PALMDALE, Calif.—Northrop Grumman is expanding its secretive Plant 42 site and is in the middle of a hiring spree, but company officials won’t explicitly say whether the moves are ramping up for the new B-21 Raider bomber. The company has spent “hundreds of millions” of dollars to expand its presence to facilitate “other programs,” said Janis Pamiljans, the president of Northrop’s aerospace sector. As the Air Force prepares to replace its legacy B-2 with the B-21, the company says it is leveraging lessons learned from B-2 production and sustainment for the undisclosed “other programs.” The Air Force maintains the development program is on schedule and faring well. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

The Air Force has finished inspecting certain wing joints on all 113 operational C-130s that were at risk for unusual cracks, the service said in an Aug. 21 release. Another 18 airplanes that are undergoing depot maintenance will also be checked in the course of that sustainment work, which could take weeks to months, Air Force Magazine previously reported. About half of those 18 C-130s were already slated for “rainbow fitting” inspections during their heavy maintenance routine, while the inspection was added to the schedule for others as a result of Air Mobility Command’s deep-dive into the problem on nearly one-quarter of the Lockheed Martin-built C-130 fleet. Airmen discovered the defect on two aircraft: one that prompted the broader investigation and one that was looked at within the past two weeks. Those cracks are being repaired. —Rachel S. Cohen

The Air Force this week awarded Boeing a contract worth up to almost $1 billion to expand its effort to add new wings to A-10s, shortly after wrapping up a previous initiative that replaced wings on most of the fleet. “The Air Force currently has a fleet of 281 A-10s and recently announced the completion of wing replacements for 173 A-10 aircraft, by Boeing, from an earlier contract award,” the service said in an Aug. 21 release. The Aug. 21 contract allows the Air Force to re-wing up to 109 aircraft, plus three spares, “depending on how many aircraft are needed for the future,” the service said. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

Navy Adm. Mike Gilday promised to prioritize readiness, modernization, and people as the service's 32nd Chief of Naval Operations during his Aug. 22 swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C. “My focus in the coming years is to move forward … with a sense of urgency, in sustaining our readiness and modernizing our force and taking care of our most important weapon system: our sailors and their families,” he said. “We will question our assumptions, we will think differently about the competition that we are now in, we will be the Navy the nation needs now, and we will build the Navy the nation needs to fight and win in the future.” Read the full story by Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory.