There was some good news, and some bad news, for the Navy on Monday.

Chris Pocock may know more about the U-2 than anyone who doesn’t possess a very high security clearance. He’s written four books about the planes and is passionate about the black beauties. Here’s his take on whether Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk can rival or surpass the capabilities of the U-2. Read on. The Editor. Northrop… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds Force Comment WASHINGTON: Lockheed Martin is pressing the Air Force to change how it evaluates T-X bids, arguing that new aircraft will cost the service close to $1 billion more over six years and delay Initial Operating Capability by several years. The calculus behind this assertion appears pretty simple. New aircraft require structural… Keep reading →

A bevy of new vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircraft conceived to take the military beyond the speed, range and altitude limits of helicopters are scheduled to fly over the next two years. None looks more like science fiction becoming science fact than a sort of flying candy crane formerly known as “Transformer.” What is now… Keep reading →

PALMDALE, CALIF.: Lockheed Martin is exploring building a stealthy successor to the U-2 as an answer to Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk and the U-2’s impending retirement. Why a stealthy reconnaissance aircraft? Neither the U-2 nor Global Hawk can operate for long in what the military calls contested airspace. Ever since Gary Powers was shot down… Keep reading →

  PALMDALE, CALIF: The mountains are dry. The spaces are vast. The population is small. You wouldn’t think it to look around from the center of town, but this place hosts a remarkable array of the world’s smartest people who design and build America’s weapons. You get a few hints of the history of Palmdale as… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Raytheon’s Yuse Pledges To Meet Or Beat JSTARS Radar KPPs PARIS AIR SHOW: Canada-based Bombardier is joining the Lockheed-Raytheon team to build a replacement for the aging JSTARS (Joint Surveillance Targeting and Attack Radar System) aircraft, Lockheed Martin announced today. The incumbent, Northrop Grumman, announced last week that it would team with General Dynamics, Gulfstream, and… Keep reading →

PARIS AIR SHOW: After investing 20 years, substantial amounts of cash and using the time of some of its vaunted and scarce Skunk Works engineers, Lockheed Martin today announced it is handing off its Hybrid Airship to a commercial reseller. While Orlando Carvalho, head of Lockheed’s mighty aeronautics business, made clear to me that the… Keep reading →

This is the second of three op-eds by acquisition guru Bill Greenwalt. Since the devil is often in the details of improving how America buys its weapons, Bill delves deep into those details in this piece, arguing that the acquisition system is really so bad we just need to figure out how to get around… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Lockheed’s Skunk Works Confirms It’s Their Bird (Tuesday 1 p.m.) OK. Let’s get this out in the open. Neither you nor I are likely to learn the truth about the image of that thing that might be a plane under the white covering. But there’s this website called Open Source Geoint and it has… Keep reading →