Maj. Julie Petrina, an ANG C-130J pilot, noted Monday at the AFA conference that the Maryland Guard had to educate mission planners in the theater about the C-130J’s capabilities. Compared to older E and H model Hercules, the C-130Js fly faster, can offload quicker, and the stretched versions (making up about half the force in-theater) can carry larger loads. The mission planners in Southwest Asia didn’t initially understand the J model capabilities, however, and would schedule them to fly slower missions with smaller-than-ideal loads. “They don’t understand our capability,” Petrina said. The education process is still ongoing.
The Space Force has selected an initial pool of vendors that will compete to build sensors and satellites that track airborne targets, as Pentagon officials push to transform the capability from a prototyping effort to an operational one.