If news reports are true, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council has recommended the Air Force become the lead for medium to high altitude unmanned aerial vehicles. However JROC wants joint program offices established to watch over specific systems. The Air Force had proposed earlier this year that it become executive agent for higher flying UAVs to standardize data output, to create more efficient—and less costly—acquisition efforts, and to fold them into the process overseeing combat airspace—to keep them from flying into manned aircraft or each other. The proposal, as with the one floated two years ago that the JROC summarily dismissed, met with instant and vocal opposition from the other services. Lawmakers, on the other hand, appear poised to force DOD’s hand. Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley said last month that he had been having “cordial discussions” with the other services over the UAV issue.
The U.S. thwarted a drone attack on U.S. forces at Al Asad air base in western Iraq on April 22, marking the first time that American troops have been targeted since February, U.S. officials said. “We can confirm it was an attack on Al Asad,” a defense official told Air & Space…