Lockheed Martin will provide the Air Force with six KC-130J aircraft modified to fit the needs of the service’s combat search and rescue and special operations forces, according to a USAF release dated July 17. The service had planned to...

Northrop Grumman yesterday (June 19) issued a terse press advisory announcing that it is deferring the gala ceremony that it planned to host with its industrial partner EADS-North America on June 28 in Mobile, Ala., to break ground on their adjoining KC-45 tanker aircraft assembly plants. An EADS-NA representative confirmed the postponement. Wednesday’s protest ruling by the Government Accountability Office means that Northrop’s team won’t be pressing forward on new USAF tankers anytime soon. As we reported yesterday, GAO upheld Boeing's protest of the award to the Northrop-led team to build up to 179 new tankers under work valued at around $35 billion over the next 15 or so years. GAO has recommended that USAF reopen the competition to new bids from both. If protest delays afflicting the Air Force’s next-generation combat search and rescue helicopter contract are any guide, resolution of the tanker award could be another two years or more in coming. Northrop had said the groundbreaking ceremony was contingent on GAO’s findings; the company was hoping that GAO would not find fault with the Air Force’s evaluation methods. Under Northrop’s original industrial plan, EADS-NA pledged to conduct final assembly of its Airbus A330 airframe—the commercial platform upon which Northrop’s KC-45 tanker is based—in Mobile, while Northrop would then take the aircraft and modify it to the Air Force’s military tanker configuration at its adjacent plant. Northrop has claimed its tanker work would generate 48,000 jobs in the US, many clustered in the Gulf Coast region, still economically reeling from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

Members of the Air Force’s newest stealth force—those now or soon-to-be operating and maintaining the F-22 Raptor—gathered at Whiteman AFB, Mo., earlier this week to consult with their stealth brethren of the B-2 bomber world. At the B-2 and F-22...

Thousands of Air and Army National Guardsmen from Midwest states deployed across the states in the past two weeks to help local residents fight raging flood waters and to deliver food and supplies. Airmen of the Iowa ANG’s 185th Air...

The 493rd Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath, Britain, the recipient of the 2007 Raytheon Hughes Achievement Award (formerly the Hughes Trophy), is US Air Forces in Europe’s “premier engagement squadron,” said Brig. Gen. John Hesterman III, commander of the 48th...

The emotions ran the gamut from glee to gloom when the Government Accountability Office announced it hadupheld Boeing's protest over the award of the Air Force KC-X tanker program to Northrop Grumman-EADS. We offer here a collection of comments from lawmakers on both sides of the issue.

According to a June 18 release from Air Forces Central, F-15E Strike Eagles dropped GBU-12 laser-guided bombs and 500-pound and 2,000-pound joint direct attack munitions on anti-Afghan forces in Orgun-E, while A-10 Warthogs fired rockets and cannon rounds onto enemy...

US Air Force airmen of the 549th Combat Training Squadron at Nellis AFB, Nev., worked with British crews of the RAF’s newest fighter, the Typhoon, to develop the British pilots’ close air support capability during the most recent Green Flag...

Air Education and Training Command recently received two TH-1H helicopters, essentially old UH-1H Hueys that were stripped bare and rebuilt by technicians at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center and contractor Lockheed Martin in Georgia. The effort began in December 2004...

The Air Force plans to open the first non-contiguous, co-located Radar Approach Control Facility, dubbed the Dakota Air Traffic Control Facility, in DOD history. The new Dakota facility will join RAPCONs for Ellsworth AFB, S.D., and Minot AFB, N.D., covering...

Air Sorties in War on Terrorism, Southwest AsiaJune 17, 2008 Sortie Type OIF OEF OIF/OEF Total YTD ISR 25 14 39 5,093 CAS/Armed Recon 25 61 86 15,070 Airlift 117 117 21,304 Air refueling 57 57 7,078 Total 299 48,545...