Vanessa Montalbano

The fate of the Air Force's embattled Next Generation Air Dominance platform will now be determined by the Trump administration, the service indicated today. “The secretary of the Air Force will defer the Next Generation Air Dominance way ahead decision to the next administration, while the Department of the Air Force continues its analysis and executes the necessary actions to ensure decision space remains intact for the NGAD program,” service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in an email to...

Part of the Air Force's mobility fleet will be tapped to receive a fresh connectivity suite, dubbed the Global Transport Platform-as-a-Service, as early as the end of calendar year 2024 or spring 2025, Inside Defense has learned. Air Mobility Command at the end of September finalized a yearlong contract with an unnamed manufacturer to provide a “one-stop-shop” for “peer-to-peer communication at the tactical edge” by enabling real-time access to commercial, unclassified and secret networks even when forward deployed, according to...

Recognizing adversary drone swarms as "the most significant threat at this time," the Pentagon is aiming to unify the military around a cohesive approach to address the challenge now and in the future, according to a Thursday DOD news release.

As Air Force acquisition czar Andrew Hunter prepares to relinquish his duties to the incoming Trump administration, he anticipates the next executive to fill the role will face enduring obstacles around resourcing and integration. “What we struggled with, what we continue to struggle with and what I think we will continue to struggle with is: if the Fiscal Responsibility Act shapes the resource posture of the nation, we will not be able to fulfill the National Defense Strategy,” Hunter...

While the Air Force is changing the way it deploys and urgently modernizing the kind of platforms it would rely on to execute certain missions in the Indo-Pacific, service infrastructure worldwide has fallen significantly behind, said Ravi Chaudhary, assistant Air Force secretary for energy, installations and environment. Chaudhary released the long-awaited Installation Infrastructure Action Plan on Dec. 11, months later than originally planned, calling for its swift implementation to ensure each location can generate combat power and ensure readiness...

House and Senate authorizers want the Air Force to create and put into action a plan to begin fielding air base air defense sites at service installations located in the homeland and across the globe, per the recently released fiscal year 2025 defense policy conference bill. In coordination with U.S. Northern, European and Indo-Pacific commands, a report about the plan would need to be sent to the defense congressional committees by March 1, 2025 -- but officials have until...

Even as the Pentagon warns that cyber is one of the greatest threats facing military assets and infrastructure, some acquisition executives are still willing to accept risk there, Defense Department cyber strategists said today. “I've heard acquisition professionals tell me that we know about these cyber vulnerabilities, and they're critical... but there are a lot of other operational requirements that we have to pay for this year in this particular weapon system,” so the cyber...

The Pentagon needs to fund the Space Force separately from the Air Force to ensure both receive a sufficient budget, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said today. Otherwise, the service will be forced to split hairs in every budget cycle across the future years defense program to pay for competing priority programs. “The Air Force can't pay for the Space Force. So, within the Department of the Air Force, I can't solve the Space Force problem by moving tens of...

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon have reached an agreement on F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lot 18 to manufacture the stealth jet's frame and technical functions, the Pentagon announced today. An informal, handshake deal regarding production of the fifth-generation jet's next two Lots -- 18 and 19 -- was settled in November, according to a joint statement issued at the time from Lockheed and the F-35 Joint Program Office. Today’s contract marks the formal arrangement for Lot 18. The deal...

Incoming Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) is confident President-elect Trump's team will inject what he says are needed dollars into the Air Force's budget to revive the service's dwindling readiness levels. But as tech billionaire Elon Musk -- a key Trump confidant who is set to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency -- becomes increasingly vocal about limiting federal spending and potentially striking manned fighter jets from the Air Force’s fleet, the future painted by Wicker...