March 6, 2024 | International, Security
After two years spent studying the Defense Department's resourcing process, the commission recommends wholesale changes to the 60-year-old system.
February 11, 2022 | International, Naval
If the Navy wants its future combatants to succeed in a missile-to-missile fight, engineers need to leave significant space and power margins for future radars, directed-energy weapons and large-missile launchers.
February 3, 2021 | International, Aerospace
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Boeing's first F-15EX took to the skies for its inaugural flight on Feb. 2, a milestone that will allow the company to deliver the first two planes to the U.S. Air Force by the end of March. After a couple of hours of delays due to weather — which also held up plans to conduct a first flight on Feb. 1 — Boeing test pilot Matt “Phat” Giese took off from Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, at approximately 1:57 p.m. EST. The flight lasted approximately 90 minutes, and the plane performed as expected, Boeing said in a news release. “Today's successful flight proves the jet's safety and readiness to join our nation's fighter fleet,” said Prat Kumar, Boeing vice president and F-15 program manager. “Our workforce is excited to build a modern fighter aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. Our customer can feel confident in its decision to invest in this platform that is capable of incorporating the latest advanced battle management systems, sensors and weapons due to the jet's digital airframe design and open mission systems architecture.” The Air Force first added the F-15EX to its fiscal 2020 budget at the behest of the Defense Department's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, or CAPE. With the Air Force and Air National Guard's fleet of 1970s-era F-15C/D jets showing signs of age, the service needed to either conduct an expensive life extension or buy new planes to replace them. But with F-35 operations and sustainment costs still financially burdensome, CAPE officials argued that buying an upgraded version of the F-15E Strike Eagle — with new features developed primarily at the cost of foreign customers like Qatar and Saudi Arabia — would be a more cost-conscious option. The Air Force placed its first order for the F-15EX in July 2020, awarding a contract for the first lot of eight jets with a value not to exceed about $1.2 billion. The entire program has a ceiling value of $23 billion. The new jets come with a host of modern features, including Honeywell's ADCP-II mission computer, the Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System electronic warfare system made by BAE Systems, the Raytheon Technologies' AN/APG-82 radar, fly-by-wire flight controls, and a digital cockpit. The service expects to buy at least 144 F-15EX aircraft, but the contract includes options to allow the Air Force to purchase up to 200 jets. Congress first included funds in December to purchase eight F-15EXs through the fiscal 2020 spending bill, and lawmakers approved spending $1.2 billion to buy 12 F-15EXs in fiscal 2021. According to the Air Force's FY21 budget request, the service plans to buy another dozen planes in FY22, procuring 14 F-15EXs in FY23, and ramping up to 19 jets per year in both FY24 and FY25. Once delivered to the Air Force, the first two F-15EXs will go Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, for testing, with the remaining six aircraft set to be delivered to the base in FY23. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021/02/02/the-f-15ex-just-made-its-first-flight
July 26, 2019 | International, Other Defence
By: Leo Shane III and Joe Gould House lawmakers on Thursday advanced a two-year, $2.7 trillion budget plan with $738 billion in military funding in fiscal 2020 over the objections of conservative colleagues who objected to the increased federal spending levels. The measure — which passed 284-149 — has the support of President Donald Trump and leaders from both chambers, but drew the support of only 65 Republicans in the final vote. That's roughly one-third of the House GOP membership. Senate lawmakers are expected to take up the matter next week. The measure is designed to prevent a partial government shutdown this fall and stabilize appropriations plans for all aspects of federal agencies until after next year's presidential election. On the House floor Thursday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., called the deal a critical step forward in restoring regular budget order and predictability not just for military programs, but for all of the government. “There is no secret we have big differences between the Democratically controlled House and White House and the Republican-controlled Senate,” he said. “Despite those differences, we have to function. We have to be able to fund the government and meet our responsibilities to the American people.” Ahead of the vote, Trump worked to bolster Republican support for the measure, which would increase Defense Department spending by more than 3 percent over fiscal 2019 levels. He tweeted that the new budget plan “greatly helps our Military and our Vets.” White House officials (and Republican congressional leaders) had pushed for even more in defense spending recent weeks, while congressional Democrats had insisted any military funding increase be offset with additional non-defense spending. In the end, the non-military money in the new budget deal will grow by about $10 billion more than defense spending over the next two years, and the military spending for fiscal 2020 will fall about $12 billion short of the White House's hopes. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in a statement called the compromise plan “a massive spending deal that will further in debt future generations and remove reasonable safeguards to prevent the growth of government and the misuse of taxpayer dollars.” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and a House Armed Services Committee member, said he would only vote for the deal if it were paired with congressional action to look for paths toward debt reduction. “It you could create a commission that was empowered to bring its recommendations to the floor for an up or down vote, and had members who were younger, next-generation members, I think it could work,” Gallagher said in a video posted to Twitter. Two weeks ago, House Republicans voted against a $733 billion military spending topline as part of the annual defense policy bill, in large part citing insufficient funding totals for national security. House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Mac. Thornberry, R-Texas, on Thursday voted for the slightly larger defense spending total, telling reporters the two-year deal would provide much-needed stability for the military. “Given the political turmoil that comes with an election year ... having a two-year budget deal that takes us to the end, hallelujah, of the Budget Control Act is more valuable than if you had held out for a few billion,” Thornberry said. Democrats had misgivings of their own, including the deal's lack of restrictions on Trump's ability to shift money within the budget toward a controversial border wall. The Pentagon was expected to shift a total of about $6.1 billion from its budget to help build a border wall, including about $3.6 billion from military construction projects. But in the end, all but 16 Democrats in the House backed the measure. House members began their extended summer break on Thursday night, leaving the details of separate appropriations bills reflecting the new budget deal to be sorted out in September. The Senate is scheduled to begin their break at the end of next week, after voting on the measure. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/07/25/budget-deal-advances-despite-gop-worries-over-costs-smaller-boost-for-military/