Vanessa Montalbano

The Air Force's new Family of Affordable Mass Missile program would receive a three-year multiyear procurement contract in fiscal year 2027 under the House Appropriations Committee's version of next year's defense spending bill. Overall, House appropriators would grant the service MYP authority for six out of the eight missiles it requested, compared to zero new such contracts last year. To accelerate the FAMM program, the service is requesting a total of $931 million across procurement and research, development,...

The Senate Armed Services Committee would increase the Air Force's MQ-9A Reaper inventory by 2028 and require the service to complete an analysis of alternatives on future medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems. A draft of the fiscal year 2027 authorization bill calls on the Air Force to “limit divestment and to submit a report and briefing on the MQ-9 aircraft, while directing the MQ-9 to increase inventory by 2028,” according to an

The F-35 Joint Program Office determined last October that it will need about $13.7 billion more than previously planned for sustainment through fiscal year 2031, according to a Government Accountability Office report. JPO projects it will need $50.8 billion total from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps from FY-27 to FY-31, the report states, whereas the military had budgeted for about $38.1 billion over that timeframe. Along with the projected $12.7 billion shortfall, more funding is needed...

The Air Force's decision to demote the next-generation tanker effort to a subprogram in the fiscal year 2027 budget request is driven by operational analysis and underlying fiscal constraints, several sources told Inside Defense.

The Air Force wants its future strategic airlifter to be able to fly farther and carry more compared to its C-17A Globemaster III and C-5M Super Galaxy, according to a request for information released on Friday.

Prototyping for the Air Force's new bunker-buster bomb has been extended by one year, according to the service's fiscal year 2027 budget request. The GBU-76 Next Generation Penetrator program will not complete prototype demonstration through modeling and simulation, design, product development and test until the end of FY-28, according to next year’s research, development, test and evaluation spending proposal. The service in its FY-26 budget request projected that prototype activities would be complete by the end of FY-27...

The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to adopt language proposed by the Air Force that changes the way the service legally accounts for all of its battle-ready fighter jets, according to the report accompanying Senate authorizers'version of the fiscal year 2027 defense policy bill. Under the new definition, the number of aircraft considered mission ready on a moment's notice would expand. At the same time, lawmakers are calling to increase the fighter floor threshold to 1,369 aircraft by...

The Air Force has selected both Anduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to produce their airframe designs for the first three lots of the emerging Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, the service announced today. “We always envisioned to have the flexibility to take up to two types of vendors” into production, Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Col. Timothy Helfrich told reporters today. “A big reason for that is that we believe that continuous competition drives the best...

The Air Force wants to bring together a host of financiers, small businesses, non-traditional defense contractors and an administrative team to manage public-private projects directed at increasing energy resilience at service installations, according to a draft solicitation released today. The group, called the Consortium Management Organization (CMO), would eventually establish and monitor a Defense Energy Consortium (DECo) aimed at closing power gaps across the service. “Members of the consortium will be responsible for fully financing potential projects using private...

The Qatari-government-donated "VC-25B Bridge” jet is now in the hands of the Presidential Airlift Group at Joint Base Andrews, MD, and is on track to begin flying, the service announced on Friday.