Brian Everstine is the Pentagon Editor for Aviation Week, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining Aviation Week in August 2021, Brian covered the Pentagon for Air Force Magazine. Brian began covering defense aviation in 2011 as a reporter for Military Times. Over a decade as a defense journalist, he has reported from dozens of bases at home and abroad, including austere airstrips in Afghanistan, the cockpit of a B-52 over the South Pacific and the boom operator station of a KC-46. Before the military beat, Brian covered the Washington state legislature for the Associated Press.
A sprawling complex under arid mountains near the edge of Kirtland AFB here has a renewed life testing cutting-edge technology, more than 70 years after it was built in secret to protect the U.S. president in the event of a post-World War II disaster.
The U.S. Army’s decision to delay its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program by pushing production milestones back up to four years gives Sikorsky more time to mature its Raider X design, and although some in Washington have raised doubts about the program’s future, the service and company are still confident in its permanence.
