Air Force-Army cooperation has come a long with since Operation Anaconda in early 2002. [Read our coverage here and here.] In that Army-led action, ground force commanders failed to even notify the air component until shortly before the operation was to begin. The result was chaos, as ground forces ran into trouble and the air component was forced to improvise a protective response.
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.