Robots will join the Combat Air Forces within the next decade, flying alongside manned airplanes, bearing extra munitions, assisting with surveillance and jamming, and even making kamikaze attacks to defend their wingmen. These Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Systems (LCAAS), in development since 2015, seek to affordably ...
Gen. Mark D. Kelly
Air Combat Command’s Gen. Mark D. Kelly told attendees at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference that the U.S. is in real peril of losing a potential war with China if the Air Force cannot shed obsolete gear and rapidly regain a solid advantage in ...
The range of current Air Force weapons compels pilots of stealth aircraft to get too close to their targets, risking that they’ll be seen and shot down, Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly said Sep. 22. The service must have longer-range “fifth-generation weapons” ...
China is making a play to wrest air superiority from the U.S., and if it succeeds, the U.S. risks losing a potential war quickly, commander of Air Combat Command Gen. Mark D. Kelly said. Kelly described the service's fighter roadmap, saying a new fighter system ...
The combat search-and-rescue mission will be extremely challenging in a fight against a peer adversary, and the focus may have to shift to downed Airmen finding their own way to safety, Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly said Aug. 3. The future of ...
The Air Force's first application of low-cost attritable aircraft systems will be as stealthy, jamming adversary systems for F-22 and F-35 fighters to practice against, Gen. Mark D. Kelly, head of Air Combat Command, said in a virtual seminar presented by the Air Force's Life ...
DOD’s Budget; F-15EX at Northern Edge; China’s Strategic Advancement; ABMS in New Phase; Scoring for New PT test; and more ...
Despite solid combat performance, the F-35’s high maintenance costs and ongoing parts supply problems continue to be a drag on the fifth-generation fighter aircraft, giving critics ammunition as Congress readies to receive the Biden administration’s first budget. Lockheed Martin is delivering F-35s at a rate ...
The first F-15EX landed at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., March 11, a day after the Air Force officially took delivery of the jet. Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly will deliver the second airplane to Eglin the week of April 6.
As the Air Force pieces together its fiscal 2023 budget, due early next year, it must think not only about the immediate future, but also five years down the road. That’s a challenge right now, said Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force’s deputy ...
Air Combat Command is trying to move forward with an experiment it hopes will pave the way for a larger overhaul of fighter pilot training, despite pandemic-era complications. The command is working through the contracting process for the resources it needs to test the “Reforge” ...
The head of Air Combat Command isn't sure the cost of operating the F-35 will hit the desired $25,000 per hour by 2025, and he's headed out to meetings to see what can be done to make it happen. He's also concerned that China will ...