Air Data News
• Ricardo Meier
The U.S. Air Force has priced the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program at $20.2 billion as it advances engine and radar upgrades intended to keep the strategic bomber operational into the 2050s. The service is also working to recover schedule on the two largest elements of the modernization effort.
Defense Industry & Major Contractors
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The U.S. Air Force has priced the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program at $20.2 billion as it advances engine and radar upgrades intended to keep the strategic bomber operational into the 2050s. The service is also working to recover schedule on the two largest elements of the modernization effort.
NATO’s DIANA accelerator is identifying promising defense innovators, yet the path from prototype to operational capability remains difficult. Weak customer demand, fragile supply chains and limited skilled labor threaten to prevent emerging technologies from achieving the scale needed for meaningful defense impact.
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Jill Albertelli will become president of RTX’s Pratt & Whitney on Jan. 1, 2027, succeeding Shane Eddy, who will retire after four years leading the engine maker and a 40-year aerospace career. Albertelli, currently leading Pratt & Whitney’s military business, brings more than 30 years of industry experience.
BAE Systems has introduced Shadow EW, a family of three compact electronic warfare systems designed for small airborne platforms. The company says the systems can equip both crewed and uncrewed aircraft, bringing lower-cost EW capabilities to a broader range of platforms and supporting rapid software upgrades.
Anduril executives said the company cannot start work on a production contract for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft without funding in the fiscal 2027 budget. The company expects production assets to be moving through its facilities in 2027, but says internal investment alone is insufficient.
Air Force officials say the F-35 demonstrated combat value during Middle East operations, even as GAO found three in four aircraft unable to fly a full mission and sustainment needs reached $13.7 billion. Europe received more than three dozen jets in the past year, while Switzerland’s procurement faces rising costs and contract scrutiny.
Lockheed Martin’s FLEX concept would give the AGM-158 JASSM family a common modular architecture supporting longer-range variants, anti-ship missions and additional launch configurations. The proposal is intended to broaden the missile’s operational flexibility while building on the existing JASSM family design.
Air Force and Space Force leaders are prioritizing faster production and larger inventories of weapons and space capabilities, even as supply-chain constraints continue to limit industrial capacity. The shift puts scalability, manufacturing resilience and the defense sector’s ability to deliver at speed at the center of acquisition strategy.
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