June 17, 2026 - No. 24 In This Issue : Aviation Workforce Grant Application Deadline Approaches : F-35 fighter readiness rates dropped significantly due to sustained shortages : Boeing updates Ghost Bat drone with larger wings and weapons : GPS jamming has reached space : The power behind Germany’s first F-35 is now installed. : IATA: SAF Production Volumes Still Disappointing : GAO: Tanker Fleet Struggling with Readiness due to Parts Shortage, KC-46 Delays : What the Space Force Is Eyeing for Its Future GPS Enterprise : How Germany turned a fighter jet failure into an opportunity : Gulfstream Opens Customer Support Office in Singapore : Graduate Research Request Aviation Workforce Grant Application Deadline Approaches FAA is furnishing $1,000 grants for pilot and maintenance workforce development By Kerry Lynch • Editor, AIN monthly magazine June 15, 2026 The FAA is accepting applications for the fourth round of Aviation Workforce Development Grants for pilots and maintenance technicians through 11:59 EDT June 22. However, that grant portal (Grants.gov) is undergoing scheduled maintenance from June 20 to 22, and the agency is advising potential applicants to submit before June 20 to avoid delays or other issues. No deadline extensions will be granted from this outage, the agency added, noting that it will only accept electronic applications. Congress initially established the workforce development grants in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 and later updated the programs in the subsequent reauthorization bill in 2024. Under those measures, the agency is authorized to award grants annually through fiscal year 2028. The agency said it was providing grants to academia and the aviation community “to help prepare a more inclusive talent pool of pilots and aviation maintenance technicians, to inspire and recruit the next generation of aviation professionals.” Targeting education and recruitment, the pilot and maintenance technician workforce grants are limited to $1 million per year per entity. Entities eligible to apply for pilot grants include air carriers, Part 91K organizations, accredited educational institutions (vocational, higher education, high schools, or secondary schools), flight schools, labor organizations representing professional aircraft pilots, aviation-related non-profit organizations, or state/local governments. The maintenance grants also include educational institutions, non-profits, labor organizations, and state/local governments, but cover certified repair stations as well. Eligible projects must involve a program or curriculum that provides students in high school, secondary school, or higher education institutions with meaningful aviation programming. In addition, the projects could involve apprenticeships, internships, scholarships, flight instruction curriculum, military transitions, or outreach to underrepresented populations. F-35 fighter readiness rates dropped significantly due to sustained shortages • GAO: Just Over One in Four F-35As Fully Mission Capable • Early F-35As May Get Axed Even Though Overall Readiness Has ... • Only 1 in 4 F-35s is fully mission capable, GAO finds F-35 Lightning II full mission capable rates dropped sharply to 25% in fiscal year 2025, a steep decline from 38% in fiscal year 2021, according to a June 2026 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Concurrently, the overall mission capable rate—the ability to perform at least one assigned task—plummeted from 67% to 44% over the same timeframe. Sustained shortages of crucial spare parts, persistent maintenance bottlenecks, and unresolved software delays continue to keep the majority of the Pentagon's premier fighter fleet grounded. [1, 2, 3] Primary Drivers of the Readiness Decline [4] • Severe Parts Shortages: The GAO identified 48 critical components that suppliers cannot produce in sufficient quantities, notably including cockpit canopies. Jets are grounded nearly 30% of the time purely due to missing parts. [1, 5] • Cannibalization of Aircraft: Due to a lagging commercial supply chain, multiple bases are routinely "cannibalizing" parts from one F-35 to keep other aircraft in the squadron flight-ready. [6] • Operational Imbalances: The military heavily prioritizes active deployment zones, such as surging parts to support F-35s operating in the Middle East. While this maintains combat readiness abroad, it severely weakens and strips resources from domestic training and fleet units. [7, 8] • Sustainment Bottlenecks: Maintenance depots face severe backlogs, lack necessary technical data access, and are dealing with multi-generational configuration differences across older aircraft lots. [1, 9] Financial Impacts and Corrective Actions Metric / Initiative [2, 3, 5, 10, 11]Status & ImpactAdditional Funding RequestedThe Pentagon is seeking an extra $13.7 billion through 