Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, head of USAF manpower and personnel, says Air Force efforts to recruit and keep scientists and engineers are ongoing. “We are always short of engineers and people of a scientific bent,” Brady told attendees at AFA’s Air & Space Conference last week, adding that the reason is because “the US is not producing enough of these people.” Brady said he knows one former USAF scientist, now teaching at a university, that has no Americans as grad students.
A combined Navy and Air Force program is seeking to build a smaller version of a ubiquitous air-to-air missile that could give advanced aircraft, such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, greater magazine depth in a high-end fight.