not progressed, and he has since suggested the war might have to drag on. Meanwhile, he has not indicated an appetite to continue financial support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s February visit to the White House ended abruptly after he, Trump, and Vice President J.D. Vance found themselves in a heated argument in the Oval Office during a press availability. Trump halted military aid shipments days later.

Two rounds of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have failed to produce a ceasefire, leading Trump to compare the two countries to children.

“Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” Trump said during a June 5 meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office.

Earlier this month, Hegseth skipped the latest gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, representing more than 50 nations providing military support. It was the first such meeting not attended by a U.S. defense secretary, who typically chairs the sessions.

Trump has gone back and forth on how to get Putin to the table, alternately encouraging the Russian leader and considering sanctions. Meanwhile, the Russian and Ukrainian militaries continue the fight that one recent assessment found has killed nearly 1.4 million people so far.

At the June 11 appropriations hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally and defense hawk who is leading a Russia-sanctions bill, urged the administration to pressure China and India to stop funding the war by threatening to lock those countries out of American markets if they won’t stop buying Russian oil.

Graham asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine if he thought Putin is going to stop if he wins in Ukraine.

“I don’t believe he is, sir,” Caine answered.

Hegseth added: “Remains to be seen.”

“Well, [Putin] says he’s not,” Graham said. “This is the ’30s all over again. It doesn’t remain to be seen. He tells everybody around what he wants to do.”

“We gotta get this stuff right,” he continued. “Russia will dismember Ukraine and keep going if we don’t stop them.”

The House and Senate armed services committees will also have chances to press Hegseth on Ukraine policy this month. At a hearing on the Air Force’s 2026 budget request last week, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) referred to the Russian president as “war criminal Putin” and Ukrainians as “courageous patriots.”

Lawmakers could add pro-Ukraine provisions to the defense spending and policy bills but would ultimately need Trump’s approval to enact them.

The House Appropriations Committee’s draft defense spending bill does not include funding for Ukraine aid, nor does the sweeping tax-and-spending package known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” Congress can pass that bill without Democratic votes through the budget reconciliation process, which lowers the vote threshold for approval.

The Pentagon’s base budget request also eliminates funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, Democrats said. Hegseth told House appropriators on June 10 the administration would seek “a reduction” in spending on Ukraine.

“I don’t think the word ‘victory’ has been well defined, or the path to it,” Hegseth said when asked about the decision to slash Ukraine aid.

The U.S. has approved $67 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s unprovoked invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. The Pentagon is still delivering military equipment authorized in the final four rounds of aid approved under presidential drawdown authority by the Biden administration, Hegseth said June 10.

In a joint statement on Putin’s rejection of a ceasefire in March, the chairmen of the House and Senate armed services panels applauded Trump’s effort to broker a peace deal but said Ukraine must continue to receive intelligence and military assets from the U.S. and NATO.

**Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) speaks at a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Sept. 12, 2024. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Madelyn Keech)**

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, typically wears a Ukrainian flag pin affixed to his lapel. He said his display of support was initially very popular, but more recently has drawn criticism. It’s an outward sign of his continued belief that the U.S. needs to be steadfast in its support of Ukraine.

Wicker told reporters at a June 4 Defense Writers Group event he hopes U.S. negotiators now realize that Ukrainians intend to defend their homeland and need support as a smaller country with fewer resources to fight back.

Recent conversations with U.S. and Ukrainian officials have made him hopeful that American leaders will decide it’s in America’s best interest for Ukraine to prevail. He noted the reconciliation bill would expand the U.S. defense-industrial base to be the “arsenal of democracy.”

Russia shouldn’t be “rewarded for this series of war crimes that carry the most severe criminal penalties under international law,” he told reporters.

“The aggressors here, the bad guys, the people who would upend decades of international order are the Russians, and this affects America,” Wicker said. “I’m stubbornly pro-Ukraine because I’m pro-freedom and pro-democracy.”

