UPDATED: SASC Chair Levin Skeds Hearing
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell today released some of the questions she’d like answered during next week’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing looking into the incident where the Air Force mistakenly sent data to EADS and Boeing about the other’s bids in the $35 billion KC-X contest.

A Royal Australian Air Force airborne tanker lost part of its boom during a training flight with a Portugese F-16. “The incident resulted in the detachment and partial loss of the refuelling boom from the MRTT, which fell into the sea. Both aircraft suffered some damage but returned safely to their home airfields,” according to a statement from the Australian Ministry of Defense.

It’s not often the Pentagon’s top testers use the term “screech” to describe a problem with a weapons system, but that’s just what they are calling a problem with Pratt & Whitney’s engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. But they did. And it looks as if the screech means GE and Rolls Royce will have another arrow or two in their quiver as the debate about funding for the F136 continues.

Few lawmakers have shaped America’s modern military more than the departing Sen. Joe Lieberman. From cutting edge issues of military transformation to national missile defense, to creation of the Department of Homeland Security and on to Israel and Iraq, Lieberman often led the way on Capitol Hill, arguing forcefully with colleagues behind closed doors.

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon promises to take another close look at one of the Pentagon’s most troubled processes, how it decides what weapons it needs. McKeon joins a host of senior officials at the Pentagon in his concern about the requirements process. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Army vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, recently retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula and a host of other senior military leaders have lamented the complex and often fatally flawed manner in which the services and OSD decide which weapons to buy and how they should be designed.

With the Christmas and New Year holidays receding fast into the distance, it’s always nice to get a small after-season present. We just got one from the Columbia Journalism Review, considered the standard-bearer of news about the news business.

UPDATED: New Head Dem Strat Forces Staffer
It’s changeover season on the Hill. As expected, several Democrat staffers have left the now-republican controlled House Armed Services Committee. Meanwhile, the new Republican leadership of the subcommittees has been installed.

The U.S. Marine Corps should use an MRAP-style acquisition strategy to field a replacement for the cancelled Expiditionary Fighting Vehicle as soon as possible, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said today.

Lockheed Martin has redesigned the bulkhead on the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter where the main landing gear meet the airframe to prevent the type of cracking that was found during ground stress tests on the jet, according to Lockheed and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos.

Rep. Buck McKeon, chair of the House Armed Services Committee and his staff are considering restructuring the specialized subcomittees that make up the panel, according to Rep. Todd Akin, chair of what’s currently called the seapower subcommittee.

Recently unveiled slips in development schedule for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter means the jet’s initial operational capability date will likely be further delayed, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said today.

The U.S. Navy is moving towards selecting Raytheon’s Griffin missile as the replacement for the cancelled Non-Line of Sight missile on its Littoral Combat Ships, according to the director of the service’s surface warfare division.

Britain must be careful to not to cut certain 21st Century military capabilities as it attempts to implement “radical” defense reforms over the next decade, said the United Kingdom’s top military officer last week in Washington.

The reactions to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ proposed budget cuts came in fast following his announcement yesterday of which programs would be getting the axe and which would thrive in the coming years. Democrats and think tanks which may have influenced his moves were gushing while House Republicans went on the attack, slamming wartime defense cuts.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates today announced the winners and losers of his FY-12 budget request and his effort to save more than $100 billion in defense spending over the next five years. The Air Force and Navy emerging as clear winners while the Army lost the SLAMRAAM and Non-Line of Sight missiles while the Marines lost their Expeditionary Fighting vehicle and saw the F-35B put on a two year probation.

Lockheed officials today gave a last minute pitch to keep the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program alive on the eve of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ expected announcement of roughly $80 billion in cuts to DoD programs.

The Pentagon is will reportedly slash the Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and Army’s Surface-Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile system that would have someday replaced the Stinger missile-based Avenger air defense system, according to Lexington Institute analyst Loren Thompson.