US Joint Forces Command has joined forces with Lockheed Martin to pursue the ideal future joint command—resplendent in global information capabilities. The collaboration is a three-year R&D effort to determine the nature of the joint task force of the future and how a future commander might exercise command and control. A USAF officer, Lt. Col. Dewey Parker, is JFCOM’s principal investigator assigned to the effort. What does Lockheed get out of it? They get access to JFCOM warfighting subject matter experts and results from the collaborative work.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…