WASHINGTON:  The two Air Force F-35As scheduled to cross the Atlantic Ocean and fly at the Paris Air Show are still scheduled to go after Luke Air Force Base declared a one-day stand-down to brief pilots on five apparent hypoxia incidents afflicting pilots there since May 2. “The F-35 Joint Program Office, along with the U.S.… 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 →

WASHINGTON: New aircraft make up half the Navy’s $5.3 billion unfunded requirements list of items that didn’t fit in the 2018 budget request. But while the wishlist includes several upgrades to existing vessels, as well as new landing craft and barges, it doesn’t ask for any new warships. Instead of ships, the unfunded requirements list prioritizes… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: More money for maintenance would allow Navy ships to stay in service longer, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command said today, and accelerate the fleet’s growth to the Trump Administration’s avowed goal of 355 ships by “10 to 15 years with a relatively small investment.” The Navy’s current long-term plan assumes most warships… Keep reading →

If Congress enacts the Trump administration’s 2018 budget request, many in the Army will be ecstatic. Weapons contractors, maybe not so much. The $137.2 billion request ($166.1 billion including overseas contingency operations funds) is up by 5 percent from a year ago. It would be the most money the Army has gotten since 2012. The budget… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: Despite his campaign pledge of a 350-ship fleet, President Trump’s first budget cuts Navy shipbuilding and aircraft procurement below what was enacted in 2017, documents released today reveal. Despite Trump’s criticism of President Obama’s defense plans, this budget sticks with Obama’s shipbuilding plan for 2018: eight ships. And it actually buys eight fewer aircraft… 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 →

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 →

Days after the Navy’s T-45 Goshawk trainers returned to flight under strict safety restrictions because of problems with their air supply, the service felt compelled to make them even stricter. An aircrew’s report of “minor headaches” prompted the tighter limits, a Navy spokesperson told Breaking Defense. Only one flight out of 92 over 48 hours reported such… Keep reading →

Two weeks from today America will either be a laughingstock or Congress will have done the responsible thing, the necessary thing, and passed some kind of useful spending bills. Or, as Mark Cancian, a former senior official at the Office of Management and Budget, suggests, there may be a sort of defense spending bandage to strap… Keep reading →