There is a cadre of airmen who put the “straight” in straight shooting F-16 Vipers by using boresighting to recalibrate the fighter’s 20 mm cannon after weapons maintenance work and hard landings. Journalist SrA. Gena Armstrong reports that one such group of airmen at Misawa AB, Japan, go through exacting training to learn how to align the cannon with the pilot’s head’s up display targeting system. Weapons trainer SSgt. Eric Reid notes that the three-hour process, requiring a boresight telescope at the back end of the aircraft and a collimeter, or targeting scope, at the front, “can be tedious at times.”
The Space Force wants to emphasize small, low-cost systems and commercial capabilities in the next generation of Silent Barker surveillance satellites, drawing lessons from its work to replace the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness program.
