Latest news with #AFAWarfareSymposium
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Air Force sees historic recruitment surge with delayed entry program
AURORA, Colo. — The Air Force is seeing a historic surge in recruits in its delayed entry program, as the service works to further boost recruitment of new airmen and guardians, officials said this week. More potential recruits are making appointments with recruiters to discuss the possibility of joining the Air Force or Space Force, Air Force Recruiting Service commander Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein told reporters at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, on Tuesday. What's more, the Air Force is shipping more new recruits off to basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas on a weekly basis than it did even two years ago, Amrhein said. And the service is more than filling its delayed entry program — essentially a waiting list of recruits who have signed up and been approved to join the military, but who have to wait for room at basic training to ship out — which typically doesn't happen in winter, he said. 'We had 3,000 appointments last week alone,' Amrhein said. 'We normally have 1,600.' Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin announced Sunday on social media platform X that the Air Force had accumulated 13,000 recruits in the delayed entry program, the most in nearly 10 years. With more recruits joining, the Air Force was sending 750 to 800 airmen to basic military training each week, according to the Amrhein. When he first took over Air Force recruiting in 2023, that number was around 500 to 600 a week. Amrhein said that the rise in airmen did not appear to be an anomaly either and that he would not be surprised if the trend continued. 'Since my time in the recruiting business ... I haven't seen numbers that high, at least consistently that high,' Amrhein said. Entire Air Force to miss recruiting goal, the first failure since 1999 Typically, Amrhein said, the Air Force expects the flow of recruits joining the ranks of the delayed entry program to dip in the winter months of December, January and February, but that hasn't been the trend these past few months. Amrhein credited outreach as an instrumental factor in bringing in a surge of airmen enrolled in the program, the most he'd seen in 15 years. The week before Amrhein spoke, he said the Air Force brought in 921 airmen to the delayed entry program and shipped 709 airmen to basic military training. The rise in delayed entry numbers comes as the Air Force has seen an increase in recruitment. In September 2024, Amrhein announced the Air Force would meet its fiscal 2024 goal of 27,100 non-prior service enlisted recruits, a rebound after falling short the previous year for the first time in decades. The service aims to bring in 32,500 new airmen for 2025, marking a 20% increase. Military recruitment overall is trending upward, according to an October 2024 release from the Defense Department. The armed services saw a 12.5% increase in fiscal 2024, including a 35% rise in written contracts and a 10% increase in the each service's delayed entry program to start fiscal 2025.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘F' for fighter: Air Force combat drones get novel mission designation
AURORA, Colo. — The Air Force's first two prototype collaborative combat aircraft have received their mission design series designations and will fly this summer, Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said Monday. The CCAs, which are being built by Anduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., are the first aircraft the Air Force has dubbed fighter drones. General Atomics' CCA is now known as the YFQ-42A, and Anduril's is the YFQ-44A, Allvin said in his keynote address at the Air and Space Forces Association's AFA Warfare Symposium here. In Air Force nomenclature, fighter aircraft are given an F designation, and Q stands for drones. Prototype aircraft are also given a Y prefix, which these CCAs will drop once they enter production. 'For the first time in our history, we have a fighter designation in the YFQ-42 Alpha and YFQ-44 Alpha,' Allvin said. 'It may just be symbolic, but we are telling the world we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare.' CCAs are autonomous drones that will one day fly alongside crewed fighters like the F-35, or perhaps the future Next Generation Air Dominance fighter the Air Force is considering. The Air Force is heavily investing in CCAs as a way to expand airpower and provide strike capabilities, conduct reconnaissance, carry out electronic warfare operations, or even act as decoys. Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in 2023 that the service plans to have about 1,000 CCAs, but the exact number of the future fleet is not yet known. The Air Force awarded contracts to Anduril and General Atomics in April 2024 to build the first iteration of CCAs; further so-called 'increments' are in the works. Until now, General Atomics has referred to its CCA drone as Gambit, and Anduril's CCA has been called Fury. In his keynote address, Allvin said CCAs and their core technologies will be crucial for the Air Force to win wars to come. 