An Electronic Systems Center spokesman at Hanscom AFB, Mass., confirms that USAF plans to purchase a Bombardier BD-700 aircraft to serve in Southwest Asia as an overhead communications-relay platform, dubbing it E-11A. USAF has been leasing the aircraft, to which it added Northrop Grumman’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) to enable disparate battlefield communications systems to share data.
Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd III met with his counterparts from Australia, Japan and the Philippines to discuss bolstering defense ties on May 2. The discussion included plans for joint F-35 exercises with Japan and Australia in the coming years.