Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson told lawmakers March 4 the service has started testing new tools built to defend American assets on orbit, possibly hinting at classified counterspace capabilities. “We began prototyping, and demonstrating, and preparing for what I’ll call abilities to ...
Air Force leaders are urging members of Congress to sit down with them in a classified setting so they can better understand the service’s thinking behind its fiscal 2021 budget request, which once again attempts to retire a host of legacy platforms to free up ...
Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson indicated the military will add new locations to the list of bases under consideration for U.S. Space Command headquarters, saying some unexpected places could become home to parts of the new Space Force as well. “We’re now ...
The Air Force needs 2,100 more pilots to reach its goal of 21,000 aviators, indicating that efforts to stem the pilot shortage have not yet been successful. “Increasing production of new aviators remains the most significant lever we have to arrest aircrew shortages,” service officials ...
The Air Force recently sent an unexpected aircraft over the village of Kismayo, a rural town on the Somali coast that has been a hotbed of extremist activity by groups such as al-Shabab. A nuclear-capable B-52, forward deployed to U.S. Central Command, flew an unmistakable ...
An AC-130U Spooky crew provided more than nine hours of air support to special operations forces, enabling the rescue of 15 patients during a mass casualty evacuation in an April 2019 mission in Afghanistan. In a March 2 ceremony at Hurlburt Field, Fla., the aircrew ...
Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told Senate legislators March 3 the service will not use the new KC-46 tanker unless absolutely necessary to fight a powerful adversary. The wide-ranging Senate Armed Services Committee hearing—the first of multiple chances the Air Force has this week ...
The Air Force picked the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon hypersonic missile over the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon because it's more advanced and is a better match to the Air Force's needs, and the HCSW just didn't fit in an overcrowded budget, service acquisition chief ...
President Trump nominated Gen. Charles Q. Brown, head of Pacific Air Forces, to be the next Air Force Chief of Staff, succeeding Gen. David Goldfein, who retires this summer. If confirmed, Brown would be the first African American to serve as Chief of Staff of ...
Boeing is developing a long-range version of its Joint Direct Attack Munition called the Power JDAM, adding an engine to extend its range by 20 times over the conventional glide version of the weapon, company officials said.
In a first for Spark Tank, the Air Force’s Airman-powered innovation competition, two teams were named co-champions. The winning ideas that bested over 200 other submissions—six of which were live-pitched onstage at the Air Force Association’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium here on Feb. 28—look to ...
While NAS JRB Fort Worth-Carswell, Texas, is slated to become the primary home of Air Force Reserve Command’s future F-35As, AFRC is now reexamining three bases it has deemed “reasonable alternatives”—Whiteman Air Force Base, Mont., Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., and Homestead Air Reserve Base—to ...