According to Gen. Michael Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff, most of the explosive ordnance disposal work being done in Afghanistan and Iraq is accomplished by Air Force and Navy EOD specialists. And, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told lawmakers at a House Appropriations panel hearing last week that USAF “is losing” EOD airmen. He called it a “stress career field.”
The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force has unveiled a new electronic warfare drone designed to fly with fighter jets into contested airspace, including alongside its fleet of F-35s. RAF says it plans to develop models that draw on the U.S. Air Force’s approach of mating unmanned systems with crewed platforms.