2031 to stabilize the supply chain.Incentive Fee FailuresThe GAO noted the Pentagon paid over $114 million in performance bonuses to Lockheed Martin despite stagnating readiness.The "GSS Reset" StrategyLaunched by the Joint Program Office to target an 80% mission capable rate and a 65% full mission capable rate by 2030.Long-Term Budget GapA projected $1.2 billion annual gap remains between what it costs to sustain the F-35 fleet and what the military services can afford by the mid-2030s. The Pentagon continues to stand behind the F-35 as the primary backbone of its future air power, operating over 800 jets with long-term plans to procure 1,700 more. However, the GAO warns that structural reforms regarding how contract incentives are awarded, alongside immediate supply chain investments, are mandatory before any measurable fleet recovery will be seen. [10, 12] Boeing updates Ghost Bat drone with larger wings and weapons At the ILA Berlin Air Show, Boeing unveiled the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Block 3, introducing 25% larger wings and internal weapons bays. These enhancements transform the uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) from a prototype into an operationally ready, low-observable stealth platform. The design balances payload capacity and combat radius to meet evolving Requirements for allied nations. [1, 2, 3, 4] Expanded Size and Physical Upgrades The physical modifications structurally enhance the drone's range and operational footprint: • Larger Wingspan: The wing area is extended by over 25 percent to increase lift and aerodynamic efficiency. • Increased Payload: The drone accommodates an additional 2,000 pounds (907 kg) of fuel and mission hardware. • Take-Off Weight: Maximum takeoff weight jumps from 10,000 pounds to 12,000 pounds (5,400 kg). • Useful Load: The upgraded structure delivers a useful combat load exceeding 4,500 pounds (2,000 kg). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] Internal Weapons Integration To preserve its low radar cross-section, the Block 3 layout shifts weapons carriage inside the airframe: [1, 2, 3] • Stealth Maintenance: Paired internal weapons bays built into the fuselage sides hide munitions from enemy radar. • Missile Capacity: The internal bays carry up to two AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM). • Bomb Capacity: Alternatively, the bays hold up to four GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) for precision strike roles. • External Stations: Three optional external hardpoints remain available for missions where maximum stealth is non-critical. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] Communications and Modularity The platform receives major electronic and architecture updates to improve mission command: [1, 2] • Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS): New satellite communication links enable control over unlimited standoff distances. • Flexible Control: Operators can manage the drone from ground stations, naval vessels, or crewed fighter jets. • Modular Nose: A 1.5-cubic-meter missionized nose section supports quick swaps between ISR, electronic warfare, and strike roles. [1, 2, 3] Strategic Partnerships and Global Market Originally developed by Boeing Defence Australia, the updated MQ-28 is a central element in Boeing's push for European defense contracts: [1, 2, 3] • German Bid: Boeing partnered with Rheinmetall, Diehl Defence, and Rohde & Schwarz to offer the MQ-28 to Germany's Luftwaffe. • Local Production: Initial production will occur in Australia before transitioning assembly and systems integration directly to Germany. • Market Competition: The Block 3 configuration is positioned to compete against German AI startup Helsing's CA-1 Europa drone. [1, 2, 3, 4] Would you like to explore how the Ghost Bat integrates with crewed jets like the F-35, or look into its competitors in the loyal wingman market? GPS jamming has reached space From orbit a single source can blank an entire continent at once, far beyond any jammer on the ground. Scientists traced short GPS outages across Europe, from Iceland to Italy, to three Russian satellites in at least 3 of 75 cases logged since 2019, NYT. 1/ The power behind Germany’s first F-35 is now installed. Note: See photo in the original article. The aircraft recently completed engine install, marking another key production milestone on the path to delivering advanced 5th Gen capability for Germany. IATA: SAF Production Volumes Still Disappointing Global sustainable aviation fuel production is still less than 1% of jet fuel use Five years after IATA’s member airlines committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the organization is seeing a slow increase in the production of sustainable aviation fuel, the key lynchpin in achieving that goal. © Curt Epstein/AIN By Curt Epstein • Business Aviation Services Editor June 11, 2026 A new report from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that this year’s production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will reach 2.4 million tonnes, an amount that still represents just 0.8% of aviation fuel use. Presently, the vast majority of SAF produced comes from used cooking oils, fats, and greases via the HEFA process, but those feedstocks are limited. Next-generation SAFs use large amounts of renewable energy to convert green hydrogen, water, and CO2 into jet fuel using a power-to-liquid process. IATA noted that recent mandates in the EU and UK call for e-SAF production of around 0.6 million tonnes by 2030. However, global production capacity currently operating and under construction stands at around 0.02 million tonnes, with only one production site in operation. The organization estimates that it would take approximately 20 commercial-scale refineries to achieve the mandated volume. However, no new final investment decisions for e-SAF facilities have been made over the past year. “It looks to be another disappointing year for SAF production,” said IATA director general Willie Walsh. “The path to meeting 65% of our needs in 2050 is growing more difficult with each year of ineffectively sequenced government policies and oil companies’ manifest lack of interest.” Walsh added that the current bottleneck in petroleum due to the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, and the resulting price spikes, should add even more urgency to the development of renewables, including SAF. “But we have yet to see either the energy shock, the need to develop energy independence and jobs, or the urgency to mitigate climate change materialize in the incentives needed to create a viable SAF market.” GAO: Tanker Fleet Struggling with Readiness due to Parts Shortage, KC-46 Delays June 10, 2026 By Matthew Cox The Air Force tanker fleet “did not meet” its availability and mission capable rate goals from fiscal 2019 to 2025, in large part because of parts shortages and delays fielding the KC-46 refueler, according to a Government Accountability Office report released June 10. The government watchdog also noted that a shortage of skilled maintainers in the Air Force contributed to lower readiness rates in the tanker fleet. The report comes in the wake of moves by the Air Force to resolve the KC-46’s deficiencies and availability issues before it agrees to sign a new contract with Boeing for 75 additional Pegasus aircraft in 2028 in an effort to replace more of the aging KC-135 Stratotanker fleet. “The percentage of aerial refueling tankers that are available and mission capable has remained persistently below the standards that the Air Force established for the fleet,” the GAO report states. The Eisenhower-era KC-135 had a mission capable rate of just under 68 percent in fiscal 2024, the last year the Air Force released those rates. That same year, the KC-46 had a 62 percent MC rate. The GAO omitted detailed readiness rates from its report for operational security reasons. The report noted multiple KC-46 program delays due to critical deficiencies with the redesigned Remote Vision System 2.0—the camera and video system boom operators use to refuel other aircraft—and the new aerial-refueling subsystem. In certain conditions, the boom operator using the current RVS is unable to see the receptacle clearly, risking damage to the receiving plane if the boom scrapes against that aircraft. And the original boom telescoping actuator had to be redesigned after it was found to cause the boom to become “stiff” and prevent it from refueling certain aircraft. As a result of these issues with the KC-46A, the Air Force is continuing to rely on a fleet composed largely of KC-135 aircraft, the report states: “The continued reliance on the KC-135 has led to an increase in the missions assigned to the aircraft, thereby increasing the necessary sustainment and maintenance work to ensure the KC-135 fleet is available and mission capable.” The Air Force recently announced a multipronged agreement with Boeing to improve KC-46 readiness and availability by 2030. A major element of the plan is to “accelerate” the fielding of the new RVS 2.0 by installing the new system on existing KC-46s as they come in for depot-level maintenance. The projected fielding for RVS 2.0 is now early 2028, a slight slip from the previous target of summer 2027. Air Force officials maintain that the strategy shortens the overall retrofit timeline from 13 years to seven years, according to the announcement. Spare parts shortages also affected tanker fleet availability, the report states. “The Air Force faces critical shortages of key maintenance parts for both KC-135 and KC-46A aircraft,” officials told the GAO. “Maintainers from multiple units cited parts failure to be the