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...
Heather Penney
AURORA, Colo.—Air & Space Forces Magazine caught up with Heather Penney, former F-16 pilot and now a senior fellow with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, at the AFA Warfare Symposium to break down the biggest developments from Air Force...
Fixing the Air Force’s chronic combat pilot shortage will require more aircraft in the fleet, more flying hours to squadron operations, and retaining more pilots within Reserve components, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
William LaPlante said there’s been “significant improvement” in the program over the last decade, and program leaders can now “focus on the future of the F-35, instead of the past.”
There are breakthrough capabilities promised by quantum technologies that experts say could give the U.S. Air Force crucial advantages in a future conflict with China—provided, that is, that the U.S. military invests in developing those technologies sooner, not later.
The Department of the Air Force awarded a three-year, $2.5 million contract last week to Quantum Research Services, a small firm affiliated with Purdue University, for what they say is the Pentagon’s first ever “operational, production-level quantum computing software.” The software will focus on supply chain ...
For the U.S. Air Force to maintain its kill chain advantage, it must evolve its kill chains to counter adversary strategies to break them.
China has structured its military to defeat the U.S. “kill chain”—the sequence of steps needed to spot and destroy particular targets—and the Air Force must now ensure its process is agile and resilient, largely by investing in new platforms and networks, an expert from the ...
Air Force leaders today are making significant decisions about the future force, betting on the promise of autonomous collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) as a means to increase the Air Force’s combat capacity.
Heather Penney of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies moderated a discussion on "Manned-Unmanned Teaming: Myth and Reality" with Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, Mike Benitez of Shield AI, Robert Winkler of Kratos, and ...
While collaborative combat aircraft are among Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s “operational imperatives,” Air Combat Command was already working on the idea, the Air Force reported. Senior USAF leaders at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference said they were looking for a swift pace of ...
Ukraine needs USAF aircraft.
