Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper on July 14 said that he envisions fielding a multi-mission follow-on to the General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper by 2030 and that he hopes to accelerate that timeline. “Absolutely, we can get there by 2030,” Roper told reporters in response to a ...

The U.S. Air Force on July 13 awarded Boeing [BA] an almost $1.2 billion contract for the first lot of eight F-15EX fighters. Under the terms of the agreement, the Air Force could award Boeing nearly $22.9 billion over 10 years for 200 F-15EXs to replace F-15Cs and Ds in the service inventory. The ...

The House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel (HAC-D) is recommending the reversal of the U.S. Air Force’s proposed end in fiscal 2021 of the General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper production line and the acceleration before 2030 of the fielding of a to-be-determined follow-on drone, & ...

The House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel is recommending reducing the $1 billion proposed by the U.S. Space Force in fiscal 2021 for its National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program by $109 million due to what the panel termed unjustified cost increases. The subcommittee advised ...

For fiscal 2021, the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel advises funding 60 Air Force F-35A Lightning fighters by Lockheed Martin [LMT], 12 aircraft and nearly $1.2 billion above the Air Force budget request. The subcommittee noted in its report on the bill that the Pentagon has ...

The U.S. Air Force is to add a dozen weapons systems to its Enhanced Reliability Centered Maintenance (ERCM) model that employs artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) for predictive maintenance. Those systems are the Boeing [BA] F-15 fighter, B-52 bomber, RC-135 reconnaissance plane, C-17 ...