B-52 Stratofortress pilots control six-decade-old hardware with a 185-foot wingspan — and the lives of the four or five airmen onboard. But the moment the Vietnam War-era bomber’s wheels leave the ground, anything can happen — and some of the most important lessons cover more than routine flight procedures. Defense News visited Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to check out the aging…

The U.S. Army is buying hundreds of drone-killing Coyote interceptors from defense contractor RTX to fortify its ability to counter unmanned aerial systems. The service agreed to pay $75 million for 600 of the ground-launched, radar-guided Coyote 2C devices, it said Feb. 9. The effort was led by its Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space, tasked with developing overhead defenses…