Defense

WASHINGTON — The Royal Australian Air Force on Tuesday signed a $115 million contract to buy three more autonomous “Loyal Wingman” drones from Boeing, raising its total order to six aircraft just days after the first system made its inaugural flight. Following a series of ground tests to validate its navigation and pilot control systems, the first Loyal Wingman — which Boeing also calls…

WASHINGTON — Since September, when the U.S. Air Force disclosed that it had flown a full-scale demonstrator of its future fighter, the defense community has been hungry for more details about the Next Generation Air Dominance program. And Air Force leaders have been loathe to provide them. That’s what made unprompted comments by Air Combat Command head Gen. Mark Kelly so surprising during a…

MELBOURNE, Australia — The U.S. military needs to quickly deploy more anti-ship missiles capable of targeting invading forces heading to Taiwan, and ensure American assets within range of Chinese missiles are sufficiently dispersed or hardened against a preemptive strike. At least that’s the recommendation made by Thomas Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander, during a Feb. 18…

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin is pitching the Defense Department on a performance-based logistics contract for the F-35 joint strike fighter that company officials say will help improve the availability of spare parts and accelerate repair times. The new proposal, which would run from 2022 to 2026, is a scaled down version of the more expansive proposal Lockheed floated in 2019. As such, the…