As the service projects to spend $21 billion in modernizations for 76 active long-range strategic bombers, the Government Accountability Office argues that advancing such efforts, such as new engines, with “little to no” developmental flight testing will increase the risk that the system will not function as desired.

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress has been in service since 1955 and was originally given a life expectancy of 20 years. The Air Force now expects to utilize the aircraft, which can conduct conventional and nuclear bombing missions, through 2050.

“The scope of the cumulative B-52 modernization effort, combined with the inherent complexity associated with simultaneously executing multiple independent and concurrent programs, results in technical, programmatic, and operational challenges for the entire community tasked to develop, integrate, test, and field these upgrades,” the report says.

Ten of 13 modernization efforts are experiencing cost, schedule or performance challenges.

In particular, since 2023, the engine replacement, which is the largest and most expensive upgrade, faced a cost increase of around $3 billion and delayed operational capability by more than 15 months because the Air Force proceeded with the production with minimal developmental flight testing, the report reads.

The GAO said the service is also not consistently using digital engineering tools that provide real-time data that access overall performance for decision makers, causing the Air Force to potentially miss opportunities to for efficiencies that would help avoid future sustainment and supportability issues.

The current maintenance plans of bringing B-52s to a repair depot every four years does not account for possible schedule delays from the Commercial Engine Replacement Program, or CERP.

“B-52 maintenance is already struggling with finding sufficient parts for the current engines,” the report says. “Without planning for the possibility of engine delays from CERP, the Air Force risks falling behind on planned B-52 maintenance, which could impact readiness.”

The GAO made six recommendations to the Air Force to improve B-52 planning and management, including delaying the CERP production until the program office analyzes the associated risks, as well as updating sustainment plans and evaluating the benefits of using digital engineering.

The program, described as “extreme teaming” with industry partners, entered the phase with “unprecedented maturity,” Gen. Dale White, director of Critical Major Weapon Systems, said in a Wednesday keynote address at an event in Dayton, Ohio.

The engineering and manufacturing phase includes maturing, integrating and testing all parts of the F-47. It will produce a small number of test aircraft for evaluation and includes priced options for low-rate initial production. White did not specify the number of test aircraft being produced.

The first Boeing F-47 is on track for its first flight in 2028. The Air Force plans to buy at least 185 F-47s, matching the size of the F-22 Raptor fleet it intends to replace.

“The F-47 will fly in this administration,” White said during his speech at the Life Cycle Industry Days, hosted by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.

White, who also acts as direct reporting portfolio manager to the deputy defense secretary, is tasked with managing weapons systems, such as the F-47 and B-21 programs.

In March 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the force will proceed with development of sixth-generation Boeing F-47s under the Next Generation Air Dominance program, or NGAD, intended to replace the F-22 Raptor.

“In terms of all of the attributes of a fighter jet, there’s never been anything even close to it, from speed to maneuverability, to what it can have, to payload,” Trump said at the time, insisting that the aircraft will be built and in the air during his administration.

“And this has been in the works for a long period of time,” he continued. “America’s enemies will never see it coming.”

NGAD is a “family of systems” that includes the F-47 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft designed to achieve air superiority. The F-47’s modular design is intended to accommodate emerging technology and integrate long-range strike capabilities to counter threats in contested environments.

The F-47 program was allotted $3.45 billion in fiscal year 2026 funding and over $5 billion in the fiscal 2027 budget request.

B-21 Raiders, the service’s long-range stealth bombers currently in initial production, will be “on the ramp” at Ellsworth Air Force Base next year, Gen. Dale White, director of Critical Major Weapon Systems, said in a Wednesday keynote address at an event in Dayton, Ohio.

White, who also acts as direct reporting portfolio manager to the deputy defense secretary, is tasked with managing weapons systems, such as the F-47 and B-21 programs.

At the Life Cycle Industry Days, hosted by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, White confirmed that the first operational aircraft of the stealth bombers are on track for a 2027 Ellsworth delivery as initially projected in February.

The program, which White deemed “the physical proof our warfighting-focused acquisition mindset can and will work,” has increased its production capacity by 25%, boosting its delivery timeline.

The deal between the Air Force and Northrop Gumman, the defense company tasked with B-21 manufacturing in a 2024 contract award, first bolstered the program with already authorized funding of $4.5 billion in a reconciliation bill, which was signed in fiscal 2025 as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” part of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2026 defense budget.

For fiscal 2027, the historic $1.5 trillion budget request proposes $6.1 billion for the B-21 program.

The first next-generation stealth bomber began flight testing in 2023 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, with the second following in 2025 as the force moved to integrate weapons and critical mission systems into the aircraft.

The program contains a gradual increase in production, with an eventual production rate of approximately seven aircraft every year.

The force seeks at least 100 B-21s to replace the aging B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit fleets in the coming decades.

“This is what disciplined acquisition delivers,” White said in a February release announcing the expanded production capacity. “This decision reflects our confidence in the program’s performance and the stability of the industrial base. By increasing production capacity now, we are responsibly accelerating delivery of a critical, combat-effective capability to the warfighter.”

The contractor has faced setbacks in delivering two Air Force One aircraft for presidential use by its initial projected timeline due to a lack of properly cleared workers and supply chain issues, causing President Donald Trump to use a Qatari-donated jet in the interim.

Trump first traveled with the modified Qatari aircraft in early July, but just a couple weeks later, revealed that it would be “maxed out” for upgrades since the plane lacks necessary security features, like missile-defense capabilities, for a presidential aircraft.

The absence of the security features caused Trump to instead fly with an older Air Force One out of Turkey after the recent NATO Summit as tensions escalated with Iran.

Plans for the new Boeing VC-25Bs have been in effect for about a decade and were originally slated for 2024, but are now expected in 2028.

The contract was signed in 2018 with a fixed $3.9 billion price tag, but the delays have cost Boeing billions of dollars extra as the company rushes to deliver the jets to the executive airlift fleet alongside the VC-25A and C-32 fleets.

The company attributes the $280 million in second quarter losses on the VC-25B program to an investment in “additional production and certification resources,” per the earning report, but it still anticipates the first delivery to occur in 2028.

The added amount now has caused the entire project to cost over $3.1 billion, according to CNN reporting, but the contract’s ceiling has been altered to $4.5 billion to allow for other equipment.

Boeing’s total second quarter loss was $428 million, a stark increase from the $7 million loss reported in the first quarter.

Joint Base Charleston, housed in North Charleston, South Carolina, is slated to be renamed after Graham, a U.S. Air Force official told Military Times.

Graham spent 33 years in the Air Force as an active-duty staff judge advocate, a South Carolina Air National Guard officer and a senior lawyer in the Air Force Reserve.

He died unexpectedly from an aortic dissection at the age of 71.

Graham was born in Central, South Carolina, and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 and the Senate in 2002.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Monday on social media about the base’s renaming. She did not provide further details, only linking a story by The Post and Courier, which first reported on the news.

The South Carolina newspaper reported that a Monday memo, signed by Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, directed staff to begin working with Air Mobility Command and Joint Base Charleston to rename the base to Joint Base Lindsey Graham, citing his “decades of distinguished service to the United States Congress and the United States Air Force.”

The Air Force official who spoke to Military Times confirmed that Meink signed a memo initiating steps to rename the base.

“Today’s announcement to rename Joint Base Charleston in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham is a fitting tribute to a man who dedicated his life to serving our nation and state,” Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s attorney general and Republican nominee for governor, said on social media.

Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, spearheaded efforts to support military funding. In particular, for the Charleston base, he assisted in securing $212 million in funding given to the Coast Guard for enhanced readiness.

Prior to his death, he commemorated the funding, calling it “welcome news.” The Coast Guard is set to use the funds to improve the installation’s pier infrastructure and construct a new medical and dental facility, in addition to other projects.

The news of the base’s renaming comes as lawmakers gathered on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a memorial service for Graham. Afterward, his casket was moved to the Washington National Cathedral, where President Donald Trump gave remarks at a larger service Tuesday afternoon.

JB Charleston primarily houses the 628th Air Base Wing, 437th Airlift Wing and the reserve 315th Airlift Wing. It has a total force of over 90,000 airmen, sailors, soldiers, marines, coast guardsmen, civilians and retirees across four installations. The flying units are tasked with managing the base’s C-17 cargo fleet.

The defense company’s first YFQ-44A was built in its Pickaway County, Ohio, manufacturing facility, dubbed Arsenal-1, according to a social media post. Anduril first announced the facility’s construction in January 2025 and slated its first products manufacturing to begin July 2026.

In January 2026, Anduril declared that its first product would be the YFQ-44A, a missionized variant of the company’s FQ-44, or “Fury,” autonomous fighter jet, for the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.

The $1 billion, 5 million-square-foot facility is located near Rickenbacker International Airport and plans to add 4,000 jobs to the area.

The aircraft’s production comes two weeks after the Air Force conducted its first-ever live-fire test with its CCA. The YFQ-44A executed an end-to-end, beyond-line-of-sight strike against a simulated target using an inert AIM-120, which is an advanced medium-range air-to-air missile.

As Anduril announced the aircraft’s production, the Air Force also revealed on Monday the completion of a recent Agile Combat Employment exercise that showcased CCA operations at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.

“Air superiority in today’s increasingly contested environments requires the rapid fielding of affordable mass,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in the release. “CCA are essential to this effort. By integrating uncrewed systems to fly alongside our Airmen, we extend reach and increase lethality.”

The multi-day exercise was conducted by the CCA Experimental Operations Unit and was meant to build foundational tactics, techniques and procedures that will shape how the aircraft are integrated into the force, the release says.

The EOU completed multiple sorties, integrated with manned platforms in the local airspace and simulated scenarios.

“Our test teams can continuously use these warfighter-run exercises to gather and analyze data that aids in informed CCA fielding decisions well ahead of the normal process to deliver combat capability when needed by our Air Force and the Nation,” said Brig. Gen. Jesse Friedel, Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center commander, whose team members observed the event.

Air Force officials have continuously asserted that any decision to deploy munitions still lies in the human operator’s hands, as they have control and command of the platform at all times, even though the aircraft are unmanned and semi-autonomous.

In a recent roundtable, former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that building trust between human operators and autonomous systems begins with computerized, man-in-the-loop simulations and training exercises, such as Red Flag at Nellis.

The Air Force awarded the CCA contracts last month to Anduril and General Atomics for their YFQ-44A and YFQ-42A, respectively.

The service has eyed 100 to 150 aircraft in its program’s first increment, with a longer-term goal of fielding 1,000 CCAs.

Anduril had not yet announced Tuesday the number of YFQ-44As the facility will produce, but the production line has the capacity to build 150 each year.

The team, dubbed Task Force Talon Synapse, is slated to launch in the “coming weeks,” according to a Tuesday release, and will focus on incorporating AI applications into intelligence support, protecting critical infrastructure and monitoring the regional security environment.

“This will be a historic milestone as we work with one of our most capable regional partners to rapidly deliver evolving AI advancements to our warfighters,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in the statement.

“Together, we and our Emirati partners share a strong commitment to adopting AI applications that will foster innovation at speed and scale,” he continued.

The Abu Dhabi-based unit will be made up of around 20 American and Emirati personnel with AI, data and cybersecurity expertise, the announcement says.

The task force’s creation was discussed last year by Cooper and UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al-Nahyan, per the release.

During a trip to the region last month, CENTCOM and AI industry leaders gathered together as well.

For almost a decade, the UAE has strived to accelerate its defenses with AI capabilities through collaborations, like with Anduril to coproduce advanced autonomous drones.

In March 2025, the White House hosted al-Nahyan, who views adopting artificial intelligence as a national responsibility. The talks focused on bilateral relations between the two countries, AI and emerging technology, according to a UAE release at the time of the official visit.

Active-duty airmen have a deadline of Friday, July 31, to submit their waist-to-height ratios into myBodyComp unless medically except from that component of the Physical Fitness Readiness Assessment, the service announced two weeks ago, and reservists have until Aug. 31.

Recently, myBodyComp officially launched for airmen to input their ratios, but the measurement is not part of the assessment and will not affect fitness scores, test currency or other personnel actions, according to a release.

The service describes the requirement as a “one-time biometric data collection” that sets a baseline for the modernized Physical Fitness Readiness Program, which took effect July 1.

The move to modernize the program comes as the Air Force reinforces its fitness, dress and appearance standards in an effort to boost readiness and long-term health, especially as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushes for more rigorous grooming and fitness standards across the military services.

“This update is not just about increasing the physical fitness test standards; it’s about ensuring our warfighters are fit, ready, and prioritizing their long-term health,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in a February memo on the modernization efforts.

If an airman completed a measurement during the diagnostic period of March 1 through June 30 and retained the assessment as official, then they do not have to reassess, as those measurements carry over automatically, per the recent statement.

Airmen whose scores were eliminated or have no score entered since March 1 must complete a new measurement before the deadline.

Those airmen not required to complete the measurement include members with a full medical exemption, a pregnancy or postpartum exemption or a composite exemption aligned with an approved retirement or separation within 12 months.

Airmen with partial exemptions for individual fitness components, like the run or push-ups, are not exempt from the waist-to-height ratio measurements unless a medical provider says otherwise, the announcement says.

Air Force Reserve wing and installation commanders will oversee the implementation of the requirements within their organizations. Reservists in a qualified duty status must meet the requirement, as well as those performing regularly scheduled drill or unit training assembly in July or August.

Around 5,200 Army, Navy and Air Force enlisted students assigned to the Medical Education and Training Campus, or METC, at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston are being moved to on-base temporary housing, the San Antonio Express-News was first to report.

Their barracks face construction failures, which is forcing them to be demolished and ultimately reconstructed, a base spokesperson told Military Times.

Instead of normal wear and tear, “systemic infrastructure failures” rooted in their construction are causing the need to tear down the METC dormitories. The spokesperson said that the facilities have experienced persistent issues with their climate control systems, and the structural flaws in the building cannot be permanently resolved through routine maintenance or ongoing repairs.

“It has been determined that a complete teardown and transition to traditionally built facilities is the most responsible course of action,” the spokesperson said.

The METC dorms finished construction in 2014 using modular building methods meant to enhance efficiency and reduce onsite labor requirements to boost the project timelines.

The construction cost $140 million for each 1,200-person dormitory, according to the construction company tasked with the project. The company completed five multi-story barracks for METC.

The relocation is occurring in phases, with roughly 2,000 students moved since July 11. The spokesperson did not specify when all students are expected to be relocated but did say that construction is slated to begin by the end of 2026.

The base is utilizing existing infrastructure and transportation networks to allow for the students to maintain their training schedules, the spokesperson said.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, whose district houses JBSA-Lackland and parts of Fort Sam Houston, said in a release that the Department of Defense told his office five base barracks will be replaced due to mold, humidity and construction issues.

Castro said that the barracks’ demolishment is set for September, and the project is expected to cost over $1.4 billion in fiscal years 2027 and 2028.

“It’s critical that the Pentagon not repeat the construction mistakes of the past and provide quality housing that meets the needs of our servicemembers,” he said in the statement.

The move to replace these barracks follows the October 2025 creation of the Barracks Task Force by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, which aims to improve service members’ living conditions and quality of life.

The base spokesperson said the Pentagon is investing more than $1.2 billion immediately into the improvement of the METC barracks. The $1.2 billion matches the initial amount invested across the services to overhaul barracks’ conditions, alongside granting local commanders more than $400 million to direct immediate work and more than $800 million in critical barracks renovations.

A Government Accountability Office 2023 report found that concerns about poor living conditions in military barracks and its management date back decades, with issues such as safety risks from sewage overflow, inoperable fire systems and a lack of reliable information from the Defense Department on how low-quality conditions affect troop morale.

“Our primary focus is ensuring every service member has a clean, comfortable, and safe living space so that they can focus on their training and mission,” the spokesperson said. “This relocation will allow the medical training pipeline to continue without compromise.”

Students are slated to move back onto campus once the reconstruction is complete.

Col. Christine Littlejohn took command of the Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, last week, according to a release, to lead 12 squadrons and two groups tasked with base operations support.

Base officials did not comment on Littlejohn’s command but did provide Military Times with a list of former 99th commanders. Sixteen names graced the list before Littlejohn’s, and they all were men.

“The Air Force selects its commanders strictly on merit,” a Nellis spokesperson told Military Times. “Col. Littlejohn has experience at various levels of command, ensuring the 99th Air Base Wing continues to maintain the highest standards of mission readiness and combat capability.”

Previously, Littlejohn served as the commander of the 502nd Installation Support Group at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, the announcement reads. Throughout her career, Littlejohn has served in strategic and operational assignments across various major commands in the Wing and at Air Force headquarters.

Littlejohn provided critical support to many combat deployments, such as Operation Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Inherent Resolve.

Littlejohn took over the Wing’s command from Col. Jason Glynn, who served in the post for two years, during a Nellis ceremony on July 17.

Glynn led the installation through a government shutdown and civilian workforce restructuring, and the statement says his achievements as commander are vast, from recovery efforts after a F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft incident to countering main gate security threats.

The 99th supports more than 10,000 personnel assigned to the Air Force Warfare Center, five wings and 52 tenant units on base. The unit provides installation support, like operational testing, tactics development and training in air, space and cyberspace.

Nellis focuses on advanced combat aviation training, housing a plethora of aircraft, such as fighter jets, bombers, refuelers and transport. The base consists of 14,000 service members and civilian personnel.