The Air Force’s list of unfunded priorities for Fiscal 2011, issued Feb. 19, totals $548 million and is dominated by logistics support, although there are requests for some communications gear and simulators as well as command and control equipment. Topping the five-section list is $337.2 million for weapon system sustainment, including funds to cover preprogrammed depot maintenance on one B-2, two C-5s, and 11 KC-135s. The second category, theater posture, entails $70 million for expeditionary airfield equipment including some fuel gear. Third is $55 million for the distributed common ground system integrated collaborative command and control processing, exploitation, and dissemination system. In the fourth spot is $28.7 million for battlefield airmen equipment and joint terminal attack controller modeling and simulation. Fifth, is $57.1 million to procure 674 vehicles and some support equipment for the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. (Unfunded Priority List)
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…