Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Late this month the Air Force will meet with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., to discuss how "lean" industry principles can be applied to the service's acquisition process. The goal is to create a "value stream map" of the Air Force's entire acquisition enterprise. Value Stream Mapping involves drawing a visual representation of every process in a manufacturing line to identify and eliminate sources of waste.
Two weeks before Hurricane Katrina, Northrop Grumman studied a hypothetical scenario in which one of the company's Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles was deployed from Edwards Air Force Base in California to assist with disaster relief following a powerful hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast of the United States.
A recently completed Tactical Aircraft operations study performed for the U.S. Air Force by Lockheed Martin supports the case for boosting procurement of the company's F/A-22 Raptor above the 180 aircraft currently approved by the Pentagon, the company said. Seeking to support the Air Force in its bid to reverse last year's cuts to the program, Lockheed Martin said the study revealed that a force of roughly 250 F/A-22s mixed with the company's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter could win certain scenarios at one-third the overall cost of older U.S. fighters.
