USAF Joint Terminal Attack Controllers 
assisting with recovery operations after Hurricane Katrina had the latest in battlefield technology, enabling them to view real-time video from specially equipped aircraft. Air Combat Command deployed 10 Remote Operations Video Enhanced Receiver—or ROVER—units to the Gulf Coast area for use by JTACs from 9th Air Force, headquartered at Shaw AFB, S.C. According to ACC, ROVERs received imagery from active duty A-10 and Air National Guard C-130 and Navy P-3 aircraft, as well as the camera of a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle mounted on top of a hotel in downtown New Orleans.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