Hegseth Pitches $3.5 Billion For F-47 in 2026 Budget

June 10, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first trip to Capitol Hill to argue for next year’s Pentagon budget shed new light on funding for some of the Air Force’s top-priority acquisition programs, even as the department continues to hide its 2026 request from view.

The military will invest in advanced technologies that could prevail in a war with China while cutting less-resilient equipment that has been saved by parochial interests, Pentagon officials told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel at a June 10 hearing.

“President Trump has charged us with making the big difficult decisions after a lot of deferred maintenance and deferred decisions to ignore parochial priorities, in large part, and focus on what the department needs and where it needs it and when it needs it,” Hegseth said. “That means some tough calls.”

Hegseth said the Air Force will seek $3.5 billion for its future F-47 fighter, a next-generation jet that would direct drone wingmen around combat zones and aims to deceive Chinese air defenses in a potential conflict. House appropriators are offering the program slightly less money at $3.2 billion for 2026; the Republican-led reconciliation bill includes $400 million to accelerate its production.

In written testimony, Hegseth promised the F-47 will be the “most advanced, lethal, and adaptable fighter ever developed, with state-of-the-art stealth technologies to stay one step ahead of America’s adversaries.”

“The F-47 will have significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters,” he said. “[The] platform will also take significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy.”

Bloomberg reported June 4 the F-47 would siphon money away from F/A-XX, the Navy’s own effort to design a next-generation fighter. Boeing will begin building the Air Force’s secretive stealth jet under a contract worth an estimated $20 billion; the program is expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars overall.

The Air Force is also asking for $804 million for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program that is designing AI-enabled drone wingmen to boost air power in a conflict without risking additional lives. House appropriators have not said how much money their bill would offer the program.

Hegseth told Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) the aircraft, in development at Anduril and General Atomics, are fully funded in the 2026 budget. Flight tests are slated to begin by the end of September, said Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who is standing in as the Pentagon’s comptroller.

But Hegseth indicated those programs, which the Air Force has long touted as game-changers for air warfare, will come at the expense of other platforms that previously piqued the service’s interest.

He suggested the Air Force will abandon its plan to replace its E-3 air target-tracking planes with the E-7 Wedgetail, a more advanced airborne warning-and-control jet used by Australia and the United Kingdom. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported last month the E-7 program was on the chopping block in favor of a shift towards space-based surveillance.

“There are platforms we’ve supported as a result, and there’s some platforms and systems that we won’t support going forward,” Hegseth said when asked about the way forward on E-7 procurement. “We’ve learned a lot of things from what has happened in Ukraine. We’ve learned a lot from what China is attempting to do and the systems they’re building. So if we have systems and platforms that are not survivable in the modern battlefield or they don’t give us an advantage in a future fight, we have to make the tough decisions right now.”

The Pentagon will “fund existing platforms . . . more robustly and make sure they’re modernized,” he added.

While defense officials are willing to continue to review options like the E-7, Hegseth said, “investments in existing systems that carry forward that capability alongside even bigger investments in space-based [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] gives us the kind of advantages we need on a future battlefield.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), whose district is home to the remaining E-3s at Tinker Air Force Base, cautioned against retiring existing capabilities before relying on unproven technology in space. About half of the E-3 fleet has retired as the Air Force tries to piece together a network of sensors that could perform the same mission.

“I’ve been on this committee a long time,” Cole said. “I watched the U.S. Army waste $29 billion on the Future Combat Systems [program] because it was going to be so great.”

“I would just urge you to look at this pretty carefully as you make the decision,” he said. “We certainly will as a committee.”

Washington’s wait for the Pentagon’s $832 billion base budget blueprint—more than four months after the statutory deadline to send their ask to Congress—hasn’t stopped lawmakers from moving forward with their own ideas.

Shortly after questioning Hegseth, Woollacott MacDonnell, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine in a cramped hearing room in the Capitol complex, House appropriators headed upstairs to adopt an $832 billion defense spending bill without having received a plan from the administration to base it on.

“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who chairs the House defense appropriations panel, said at the hearing. “We’ll just have to work out the differences we have in conference. But it’s hard for us to do our job without the . . . detailed information.”

The full House Appropriations Committee will vote on its 2026 defense spending bill on June 12. The Pentagon is expected to publish its full budget request later this month.

New Skyraider II Instructor Pilots Racking Up Flight Hours

June 10, 2025 | By David Roza

The first batch of instructor pilots on one of the Air Force’s newest airframes are piling on the flight hours as they prepare to welcome their own students next fiscal year.

The first mission-ready OA-1K Skyraider II, a surveillance and attack aircraft, arrived at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Okla., in late April. It’s being flown by test crews and the initial cadre of instructor pilots, who will then train the first pilots for operational units starting in fiscal year 2026, an Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“Multiple initial cadre members have passed 100 hours of flight time on the OA-1K,” the spokesperson said.

The 137th Special Operations Wing welcomed the Skyraider II at a ceremony June 7. A two-seat modified crop duster, the OA-1K will provide airborne eyes and ears as well as precision fires to support isolated special operations troops in the field, just as its namesake, the A-1 Skyraider, did in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Airmen with the 137th Special Operations Wing salute during the national anthem at an arrival ceremony for a 492nd SOW OA-1K Skyraider II on June 8, 2025, at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Oklahoma City. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Erika Chapa)

More than 25 OA-1Ks will eventually settle at Will Rogers ANGB to support training and armed overwatch operations. The total fleet of 75 turboprop planes will be spread across four AFSOC bases. It’s not clear yet how many new OA-1K pilots are expected to train in Oklahoma every year.

“As the test efforts mature, we will be able to determine final syllabus requirements and how many students will be expected to train each year to satisfy operational requirements,” the spokesperson said.

Maj. Jehon Bendokas, chief of the armed overwatch requirements branch at AFSOC, expects the Skyraider II will be flying combat missions within the next two to three years. That’s nearly two decades after the Air Force launched its search for a simpler plane that could support the counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan and free up advanced assets for more complex missions.

The OA-1K is designed to provide the capabilities of multiple aircraft on a platform that’s less expensive and easier to maintain than purpose-built aircraft, and which can be easily modified to support new missions. During the Global War on Terror, air support for special operations often consisted of a “stack” of specialized attack, surveillance, or bombing aircraft, Bendokas explained.

“Collectively that stack adds up to a very expensive capability per flying hour,” he said on a June 4 episode of SOFcast, the official podcast of U.S. Special Operations Command. “The intent is to . . . collapse the stack, essentially take smatterings of those capabilities, make them modular, and make a platform that’s cost-effective, multirole, essentially, to be able to do close air support, precision strike, and armed [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance].”

For example, a Skyraider II might fly one sortie with an ISR-focused loadout to give a special operations team information on a village where they are about to meet with local leaders, Bendokas said. The aircraft could land and swap the payload for weapons if the team gets into trouble. The plug-and-play design should give the Skyraider II longevity as new capabilities are developed in the future, he added.

The program was further influenced by a 2017 ambush that killed four U.S. Green Berets near the village of Tongo Tongo, Niger, according to Bendokas.

“The sequence of those events highlighted a gap in ISR and close air support coverage for geographically isolated SOF teams,” he said.

An OA-1K Skyraider II pilot conducts a walkaround on the flightline at Hurlburt Field, Florida, Jan. 28, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Natalie Fiorilli)

Skyraider II steps into that gap, which was previously filled by aircraft such as the A-1 Skyraider and A-37 Dragonfly. Those platforms “were absolute workhorses” for surveying the battlefield, providing forward air traffic control, and designating targets in Vietnam and Korea, he said. Many of the pilots and weapons systems officers who will soon fly the OA-1K previously flew the MC-12 and U-28 propeller planes, which played similar roles over Afghanistan and Iraq.

These crewed platforms often provide a sense of assurance for ground troops that uncrewed drones can’t, said Bendokas, a combat systems officer on the U-28.

“There are several cases that I’ve seen firsthand of the appreciation for having a human above the ground force,” he said. “At least you know that voice is above you . . . they’re there and they’re responsive and they’re not going to lose connectivity.”

