Steve covers military aviation, missiles and space for the Aviation Week Network, based in Washington.
Born in a U.S. Air Force family, he grew up on military bases around the world and came to Washington in 1997 to work for Army Times Publishing Co. as a journalist. Steve helped launch the Military.com portal in 2000, then joined the editorial team for Aviation Week’s web site in 2001. He reported on the Pentagon for Aerospace Daily in 2002 and 2003.
From September 2003 to September 2018, Steve covered defense and aviation issues and managed staff as the U.S. bureau chief for Jane’s Defence Weekly and later FlightGlobal. He has covered aviation stories on six continents and won multiple awards, including the 2017 Aerospace Media Awards honor for Best In-Depth Feature on the effort to revive Russia’s commercial aviation industry.
The U.S. Air Force has 394 KC-135s, 59 KC-10s and now more than 33 KC-46As, but that still is not enough by about a half. In fact, the Air Force’s major commands requested air refueling on 6,174 training sorties last year, but received tanker support for only 3,092.
The manufacturer of the MQ-9 medium-altitude unmanned aircraft system plans to enter the U.S. Air Force’s competition to select its replacement, dubbed MQ Next.
