Brian Everstine is the Pentagon Editor for Aviation Week, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining Aviation Week in August 2021, Brian covered the Pentagon for Air Force Magazine. Brian began covering defense aviation in 2011 as a reporter for Military Times. Over a decade as a defense journalist, he has reported from dozens of bases at home and abroad, including austere airstrips in Afghanistan, the cockpit of a B-52 over the South Pacific and the boom operator station of a KC-46. Before the military beat, Brian covered the Washington state legislature for the Associated Press.
The U.S. Marine Corps and the White House are starting the integration of the new Sikorsky VH-92A presidential helicopter after declaring it reached initial operational capability (IOC), though the Navy says full operational capability could be delayed without fixes to a troubled electronics system.
The U.S. Air Force expects its future Next Generation Air Dominance sixth-generation aircraft to cost multiple hundreds of millions per copy, and the service is already expecting cost offsets to come with open systems architecture and other components that are government and not contractor owned.
The U.S. Air Force will buy Boeing E-7A Wedgetails to replace part of its E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System fleet after months of speculation, with a prototype expected to be delivered in 2027.