Since they will likely operate without much support, Skyraider II crews may train to be more hands-on than those of other, more complicated aircraft, the major explained.

“Can we imagine a pilot that’s doing a level of maintenance similar to what a farmer’s able to do on his [agricultural] aircraft out in Oklahoma?” he said. “Imagine the weapons systems officer, the backseater, loading munitions with support of the pilot.”

That kind of self-reliance and small footprint could help the Skyraider II perform in agile combat employment, the Air Force concept where small groups of Airmen flit between dispersed airfields to avoid being targeted by enemy missiles.

“There is value proposition for this . . . across the spectrum of armed conflict,” Bendokas said.

Trump Budget Calls for More Airmen, Guardians in 2026

June 10, 2025 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Over half a million troops would serve in the Air Force and Space Force in 2026, the Trump administration said last week, keeping the workforce essentially flat as Airmen and Guardians tackle a growing list of missions around the globe.

The Air Force would gain nearly 3,300 active-duty Airmen and almost 1,700 in the reserve components under the president’s budget plan, for modest growth of about 1 percent across the total force, according to new details published by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. The Space Force would gain 326 Guardians, an increase of about 3 percent over 2025.

In total, the active-duty Air Force would grow to 321,500 Airmen, while the Space Force would hit 10,400 Guardians for its highest end strength since the smallest military branch was founded in 2019.

If enacted, the increase would mark the third-straight year of active-duty growth since 2024, when nearly 316,000 Airmen and 9,500 Guardians were in uniform. The Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard are also poised for slight increases to 67,500 and 106,300 Airmen, respectively.

All told, the Department of the Air Force would encompass 505,700 troops across the active-duty, Reserve and Guard. That’s nearly 5,300 more service members than the Air Force and Space Force currently employ. Overall, the U.S. military would grow to 1.3 million active-duty troops—an increase of less than 1 percent compared to 2025.

It’s unclear what missions the additional air and space personnel would perform. A spokesperson for the Department of the Air Force, which encompasses the two services, declined to provide more details on its workforce because the Pentagon has not fully released its 2026 budget draft.

The plan to grow comes as the Department of the Air Force appears to have reversed its recruiting woes of the past few years. The proposed uptick in uniformed personnel also stands in contrast to the Pentagon’s effort to slash its civilian workforce in tandem with the rest of the federal government, alleging cost savings and improved productivity.

The Department of the Air Force expects to lose about 12,600 civilian staffers, or 6 percent of its civilian workforce, to resignations and retirements spurred by the Trump administration’s downsizing efforts. The purge disproportionately affects the Space Force, in which civilians comprise about one-third of the total staff.

The White House has noted in budget documents that its estimates may not reflect all of the “management and administrative actions underway or planned in federal agencies.”

After service members landed pay raises over 4 percent for three years in a row—including a 14.5 percent bump for junior enlisted in April—the Trump administration is calling for a 3.8 percent raise starting Jan. 1, 2026. Other benefits, like the tax-free housing allowance, are valued at an additional $85,700 per person for enlisted troops and $146,100 for officers in 2026, the White House said.

The Defense Department is expected to publish more specifics later this month on how it would spend $892.6 billion in discretionary funding next year.

US Bombers Step Up Combat Operations as Demand Grows

June 9, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

U.S. bomber units are stepping up the pace of combat operations and overseas training as demand for their capabilities grows around the globe, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command said June 5.

“We’ve seen . . . an unyielding demand signal” for each of the Air Force’s three bomber fleets in the past 18 months, Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere said at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. In some cases, units are dispatched to fly with a foreign ally for “a month or a week,” he said. Other times, an immediate response force deploys with no prior notice.

The Air Force deployed bomber task forces 33 times in 2024, including 10 each in the Indo-Pacific and Europe; six in U.S. Central Command’s jurisdiction, which includes the Middle East and southwest Asia; and several others in North and South America, Bussiere said.

