CAPITOL HILL: The Air Force’s troubled KC-46 fuel tanker will probably be delayed “a couple of months” more, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told the Senate this morning. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense that this means they expect contractor Boeing to miss the December deadline to deliver… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: Heather Wilson began her first public speech as Air Force Secretary with a paean to technology, highlighting the service’s history of innovation from the B-29 to the F-117 to the F-35. It would have been an unambiguous signal of administration priorities, except the budget doesn’t really back her up. Research and development funding… Keep reading →

Australian Air Marshal Leo Davies highlighted the “institutional interoperability which the Royal Australian Air Force was shaping with its closest allies, and notably with the US Air Force and the US Navy during his recent visit to the US. The Aussies are not simply camp followers – they are shaping a way ahead an integrated… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The big news on the 2018 Air Force space budget: it grew at least $1.5 billion. That’s a large increase considering the total budget request is $10.4 billion. For perspective, the entire Defense Department space budget last year — known as the space Major Force Program — was $22 billion. The Air Force oversees the vast… Keep reading →

President Trump’s just-released 2018 budget proposal meets the goals set by Secretary Jim Mattis when he came into office, the Pentagon insists, even though the budget does not deliver the impressive defense growth the president promised. Instead, it will, the administration says, be enough to patch up a “depleted” military that needs to be brought back to health after… Keep reading →

Campaign promises of a larger, more ready and fully modernized military have slammed into budget realities as the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget for the Pentagon shows only modest growth above what the Obama administration had projected. Funding at those levels will support a 305-ship Navy, not the 350 ships that candidate Trump proposed back in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The F-35A demonstrated higher mission capable rates during its just-concluded European deployment than the fourth generation aircraft it is replacing. “It’s very important to know that we are experiencing reliability rates rates that are unheard of in our legacy fleet with this jet. We’ve seen a very, very high rate of success with just… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds AFSPC Head Raymond’s HASC Statement Confirming JFCC Elevation CAPITOL HILL: Buried in the minutiae of the Senate Armed Service’s Committee’s space hearing is an important shift for space warfighting and acquisition. Here it is: “… AFSPC/CC has been elevated to the Joint Force Component Commander for Space (JFCC Space) … in essence a 4-star… Keep reading →

A key dynamic in the shift from COIN-centric land wars to a twenty-first century combat force is what the US and its closest allies will learn from each other thanks to the core weapons systems they are buying at the same time. Hidden in plain view is the emergence of a significant driver of change  –- flying the same… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter possesses a remarkable array of sensors and processors to let it find the enemy and help the pilot kill or evade him. But the crucial threat library — known as Mission Data Files — just isn’t being developed and updated quickly enough, Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, head of the F-35… Keep reading →