Michael Marrow covers air warfare for Breaking Defense. He holds a BA in history from the University of Virginia and started out as a freelance reporter covering local news in Fairfax County, Virginia and policing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Michael previously reported on the Air Force and Space Force for Inside Defense, where he tracked major acquisitions, policy changes and modernization efforts.
“I think what you’re hearing from individuals like Hon. Hunter and Hon. Kendall is a recognition that the requirements that went into the JCIDS process are not revolutionary,” said Scott Boyd, Air Force deputy program manager for mobility aircraft.
Northrop CEO Kathy Warden did not rule out working on the Air Force’s NGAD as a secondary partner, and indicated the company is still interested in the Navy’s next-gen fighter.
“We were advised today that the FTC will not block our acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne; therefore, we are
moving forward to close the transaction on or about July 28,” wrote L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik in a note to investors.
The aerospace giant’s defense and space division recorded new charges for NASA’s Starliner shuttle, the Air Force’s T-7A training jet and the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray drone.
Allvin, currently the Air Force’s No. 2 officer, has been nominated to succeed Gen. CQ Brown as service chief. But his path forward remains murky as a blanket hold placed on military confirmation by Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville drags on.
After previously signaling Airbus’s A330 Multi-role Tanker Transport would best fill the role, the Canadian government formally awarded the company a contract to convert five used jets and build four new ones.
US Air Forces Central released video footage of the “reckless, unprovoked, and unprofessional behavior” after a Russian official seemed to attempt to blame American forces.
Beyond politics, the Air Force Secretary weighed in on key items in the defense budget, citing concerns about potential cuts to NGAD funding and unnecessary bumps to an alternate F-35 engine.
After a bit of a corporate dust-up in Paris, Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet told investors his firm has no “formal” position on how the F-35 engines should be modernized.
“My assessment, and we have some evidence to support this, is that as Russia and Iran have pulled themselves closer together, that there is interest on both sides to push us out of Syria, to put a pressure campaign on us to have us leave,” a senior defense official said today.
Speaking to Breaking Defense fresh off a tour of a French MRTT, a KC-46A Pegasus pilot and boom operator discussed some of the pros and cons between the plane that’s the basis for Lockheed’s LMXT and their own Pegasus tanker.
“So we don’t have nearly what we had at the heart of the Cold War. Now you add that we’re giving a lot of munitions away to the Ukrainians — which I think is exactly what we need to do — but now we’re getting dangerously low and sometimes, in some cases even too low that we don’t have enough,” said Gen. James Hecker.
