Latest news with #AirForceLifeCycleManagementCenter
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
Fired wing commander admits fraternization, to be confined 3 weeks
The former installation commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio will serve 21 days in confinement after agreeing to a court-martial plea deal admitting fraternization. Col. Christopher Meeker, who also commanded the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patt, will also receive a reprimand and forfeit a total of $14,000 in pay. During Tuesday's court-martial at Wright-Patterson, Meeker pleaded guilty to violating articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice barring fraternization and willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer. The government dismissed a charge of extramarital sexual conduct as part of the plea agreement revealed during the trial. Prosecutors alleged Meeker inappropriately engaged in a personal and sexual relationship with a staff sergeant, which led to the fraternization charge and the dismissed extramarital sexual conduct charge. Prosecutors also said Meeker disobeyed an order from Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, to stop all electronic and personal contact with the staff sergeant. However, that behavior occurred after Meeker was fired from command of the 88th Air Base Wing. Shipton relieved him of command on Dec. 29, 2023, due to a loss of confidence in his ability to lead, the Air Force said. The Air Force conducted an investigation into Meeker's actions and then charged him with three violations of the UCMJ on Oct. 25, 2024. He chose to have his case decided by a military judge instead of a jury-like panel of fellow officers. Had the case gone to trial and he been found guilty of all charges, Meeker could have been confined for as much as seven years and had to forfeit all pay and allowances. Meeker admitted in court to willfully disobeying Shipton's order to cut off all contact with the enlisted airman. He said it showed a lack of personal and professional discipline, adding he acted 'selfishly, for my own personal happiness.' Meeker, who was a civil engineer in the Air Force and served for 25 years, assumed command of the 88th in July 2022.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
Former Wright Patt commander sentenced to 21 days in jail
Apr. 15—A former installation commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was sentenced Tuesday to 21 days confinement, a reprimand and forfeiture of $14,000 of pay. Air Force prosecutors had argued for that jail sentence in their case against Col. Christopher Meeker at Wright-Patterson, in the same building where he once served as commander. Earlier Tuesday, Meeker pleaded guilty to willfully disobeying an order from a superior officer and fraternizing with an enlisted member of the Air Force. Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson, testified during the trial's sentencing phase that she had ordered Meeker to have no personal or electronic contact with an Air Force staff sergeant who worked at Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) headquarters as an aide to Gen. Duke Richardson, AFMC commander. Later, Meeker, speaking through heavy breathing and sniffing, told Air Force Judge Matthew Stoffel that his removal from command of the 88th Air Base Wing, his non-judicial punishment and an order barring contact with the staff sergeant had been a "475-day journey of trying to do the right thing and also trying to help this person I care about." "I never intended these actions to be disrespectful," he said. Prosecutors countered by saying Meeker disregarded the no-contact order flagrantly, saying his wife discovered him kissing the staff sergeant in a bar, while the child of another staff sergeant recognized Meeker in a restaurant with her on another occasion. "He knew point-blank that what he was doing was wrong," said prosecutor Capt. Connor McAfee. McAfee pointed to the words of the staff sergeant with whom Meeker had a relationship. In an interview with Air Force investigators, she painted a portrait of nearly daily contact with Meeker, electronic conversations wiped away by the Signal app and meeting for sex "four to five times a week," at a time when the no-contact order was in place. "Col. Meeker has been full of apologies and devoid of resolution," McAfee said. Prosecutors had asked Stoffel to impose a sentence of 21 days, forfeiture of pay and a reprimand. Meeker offered guilty pleas to one charge and a specification of a second charge in exchange for a second specification of that second charge — engaging in extramarital sexual conduct — being withdrawn. Shipton described meeting with Meeker after she learned that he had violated the no-contact order. "It was his opinion that (the staff sergeant) was spiraling," Shipton said. "He felt she would not be here if he hadn't taken action against the no-contact order." Under questioning by Judge Stoffel, Meeker said that, after the staff sergeant had been hospitalized for treatment of her mental health, she went to the back door of Meeker's residence, then on Wright-Patterson. "She felt I was her last resort," Meeker told the judge. But he also acknowledged "I willfully disobeyed the order through a lack of discipline and selfishly for my own personal happiness." He described meeting her at a public "food hall" in the Dayton area. "I violated fraternization rules in a public setting to the extent that everybody at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base now knows about it," Meeker said. Meeker, an Air Force Academy graduate and a career civil engineer, faced a maximum sentence of up to seven years, among other penalties. He now lives off base and has been separated from his wife. The violations of the no-contact order happened after Shipton had fired Meeker from command of the 88th Air Base Wing in December 2023. Meeker chose to be tried by a military judge, rather than a jury or "court members," in military language. Meeker assumed command of the the 88th Air Base Wing in July 2022. Since the inception of the 88th in October 1994, no prior commander of the wing had been relieved of command. Col. Dustin Richards assumed command of the wing about a year ago.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New AIM-120E Variant Of AMRAAM Air-To-Air Missile Hinted At By USAF
