PENTAGON: One of the longest-running debates between the Air Force and the Army centers on close air support. Historically, the Air Force hates supplying CAS and doesn’t like buying or maintaining the planes that do it. But the white scarf boys wouldn’t let the Army do the job either, since it involved fixed-wing aircraft and… Keep reading →

If you thought the Republican primaries had turned ugly, wait till you see what it takes to win an Air Force contract nowadays. The feud between Hawker Beechcraft and Sierra Nevada Corporation over the Light Air Support contract has escalated from the usual appeals to the GAO up to a lawsuit, a freeze on the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Despite the Pentagon’s decision to nix the Air Force’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft from the arsenal in fiscal 2013, officials from prime contractor Northrop Grumman are staging an 11th-hour bid to get some of those planes back into the fleet. Company officials are working a plan to convince the department to proceed with planned… Keep reading →

UPDATED WASHINGTON: The Global Hawk is dead. Long live the Global Hawk. Pentagon and service leaders are rumored to be considering reducing or canceling the current version of the venerable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drone. The Block 30 Global Hawk variant will be replaced with the Cold War-era U-2 spy planes. The decision to cut… Keep reading →

(Photo: U.S. Air Force) UPDATED WASHINGTON: Defense giant Boeing may have to prove in person their case to Congress on why they opted to shutter their Kansas facilities last week. “There are still a lot of outstanding questions” on Boeing’s decision to shut down their assembly plant in Wichita, KS and move those operations to… Keep reading →

Just before the New Year, the U.S. Air Force finally selected a new Light Air Support plane for ground attack in counterinsurgency, picking the Brazilian Super Tucano over the American AT-6– whose manufacturer, Wichita, Kan.-based Hawker Beechcraft, is filing suit over the decision [update: leading the Air Force to issue a stop-work order on the… Keep reading →

In the new year, America’s power projection forces must be restructured and we must pursue a ruthless retirement of old weapons in favor of the new. Much of this can be paid for and modernized because of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, which costs $2 billion a week. Logistics costs in Afghanistan alone have diverted money… Keep reading →

UPDATED CAPITOL HILL: The $669 billion set aside by defense lawmakers for fiscal 2012 is $24 billion short of the White House’s initial request but will be enough to finance several of the Pentagon’s high-profile programs. The Pentagon will get $554 billion in its baseline budget and $115.5 billion to continue fighting the wars in… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Fatigue testing and analysis are turning up so many potential cracks and “hot spots” in the Joint Strike Fighter’s airframe that the production rate of the F-35 should be slowed further over the next few years, the program’s head declared in an interview. “The analyzed hot spots that have arisen in the last 12… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Air Force is turning to its allies for help as it looks to maintain a viable global presence in the face of coming budget cuts, a top Air Force general said today. The service expects to get much smaller as the Pentagon’s struggles to meet the White House deficit reduction goals and possible… Keep reading →