key contributing factor to low availability and mission capable rates.” The Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency told the GAO that the KC-46A had higher failure rates than expected, the report states. While the KC-46 is based on Boeing’s 767 commercial aircraft, “the requirements for a military version of the same aircraft differ substantially and result in higher usage and subsequently shorter lifespan of critical parts.” The Air Force also did not plan for the correct number of parts to ensure timely replacements, the report states. The service and the DLA told the GAO that the defense industrial base faces challenges to provide replacements parts, the report states, adding that some parts are no longer in production, especially for the older KC-135. Air Force officials also told the GAO that the service “has since resolved the critical shortages” through improved coordination with the contractor to ensure timely parts delivery and internal measures such as reverse engineering of key components, the report states. Still more efforts are underway to ease the parts shortage. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach told lawmakers on April 30 that the service has prioritized readiness by budging $24.7 billion for weapons systems sustainment in its proposed fiscal 2027 budget. Wilsbach added that the 2027 request also includes more than $4 billion for the Working Capital Fund, so the service can buy the critical spare parts. The new Air Force-Boeing KC-46 agreement also includes a five-year “performance-based logistics agreement” to better support the aerial-refueling subsystem and other key components. A third aspect of the plan involves the Air Force “repurposing five early-build aircraft”—two for testing and three of which will cannibalized for their engines, landing gear, and other high-value spare parts and injected into the operational fleet. These early-build aircraft are initial production units of the current KC-46 contract, an Air Force spokesperson said. They were originally intended to be refurbished and delivered to the fleet in early 2031, so repurposing them for spare parts now will free up “otherwise trapped materiel,” according to the May 13 announcement. The KC-46 readiness improvement effort “is expected to provide a near-term availability boost of approximately 6 percent and provide a long-term aircraft availability increase of over 20 percent by 2030,” William Bailey, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics, said during the May 13 congressional hearing. Air Force unit officials also told GAO that “there are shortages of skilled maintainers to conduct scheduled maintenance work at the depots, as well as unexpected repairs at the unit level,” the report states. The service’s transition from military to civilian maintainers at the depots in recent years has resulted in an influx of new and less experienced personnel, the GAO also found. Some bases that operate both the KC-135 and KC-46 maintain a 100 percent staffing level for aircraft maintainers, “but about 75 percent of the maintainers lack the necessary experience.” “Officials from the KC-46A program office said the Air Force did not sufficiently plan for skilled personnel that would be needed to service the new aircraft once it became available,” he report states. What the Space Force Is Eyeing for Its Future GPS Enterprise June 10, 2026 By Courtney Albon After years of talking about the issue and a few fits and starts, the Space Force is refining its plans to bolster its legacy GPS architecture amid fears that its satellites and ground systems are increasingly vulnerable to threats like jamming, spoofing, and even kinetic attack. The service has equipped its newest GPS satellites with more powerful military signals and defenses against signal jamming and spoofing, but new threats to the system—as essential to modern warfare as it is to the U.S. economy—have leaders weighing how to make the system more resilient. Col. Neil Barnas, who leads Navigation Warfare and PNT acquisition as commander of System Delta 831, said that although GPS continues to be the foundation of the U.S. military’s PNT capabilities, even the current generation of satellites, GPS III, was designed for a different time. “Everything we’re putting in orbit today, all of that was really envisioned in the early 2000s. GPS III was put on contract in 2008,” Barnas told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “And so, the world has changed a lot.” The Defense Department views GPS as the foundational layer of its broader PNT architecture. U.S. leaders have sounded the alarm about vulnerabilities and capability gaps across the GPS enterprise with increasing frequency in recent years, from satellites on orbit to the terrestrial operations segment to the terminals that receive GPS signals for users on