Logistician’s Nightmare: Orlando, February 19, 2010—Gen. Duncan McNabb said US Transportation Command has made great strides in delivering additional troops and cargo to Afghanistan, despite that country’s landlocked location and tough terrain, not to mention its “very interesting neighbors.” Speaking at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium, McNabb said normally airlift would deliver about 10 percent of cargo destined within a combat theater, but in Afghanistan that number is between 20 and 30 percent. “When you think about the importance of air [in Afghanistan], it’s huge,” he said. Complicating things further, he said, is the fact many forward locations lack suitable airfields, but improvements, such as runway matting, concrete ramps, fuel pumps, and cargo loaders, are being made. (Meanwhile, airdrops jumped considerably last year.)
There is a new entrant in the highly competitive field of collaborative combat aircraft—semi-autonomous drones meant to fly alongside manned combat aircraft. Northrop Grumman unveiled its new Project Talon aircraft to a small group of reporters at the facilities of its subsidiary Scaled Composites.
