U.S. Air Forces in Europe is testing more uses for drones to extend its Arctic surveillance, emphasizing that while sharing information might be “the easiest and cheapest” option, it’s far from enough, its leader said.
Global Hawk
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The Air Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to outfit two more E-11A Bombardier business jets with the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) system. The service already operates three such aircraft, which are used to improve tactical communications for joint and coalition forces. The ...
As part of Air Force Magazine’s commemoration of the Air Force’s 75th anniversary, Sept. 18, 2022, we set out to interview all of the living former Chiefs of Staff, ultimately interviewing seven of the eight former Chiefs from 1990 to the present. In this first ...
The Tactical Boost Glide program and the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept still have value, even though the programs they support are either in source selection or flight testing, said Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, head of Air Force Materiel Command. The Air Force is pursuing the ...
Unmanned aerial vehicles and autonomous aircraft may provide a solution to operating in heavily contested domains such as the Taiwan Straits, according to a panel of expert who suggested operationalizing artificial intelligence for such purposes sooner rather than later. The group gathered virtually to help ...
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning ...
Air Force intelligence officials will keep improving the RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone until Congress directs them to ditch it, the 16th Air Force commander said Aug. 13. The RQ-4 enterprise is in limbo, as the Air Force wants to retire 24 of the aircraft ...
The Russian military claims three MiG-31s scrambled to intercept an RQ-4B operating in neutral waters over the Sea of Chukotsk, part of the Arctic Ocean bound in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, on Aug. 11. The remotely piloted aircraft remained in international territory and ...
A year after the House Armed Services Committee passed its fiscal 2020 defense policy bill in an unusually partisan fashion, the panel appears to be taking a step back from major fireworks and aerospace programmatic shifts in its 2021 legislation. The full committee’s version of ...
Congress is rekindling its fight with the Air Force over the fate of the RQ-4 Global Hawk fleet for fiscal 2021, as House lawmakers push back on plans to retire some of the high-flying intelligence aircraft that could be vulnerable to enemy fire. The Air ...
A contingent of RQ-4 Global Hawks are now flying out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, after making their regular trip from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to avoid bad weather. The RQ-4s often move to Japan to stay safe from Andersen's typhoon season. A Pacific ...
