The head of Pacific Air Forces is calling for new aircraft in his theater to meet the need for air superiority, including a quick short-term replacement for aging airborne warning and control aircraft and, in the future, the service’s next generation fighter. PACAF boss Gen. ...
The Air Force has asked industry to submit papers on concepts and technologies underlying a new generation of small, highly stealthy and flexible ground attack munition, called the Global Precision Attack Weapon. The GPAW is supposed to be effective against hard and deeply-buried targets. The ...
Air Force acquisition boss Will Roper on Sept. 10 made the case for closer collaboration between military services on artificial intelligence, saying the Pentagon must get the groundwork right in order to successfully expand so-called “smart” information technology across the department. “To really make AI ...
Tall or small, the Air Force wants to ensure that Americans of more shapes and sizes can fit into its future aircraft. The service on Aug. 4 updated its guidance on the minimum physical size requirements used to design cockpits and aircrew flight equipment, which ...
The Air Force's F-15EX contract awarded to Boeing July 13 could cover as many as 200 of the advanced Eagles, 56 more than the service has previously said it would buy. The “up to” figure in the contract is an increase from 144, which the ...
The Air Force's first batch of engines for the F-15EX will number 19 powerplants; 16 installs and three spares, Air Force Materiel Command said. The number of engines was withheld when the engine contract to General Electric was announced last month. The three spares constitute ...
The Sig Sauer M18 handgun will replace the M9 pistol that has been in service since 1985. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Small Arms Program Office purchased some 125,000 M18s from Sig Sauer for $22.1 million, and delivery is slated to be complete ...
A potential “clean sheet” Arsenal Plane for Air Force Global Strike Command could be done with the Digital Century Series approach, but the budget likely won’t allow for such a new start in the near future, service acquisition chief Will Roper said. Roper said he ...
The Air Force plans a high/low mix of rocket-boosted and air-breathing hypersonic missiles to give adversaries a troublesome and expensive defense problem, service acquisition executive Will Roper said May 14. While the ARRW missile is on track for operational service at the end of fiscal ...