Air Combat Command’s 5th Combat Communications Group at Robins AFB, Ga., hosted the fourth United Architecture, a two-week exercise in which USAF and Royal Air Force combat communicators join forces—this time in the field. Robins journalist Holly Birchfield reports that 38 5th CCG airmen and 32 airmen from RAF’s 3 Field Communications Squadron spent the last two weeks in Americus, Ga., where they put their jointly developed air operability manual to the test. Maj. Corey Ramsby, US exercise commander, said that last year the groups deployed to RAF Fairford, UK, where they “validated” techniques developed “in the lab,” but that this fourth exercise provided a “field environment, simulating a bare-base.”
With key members of Congress wavering on the possibility of a $350 billion defense reconciliation bill, defense experts told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the Pentagon is likely drawing up budget backup plans—but such plans would face hard choices between high-end weapons and low-cost drones and other programs in…