the ground. Signal jamming and spoofing—ubiquitous in Ukraine and Russia as well as in recent operations in Iran—is of particular concern to the Pentagon, which is highly dependent on GPS for precision targeting, communications, and navigation. The Space Force’s roadmap for modernizing the system includes near-term upgrades to the constellation, including fielding 12 more GPS IIIF satellites, part of what the service refers to as its “Generation 3” architecture. Those spacecraft, expected to start launching in 2028, will be equipped with stronger signals and accuracy than previous spacecraft. Barnas said the service is weighing potential modifications to those satellites, including adding an antenna to strengthen its military signal. The Space Force is also working with the Air Force and the other services to improve the terminals and devices that allow users to access GPS signals and is eyeing improvements to the control segment that operates those satellites. At the same time, Barnas said, the Space Force is looking ahead and crafting concepts for what it calls a Generation 4, or Gen4, GPS capability—from redundant ground systems that can withstand or adapt in response to targeted kinetic attacks, to proliferated constellations distributed across multiple orbits, to new protected signals for small drones. “We’re broadly thinking about an integrated resilience strategy across space, ground, and user,” Barnas said. “We’re really trying to come at space-based PNT very holistically.” Ground First The Space Force’s fiscal 2027 budget requests $115 million for GPS Gen4 and projects it will need another $1.8 billion through fiscal 2031. Barnas said most of the near-term Gen4 funding is focused on designing a ground segment. That “ground-first” approach follows years of challenges in the GPS enterprise–and really, across the entire space portfolio—to deliver capable, secure ground systems before the satellites they’re meant to operate are in orbit. The most recent, high-profile example of this is the Next-Generation GPS Operational Control Segment, or GPS OCX, which the Space Force canceled in April. Developed by RTX, the system was already 10 years late by the time the service pulled the plug. For the Gen4 ground segment, the service is looking first at the commercial market to see what technology is available now that could help make the system more resilient. “We’re doing market research currently with industry to look at what are the technologies that they offer, which I think are going to be considerable, and so we’ll see those results shortly,” he said, adding that the service is looking at more near-term options to tap into the commercial antenna marketplace to support the Gen3 ground architecture. It’s also considering how that future architecture might be able to integrate with GPS-like systems from other countries, like Europe’s Galileo or Japan’s QZSS, and is exploring options for ingesting space domain awareness data that it could use to optimize GPS satellite operations. “We’re thinking about PNT situational awareness, and how does GPS actually become a user of that data, which is actually becoming incredibly prolific,” Barnas said. Resilient Satellites Beyond the ground segment, the Space Force is exploring options to make the next generation of GPS satellites more resilient. In 2024, it kicked off a program called Resilient GPS and chose three companies to design a constellation of smaller, low-cost satellites to augment the larger constellation. When it later attempted to defund the effort in fiscal ‘26, Congress appropriated $15 million to keep it alive. The service is using that money to fund the next phase of R-GPS and has tasked the three companies who participated in the first increment—Sierra Space, L3Harris, and Astranis—to conduct studies on things like crypto devices and GPS monitoring. That work, he said, will feed into the future Gen4 architecture. Barnas and his team are also closely monitoring the commercial PNT satellite market and the new crop of companies that are planning to launch dual-use PNT constellations in low-Earth orbit. The Commercial Space Office and the Air Force Research Laboratory are working with at least two of those firms, Xona and TrustPoint, to explore how their fleets could augment GPS. Both companies have launched initial demonstration satellites and plan to start providing an operational PNT service in 2027. In interviews with Air & Space Forces Magazine, executives said they’ve seen interest from the government in a turnkey solution that they can offer as a service and potentially integrate with existing systems. That interoperability is particularly important given the high cost and technical challenges that come with developing and fielding satellites, ground systems, and user equipment that all work together seamlessly. “The cost of building the