The Air Force is “involved in everything that I’m certain is going to be part of our future, whatever it holds,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told cadets at the Air Force Academy on Thursday. During a question and answer session at the academy, a cadet asked Carter what the big conflict of their careers was going to be. “History says if I give you an answer to that, I’m going to be wrong,” he said, noting that “almost every major mission of consequence” in his lifetime was “strategically unanticipated.” However, he said, the Air Force does a good job of focusing on capabilities that will be critical no matter what happens in the future. Carter also called the remotely piloted aircraft mission “bedrock” and the “most visible part of every day of mine, and every night of mine.” He told cadets that if they join the RPA career field that they will have “a lot of action that will be very satisfying,” but said all Air Force career fields are “exciting.”
The Air Force is placing Air Combat Command in charge of teaching combat tactics to fighter and remotely-piloted aircraft units, according to a May 12 announcement. Beginning this summer, the service will reassign the formal training units for the F-35, F-16, and MQ-9 from Air Education and Training Command to…