British defense officials are more optimistic now than they were immediately following last week’s Senate Armed Services hearings into the Joint Strike Fighter’s alternate engine program, reports Reuters news service. Subsequent to the hearings, a British embassy spokesman told the wire service, talks over touchy technology transfer issues progressed satisfactorily. Spokesman Steve Atkins said, “We are more optimistic that we can find a way through.”
The Defense Innovation Unit is gearing up for the first flight of its commercially developed hypersonic testbed as soon as the end of February—part of a larger project to quickly increase the cadence of the Pentagon’s hypersonic flight testing and field advanced, high-speed systems and components at scale.



