Britain’s Royal Air Force will get a fifth C-17 airlifter and will purchase the first four that it has been leasing from Boeing. The British under-secretary of state for defense, Tom Watson, announced the news last week, according to Government News Network (UK). The lease arrangement gave the RAF the original four until 2008, at which time Britain could either buy or extend the lease. Buying the new airlifters, said Watson, “will give the RAF a guaranteed long-term capacity.”
A record investment in research and development by the Department of the Air Force will help the United States win the long-term technology race with China, even while shrinking the fleet size before a possible mid-decade Taiwan contingency, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 17. “With the Air Force,…