Free Republic

The US Air Force has completed an analysis of alternatives (AOA) for its next generation ground moving target indication (GMTI) radar aircraft fleet, but top service officials say the service can't afford to implement the study's recommendations. "The reality is there is not enough space to undertake a new start business-class ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platform," USAF chief of staff Gen Norton Schwartz told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on 20 March. "We simply don't have the resources." The USAF approved the study in January and forwarded it on to the US Department of Defense's office of Cost...

Three months after the Air Force placed blame squarely on an F-22 fighter pilot who died when he crashed in the service's most expensive plane after his oxygen system failed in mid-air, a top Air Force official is apparently backtracking -- saying that the pilot was not blamed and that he did the best he could in the situation he was in. "We did not assign blame to the pilot," U.S. Air Force chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said before a House subcommittee Tuesday when asked about the crash and the troubled F-22 program by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va.,...

Members of Congress on 6 March harshly criticised the US Air Force's decision to place its recently acquired fleet of Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 unmanned high altitude reconnaissance aircraft into storage. The air force has 14 aircraft in service, while four more are being built by Northrop. All 18 would be retired in the fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. Among the most vocal critics was Congressman Norman Dicks, but almost every member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee present voiced their dismay at the perceived waste of taxpayer dollars. Testifying before the committee, USAF chief of staff...

The US Air Force is considering buying engine parts for some of its aircraft from third-party manufacturers, the service's top officials told the US Congress on 6 March. "We have taken a look at competing some aspects of engine components and have seen potential for significant [cost] reductions," said air force secretary Michael Donley, during his testimony before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. "We forecast a saving of $40 million," he added. In recent years, several companies have received regulatory approval under the parts manufacturing approval (PMA) category to sell reverse-engineered parts for popular commercial engines, such as the CFM...

WASHINGTON – U.S. military investigators found no conclusive evidence that an Afghan officer who killed eight U.S. airmen and one U.S. civilian during a meeting in Kabul in April had ties to the Taliban, according to a report released Tuesday. But the gunman, who shot each of the Americans multiple times after arriving for a routine meeting at an Afghan air force headquarters compound, previously had vowed to "kill Americans," the report said. The incident — among the deadliest of its kind during the 10-year-old war — showed the dangers faced not only by U.S. troops on Afghan battlefields but...

The Air Force's super-stealthy F-22 Raptor fighters likely would see their first combat action if a no-fly zone is set up by the U.S. and its allies over Libya, a senior defense official said Thursday. Under questioning from Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said it would be his "expectation" that F-22 fighters "would be in use" during "the early days" of a no-fly zone mission.

The Air Force stands ready to respond if hostilities between North Korea and South Korea escalate, the service's top uniformed officer said, but American fighter jets remained at their normal alert status a day after a North Korean artillery attack. The North fired artillery shells at the island of Yeonpyeong on Tuesday, killing two people and dramatically raising tensions between American-allied South Korea and the nuclear-armed north. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, in a meeting with reporters later that morning, said his service has plenty of firepower in the region and listed the bases from which the...

Could bad luck be coming in threes for the U.S. Air Force? This month, officials were sacked from the tanker-replacement program, concern grew about another slip in the F-35’s initial operating date, and South Korea is enduring the worst attack by North Korea in more than 50 years. So far, two heads have rolled in the tanker program after two documents involved in the competition were sent to the wrong company. The unidentified employees—who were members of the program office, but not the program manager—have been replaced. An investigation has ensured that the competition is still fair and that no...

Nearly every airman has forgotten to salute, missed a meeting, showed up for work late or flubbed a test. By and large, those moments strike fear in airmen’s hearts — and for good reason. A little thing, or a seemingly little thing, can kill a career as much as a big thing. You don’t have to commit a crime to get kicked out of the service. You can be handed your walking papers for simply being in an overmanned career field or flunking the PT test. And in these times when the Air Force is looking to get rid of...

Ever since early in the Korean War (1950-53), the United States has enjoyed a massive air superiority over every enemy we've fought. Those days may be coming to an end. "The Air Force won't be able to do all its assigned tasks as comprehensively as it once did, and will be aiming for simple sufficiency in areas where it's been accustomed to dominance," Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said in a recent interview. Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank, said, "This is akin to the head of the French air force saying...

Delays and cost overruns for the Lockheed Martin F-35 have not changed the US Air Force's plans to deactivate about 250 fighters later this year, says its chief of staff, Gen Norton Schwartz. The USAF, however, has begun destructive tests on Boeing F-15s and Lockheed F-16s to prove the viability for a potential service life extension programme, says Schwartz. "At 10-15% of the cost [of a new fighter] you could perform a service life extension programme," Schwartz says, "which would get us close to where we need to be in, we think, a more affordable way." Schwartz rejected buying the...

Delays and cost overruns for the Lockheed Martin F-35 have not changed the US Air Force's plans to deactivate about 250 fighters later this year, says Chief of Staff Gen Norton Schwartz. The USAF, however, has begun destructive tests on Boeing F-15s and Lockheed F-16s to prove the viability for a potential service life extension programme, says Schwartz, who spoke to reporters on 30 March after a breakfast speaking event hosted by the Air Force Association. "At 10-15% of the cost [of a new fighter] you could perform a SLEP," Schwartz says, "which would get us close to where we...

The U.S. Air Force said on Tuesday that it hopes to extend the life of its existing fighter planes as needed rather than to buy new older-model fighters that would siphon funding away from Lockheed Martin Corp's next-generation F-35 fighter.Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz told reporters that any move to buy new F-15 fighters built by Boeing Co or F-16s built by Lockheed would take money away from the F-35 fighter program. Instead, the service would prefer to do service life extensions for the older fighters, at about 10 to 15 percent of the cost of buying new...