News
Osprey fleet won’t return to full flight operations until 2025
The U.S. military doesn’t expect its fleet of more than 400 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to fully resume normal flight operations until at least the middle of 2025, a Navy admiral in charge of the joint program told a House Oversight subcommittee Wednesday.
Artillery goes trucking to survive drones swarming the battlefield
French artillery engineers had a simple idea: Take a big gun, mount it on a truck, and you’ve got self-propelled artillery at relatively little cost. The wheeled guns have proved so effective on the Ukrainian battlefield that Western armies are taking a fresh look at the concept.
AFRICOM denies US airstrike killed Cuban doctors
The U.S. military says it was not involved in the reported killing of two Cuban doctors whom the al-Shabab militant group allege died as a result of a U.S. airstrike in Somalia in February.
Congress still waiting on Osprey crash, safety documents from Pentagon
A House Oversight Committee panel that is investigating the safety and oversight of the V-22 Osprey aircraft following a string of fatal crashes has not received critical data or accident reports that its members requested months ago, two committee staffers told The Associated Press.
Russian flotilla off Florida coast sparks deployment of US Navy destroyers, planes
The Pentagon deployed three Navy destroyers and maritime patrol aircraft this week to keep tabs on a group of Russian ships that conducted missile exercises and reportedly got within 30 miles of the Florida coast.
Air Force
Eielson looking into cause of F-16’s in-flight emergency
Eielson Air Force Base investigators are looking into the cause of an in-flight emergency that required an F-16 fighter pilot to jettison the plane’s fuel tanks shortly after taking off from the base last month. Meanwhile Eielson officials also are also preparing to remove contaminated soil from the off-base area where the tanks hit the ground.
EPA orders the Air Force, Arizona National Guard to clean up groundwater contamination
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding the U.S. Air Force and Arizona National Guard take action as concentrations of toxic “forever chemicals” are increasing in the groundwater in a historically contaminated area in the south side of Tuscon, Arizona.
How Air Force pilot training can take a page from predictive maintenance
The ABCs of air-to-air combat, Basic Fighter Maneuvers, are taught to Air Force fighter pilots early in their careers. But in 2018, F-15E pilot Matthew Ross nearly failed out of an instructor upgrade course because his BFM skills had gone to seed; he had just spent six months flying close air support over the Middle East, and before that he spent six months learning flight command for a multiship flight lead upgrade.
US military denies report about possible contaminated water at air base in Tokyo
U.S. Forces Japan pushed back on claims in local media of possible water contamination at its home base in western Tokyo as “inaccurate” and “regrettable.”
Air Force launches its own generative AI chatbot. Experts see promise and challenges
Airmen and Guardians now have their own free generative artificial intelligence chatbot that can interact in a “human-like” manner, helping them with communications, task completion, and online coding like ChatGPT—but on a secure system.
Space Force
Space Force’s Resilient GPS program draws skepticism from lawmakers
A congressional appropriations panel cast some doubt on whether a U.S. Space Force effort to protect its GPS system from signal jamming will be as resilient as the service hopes.
Space Force turning to commercial sats to enhance in-space monitoring
“The next pivot for looking up is to look in outer space from outer space. There’s no reason you only need to observe satellite maneuvers from the ground. You can do it from space,” Maj. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, Space Force deputy chief of space operations for intelligence, said today.
Defense
Israel Aerospace Industries union reaches agreement with government
The Israel Aerospace Industries workers’ union has reached an agreement with the government’s Finance Ministry where so-called salary anomalies previously provided to company employees will be recognized as special retroactive grants, according to the union.
Netherlands says first Embraer C-390 delivery from joint buy with Austria is delayed to 2027
Dutch State Secretary of Defence Christophe Van der Maat said that an original 2026 delivery timeline “turned out not to be feasible due to cooperation with Austria and negotiations with the manufacturer.”
Veterans
98-year-old WWII vet believed to be oldest American organ donor ever
Orville Allen lived a lifetime of service, and when he died at age 98 he had one last thing to give: his liver.
VA enrolls record number of women veterans in health care
More than 53,000 women veterans enrolled in health care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, between May 2023 and May 2024, the largest enrollment for women veterans on record, the VA announced on Wednesday to mark Women Veterans Recognition Day.
Advocates urge lawmakers to up pay rates for vets who are unable to work
Veterans advocacy groups on Wednesday urged House lawmakers to update eligibility rules and payment rates for a little-known program that gives a tax-free monthly benefit to veterans who are unable to work but lack a 100% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
VA’s online claims system comes under fire in House subcommittee
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), who chairs the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, slammed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) during a Tuesday hearing for the rollout of its online Beneficiary Travel Self-Service System.