satellites is relatively small in comparison to the cost of deploying all the user equipment,” Xona CEO Brian Manning said. “And that’s why it’s really critical to have services and capabilities that can be integrated easily with equipment that is either already deployed or the equipment that they are deploying now.” TrustPoint CEO Patrick Shannon said he expects that one day the Pentagon and other government customers will buy capacity from commercial PNT providers in the same way they procure imagery and SATCOM from commercial firms. “The long-term goal is to essentially be a provider of sort of an enterprise-level subscription to the government, where they pay annually and their user base is supported,” Shannon said. “I think the economics have already been proven out by those other two use cases, and the specifics of how to implement it and who should own it, who should be accountable for PNT is what’s in development.” Barnas said the Space Force’s work with these companies is nascent today, but he expects they’ll be conducting demonstrations and crafting acquisition strategies for commercial PNT in the not-too-distant future. “We don’t have any plans for this at the moment, but certainly we’re engaged with those companies,” he said. “In the near term, we’re looking at their technical approach, their cyber approach, to make sure that it’s something that we can use for national security purposes.” How Germany turned a fighter jet failure into an opportunity After the collapse of its fighter jet project with France, Berlin is turning fiscal firepower into a claim for aerospace leadership. By Chris Lunday BERLIN — Plans by France, Germany and Spain to jointly build a cutting-edge fighter jet may be dead. Germany’s aerospace ambitions are not. “Germany was always a pioneer of aviation,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the opening of the ILA Berlin air show on Wednesday, presenting a new aviation strategy meant to bind together civil flight, military aerospace, innovation and national security. The confidence underlines that Germany feels freed after the collapse of the Future Combat Air System fighter jet component, which ended thanks to irreconcilable differences between France's Dassault Aviation and Germany's Airbus Defence and Space. But unlike Spain, which spends little on defense and has a less-developed military-industrial sector, and technologically advanced but cash-strapped France, the mood at the Berlin air show underlined the feeling that Germany has the technology, the companies and the fiscal headroom to take on a gargantuan project like building a cutting-edge warplane. Merz sought to turn the end of the fighter-jet effort with France from a diplomatic embarrassment into an industrial opening. He said that ending the long-running deadlock would “open up new possibilities for industry” to move ahead on building a modern combat aircraft by other routes. It shows that Germany is beginning to talk like a country that expects its money to translate into leadership. For decades, France — one of Europe's two nuclear powers with a historically muscular military — held the psychological advantage over Germany in defense. France had Dassault and its Rafale warplane, a nuclear mission, aircraft carriers and a state tradition that treats aerospace as an expression of national power. Germany, by contrast, was more comfortable inside multinational programs — powerful, rich and technologically capable, but rarely eager to be a prime mover. Diverging fiscal paths The balance is changing. Under NATO’s definition, Germany overtook France in defense spending in 2019, when Berlin spent €46.9 billion compared with France’s €44.2 billion. By 2029, Germany is expected to spend €153 billion a year on defense. That’s about 3.5 percent of GDP, in line with NATO's target for 2035 and the country’s most ambitious military expansion since reunification. France, by comparison, plans to reach €72.8 billion in 2029 thanks to an updated military planning law now before the French parliament. France faces far tighter fiscal constraints, and budget watchdogs warn that the extra defense effort could mean politically fraught social spending cuts. Germany's public debt is 63.5 percent of GDP, while France's stands at 115.6 percent. By 2029, Germany is expected to spend €153 billion a year on defense. | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images While Paris faces financial headwinds, it does have tech experience. The Rafale was developed by Dassault, and the company helped finance it thanks to strong export sales; the United Arab Emirates’ 2021 order for 80 Rafale F4 jets was a massive cash injection. But if it wants to develop its own sixth-generation fighter, as Dassault CEO Éric Trappier repeatedly said his company had the capacity to do, it will have to lock in future exports. The