Lockheed Martin on Wednesday showed off its new virtual training system for Joint Strike Fighter test pilots. The company expects to field the system in February. The preview offered a look at tomorrow’s state-of-the-art technology—offering a more-comprehensive approach to warfighter training than was true of its more elaborate and costly predecessors, said Lorraine Martin, Lockheed’s vice president for flight solutions. The pilot will train in an F-35 JSF “glass cockpit,” facing an interactive touch-screen computer interface that can be loaded onto a desktop or laptop. True to the multiservice, multinational scope of the project, pilots test in a virtual environment in all possible scenarios: Carrier-based operations, air-to-air combat, air to ground missions, and many others—all in desktop or laptop format. —Marc Schanz
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
