The many capabilities embodied by the Air Force’s next-generation B-21 Raider extend beyond conventional measures of range, payload, and radar-penetrating stealth—they also include “other things that it can be a part of that could help leverage the agility and the speed that we need to ...
Initial planning has begun for the retirement of the B-1 and B-2 bombers, but the game plan depends largely on progress in fielding the B-21 Raider—and on Congress—the Air Force’s bomber program executive officer said. In an Air Force bomber roadmap from 2018, the service ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said lower-cost unmanned platforms are key to closing any capability gaps created by reducing the fleet in the near-term while the service invests in capabilities that will enable it to compete with peer adversary China in the long-term. "By having ...
The Air Force may not need more than the 100 B-21s it originally planned to buy because it can supplement them with new "collaborative" uncrewed aircraft, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He and Secretary Frank Kendall ...
Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, moderates a panel discussion with Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command; and Lt. Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, ...
New unmanned fighter and bomber projects won't unravel the Air Force's "4+1" combat aircraft roadmap, Secretary Frank Kendall said at the AFA Warfare Symposium. He provided broad outlines of the unmanned bomber and a cost target but said the project will be classified.
The Air Force is closely monitoring the unfolding war in Ukraine and is committed to deterring—and defeating—further Russian aggression, but the forthcoming National Defense Strategy will maintain that despite the current threat environment, the pacing threat is still China, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said ...
The Air Force’s futurist has an alarming message for Congress: “We are out of time,” Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, told reporters at the start of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on ...
The successor to the RQ-4 Global Hawk should be available for service late in this decade, Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, told the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 21. Answering questions on divestitures of systems ...
The Air Force’s newest rendering of the secret B-21 bomber suggests an exotic layout of cockpit windows. The image, the third released so far, offers a new oblique view of the aircraft from below its port side, suggesting a deeper keel and wider weapons bay ...
The Air Force will hold 45 B-1 bombers in service until a sufficient number of B-21 bombers are on hand to replace them, service leaders told a House Armed Services readiness hearing. They also reveled that the first two B-21s are complete and ready for ...
China's meteoric rise in military capability—and the urge to do something to contain it—is the chief reason Frank Kendall, the Biden administration's pick to be Air Force Secretary, agreed to return to Pentagon work, he said in his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing. Kendall ...