The Drive
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, or GA-ASI, recently announced that it had conducted a demonstration to show how pilots in fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets will work together with advanced semi-autonomous "loyal wingman"-type unmanned aircraft in the future. During the test, an individual riding in a specially configured Beechcraft King Air twin-engine turboprop, acting as a surrogate for a fighter jet, was able to issue commands to a stealthy Avenger drone through a software app loaded onto a tablet-like device.
Breaking Defense
The Defense Department has created a new task force dedicated to addressing ongoing challenges with its supply chain visibility and resiliency, including ways to mitigate risk. Gregory M. Kausner, who is currently handling the duties of undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, stood up the Supply Chain Resiliency Working Group on Aug. 30, the Pentagon said last week.
Air Force Magazine
Cloud computing is helping the Air Force reinvent everything from combat systems to working from home. Find out the latest on Air Force IT modernization here.
Air Force Times
While over-the-horizon capabilities, such as drones and intelligence collection, have grown significantly over the years, Washington should lay out a specific counterterrorism strategy before utilizing it, specifically in a place such as Afghanistan, experts told Military Times.
Defense One
“We write today as Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed in action over the last twenty years. We do not ask for pity, but we stand as warriors, and ask for action and accountability. Just last week, 13 families joined us in the greatest loss known to American life: They have joined our ranks as new families of the fallen. We hear a lot of promises and know our leaders care, but you politicize our loss rather than wrapping around us and prioritizing us with support, policies, and services that are needed to heal and move forward,” write dozens of family members of fallen service members.
Nextgov
Members of the U.S. Air Force and its Readiness Management Agency are exploring commercially provided proximity tracing options, data integration services, and biometric-capturing wearable devices that can alert people to possible sickness early on. Such capabilities could support the branch’s Pandemic Case Management Suite, or an operational requirement intended to bolster its fight against COVID-19 and future biological outbreaks, by pinpointing symptoms and providing digital traceability of infected personnel, according to a recent request for information.
U.S. News & World Report
China is considering deploying military personnel and economic development officials to Bagram Airfield, perhaps the single-most-prominent symbol of the 20-year U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. The Chinese military is currently conducting a feasibility study about the effect of sending workers, soldiers, and other staff related to its foreign economic investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative in the coming years to Bagram, according to a source briefed on the study by Chinese military officials.
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Reuters
A sprawling U.S. air base in a remote part of Germany has become a temporary home for Afghan children separated from their parents during the chaotic evacuation from Kabul airport, and officials are scrambling to reunite them with their families. The two dozen or so children housed in heated tents at Ramstein Air Base near the western town of Kaiserslautern share their fate with several hundred other minors left unaccompanied after the airlift.
Rolls-Royce
Darryl Roberson knows a little bit about flying jets. After flying F-4s, F-15s, F-16s, and F-22s over a 34-year Air Force career—a rarity in a modern, specialized world—he’s now helping to bring a new age of modern engineering and manufacturing to today’s warfighters. As a senior vice president with storied engine maker Rolls-Royce North America, Roberson is an ambassador for some of the most ground-breaking technologies to emerge in propulsion in recent decades, including digital engineering, alternative fuels, additive manufacturing, and a host of other innovations.
Defense News
U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, who leads Air Combat Command, wishes he could tell the public more about the service’s secretive sixth-generation fighter program, Next Generation Air Dominance. Last September, the Air Force disclosed that a full-scale NGAD demonstrator had already flown, signaling that the program was further along than most outside aerospace analysts predicted. Kelly—a major supporter of the NGAD program—isn’t sure when the service will be able to divulge more about the highly classified system of systems, which could include new manned and unmanned aircraft, advanced weapons, and sensors.
Politico
Sixty-two miles north of Los Angeles, the desert town of Palmdale, known as America’s Aerospace Valley, is home to one of the most secretive aircraft design and production programs on the planet. Few are allowed in, but the sky is littered with clues of the work being done behind the high fences topped with barbed wire.
One More Thing
The Drive
Really grabbing people's attention with an aerial stunt isn't as easy as it once was. A lot of what can be done has been done, regulations are tighter than ever surrounding the execution of such feats, and the constant “look at me” dwell of the internet makes doing something truly impressive without killing yourself really tough. Red Bull stunt pilot Dario Costa just overcame this reality and set four world records in the process. And, oh, was the record-setting flight intense.
