Bell Textron will build the U.S. Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA, fuselages in Wichita, Kansas, the company announced this week.
The company won the Army’s bid to build FLRAA in late 2022 following a competition in which it and a Sikorsky-Boeing team flew technology demonstrators for several years to evaluate aircraft capabilities and drive out risk to a future program of record.
Bell will use an existing facility near Textron Aviation Defense and plans to start work there “in the next several months,” according to a statement.
The company will also conduct supporting work at several of its advanced manufacturing facilities in Texas, like its Advanced Composite Center in Fort Worth. Final assembly will take place in Amarillo.
The FLRAA program is estimated to be worth approximately $70 billion across its lifespan, including foreign military sales, and is set to replace roughly 2,000 Black Hawk utility helicopters.
The future advanced tiltrotor will not serve as a one-for-one replacement for existing aircraft, but it is expected around 2030 to take over the roles of the Black Hawk, long the Army’s workhorse.
The Army will now equip the first unit with the capability in fiscal 2031. A limited user test is expected sometime in FY27 to FY28.
The contract award in 2022 includes nine options — entering the engineering and manufacturing development phase means the Army will exercise the first option, under which Bell will deliver detailed aircraft design and build six prototypes.
The first aircraft in this phase is expected to fly in 2026, with low-rate initial production slated to begin in 2028.
“As Bell prepares for the next stage of FLRAA’s engineering and manufacturing development phase, we are committed to investing in advanced manufacturing to ensure we deliver exceptional performance at an affordable cost to our customer, Lisa Atherton, Bell’s president and CEO, said in the statement.
“Textron has a rich history with the state of Kansas as well as the city of Wichita,” she said, “and we are proud to deepen that relationship as we establish this new facility.”
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
JERUSALEM — Israel will acquire 25 F-15IA combat jets from U.S. manufacturer Boeing for $5.2 billion, with an option to get 25 more, the Ministry of Defense announced Nov. 7.
The delivery of the planes will begin in 2031, with four to six to be supplied annually.
The deal began unfolding about a month ago, when the director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, retired Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, visited the United States, and the transaction will be carried out with American aid funds.
The flight range of a F-15IA fighter jet is about 12,000 nautical miles, and it has the capacity to carry more than 13,000 kg of missiles and bombs, according to the Israeli Boeing website.
According to the manufacturer, the planes will include an AESA radar, a missile warning system, a digital cockpit and helmet display, and fly-by-wire systems.
The ability that tipped the scales in favor the procurement, however, was the weapons-carrying capacity that will increase the Israeli Air Force attack capabilities at faraway distant locales such as in Iran or Yemen.
“This F-15 squadron, alongside the third F-35 squadron procured earlier this year, represents an enhancement of our air power and strategic reach capabilities that proved crucial during the current war,” Zamir said.
The Israeli announcement about the purchase of the planes comes a day after Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, with his term starting on Jan. 20. It also comes amid political upheaval clouding the Israeli Ministry of Defense after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Galant on Tuesday, citing a lack of trust between the two.
Tzally Greenberg is the Israel correspondent for Defense News. He has experience reporting on economic affairs as well as defense and cyber companies.
Former president Donald Trump won reelection Tuesday, a night of voting that led to Republicans taking control of the Senate and potentially holding their House majority.
The chance for a governing trifecta, which would repeat the first two years of Trump’s term, already has some in Congress, the Pentagon and think tanks wondering what it means for the defense budget.
While it’s too early to forecast with confidence, analysts who spoke to Defense News said, the return of a Trump presidency will likely augur a larger defense budget, though less security aid for American partners abroad like Ukraine.
Part of why its so difficult to predict the effects of a second Trump term is that there is less Republican consensus on defense spending, said Mark Cancian, who studies security budgets at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Whereas the right once almost uniformly supported higher military spending, it’s now split into three main camps, he argued.
The first is traditional defense hawks, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who favor a more assertive military and funding to support one. The second is budget hawks, like the House Freedom Caucus, who are most concerned with bloated government spending and would in some cases favor cuts.
And the third is the “America First” wing of the Republican Party, such as Trump’s final acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, who are skeptical that America’s military needs to maintain so many missions around the world, and may also support cuts.
What faction will prevail won’t start to become clear until a future Trump Cabinet is set, Cancian said.
“Until we get some sense of that, we’re just guessing,” he said.
Clear telltales will be the nominees to become secretary of defense and director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Mackenzie Eaglen, an expert on the defense budget at the American Enterprise Institute.