There are signs that a new AIM-120E variant of the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) may now be in development. Hints that work on the AIM-120E is underway came after the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) put out a notice yesterday regarding a sole-source contract that it had awarded to Raytheon (now formally known as RTX) earlier in March. Raytheon is the current prime contractor for the AIM-120 family, the newest known variant of which is the AIM-120D-3. Within the U.S. military, the U.S. Air Force is the lead service for the joint AMRAAM program. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are also users of these combat-proven missiles. The deal in question, valued at just under $95 million if all options are exercised, is for the 'procurement of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) Risk Reduction Processor Upgrade for Mission Alliance Risk Reduction,' according to AFLCMC. No further details about this particular upgrade were provided in the notice, and it appears to be unrelated to any forthcoming AIM-120E variant. 'Raytheon will produce and sustain the AIM-120 missile variants and associated configurations for US customers, and variants/associated configurations authorized for release to Foreign Military Sales (FMS),' notes a redacted Justification & Approval (J&A) document that AFLCMC released along with the contract award announcement and that dates back to 2018. 'This J&A excludes any potential next generation variants developed after the AIM-120D (i.e. AIM-120E and beyond).' In many cases, U.S. military contracting offices (and those elsewhere across the U.S. government) must justify the need for a sole-source contract and receive approval before moving ahead without a traditional competitive bidding process. TWZ reached out to AFLCMC earlier today to clarify whether the AIM-120E designation mentioned in the J&A document reflected a real development effort and, if so, what that might entail, or if this was simply a notional designation for a future AMRAAM variant. 'We don't have any details that we can provide at this time,' an AFLCMC spokesperson told us flatly in response. Whether or not any future AIM-120E variant might represent a substantial departure from existing AIM-120s is unknown. The Air Force, as well as the Navy, are now required by law to explore whether extended-range variants or derivatives of the AIM-120 and the AIM-9X Sidewinder could help both services meet their future air-to-air missile needs. In particular, a new longer-range version of the AMRAAM could help bridge the gap between existing types and large-scale fielding of the forthcoming AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM). The AIM-260 will have the same general form factor as the AIM-120, in large part to make it easier for existing F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to carry them in their internal bays. As of 2019, the goal was for JATM to start entering service in 2022. However, there are no indications that this has occurred despite continued active testing of the missile, including live-fire shots. The Navy has also now fielded, at least on a limited level, another very-long-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-174B, which is an air-launched version of the multi-purpose surface-launched Standard Missile-6 (SM-6). You can learn more about the AIM-174B here. Both the AIM-260 and AIM-174B are highly classified, and additional U.S. military air-to-air missile development work is likely to be ongoing in that realm, as well. It's also worth noting that Raytheon has already developed an AMRAAM-Extended Range (AMRAAM-ER) derivative, which combines elements of the AIM-120 and the surface-to-air RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM). The AMRAAM-ER, which has also sometimes been referred to by the designation AIM-120ER, was designed for surface-to-air use as part of the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). Raytheon developed NASAMS, which can fire regular AIM-120s, as well as AIM-9Xs and IRIS-T missiles, together with Norway's Kongsberg Defense. The idea of an air-launched AMRAAM-ER was put forward at least as far back as 2021, but what progress, if any, may have been made since then in turning that concept into a reality is unclear. What changes would be required to allow for the missile to be internally carried by a stealthy jet like an F-35 is also not clear. The speed and altitude of an aerial launch platform offer benefits when firing any missile, especially when it comes to range and end-game kinematic performance. Extending the air-to-air reach of U.S. combat aircraft is a particular priority at present. China's development of increasingly longer-range air-to-air missiles was a key factor in the decision to start developing the AIM-260. There are concerns now that anti-air missiles with ranges of up to 1,000 miles could be part of the threat ecosystem facing U.S. forces by 2050. When the baseline AIM-120D variant arrived in the mid-2010s, it already offered a significant boost in capability over previous AIM-120 types, including greater range and a two-way datalink with third-party targeting capabilities. In 2021, an F-15C Eagle fighter shot down a target drone with an AIM-120D in what the Air Force described at the time as 'the longest known air-to-air missile shot to date.' The AIM-120D-3 version offers further improvements, including enhanced seeker performance, and incorporates a new System Improvement Program 3F (SIP-3F) operational flight software upgrade. You can read more about the D-3 here. 'Multiple follow-on SIPs are planned to provide AIM-120D-3 updates to enhance missile performance and resolve deficiencies,' the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) said in its most recent annual report, which it released in January. A SIP-4 upgrade is already in the works for the D-3, the report notes. Further SIP software updates and other more incremental improvements could be enough to warrant a new designation. The original AIM-120D evolved from a subvariant upgrade effort for the AIM-120C. The AIM-120C-8 subvariant that was subsequently developed for export customers is also understood to have capabilities that are very close to that of the baseline D version. The Air Force even just talking about the potential for an AIM-120E variant as far back as 2018 underscores the expectation that versions of the AIM-120 will remain in service for decades to come, even with the introduction of new missiles like the AIM-174B and the future AIM-260. Still-expanding exports of AMRAAMs for air-to-air and air-to-surface use, including now to Ukraine, are also likely to continue driving interest in further improving the design. Whatever the current state of any work on an AIM-120E variant might be, AMRAAM is already a key component of the United States' air-to-air arsenal, as well as that of many of its allies and partners. Contact the author: joe@
