The U.S. must reverse decades of underfunding its Air Force.
E-7 Wedgetail
With concerns growing that Congress will once again fail to pass a spending bill in time for the start of the new fiscal year, one Air Force program in particular could suffer—the E-7 Wedgetail. While it’s likely that lawmakers would pass a continuing resolution to ...
The Air Force’s aging E-3 Sentry fleet is on its last legs. The service has already asked in the 2023 budget to retire half the fleet, and its replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail, has been selected. But now, lawmakers and observers are asking a new question: ...
U.S. Northern Command’s homeland cruise missile detection and defenses must be upgraded to respond to new threats, experts say, and a major D.C. think tank proposes a multi-layered defense that would require fewer Air Force fighters in the air and use new E-7 Wedgetails, the ...
Recent wargaming results; ARRW at hypersonic speed; Advanced F-22 capabilities revealed.
With a repeat of a hypersonic missile test coming up in the summer and the potential to speed up production of the B-21 Raider, the Air Force is “committed” to putting hypersonic missiles on its long-range bombers, said Lt. Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, the top ...
A record investment in research and development by the Department of the Air Force will help the United States win the long-term technology race with China, even while shrinking the fleet size before a possible mid-decade Taiwan contingency, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May ...
In a 2027 invasion of Taiwan by China, neither side achieves air superiority, both sides take heavy losses, and China finds little hope for a fait accompli, according to a recent wargame run by the Center for a New American Security. The game highlighted the ...
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 ...
Air Force Magazine Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele and Pentagon Editor Abraham Mahshie sat down with Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, for an exclusive interview that touched on everything from the the Next Generation Air ...
The Air Force plans to retire half its AWACS fleet of E-3 Sentries and most E-8C JSTARS in fiscal 2023 and 2024, but it anticipates a delay between the retirements and new space-based ISR capabilities that could replace them, Air Force leaders said as the ...
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.