The Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit hosted a change of command ceremony recently, another sign of how the CCA concept is maturing and becoming entrenched in the Air Force’s structure, to the point where exercises have generated multiple sorties in a single day to simulate ...
Technology
The Air Force is looking for a new family of drones to serve as aerial targets for test missions, ranging from cheap, expendable quadcopters to large, reusable aircraft that can mimic fifth-generation enemy fighters.
The Air Force said Aug. 13 it recently tested prototypes for a portable ground station for commanding and controlling semi-autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
A top Pentagon tech official called on industry this week to help the military develop “lighter, more efficient” directed energy weapons designed to go on aircraft and conduct special operations missions or down drones—areas where the Air Force’s directed energy efforts have been quiet as ...
A new report on modernizing Air Force training and education suggests borrowing a method from the civilian technology industry to help Airmen and Guardians build skills in key new areas like artificial intelligence: stackable certificates.
The Pentagon’s top research lab is interested in developing a hypersonic cruise missile prototype that provides “a revolutionary leap in operational performance,” as the first wave of U.S. hypersonic weapons enters production and service.
The Air Force wants to step up its ability to field unmanned systems with deployable manufacturing equipment for turning out small drones in austere terrain.
The Air Force’s autonomous test fighter known as the X-62 carried out multiple artificial intelligence-controlled intercepts of a crewed jet in a series of experiments earlier this year, the service said Aug. 4.
The Air Force’s new Collaborative Combat Aircraft may fly scores of missions over many years or only a few if commanders decide a mission is worth the risk of losing one, a top official said this week—a middle ground approach he called “optionally attritable.”