The US military maintains a joint combat assessment team at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, which assesses aircraft battle damage. This can include battle damage suffered by any US fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft. The work yields insights on the enemy and ultimately helps to make these platforms more survivable. “Say, for example, an aircraft has been hit by small arms fire while flying a rescue mission. Depending on what evidence is available, we can characterize with pretty good accuracy what types of threats we are facing,” in that area explained Capt. Mark Friesen, one of the airmen performing this work. Much of the information gathered by the team is shared with the Defense Department’s aircraft survivability community, including the Survivability/Vulnerability Information Analysis Center at Wright-Patterson. (Kandahar report by TSgt. Renni Thornton)
Details Murky as ARRW Falls Short in Second Test
March 24, 2023
The second all-up flight of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon on March 13 fell short of a fully successful test, but the Air Force isn’t saying what went wrong with the Lockheed Martin-built hypersonic missile. The defense giant's Missiles and Fire Control division recently said the ARRW is "ready…