A gunman killed two airmen and wounded two additional airmen in a shooting Wednesday at Frankfurt International Airport in Frankfurt, Germany. One of the airmen killed was a vehicle operator stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, while the other airman...

The Air Force is “not backing away” from the challenge posed by the Russian T-50 and Chinese J-20 fifth generation fighters, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told the Daily Report. “We have extensive [research and development] underway” in technology...

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz wants to make sure that the service’s future acquisition programs benefit from the lessons that officials have drawn from the KC-X tanker procurement process. “We learned tough lessons in the recent KC-X...

The Air Force needs to shift its focus from a “compartmentalized” approach to air, space, and cyber toward “more integrated, broad-spectrum solutions as the operating standard,” said Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff, Wednesday. “We know that now, more than...

Air Force scientists aim to demonstrate a 2,000-pound-class penetrating weapon that packs the same wallop as one of today’s 5,000-pound-class bunker busters, said Stephen Walker, who oversees USAF’s science and technology activities. This work, occurring under the new High Velocity...

Air Force networks “face a continuous barrage of assaults” from state-sponsored actors, terror networks, international criminal organizations, individual hackers, and assorted threats in between, said Stephen Walker, USAF’s assistant secretary for science, technology, and engineering. Accordingly, the service is pursuing...

US Special Operations Command is still heavily reliant on supplemental war funding to cover the costs of its activities, but is slowly incorporating the costs of its overseas operations in its baseline spending request, said Adm. Eric Olson, SOCOM commander. Of the $10.5 billion in the Pentagon's Fiscal 2012 budget request for special operations forces—a seven percent increase compared to the Fiscal 2011 request—34 percent would come from accounts specifically set aside for operations in places like Afghanistan, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. For some "higher intensity SOF elements," the percentage of funding provided by these overseas contingency operations coffers is "greater than 75 percent," he noted. The command does have a plan in place to transition away from reliance on OCO funding in the coming years as operations wind down in Southwest Asia, said Olson. "Overall, we are in a fiscally satisfactory condition, but the force requires continued support," he said. (Olson prepared statement)

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., have the right to picket funerals for service members killed in action. The 8-1 decision (Snyder v. Phelps) reversed a lower court’s finding that...

The Pentagon’s fleet of V-22 Ospreys—comprising Air Force CV-22s and Marine Corps MV-22s—has surpassed 100,000 flight hours. An MV-22 operating in Helmand province, Afghanistan, arrived at the milestone for the fleet last month, announced the tiltrotor aircraft’s manufacturing team, Bell-Boeing,...

Maintainers at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., are modifying the brakes on the base’s B-1 bombers. The new brake system, costing $15,787 per airframe, offers enhanced safety, maintainability, and effectiveness. It features a flexible hose that exerts less strain on components compared...