'Embracing and leaning into human-machine teaming, understanding what autonomy can do for us,' Allvin said. 'We know that's got to be a part of our future.' Anduril and General Atomics heralded their aircrafts' designations as signs their work is bearing fruit. 'These aircraft represent an unrivaled history of capable, dependable uncrewed platforms that meet the needs of America's warfighters and point the way to a significant new era for airpower,' said David Alexander, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. 'The designation is evidence of the program's progress, and we continue to work tirelessly to deliver a capability that will expand the United States' ability to project combat airpower,' Jason Levin, Anduril's senior vice president of engineering, was quoted as saying in a company statement.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
F-35s to get new capabilities with summer software update
AURORA, Colo. — Lockheed Martin hopes to begin rolling out early Block 4 capabilities to the F-35 this summer, a senior company official said Monday. Chauncey McIntosh, vice president and general manager of Lockheed's F-35 program, said at the Air and Space Forces Association's AFA Warfare Symposium here that the company plans to drop an update to the F-35′s Technology Refresh 3 software, which will enable new features. The TR-3 software update will bring the aircraft type closer to being able to fly in combat, he said. 'Our warfighters are going to see a much higher increase of stability in that software' once the update is in place, McIntosh said. TR-3 is a series of upgrades to the F-35′s computer memory, processing power, and displays, which are intended to make the jet more capable and pave the way for a subsequent series of more substantial improvements known as Block 4. McIntosh said in a briefing with reporters Monday that Block 4 will bring the F-35 improved sensors, better sensor fusion, and an expanded array of weapons the fighter can carry. In an interview with Defense News after the briefing, McIntosh declined to specify which Block 4 upgrades are on their way later this year, saying the details are secret. 'There are some things coming that the warfighter is going to be excited to receive,' he said. A previous Block 4 capability that was dramatically accelerated in the F-35 was the adoption of the automatic ground collision avoidance system, or auto-GCAS. That life-saving technology automatically pulls a jet up if the pilot is unresponsive and the jet senses it is diving into the ground. Officials began installing the capability in 2019. TR-3′s rollout was snarled by lingering software and hardware problems that caused the government to refuse deliveries of dozens of new F-35s for about a year. The delivery halt was lifted in July 2024, after Lockheed Martin developed an interim version of the TR-3 software that would allow pilots to fly training missions, and then combat training. But the jets are still not able to fly in combat, and the government is withholding millions of dollars from Lockheed until the jets are certified to be combat capable. The F-35 Joint Program Office said earlier this year that it hopes the TR-3 jets will be combat capable by the end of 2025, but Lockheed's chief financial officer said in a January earnings call that it might slip to early 2026. It remains unclear whether F-35s will reach full combat capability this year. McIntosh said it will be up to the military services and international partners flying the jets to decide whether they are ready for combat. He did not directly answer when asked whether Lockheed will be able to deliver all the elements needed for a combat-ready designation by the end of this year. Lockheed expects to deliver between 170 and 190 F-35s this year, as it works through the backlog from the TR-3 delays. That would be up from the roughly 110 it delivered in 2024. McIntosh told reporters Lockheed and the government expect to define the terms of the next F-35 contract, for Lot 18 of the jets, in the second quarter of 2025. Although that contract has not yet been definitized, he said, the company is keeping the rising costs of the jet under inflation. He highlighted the price of steel as one example of a material that goes into an F-35 that has seen significant inflation in recent years. When asked how the Trump administration's 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum might affect the F-35 program, McIntosh said Lockheed is monitoring their economic effects. He declined to speculate on how Lockheed might respond to tariff-driven increases in the supply chain, but said in the past the company has sought to find new ways to get cheaper materials, such as hunting for alternative vendors or adopting different buying techniques.
