Maj. Gen. James Jones, the Air Force’s top planner, told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday that the service will continue to rely heavily on the Navy’s EA-18G Growlers and EA-6B Prowlers for stand-in jamming, as well as the Miniature Air Launched Decoy Jammer and certain onboard capabilities of the F-35A. Jones also noted that USAF plans to take down half of its EC-130 Compass Call fleet—seven aircraft—because the platform is “not survivable” against modern anti-access, area denial systems. But beyond some pod updates, he wouldn’t discuss the electronic attack, electronic warfare roadmap, except to say that “there are things in the black world”—top secret—that will have a bearing on it. At AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, a Northrop Grumman “electronic billboard” showed a stealthy-looking unmanned flying wing vehicle with a Global Hawk-like uplink fairing, labeled as a “Penetrating Stand-In Airborne Electronic Attack” platform. The company had no literature to share about the concept.
In the wake of a major Chinese military shakeup, the head of U.S. Space Command warned of China’s “breathtakingly fast” advances in space during visits to Japan and South Korea. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting’s trip to the Indo-Pacific is his first overseas visit since taking command of SPACECOM in January.