Included in the House authorizers version of the 2007 defense authorization bill is a provision to permanently reduce by six months the time-in-grade requirement for an officer to become eligible for promotion to captain (or Navy, lieutenant). The current period is 24 months, but the House Armed Services Committee would make it 18 months. The same measure would provide an across-the-board military pay raise of 2.7 percent, which the committee says “would reduce the gap between average military and private sector pay raises from 4.5 percent to 4 percent.
Sikorsky is pitching a modified "U-Hawk" version of older UH-60 Black Hawk series helicopters as autonomous resupply aircraft with additional capabilities as missile or drone swarm launchers.
