Retired Lt. Gen. Kenneth L. Tallman, a former Air Force Academy Superintendent, died Monday in his Tallahassee, Fla., home at 80 years old. Tallman, who, in 1946, graduated from West Point and earned pilot wings at Stewart Field, N.Y., was the superintendent at the Colorado Springs, Colo., academy from 1977 to 1981. He was a training officer at the academy when the school was based at the former Lowry Air Force Base, near Denver. During his Air Force career, Tallman served in various fighter unit and personnel assignments, becoming Air Force deputy chief of staff for personnel in 1975. He retired from the Air Force in 1981, later serving as president of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.