Budget cuts won’t make the Air Force give up any of its current missions, the service’s Chief of Staff promised today. But, Gen. Mark Welsh acknowledged, the cuts will force it to do those missions with different and perhaps not optimal aircraft. Yes, the famous A-10 “Warthog” is “the best at close air support” –… Keep reading →

  UPDATE: NDAA Bill Would Block Retirement of A-10s AND Global Hawks WASHINGTON: Some members of Congress won’t like this, no matter how compelling the numbers are. But Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said this morning that mothballing the beloved A-10 Warthog fleet could save the service a substantial $3.7 billion, a compelling… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: While the federal government remains supine and Congress fails to pass appropriations bills, at least one lawmaker is engaged in a classic use of senatorial privilege: placing a hold on the nomination of a senior administration official. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who has made clear her unease with what appears to be the Air… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL:  Even the cameras stopped clicking in a hushed Armed Services hearing room today as Rep. Jim Cooper told the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his colleagues on the biggest committee in Congress today that America’s lawmakers had failed the country. “You gentlemen make life and death decisions in the Tank almost every day,”… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: As if Syria and sequestration weren’t complicated enough on their own, the combat training cutbacks required by the sequester are cutting into the military’s readiness to intervene, the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Welsh, told reporters this morning. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno has expressed similar concerns about his service’s… Keep reading →

Sitting in the cockpit of her A-10 Warthog somewhere over Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base on Jan. 10, Maj. Olivia Elliott flipped a switch. In an instant her blunt, twin-engine warplane with the 30-millimeter cannon in the nose was transformed. No longer just the Air Force’s most heavily-armed attack jet, now the A-10 was also… Keep reading →

The Air Force provides the essential capabilities that make America’s joint operations possible and has been involved in nearly every military operation overseas since 1991. As the Pentagon delves into the details of the 2014 budget, getting the Air Force budget right is critical to ensure that the nation can count on its indispensable role… Keep reading →

A year has passed since Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act-the legislation mandating sequestration. Funding cuts that once seemed politically remote now loom large for leaders increasingly anxious about the impact $1.2 trillion in automatic budget reductions will have upon their respective districts and states. An estimated two million… Keep reading →

While the active-duty Air Force and the National Guard are at odds over budget cuts in Washington, the relationship seems smoother at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base, where an Air National Guard officer assigned the an active-duty 33rd Fighter Wing became the first Guard pilot to fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the controversial product… Keep reading →

There’s a lot going on in the U.S. Air Force, but for the Senators at this morning’s Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the USAF budget, just one mattered: How budget cuts would impact their home states. While such parochialism is as shocking as gambling in Casablanca, it raises a red flag for the full-scale Base Realignment… Keep reading →