Air Combat Command boss, Gen. Ronald Keys, who announced last week his decision to retire this fall, told an audience in Virginia Beach, Va., last week that the Air Force diligently applied its surveillance assets from large airframes to unmanned aerial vehicles to tackle the threat of improvised explosive devices in Southwest Asia because combatant commanders had a “hazy feeling” they would help, reports Bob Brewin of Government Executive. Speaking at the Transformation Warfare Conference sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International, Keys called such use a “waste of assets.” He wants to find the IED-making networks and stop them at the source.
As Air Force leaders consider concepts of operations for Collaborative Combat Aircraft, sustainment in the field—and easing that support by using standard parts and limiting variants—should be a key consideration, according to a new study from AFA's Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies.