The inaugural Airman Podcast for the At Altitude channel features a conversation with Dr. Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. As the Air Force’s Service Acquisition Executive, Dr. Roper is responsible for and oversees Air Force research, development and acquisition activities totaling an annual budget in excess […]

The Air Force’s history is a timeline rich in success stories of innovation and calculated risks taken by Airmen to achieve a legacy of dominance in airpower, yet behind any of these success stories there’s a series of lessons learned from failure. Yet today many Air Force senior leaders express somewhere along the way in […]

Capt. Michael J. Kanaan, Air Force Artificial Intelligence co-chair, believes the Air Force needs more computer language experts in order to maintain dominance. Kanaan said the languages of artificial intelligence algorithms can, and should, be taught to Airmen as a mission-critical skill, just like Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic. “The languages of computers themselves are as […]

In early 2019, Airman interviewed Dr. Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. As the Air Force’s Service Acquisition Executive, Dr. Roper is responsible for and oversees Air Force research, development and acquisition activities totaling an annual budget in excess of $40 billion for more than 465 acquisition […]

Lt. Gen. Robert D. McMurry, Jr. is the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center commander at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The organization is the single center responsible for total life cycle management covering all aircraft, engines, munitions and electronic systems. It is one of six centers reporting to Air Force Materiel Command. The men […]

With its precision, stealth, long-range capability and payload capacity, the B-2 Spirit is one of the most versatile airframes in the Air Force’s inventory. The combination of its unique capabilities enables global reach and allows the Air Force to bypass the enemy’s most sophisticated defenses. The B-2 Spirit’s low-observable, or stealth, characteristics give it the […]

The F-35A Lightning II is a fifth-generation fighter combining advanced aerodynamics, survivability in high-threat environments and an enhanced ability to provide pilots and allied assets across operational domains with robust situational awareness. The F-35 is the result of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program to develop a single-engine, stealthy, multi-role fighter to replace an aging […]

In October 2018, Airman Magazine sat down for a conversation with Maj. Gen. Robert J. Skinner, Twenty-fourth Air Force commander; Air Forces Cyber commander and Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber commander, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. He is responsible for providing Air Force component and combatant commanders with trained and ready cyber forces to plan, direct and […]

Dr. Richard Joseph, chief scientist of the Air Force, believes “failures have their seeds planted in success.” Bureaucracies within the Air Force perpetuate what works. Yet, they often cling to ideas, systems or methods beyond the point of effectiveness – producing failure from that success. They also tend to eliminate ideas and people that challenge […]

In October 2016, Dr. Eric Schmidt, then the Executive Director of Alphabet, Inc., Google’s parent company, and chairman of the Defense Innovation Board (DIB), independent technology and capability advisors to the Secretary of Defense, were touring the Combat Air Operations Center (CAOC) at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Within the CAOC, U.S. Air Forces […]