“The first thing that matters is the OMB director,” she said, noting the office’s role in managing government budget requests.
By Eaglen’s count, Trump oversaw a massive hike in defense spending during his first term — some $225 billion higher than projected from the late Obama years. Defense hawks in Congress are counting on a repeat of that trend, and will have more power to force it.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., published a memo earlier this year calling for a $55 billion surge in defense spending. The paper helped increase the Senate Armed Services Committee budget bill, though by less than half that number. With Republicans taking control of the Senate, Wicker will now chair that committee and can push for further increases.
Republican aides in Congress, when asked by Defense News, signaled confidence that a second Trump term would increase the military budget, though cautioning that it’s still too early to predict.
Congress hasn’t passed either of its two main defense bills this fiscal year, instead operating on a short-term spending bill that lasts through December.
While those will in all likelihood pass eventually, now that control of both chamber is becoming clear, the large security aid packages America has been sending to Ukraine are far less certain. The U.S. has committed more than $60 billion in security aid so far during the Biden administration — much of it going to American arms companies — gleaned from additional spending bills passed by Congress.
“Will there be any more supplementals?” Eaglen said, arguing that Taiwan and Israel had better chances of maintaining American aid.
Trump has said his main priority is ending the war with Russia, without committing to an outcome first. If Trump did abruptly end American assistance, it also risks a whiplash for defense firms that have expanded their product lines to meet Ukraine’s needs, Cancian said.
“That’s industry’s great worry,” Cancian said, though he was skeptical the shift would be too abrupt for firms to adjust.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
The Navy is keeping three cruisers in service for three additional years each – just after extending the service life for 12 destroyers.
The service announced Monday that the Gettysburg, Chosin, and Cape St. George will now remain in service up until fiscal year 2029, rather than 2026.
These cruisers have received modernization updates including “extensive hull,” mechanical and engineering, and combat system upgrades, according to the Navy. The Gettysburg and Chosin wrapped up these modifications in fiscal years 2023 and 2025, and the Cape. St. George is slated to conclude its modernization this year.
The Navy’s announcement comes as the Navy and Congress have been at odds over how fast cruisers should be phased out of the fleet. The Navy has sought to decommission more cruisers to free up money for new ships and maintenance, while lawmakers have urged to keep them around longer to satisfy capability gaps.
Meanwhile, the service decommissioned three cruisers in recent months: the Leyte Gulf, the Cowpens, and the Antietam.
“As a former cruiser Sailor, I know the incredible value these highly-capable warships bring to the Fleet and I am proud of their many decades of service,” Del Toro said in a statement. “After learning hard lessons from the cruiser modernization program, we are only extending ships that have completed modernization and have the material readiness needed to continue advancing our Navy’s mission.”
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On Thursday, the Navy revealed it would keep 12 additional destroyers in service longer, from 2028 to 2035. The ships selected underwent a hull-by-hull evaluation, and the Navy is now including a service life extension update to the FY26 budget request to accommodate these modifications.
These efforts to keep more ships in service will “bolster the Fleet as new ships are built,” according to a Navy news release.
“Today’s budget constrained environment requires the Navy to make prioritized investments to keep more ready players on the field,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said in a statement. “The Navy is actively pulling the right levers to maintain and grow its Battle Force Inventory to support the United States’s global interests in peace and to win decisively in conflict.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a televised concession speech to the nation after a whirlwind campaign that failed to stop Republican Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign,” she told supporters on Wednesday at her alma mater, Howard University, a historically Black college.
Harris pledged to continue fighting for women’s rights and against gun violence and to “fight for the dignity that all people deserve”.
Harris addressed a crowd that included former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, aides in President Joe Biden’s White House, and thousands of fans who listened to a soundtrack that included Beyonce’s Run the World (Girls) and Tye Tribbett’s We Gon’ Be Alright.
Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also joined the crowd.
Harris rose to the top of the Democratic ticket in July after Biden stepped aside and brought new-found enthusiasm and cash to the Democratic ticket, but struggled to overcome voters’ concerns about the economy and immigration.
She was handed a resounding loss, with Trump winning a greater share of votes across most of the country compared with his performance in 2020, and Democrats failing to secure key battleground states that decide elections.
Thousands had gathered at Howard University on Tuesday night for what they hoped would be a historic victory for the first woman to become president. They came back on Wednesday to show their support after her.
The most advanced version of the Patriot missile defeated a tactical ballistic missile threat target while fully integrated with a new radar in development with the U.S. Army in a test over the weekend, marking a significant step toward the service’s transition to a modernized missile defense capability.
