U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville recently earned headlines for admitting the service’s 2022 budget challenges will cap personnel at roughly 485,000. His assessment heralds hard modernization decisions servicewide, but the metastasizing threats to U.S. air and missile bases — and the resulting readiness hurdles — mean Pentagon leaders need new answers on base defense, and…
ROME — Directed-energy beams could be the next step in bringing down hostile drones, officials from the Italian Air Force are predicting.
“This technology is moving really fast and we are evaluating both microwave and lasers as solutions for stopping drones,” said…
WASHINGTON — By the end of this fiscal year, one company could rake in a contract worth up to $490 million to provide the U.S. Air Force with technologies to counter the threat of small, commercially made drones.
On April 13, the Air Force released a request for…
ROME — Fincantieri is to use all three of its U..S shipyards to build new FFG(X) frigates and will hire 600 more staff by year-end to handle the work, a company official said following the U.S. Navy’s order for a second vessel out of a potential 10 in total.
The $553.9 million contract for the second Constellation-class guided-missile frigate was awarded Thursday to Fincantieri Marinette…
WASHINGTON — The KC-46 will be the first aircraft to be outfitted with equipment that will make it a node in the U.S. Air Force’s new battle management system, the service confirmed Friday.
As part of the first capability release of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle…
ISLAMABAD — Nigeria’s Air Force officially took delivery of three JF-17 fighter aircraft Friday during a ceremony at a base in Makudri amid celebrations marking the 57th anniversary of the service.
The fighters were handed over by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, which…
WASHINGTON — The Army has wrapped up an industry demonstration of a wide variety of possible Electric Light Reconnaissance Vehicles (eLRV), but the future of the program to procure such a capability remains uncertain due to the absence of funding.
The Maneuver Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate’s (MCDID) Maneuver Requirements Division (MRD) in conjunction with the Army’s…
WASHINGTON — The head of U.S. Transportation Command signaled Tuesday he is ready to support Air Force plans to start retiring some KC-135 aerial refueling tankers.
Last year, after the Air Force requested the authority to retire 13 KC-135s in fiscal 2021, TRANSCOM…
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is on a path to choose an enduring system that will counter both drone and cruise missile threats by releasing a solicitation to industry for a prototyping effort and by hosting a shoot-off for two teams at White Sands Missile Range, New…
These five firms could build a new armed overwatch plane for US Air Force special operators
May 19, 2021
WASHINGTON — U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command has tapped five companies to compete in its armed overwatch program for a new attack aircraft, awarding $19.2 million in contracts among the vendors.
The selected companies will now build and fly prototype aircraft in a series of demonstrations at Eglin Air Force Base, Floria. Those competitors include:
Leidos’ Bronco II
MAG…
