The Air Force is implementing a fighter pilot training plan that will regroup training phases and use new technologies to cut between a third and half off the time needed to transform a raw student pilot into a fighter flight lead, according to the new ...
Lockheed Martin
The COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions moved much of the Space and Missile Systems Center’s work online, but the Space Force still met major milestones on new systems virtually. In recent weeks, the GPS III Follow-on finished its critical design review campaign virtually and on ...
An F-35A fighter jet’s landing gear collapsed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, on June 8 when the aircraft was returning from a routine training flight, according to a base spokesperson. The accident occurred at 10:45 a.m. local time. The pilot, part of the 388th ...
The Navy on June 1 awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to upgrade the F-35's Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD/DEAD) capabilities. The contract provides $26.7 million to engineer changes to the F-35 for the "full up" mission, presumably to add weapons and/or ...
The Air Force is getting its Skyborg wingman drone program underway, reaching out to industry for technology that could head to a future experimentation campaign. Multiple companies could each win $400 million to contribute technology toward a best-of-breed Skyborg drone, the service said in a ...
Parts delays and the need to keep workers appropriately separate will translate to an 18-24 airplane shortfall in Lockheed Martin's planned 2020 F-35 production, the company said May 19. The figure is a worst-case estimate and could be mitigated by an earlier acceleration of parts ...
Northrop Grumman on May 18 won a contract worth up to $2.4 billion to supply two polar orbit satellites that are part of the next generation of missile warning systems. Phase one development work will run through the end of 2025, and another contract that ...
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Australia-based CEA Technologies are in the running to build a new ground-based radar as the Air Force overhauls its Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar effort. The Air Force announced May 11 that each company received $500,000 to demonstrate their ready-made radars ...
The Air Force is seeking industry input on a new class of air-to-air missiles, which would be faster and longer-ranged than the AIM-120 and AIM-9X that currently equip its fighter fleet. It's not clear, though, how the new weapons would join a portfolio where there ...
Northrop Grumman will test a system that will allow fourth- and fifth-generation fighters to talk to each other, as well as “attritable” aircraft, during the next iteration of the Advanced Battle Management System experiment. The system could also be applied to the KC-46 tanker.
The Pentagon and the primes step up in the face of the pandemic.
The Air Force is spearheading development of the Defense Department’s first hypersonic cruise missile. The service on April 27 reached out to industry to seek input on a “solid rocket-boosted, air-breathing, hypersonic, conventional cruise missile” that can be launched from existing fighters and bombers. Air ...
