Britain's defense ministry is wading into the domestic political battle over the fate of the F-35 alternate engine, challenging the wisdom of the Obama administration's bid to kill the F136 engine program despite widespread support in Congress.
The United Kingdom has invested $2 billion in the Joint Strike Fighter's development and is the first foreign partner to commit to purchasing the aircraft.
A Navy advisory panel is slated today to unveil its recommendations on the status and the future of the naval research and development enterprise after uncovering various problems in a review that has spanned months.
Senate appropriators are declining to approve $85.6 million the Pentagon requested for special operations forces to lease intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft until there is a review of the acquisition strategy.
The Defense Department and Joint Strike Fighter prime contractor Lockheed Martin have hammered out an agreement for a new batch of F-35 aircraft, concluding months of negotiations during which the U.S. government sought to reallocate the balance of risk between the Pentagon and contractor for development of the new fighter aircraft.
The Marine Corps could absorb a delay to its Joint Strike Fighter initial operational capability date by tweaking its F/A-18 plans, the president's nominee for commandant of the Marine Corps told lawmakers today.
Gen. James Amos told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Marines began an effort about seven years ago to extend the lives of its existing planes by calculating the types and amount of strain they have been under and reassigning them accordingly.
Gen. James Amos, President Obama's pick to be the next Marine Corps commandant, told lawmakers today the service could abide a delay in fielding the short-take-off-and-landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter but stressed the Marine Corps is holding fast to its long-standing desire to field an F-35B squadron as soon as December 2012.
Pillorying the Pentagon for lacking "budget discipline," a Senate defense panel has voted to redirect $8 billion in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2011 budget request because it believes funding requested by DOD for key programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, has not been "adequately justified."
The Senate Appropriations Committee, in its report on the fiscal year 2011 defense bill, says JSF is “perhaps” the “most disturbing” example of a military program with budget management problems.
The development of an alternate Joint Strike Fighter engine may require less time and money than the Pentagon projects, according to the Government Accountability Office.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The Air Force's latest attempt to develop a long-range strike capability will feature a mix of legacy and next-generation technologies that will be able to address myriad threat scenarios while keeping the effort cost-effective, according to the service's top uniformed official.
(Editor's Note: This story has been updated to correct the total amount of fiscal year 2011 defense spending approved by the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. The subcommittee originally issued an incorrect number. )
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee announced today that it would not allocate any funds for the Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine, laying the groundwork for tensions between the House and Senate over the fiscal year 2011 defense bill. The House Appropriations subcommittee allotted $450 million for the alternate engine in July.
In a bid to shoot down a set of legislative provisions that could limit fiscal year 2011 Joint Strike Fighter procurement funding by nearly 30 percent, Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week sent key senators a letter explaining why he believes the House version of the FY-11 defense authorization bill would render the program "essentially unexecutable."
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The Air Force is bracing for a slate of fiscal year 2011 budget cuts that correspond with top-down Pentagon guidance, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said today.
The service has implemented fiscal guidance from Defense Secretary Robert Gates into its internal six-year investment plan, the FY-11 program objective memorandum.
The top Pentagon official overseeing the defense of the United States believes light-attack aircraft could play a beneficial role in the homeland defense mission.
To that end, Adm. James Winnefeld, the commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, is contemplating creating a requirement for such an aircraft. The four-star believes the aircraft, when paired with higher-flying, faster aircraft such as the F-16 fighter, could fill critical capability gaps in the Air Sovereignty Alert mission conducted by the Air National Guard.
The test flight program for the Marine Corps' Joint Strike Fighter variant faces challenges in getting back on schedule as officials contend with operating limitations that require grounding the aircraft in common weather conditions including steady wind, wet tarmacs and nearby lightning, according to Pentagon officials and documents.
A leading Dutch news agency reported this week that political negotiators in The Hague have agreed that the new government of the Netherlands should cut defense spending by 300 million euros ($380 million) and remain in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
The Defense Department this week provided Congress an initial report on its cost, schedule and performance projections for an $8 billion Air Force effort to recapitalize the service's fleet of HC/MC-130 aircraft.
On Aug. 17, the Pentagon released a statutorily required update on its major acquisition programs that included a Selected Acquisition Report on the HC/MC-130 Recapitalization program, which on April 12 was cleared by DOD's acquisition executive to proceed into low-rate initial production -- the green light to proceed with procurement toward a goal of 74 new aircraft.