The president has asked Congress to spent about $700 billion on the U.S. military in fiscal 2019, providing a cash infusion for fighter aircraft, the nuclear arsenal, missile defense, navy lasers and more.
The U.S. Air Force’s bomber force of the future will consist of Northrop Grumman’s next-generation B-21 and Boeing’s Vietnam-era B-52 Stratofortress, after the supersonic Rockwell B-1B and stealthy Northrop B-2 are phased out.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated version of a story that appeared in the Feb. 13 edition. The U.S. Navy in its fiscal 2019 budget blueprint is seeking to significantly boost the number of Boeing F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets it is buying over the next five years to help plug its strike fighter gap until the F-35C comes online.
The U.S. Army plans to request exemptions for some of its helicopters and airplanes that will not make the FAA’s January 2020 deadline to transmit their position to controllers by automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast.
A second wave of NASA budget details presented Feb. 14 reveals how the space agency envisions the nearly $19.9 billion in federal funding proposed for fiscal year 2019 would be distributed.
“We think the Trump administration’s recently updated National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review are clear signs that the U.S. military is increasingly positioning itself for another Cold War," analysts at Vertical Research Partners said.
“The discussions with the Israeli government in regard to the acquisition of IMI Systems are ongoing,” Elbit said in a Feb. 14 statement. “If and when the conditions are fulfilled for completing the transaction, the company will make an announcement as required by law.”
The U.S. Air Force has come under fire from Sikorsky over what the UH-60 Black Hawk manufacturer says are “ambiguous and overreaching” technical data and computer software requirements relating to the planned purchase of up to 84 helicopters to replace the UH-1N Huey.
New hypersonic, unmanned and small-satellite launch projects are included in a Darpa budget request that seeks $3.44 billion for defense advanced research in fiscal 2019, an increase of 8.5% over the previous year.
Service officials last year floated the possibility of junking the undefeated air superiority fighter in favor of Lockheed Martin’s F-16 upgraded with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, as a way to save money amid shrinking budgets.
The Trump administration’s proposed development of a low-yield Trident submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missile won’t be overly difficult or expensive, officials from the Pentagon and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) say.
Indonesia finally has signed a contract for 11 Sukhoi Su-35 Flankers, four years after selecting the Russian aircraft to replace its fleet of F-5 fighters.
“At the moment we have our hands full, with five missions planned in the first half of 2018,” says K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization.
The new defense budget request is not a complete return to Cold War heydays for industry, but it is close enough for a marketplace that never truly left it.
The Philippines has abruptly canceled an order for 16 Canadian helicopters and President Rodrigo Duterte is vowing not to buy military equipment from Canada or the U.S.
