Long-Range Drones Target Battlefield Delivery By Greg Hadley A new startup has a contract with the Air Force’s innovation arm and a prototype to test its new concept: a network of “flying pickup truck” drones to solve the problem of...
defense
How the U.S. can counter China’s size and other advantages. Decades of force cuts and deferred modernization have left the U.S. Air Force unable to simultaneously deter nuclear attacks, defend the U.S. homeland, and defeat Chinese aggression at acceptable levels...
When the U.S. attacked Iran’s nuclear development facilities in June, more than 130 fighters played a crucial supporting role. But the seven B-2 stealth bombers—flying direct from the U.S. heartland—were indisputably the heart of the operation, each delivering two monster...
A-10 Scar Tissue “We wouldn’t be having this discussion about the A-10 if we had optimized the deliveries of the F 35A. The F-35 was designed to replace the F-117, the A-10 and F-15E model, but we truncated the buy...
USAF, USSF Hit Recruiting Goals—3 Months Early By Chris Gordon The Space Force and Air Force both hit their fiscal 2025 recruiting goals with months to spare, extending a promising trend that has boosted the services’ ranks. The Space Force goal...
Commerce Cuts Space Traffic Management Program By Shaun Waterman The first Trump administration moved to relieve the Space Force of its burden to monitor and warn civilian space operators about potential space traffic hazards. But now, just as the Commerce...
Experts Warn of Pacific Threats By Matthew Cox Ukraine’s drone strike on Russian bomber bases didn’t just shock Russia—it also raised alarm among U.S. officials concerned that American military installations could also be vulnerable to attack. Nicknamed “Operation Spiderweb,” the...
Major Exercises Kick Off By Greg Hadley The Air Force and Space Force kicked off a busy summer of major exercises across the Pacific on July 8, with thousands of Airmen and Guardians set to participate in a series of...
Air Force Pushes Ahead with 2 Hypersonic Missile Programs By John A. Tirpak The Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) is delayed and may significantly overrun its expected cost, which could partially explain why the service is reviving the...
The proliferation of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has shaken up the military world, fueling concern that UAVs could revolutionize airpower concepts and even negate the need for air superiority as a fundamental objective of airpower strategy. These perspectives suffer from a collective airpower amnesia ...
“Top Gun: Maverick” captured movie audiences with a plot built around the mission to destroy a fictional country’s uranium enrichment facility hidden deep in a remote mountain range. ... In June, we saw the remake: The Air Force executed the real thing as seven B-2 ...
The 36-hour operation to fly deep into Iranian airspace in June and destroy three heavily fortified nuclear complexes began more than 15 years ago with the discovery of a major construction complex among the remote mountains of northwest Iran.
