Daily Report

June 11, 2014

No Growling Needed

The F-35 is beating the stealthiness expected of it “at maturity,” said Lorraine Martin, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program manager. Officials must still verify this claim “with more data,” she told reporters on June 9 during a company-sponsored media day in...

HAC Approves Fiscal 2015 Defense Spending Bill

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved its version of the Fiscal 2015 defense spending bill. The legislation provides $491 billion in discretionary funding, some $200 million more than President Obama’s request, and $79.4 billion for the Pentagon’s overseas war...

Holding Pattern

The Air Force’s notional MQ-X remotely piloted aircraft, the stealthy, modular successor to the MQ-9 Reaper, is in a holding pattern for now, Lt. Gen Bob Otto, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, told Air Force Magazine....

Effectiveness and Capability

The Air Force needs to get better at measuring effect versus performance, said Lt. Gen. Bob Otto, who oversees intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance matters on the Air Staff. He said he recently returned from Afghanistan a bit “disappointed” with where...

Bender Tapped to be Chief Information Officer

President Obama nominated Maj. Gen. William Bender for promotion to the rank of lieutenant general for assignment as the Air Force’s chief of information dominance and chief information officer, announced the Pentagon on June 10. Bender has been deputy chief...

Pentagon Investigates if Friendly Fire Caused Troop Deaths

The Defense Department is investigating whether munitions released from a friendly aircraft took the lives of five US troops in southern Afghanistan on June 9, said Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby on Tuesday. “We do have reason to...

Active Association for F-15C Schoolhouse

The Air Force is injecting Active Duty personnel into the Oregon Air National Guard-run F-15C schoolhouse at Kingsley Field starting this fall to increase Eagle pilot production, announced officials. With the standup of the new active association, the ANG’s 173rd...

Sixth Sixty-First Super

Lockheed Martin delivered another C-130J Super Hercules transport to Little Rock AFB, Ark., from its production facility in Marietta, Ga., announced, the company. This airplane, serial number 5748, is the sixth of nine new-build C-130Js scheduled to join Little Rock’s...

F-35 Mini Deployment

Three F-35B aircraft—two Marine Corps and one British—will deploy to the Farnborough Airshow outside London and the preceding Royal International Air Tattoo in Gloucestershire, England, in July, said Lockheed Martin F-35 Vice President Lorraine Martin. This marks the first time...

DLA Ends Embassy Support in Iraq

The Defense Logistics Agency recently ended its US Embassy support mission in Iraq, more than two years after US military forces departed the nation at the end of 2011. DLA oversaw the demilitarization and disposal of US equipment and fuel...