The Air Force has canceled its top annual technology and contracting conference, the 2025 edition of Life Cycle Industry Days, the Life Cycle Management Center said. The decision to cancel was driven by recent efficiency directives from the Trump administration. Whether the conference will resume ...
A recent $10 billion fleetwide upgrade to the Air Force's largest aircraft, the C-5M Galaxy, has not resulted in a higher mission capable rate—the huge airlifter was at 46 percent in 2023, down from 52 percent in 2022. Officials say the struggles are mostly due ...
With a striking story and four basic guidelines, Air Force command, control, communications, and battle management czar Brig. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey laid out the state of play and his priorities for industry during a keynote address the Life Cycle Industry Days conference on Aug. ...
Despite intense interest—and extra funding—from lawmakers, the U.S. Air Force will almost certainly not be able to get its first E-7 Wedgetail before 2027, acquisition officials said July 31. But the service can still take actions now to fill out the planned fleet of 26 airframes ...
Skyborg, the Air Force’s effort to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled system to control unmanned aircraft, is ready to “graduate” and contribute to key programs such as the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, a top program executive officer said. But while the so-called “Vanguard” ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall distilled the top fighting priorities of the Air Force and Space Force into seven “operational imperatives” chiefly as a mechanism to identify the spending transitions needed in the fiscal 2023 budget. But they are likely to persist, and more—on electronic ...
The era of “three-day critical design reviews” of Air Force programs may be ending with the advent of digital design and development methods, Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, head of Air Force Materiel Command, told attendees at an industry conference. “This is completely transforming how we’re ...
The B-52H will be redesignated the B-52J or possibly B-52K when it gets a new radar and new engines, but the Air Force hasn’t yet decided what will constitute the new B-52 variant, according to Col. Louis Ruscetta, senior materiel leader for the program. The ...
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 ...