Vanessa Montalbano

DAYTON, OH -- The Air Force is inching closer to achieving initial operational capability of its synthetic test battlespace at Nellis Air Force Base, NV, service leaders said yesterday, predicting the milestone could even be reached by the end of this year. The Digital Test and Training Range at Nellis AFB in June validated a minimal viable capability release for its Joint Simulation Environment, Rodney Stevens, the Air Force’s portfolio acquisition executive for training, told reporters here at the Life...

DAYTON, OH -- The Air Force is anticipating hosting flight tests for the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile in the fall, the service's acquisition chief said yesterday, following a very tight schedule to allow the weapon to start procurement in fiscal year 2027. If no further hiccups occur, the program is still expected to adhere to its five-year rapid prototyping schedule as part of the Middle Tier Acquisition authority contract, interim Air Force acquisition boss William Bailey told reporters...

DAYTON, OH – The Air Force is planning to pick up to six firms next year to begin prototyping for the service's next batch of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, a top Air Force official said this week. The service in December revealed it awarded nine unnamed vendors contracts to develop airframe design analysis for CCA increment two. That concept refinement phase will last “another approximately 10 months” before the service down selects to as many as half a dozen businesses...

DAYTON, OH -- As the Air Force prepares to launch an analysis of alternatives for its Next Generation Airlift program in fiscal year 2027, mobility leaders said this week they know two things are certain: NGAL will not be a family of systems and the AOA will be done with speed. “I don’t know what the solution is going to be,” Brig. Gen. William Ottati, mobility portfolio acquisition executive, told reporters here during the Life Cycle Industry Days conference,...

DAYTON, OH -- The Air Force and Boeing are embarking on a busy year as they move to downgrade all five remaining issues related to the KC-46 Pegasus that could cause death or significant damage to the airborne refueling tanker by the end of 2027, top service officials said this week. Two of the Pegasus program’s outstanding category one deficiencies are related to the platform’s old Remote Vision System. The others involve a stiff boom telescope actuator, cracking...

Across eight experimental flights, the Air Force Test Pilot School and Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works division completed 27 air intercepts against a live target using sensor-driven autonomy, the service announced today.

The Air Force yesterday awarded Boeing $75 million to produce a new Joint Direct Attack Munition that can travel about 20 times farther than the current configuration, giving the service additional standoff strike options as the Pentagon moves to expand its missile stocks.

Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall is planning to sue the Trump administration over the revocation of his security clearance after the Pentagon accused him of discussing sensitive information with the media.

Ongoing delays facing the VC-25B Air Force One replacement program can be traced back to a 2023 shift to a new interior design manufacturer, according to a report recently released by the service. “The primary driver for this program's multiple schedule breaches continues to be design instabilities stemming from the transition to a new interiors supplier. Boeing finalized the transition to a new subcontractor in December 2023, but the design maturity for the aircraft interior continues to lag due to...

The Air Force is forging ahead with plans to shift HH-60W Jolly Green IIs in the backup inventory into a VIP transport role at Joint Base Andrews, MD, as the service gradually retires its fleet of aging UH-1N Huey helicopters.