In a move to get beyond the current FAA restriction that allows unmanned aerial vehicles to operate in national air space but not in concert with manned aircraft, the Air Force wants to build an “experience base” from which the FAA would agree that UAVs provide an “equivalent level of safety” to a similar class of manned aircraft. The Air Force has issued a request for information to develop a modeling, simulation, and analysis environment to investigate and “derive initial capability requirements” for what the FAA terms the “see and avoid” rule applied to manned aircraft operating in the national airspace. Interested vendors have until Oct. 9 to respond.
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…