Lockheed Martin has agreed to provide the University of North Dakota’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Science with access to an unmanned aerial vehicle. Bruce Smith, dean of the school, says Lockheed would make an operational UAV available for test flights as early as this spring. This will fit in nicely with the school’s new UAV center of excellence, not to mention the UAV mission that awaits Grand Forks Air Force Base. The Odegard School also has applied to the state for a $3.4 million research grant that officials say it would use to expand unmanned research at the school “to promote private sector UAV-industry job growth in Grand Forks.”
Questioned by lawmakers on the state of the Air Force's maintenance depots, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. "Jim" Slife said April 30 that the service is investing in IT and data infrastructure to better sustain new software-intensive platforms—while acknowledging that there is still work to be done to…