overall FCAS program has been valued at around €100 billion, a scale that would be challenging for France to finance alone. But exports also carry risks. Paris had hoped Abu Dhabi would help finance the Rafale F5 upgrade, but talks collapsed after the Emirates sought deeper involvement in development and access to advanced technologies, according to La Tribune. It underlines the original logic behind FCAS — France has the deeper warplane-building technology, while Germany has the larger checkbook. But now German industry is moving quickly into the space left behind by France. An Airbus-led group of defense companies, dubbed Team Gen 6, this week submitted a position paper to the German government on a sixth-generation fighter jet project. The group includes Airbus, Diehl Defence, Hensoldt, Liebherr, MBDA, MTU Aero Engines and Rohde & Schwarz. Michael Schoellhorn, head of Airbus Defence and Space, said German industry had “the expertise, the technologies, the capacity, and the clear determination to develop and build FCAS and a sixth-generation fighter jet — for Europe and with Europe.” Schoellhorn's comments show that Germany is not simply offering to contribute to Europe’s next combat aircraft. It is offering itself as the industrial center of gravity. "We do not favor Germany going it alone," he said. "We think European. But we want German industry to have a central role." Still, more than money is needed to build a cutting-edge stealth fighter plus the drones, surveillance and computer systems needed to survive on a future battlefield. Germany will need partners, an export strategy, engineering authority and military requirements that can survive political cycles. But the tone at ILA was not one of defeat. In a morning appearance alongside Schoellhorn, German air force chief Lt. Gen. Holger Neumann spoke the language of urgency, saying the Bundeswehr needed answers “today — not in one or three years.” Merz summed up Germany's new confidence. “Germany presents itself as a country that lives the future of flight and invests in it,” the chancellor said. “We are an attractive location for the entire aviation industry,” one that stands “at the top of the world” with innovations in civil and military aerospace. Gulfstream Opens Customer Support Office in Singapore Gulfstream Aerospace has reinforced its reach in Asia-Pacific with a new onsite customer support team in Singapore, the company announced today. Located at the facility of sister company Jet Aviation, the Gulfstream customer support office is the company’s first in Singapore and will provide immediate access to Gulfstream personnel, expertise, and support. The office is staffed with eight Gulfstream employees, including customer technical managers, materials and quality team members, a field service representative, and a regional sales manager. “Gulfstream is seeing increased activity across Asia, and Singapore was a natural choice for our next customer support expansion given its role as a leading aerospace hub,” said Gulfstream customer support senior v-p Lor Izzard. “Adding this dedicated onsite team allows us to deliver a more seamless and convenient service experience for customers across the region.” Jet Aviation’s Singapore facility is one of six Gulfstream factory-authorized service centers, Gulfstream noted. The new office builds on its broader customer support presence in Asia-Pacific, including nine field service representatives, three Gulfstream Field and Airborne Support Teams, and a Singapore-based 5,000-sq-ft distribution center. In addition, Gulfstream has named 10 authorized warranty facilities worldwide. Graduate Research Request Candidate in Aviation with a specialization in Human Factors at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. With nearly 40 years of experience in aircraft maintenance and aviation safety, his dissertation research examines how Aircraft Maintenance Technicians (AMTs) experience and describe decision-making during troubleshooting, inspection, and repair activities in Part 121 and Part 135 operations. The IRB-approved study seeks currently employed Part 121 and Part 135 AMTs with at least one year of maintenance experience to participate in one confidential 60 to 75-minute virtual interview focused on real-world maintenance decision-making. Participation is voluntary and confidential, and no proprietary or company-specific information will be requested. Although employed by the FAA, this research is conducted solely in an academic capacity and is not affiliated with or conducted on behalf of the FAA. Individuals interested in participating or learning more may contact Steve Poiani at poianadf@my.erau.edu. https://sites.google.com/view/aircraftmaintenancestudy/home Steve Poiani Doctoral Candidate Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University poianadf@my.erau.edu Curt Lewis