The test conducted at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, used both the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) and the Cost Reduction Interceptor (CRI).
“The interceptors were shot in a ripple configuration and successfully engaged and intercepted the TBM target,”Lockheed Martin, the maker of the Patriot family of missiles, said in a statement.
The test integrating the Raytheon-developed Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) radar and PAC-3 missiles was built upon previous efforts to demonstrate PAC-3 integration with the Army’s Integrated Battle Command Systems (IBCS) and LTAMDS, according to Lockheed.
The Northrop Grumman-made IBCS is a fielded system that links any sensor to any shooter on the battlefield and is seen as the brain of the Army’s future air and missile defense architecture. LTAMDS is intended to replace the legacy Patriot radar with a capability that provides 360-degree protection.
The Army also had nascent plans to one day replace the PAC-3 MSE interceptor with a next-generation missile, but has since decided not to pursue development at this time, Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano, program executive officer for Army missiles and space, told Defense News in an interview last month.
The LTAMDS radar’s success in recent tests has prompted Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to consider deploying the new radar early to operational units for further evaluation and testing.
The test is part of a larger Integrated Fires Test Campaign that has been running since mid-September and will continue through December, Lozano said.
The Army’s LTAMDS radar, which began testing using just its front array, is now also demonstrating the functionality of its two rear arrays that provide the 360-degree level of protection, he said.
This year, the service is also bringing in the Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) system, which can defeat a range of threats, including drones, cruise missiles, rockets, artillery and mortars from fixed and semi-fixed sites.
The Army wrapped up a development test for IFPC with three successful missile flight tests in late summer defeating two maneuvering unmanned aircraft systems, a Group 3 UAS — which can weigh up to roughly 1,300 pounds — and a maneuvering cruise missile.
The Army will incorporate a new version of its Sentinel radar (Version 4) next year and add additional elements the following year,all of which are expected to be part of the Pentagon’s missile defense of Guam architecture currently in development, Lozano said.
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
PARIS — French public investment bank Bpifrance is seeking to increase the amount of export financing it can provide to small and medium-sized defense firms, as the current limit is insufficient to meet some demands, the bank’s head of export finance said.
Bpifrance currently provides up to €25 million (US$27 million) of financing for export deals when it’s acting as the single lender and would like to raise that to around €40 million in 2025, Hugues Latourrette, the head of the Bpifrance export-finance department, told Defense News at the Euronaval show outside Paris.
“We’re pushing in that direction because we feel there’s a need,” Latourrette said. While Bpifrance’s limits on export financing affect only a few companies for now, “due to the dynamics of the industry, it’s something that could evolve rapidly.”
The public investment bank fills a market gap, as few large commercial banks are interested in providing small and medium-sized exporters with financing for amounts below €40 million, according to Latourrette. He declined to provide details on the companies seeking export financing from Bpifrance, citing reasons of confidentiality.
Foreign defense markets are “extremely competitive,” and manufacturers from Turkey, South Korea and Israel “can make life difficult for our manufacturers in France,” Latourrette said during a forum discussion at Euronaval. A commercial and technical proposal is not necessarily enough to win an export deal, and often needs to be accompanied by a financial offer, the banker said.
France was the second-largest arms exporter in the 2019-2023 period after the United States, accounting for 11% of global arms exports, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The country has around 4,000 small and medium-sized defense-industry firms, according to the Armed Forces Ministry.
Bpifrance helps defense exporters win contracts, including through financing deals on the African continent, and the bank is involved in export negotiations in Europe, Latourrette said. The bank only provides financing in euros, and doesn’t engage in dollar transactions for reasons of extraterritorial action.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
As the Army recalibrates its recruiting efforts, one long-standing program holds the potential to attract new recruits and educate the civilian public about the military: Junior Reserve Officer Training.
The Army Cadet Command, which oversees both JROTC and ROTC, has spent recent years promoting JROTC across the nation through new technical skills training and various events.
Those new skills, large public events and a push by Congress to expand the program in the coming years are all measures to modernize JROTC and expose more of the population to bolster military recruiting while also bridging the civilian-military divide.
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One such event, the Raider Challenge, took place in late October. Held for the second time at Fort Knox, Kentucky, home of Army Cadet Command, the challenge includes various physical fitness and leadership events such as a 5-kilometer run, rope bridge assembly and a 3-mile buddy team obstacle course.
