Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz used the occasion of his Oct. 30 address at the 41st Airlift Tanker Association conference in Nashville, Tenn., to convey once again the imperative of successfully completing the KC-X tanker competition and getting new aerial refueling aircraft on the ramp before not too long. “Look, when you’re in the World Series, and you’re 0 and 2, you have to dig deep,” said USAF’s top uniformed officer, using baseball-speak to get his point across. He continued: “And we’re 0 and 2 in the tanker business. This is the World Series now. This is not only important for the Air Force to bring KC-X home, this is vitally important to the reputation of defense acquisition generally, and, I would argue, even the reputation of our industry partners.” (Nashville report by Mark Voorhis)
Over a two-week period beginning in late September and culminating in mid-October, a Russian satellite maneuvered dangerously close to a commercial Finnish satellite currently providing intelligence to the Ukrainian military. The apparent provocation has experts wondering why Russia made the move—testing new capabilities, collecting intelligence, or trying to intimidate the…