Bomber units have linked up with air forces from Australia, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Romania, Spain, and Sweden. Some deployments involved round-trip missions, in which they flew from the U.S. and back to participate in overseas training exercises without landing en route.

“Our allies and partners love integrating with our bombers,” Bussier said. They “love having a bomber showing the American flag over their country, or integrating with their air forces, or exercising with their ground forces.”

All three types of bombers—B-1s, B-2s and B-52s—struck targets in Yemen or the Red Sea within the last year, though Bussiere wouldn’t directly comment on those missions. In October, for instance, B-2s from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, struck five hardened underground weapons caches in territory controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The bomber force has been called up on no-notice activations seven times in the past 18 months, Bussiere said.

“Four or five of them were for combat,” he said. “Two of them were for integration and messaging.”

Six B-2s deployed for several weeks to Diego Garcia, a strategic island outpost in the Indian Ocean, for the small B-2 fleet’s largest and longest overseas deployment so far.

“The combatant commander wanted that capability and capacity in theater, and we generated those bombers, and . . . pushed them out” to CENTCOM for combat missions, Bussiere said.

The operations demonstrate the “capability [and] capacity of long-range strike, payload and range,” Bussiere said. Bombers can hit targets from farther away and use heavier munitions than other platforms.

“I’m a little bit biased, but bombers just send a different message around the world,” he added.

Bussiere also predicted that there will be another new long-range, stand-off strike platform before the B-52 retires, and said the Air Force has long eyed defenses against the kind of drone strike Ukraine used to destroy Russian bombers earlier this month.

The B-52H, he said, continues to be a crucial part of the bomber force. The type is undergoing a “very complex modification” to a new standard configuration, dubbed the B-52J, Bussiere said. The J-model includes replacement of the engines and their pylons, the radar, as well as the communications and navigation systems and other elements of the 63-year-old bomber. The Air Force hopes to keep the B-52s flying for at least 25 more years, a century after they joined the inventory.

Bussiere acknowledged the B-52J has hit development snags, Bussiere said. The cost of its radar upgrade surpassed its baseline by at least 15 percent, triggering a so-called Nunn-McCurdy breach that spurs the Pentagon to investigate and revise a program.

“The modification schedule, cost and production of the radar are different than originally designed when the program started years ago,” he said. But he insisted it’s “not a critical” cost or schedule problem.

“The command has worked very hard to keep the program costs under control” to continue modernizing the radar, he said.

In its nuclear role, the B-52 is designed to fire cruise missiles from afar. It carries the 50-year-old AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile, but that is to be replaced by the AGM-181 Long-Range Standoff Weapon around 2030. The secretive LRSO will likely continue flying on a long-range strike platform that follows the B-52 when it retires, Bussiere said, adding that the development program is going well.

The new B-21 Raider bomber is also expected to carry nuclear-tipped air-launched cruise missiles as it begins operations by the end of the decade.

Are Bombers Secure?

Bussiere said the Ukrainian drone strike that destroyed at least a dozen Russian bombers June 1 was unsurprising. “That capability and that threat has been evident,” he said, bringing together officials from the Air Force, U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Strategic Command to discuss the threat “probably at least once a month.”

“We are upgrading our capabilities and capacities every day,” he said of counter-drone tools. “The Department [of Defense] is focused on it.”

But he believes the strike’s success will likely push the Air Force to become “a little more aggressive in . . . addressing those types of threats in the continental United States.”

The U.S. military has sought technology that can identify and disable or destroy drones for years. While industry has come up with ways to shoot down quadcopters, confuse them, or zap them with lasers or microwaves, the U.S. has struggled to create cohesive counter-drone policies to protect military and civilian airspace. One hurdle: bringing together the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Homeland Security and various military entities to jointly address the problem.

The government keeps its likely counter-drone solutions under wraps, Bussiere said, “both to protect our fixed bases as well as our mobile operations.” The Air Force meets with companies to discuss potential options every month.

The threat is real, he said.

“We’re . . . going to respect it, he said. “We’re going to develop capability and capacities and operational techniques to defeat that.”