More than 4,000 cadets from across the country arrived at the post to compete in a series of events.
The annual event was previously held in Molena, Georgia, whereapproximately 3,000 cadets participated in the final event there, officials said.
The Fort Knox site gives cadets a chance to see an actual military installation and meet soldiers in units serving now, Ian Ives, Army Cadet Command spokesman, told Army Times.
One cadet who spoke with Army Times recently attended the Raider Challenge at both locations, having participated in the event all four years of his high school career.
Army JROTC cadets from Tennessee’s Franklin High School participate in the national 2024 JROTC Raider Challenge at Fort Knox. (2nd Lt. Kyle Merritt/U.S. Army)
“I have met some people who don’t understand the purpose. They think it’s more an Army thing,” said Cadet Maj. Jeremiah Purvis, a senior at Kansas’Leavenworth High School. “It’s really about helping cadets be better leaders in the community.”
Purvis is the last of four brothers in his household to participate in JROTC. His father is an Army veteran, and his oldest brother is an Army second lieutenant.
Established in 1917,the Leavenworth program is one of the nation’s oldest JROTC programs. This year the school took home top place in both the male and female division team competitions.
Julie Howell, the mother of Cadet 1st Lt. Elisabeth Howell, participated in JROTC when she was in high school. At the time, the programdidn’t have the more modern tech skill classes and clubsof today’s JROTC programs.
Those types of classes and clubs help draw in students who might not have considered JROTC and allow them to learn more about the program from fellow cadets, Howell said.
“It’s a phenomenal opportunity for these kids to evolve into who they are,” Howell said.
Flashy ads, posters or social media campaigns might be what’s needed to grab the attention of the prospective young recruitsthe Army wants to reach, but for JROTC, another cadet might be best.
Cadet Kaitlyn Spaulding, a freshman at Leavenworth, met Elisabeth Howell at a local swimming pool and learned that Howell had been on the school’s female JROTC national championship team.
That inspired her to give JROTC a shot, she told Army Times.
“I remember seeing their uniforms and thinking ‘I want to wear those uniforms, too,’” Spaulding said. “I want to be in the program.”
She’s set her sights on attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
In the fiscal 2021defense budget, Congress called for doubling the number of JROTC sites across the military branches by 2031.
Military representatives, experts and several studies have shown that the presence of a JROTC program at a school improves civilian-military cooperation, can influence students at the school to join the military and results in higher graduation rates, more successful enlistments for those who do join after high school.
Army JROTC currently has 1,744 programs with an estimated 280,000 cadets, Ives told Army Times. That’s an increase from a decade ago when there were 1,709 programs with 246,500 cadets.
Doubling the number of programs over the next six years would bring that figure to 3,488 for the Army alone.
Army JROTC cadets from Tennessee’s Franklin High School participate in the national 2024 JROTC Raider Challenge at Fort Knox. (2nd Lt. Omar Villa/U.S. Army)
A significant increase in the number of Army JROTC programs isn’t unprecedented, though past growth has occurred over a longer timeline. The Army tripled its JROTC programs between 1992 and 2022, according to a RAND report released in September.
The Army ordered the report to studyexpanding the geographic footprint of the Army’s JROTC programs across the country.
Researchers found that the Army programs were overrepresented in the Southeast region of the United States and underrepresented in the Northwest, Midwest and in rural areas in all regions.
About 6% of public high schools had an Army JROTC program overall. That ranged from 12% of high schools across the South to 3% of high schools in the Northeast and West and only 2% of high schools in the Midwest, according to the report.
RAND personnel conducted a simulation in which they replaced the 60 lowest performing schools with Army JROTC programs with 60 innovative programs in underserved areas. They found no meaningful change in participation.
But should the Army add another 1,000 JROTC programs, the service would see a noticeable increase in its geographic diversity, according to the report.
The report authors recommended the Army continue highlighting its novel JROTC programs such as the Cyber Program. Army Cadet Command has increased its clubs and offerings in technology including cybersecurity, drone and 3D printing in recent years,Ives said.
The RAND report identified prospects by state and by prioritized cities and regions in rank order based on their sustainability. The federal law that governs JROTC programs defines a program as sustainable if it has at least 100 participants or at least 10% of the student body.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
Cummins’s all-round performance took Australia to a two-wicket win in Melbourne for a 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series.
Australia’s captain Pat Cummins has guided his team home to a tense two-wicket win over Pakistan after a brief wobble in their run-chase in the first one-day international (ODI) in Melbourne.
Cummins scored 32 crucial runs and took two wickets as Australia chased 204 despite a late Pakistani fightback, and took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series on Monday.
Pakistan were dismissed for 203 in 46.4 overs after being asked to bat first as their batters failed to cope with the Australian pace attack on a fast and bouncy pitch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Australia, who won the ODI World Cup in India in 2023, were coasting towards the target with Steve Smith and Josh Inglis at the crease at 113-2 after 16.2 overs.
However, the visitors posed a brief threat to the world champions when their fast bowlers combined to take five wickets for 45 runs and opened up the match.
Cummins, though, was calm while wickets fell around him and hit four boundaries as he completed the chase with fellow fast bowler Mitchell Starc.
The captain, playing his first ODI since the World Cup final, burnished his record of guiding Australia to victory from positions of peril, having scored the winning runs during the Ashes Test at Edgbaston last year and twice hung tough with the bat at the World Cup.
“Tonight we got it done. I always much prefer sitting in the changing room but a wonderful match,” Cummins said afterwards.
“It got a bit tighter than we would have liked in the end.”
The ground was only a quarter full with a crowd of 25,800, but Rauf had Pakistan fans jumping in the terraces with a sizzling spell that included dismissing Marnus Labuschagne (16) and Glenn Maxwell (0) in successive deliveries.
Pace spearhead Starc was named man of the match with three wickets, including both the openers of Pakistan.
In Pakistan’s first ODI since missing the World Cup semifinals, the team’s top batter, Babar Azam, returned to the lineup after being stunningly dropped for the second and third Tests against England.
The former captain made 37 off 44 balls before being bowled by leg-spinner Adam Zampa with an ill-judged push at a straight delivery.
Saim Ayub made his ODI debut as Mohammad Rizwan captained Pakistan, reprising his opening partnership in Tests with Abdullah Shafique, despite the pair’s terrible record batting together.
Both were dismissed cheaply by Starc; Ayub for one after chopping onto his stumps and Shafique caught behind for 12.
Rizwan top-scored for Pakistan with 44 and ODI debutant Irfan Khan made 22 batting at seven before being run out.
But it took tail-end slogging from Naseem Shah (40) and Afridi (24) to push Pakistan past 200.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is sending bomber aircraft, fighter jets and more Navy warships to the Middle East to bolster the U.S. presence in the region, the Pentagon announced Friday, as an aircraft carrier and its ships are preparing to leave.
Austin ordered several B-52 Stratofortress bomber aircraft, a squadron of fighter jets, tanker aircraft and Navy destroyers to deploy to the Middle East, said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, in a statement. He said they will begin arriving in the region in the coming months, as the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln begins to head home.
Austin’s latest order, said Ryder, shows the “U.S. capability to deploy world-wide on short notice to meet evolving national security threats.” He said Austin “continues to make clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people.”
The long-range nuclear-capable B-52 bomber has been repeatedly deployed to the Middle East in pointed warnings to Iran and it is the second time this month that strategic U.S. bombers will be used to bolster U.S. defenses in the region.
In October, B-2 stealth bombers were used to strike underground Houthi targets in Yemen.
Ryder did not provide the specific number of aircraft and ships that will move into the region. The shifts are likely to result in an overall decrease in the total number of U.S. troops in the Middle East, largely because an aircraft carrier contains as many as 5,000 sailors.
But the addition of bomber aircraft beefs up U.S. combat strength. There have been as many as 43,000 U.S. forces in the region recently.
According to U.S. officials, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and the three Navy destroyers in its strike group are scheduled to leave the Middle East by mid-month and return to their home port in San Diego.
When it departs, there will be no aircraft carrier in the Middle East for a period of time, officials said. They declined to say how long that gap would last.
Military commanders have long argued that the presence of an aircraft carrier strike group, with its array of fighters jets, surveillance aircraft and heavily armed warships, is a significant deterrent, including against Iran.
To make up for that gap, Austin is ordering the deployment of other Navy destroyers to the region. Those destroyers, which are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, would come either from the Indo-Pacific region or Europe, the official said.
Eventually, it is expected that the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman and its three warships will move to the Mediterranean Sea, but they won’t get there before the Lincoln departs. The Truman strike group has been in the North Sea, participating in a NATO military exercise.
The Lincoln and two of its destroyers are now in the Gulf of Oman, and its third destroyer is with two other warships in the Red Sea.
There are also two destroyers and the Marine amphibious ready group — which includes three ships — in the Mediterranean Sea.
