Daily Report: Read the day's top news on the U.S. Air Force, air power, and national security issues.
C-130
A touted $30 billion realignment of the Air Force's budget, with some wholesale retirements of major systems, did not materialize in the spending documents released Feb. 10. Instead, the Air Force is reducing its operational fleet to pay for technology upgrades emphasizing connectivity, agile logistics, ...
Air Force Reserve Command is mulling where to place four newly funded C-130Js, prioritizing two wings with specialized missions. The fiscal 2020 defense spending bill provided an additional $730 million for 8 C-130J aircraft, including four for the Air Force Reserve and four for the ...
Dynetics and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are moving forward with their Gremlins drone swarming program after flying a small unmanned aircraft for the first time in late November. The X-61A flew with and launched from a C-130 wing at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. ...
Operation Christmas Drop, Pacific Air Forces’ trademark yearly training mission that brings humanitarian aid to dozens of islands throughout the region, delivered supplies for 20,000 people in 2019. The week-and-a-half-long exercise included airdropping 176 bundles totaling more than 70,000 pounds of cargo to residents of ...
The world’s longest-running airdrop training mission, bringing aid to 20,000 people across 1.8 million square nautical miles, is in full swing in the Pacific. The USAF-led, 68th annual Operation Christmas Drop began on Dec. 7 and runs through mid-December. About 175 bundles full of food, ...
Congressional authorizers are offering the Air Force less money in most areas than the service asked for in fiscal 2020, but want to put nearly $19 billion toward aircraft procurement, according to the bipartisan, bicameral defense policy bill, which passed the House on Dec. 11.
The health of the Air Force's B-1 fleet, which spent much of 2019 plagued with readiness issues, has improved, enabling Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Timothy Ray to send the bombers on a short-notice deployment to the Middle East with plans for a ...
The years-old idea of an “arsenal plane,” a flying munitions truck that could accompany fighter jets and unmanned aircraft into battle, is now adapting to include the Air Force’s new technology pursuits. As the Air Force evolves its thinking on the prospect of an arsenal ...
Air Force Special Operations Command has changed its search for a missing special tactics airman into a mission to recover his body. SSgt. Cole Condiff, 29, was a special tactics combat controller with AFSOC's 24th Special Operations Wing. He served in the 23rd Special Tactics ...
More USAF units have joined the search for the special tactics airman who fell out of a C-130 into the waters off the coast of Florida on Nov. 5. Reserve rescue airmen, two HH-60G Pave Hawks, and one HC-130 Combat King from the 920th Rescue ...
An airman assigned to the 24th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla., is still missing after falling from a C-130 into the Gulf of Mexico during a Nov. 5 training exercise. Dozens of USAF aircraft are searching the waters south of Hurlburt, along with ...
