As anxiety rises over North Korean rocket tests, the Missile Defense Agency needs better radar to tell threats apart. Which of those distant blips is an InterContinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) warhead capable of hitting the US? Which is a burnt-out rocket boaster coasting harmlessly through space? Which is a decoy warhead designed to make MDA… Keep reading →

NATIONAL HARBOR: Boeing’s proposed Block III upgrade to the Super Hornet would be a “fairly high-end” complement to the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley believes. Instead of seeing Super Hornets as a potential replacement for the F-35 — as President Trump proposed — Stackley and other naval leaders at the Sea-Air-Space conference… Keep reading →

AFA HQ: William Roper, the man who’s helping shape that future at the well-named Strategic Capabilities Office, told a packed room here that “stealth won’t last forever;” that adapting to the new version of war he’s helping the country ready for “is going to be harder for the Air Force than the other services;” that… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “You get whacked a lot.” Those are the words of someone who should know, the leader of the aggressor squadron at Red Flag, the man who tries to kill U.S. forces. Lt. Col. Tyler Lewis, commander of the 57th Adversary Tactics Support Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, echoed comments we’ve heard before, that… Keep reading →

On January 19, the Air Force struck Libya to halt terrorist activity using B-2 stealth bombers. This was not the first strike against Libya. A mix of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy fighters conducted strikes 30 years ago against Libya in response to terrorist acts in Europe. A comparison of the two raids illustrates the… Keep reading →

President-Elect Trump’s recent announcement that he is considering acquiring the F/A-18 Super Hornet in place of the F-35 Lightning II does not add up for a leader who seeks “to make America great again.” Too much is at stake for the United States to rely on a fighter aircraft design whose roots extend back to… Keep reading →

Today’s United States Air Force faces a stark challenge: securing the sky in the face of ever increasing threats. Decades of deferred investment and an increasingly unstable world make this a critical issue facing the new Trump administration. Over 3/4 of the current Air Force fighter fleet is comprised of 1960s and 1970s designs that average… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Just hours after the President-Elect tweeted F-35 costs were “out of control,” sending manufacturer Lockheed Martin‘s stock price into a nosedive, the first two F-35s to be based abroad landed in their new home country, Israel. Is the famously hard-nosed Israeli Defense Force deceived about what they’re getting for their money? Or is the… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: How smart is too smart? When F-35 Joint Strike Fighters flew simulated combat missions around Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, their pilots couldn’t see the “enemy” radars on their screens. Why? The F-35s’ on-board computers analyzed data from the airplanes’ various sensors, compared the readings to known threats, and figured out the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: If you were hoping, after a bitterly contentious presidential campaign, that at least we’d have consensus on national defense spending…tough luck. Instead, teams from five leading thinktanks — spanning the political spectrum but all using the same budget simulator — came up with a more than $2 trillion spread of options. They debated their plans… Keep reading →