Tagged: Air Force

The U.S. Air Force's grounding of its Thunderbirds jet demonstration team means the planes won't be headlining this summer's Dayton Air Show.

It's not a surprise. The Air Force earlier announced that it planned to ground the Thunderbirds April 1 if a federal budget deal wasn't reached.

Organizers of the popular Dayton Air Show made the Thunderbirds' cancelation official in a release Thursday.

The air show is scheduled to go on June 22 and 23 with 14 other aerial acts.

The Air Force says the cancelation of a computer modernization program will cost 115 contract employees their jobs at Wright-Patterson Air Force base.

Base spokesman Daryl Mayer said Thursday that cancelation of the Expeditionary Combat Support System program also means that an additional 55 civilian and military employees will be reassigned from that program.

Mayer says the canceled program had been intended to replace some older computer systems to meet statutory requirements for financial and audit readiness mandated by Congress.

A research center at the University of Dayton has won a $42.2 million dollar contract from the U.S. Air Force.

The Dayton Daily News reports that the contract awarded to the UD’s Research Institute will maintain 30 existing jobs at the facility.

And another $1.2 million contract from GE Aviation for related research will create as many as five new positions there.

The Air Force contract is for research and development in advanced power and thermal management technologies for hypersonic and long-range aircraft.