Development of the KC-46 Pegasus tanker might have fared better if it had been a cost-plus, rather than a fixed-price program, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said, "I'll take the hit" for that approach. Though progress has been slower, the KC-46 is now ready ...
Boeing
More than two and a half years after the Air Force finished its first round of re-winging efforts for the A-10, Boeing started delivering new wing sets to the service earlier this month, the company announced May 25.
Boeing lost more than a billion dollars on two Air Force programs in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, getting "whacked" by inflation, the pandemic, and supply chain issues, CEO David L. Calhoun said. He admitted that Boeing lowballed its bids for the fixed-price development ...
The Air Force will buy two prototype E-7 Wedgetail AWACS aircraft for an evaluation but expects to place a procurement order for more E-7s to replace some of its E-3 AWACS fleet. The E-3s are hard to maintain and have low mission capable rates, and ...
Boeing unveiled its new “high-throughput” factory-within-a-factory for small satellites March 30. From a 30,000-square-foot section of its space manufacturing hub in El Segundo, Calif., the company expects to build entire constellations of small sats that span the altitudes. Boeing intends to do “virtually every aspect ...
Onboard an undisclosed host satellite launching in 2024, a Boeing-built prototype processor could become the "first space-based hub" of the military’s Protected Tactical Waveform for jam-resistant battlefield communications, the company says. Boeing’s Protected Tactical SATCOM Prototype, or PTS-P, is meant to demonstrate better standoff distance, ...
The E-7 was developed by Boeing for the export market. It’s hosted on a 737-700 airframe, and rather than a rotating radome—the iconic, flying-saucer-like feature of the E-3—the Wedgetail uses a large blade-like structure on its back, housing an active electronically scanned array radar.
A more capable iteration of the Space Force’s Wideband Global Satellite Communications satellites can move into the production phase since passing a critical design review. Improvements include numerous coverage beams with smaller possible footprints to help evade jamming.
Boeing has revealed an updated concept for its Valkyrie reusable, unmanned hypersonic aircraft that indicates new design approaches for inlets and shaping. Shown in an artist’s concept illustration provided to Air Force Magazine—and in the form of a model at the American Institute of Aeronautics ...
Lessons from the KC-46 and F-35 will prove useful to the testing community in the years to come.
A new report by the Defense Department’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation found that Texas and Virginia were America’s top recipients of defense spending in fiscal 2020 at $83 billion and $64.3 billion, respectively. Among the states where the Air Force received the highest ...
Lockheed Martin plans to enter the Advanced Tactical Trainer fray to supply the Air Force with a new jet to bridge undergraduate flight instruction and fighter training units, but the company declined to say whether it will offer a T-50A derivative, a different non-developmental airplane, ...