The Air Force plans to shed more than half its active duty force of 74 C-21 executive jet transports to aid its cost cutting efforts, reports Stars and Stripes. Some Air National Guard units—like North Dakota’s 119th Fighter Wing—will pick up C-21s, while others will go to the boneyard, formally the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, at Davis Monthan AFB, Ariz. The Air Force will send one or more to its Flight Standards Agency in Oklahoma to replace one that crashed last year.
The Air Force is leaning toward a less-sophisticated autonomous aircraft in the second increment of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the services chief futurist said. He also suggested that the next increment of CCA may be air-launched, a la the "Rapid Dragon" experiments conducted by the service in recent years.