Military Times
Defense officials are still working with five privatized housing landlords to provide all the protections under the tenant bill of rights to 10,056 military families, according to a Pentagon’s watchdog report. Landlords at five Air Force installations have yet to implement the right of military families to enter a dispute resolution process or to have their Basic Allowance for Housing rent payments held in escrow until the dispute resolution process is complete.
Breaking Defense
As it unveiled a new modular drone concept design last month, General Atomics also hinted at a new propulsion technology concept that a pair of top company executives believe has “game changing” potential. The company’s featured product at the Air and Space Forces Association conference was its Gambit drone design, which features a common base from which four different designs can be produced. But on the wall of the company’s booth, concept art showed off a flying-wing shape associated most commonly with the B-2 or B-21 stealth bombers.
Air Force Times
A new kind of unit is popping up across Air Force Special Operations Command—and it wants to break the squadron mold. AFSOC is experimenting with what it calls “mission sustainment teams,” or groups of several dozen Airmen from different career fields that train as a deployable unit separate from their home squadrons.
DefenseScoop
The United States and its allies are working through supply chain issues as they seek to expand their defense industrial bases and weapons production. But one type of system that the Pentagon’s acquisition chief isn’t too concerned about in this regard is loitering munitions. These types of capabilities, also known as kamikaze drones or suicide drones, have been in the headlines in recent months as the U.S. has supplied them to Ukraine, including Switchblades and the new Phoenix Ghost.
The Associated Press
Britain’s defense secretary said Oct. 4 that Russia’s war on Ukraine has been a “wake-up call” for NATO members, making them realize that their militaries need to be better and invest more in defense. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said many nations in Europe had become complacent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin has become “in a sense, a gift to NATO.”
Defense One
A family of drones designed to operate against extremist groups is proving effective against the Russian military, and their manufacturer is quickly working to upgrade them with information from the Ukrainian troops putting them to use. But even company officials caution that drones won’t serve as a substitute for the larger weapons Ukraine needs.
The Drive
With Russian airpower still very much embroiled in the war in Ukraine, the country’s little-known aggressor squadron recently took delivery of its first Su-35S Flanker-Ms—the most advanced fighter jets in frontline service with the Russian Aerospace Forces, or VKS. Experiences from the current conflict in Ukraine suggest that overhauling the air combat training capabilities of the VKS is badly needed, and the Su-35S might now be expected to help achieve that goal.
Breaking Defense
For years, the joke in defense circles has been that directed energy systems—more commonly known as lasers—are the technology of the future, and always will be. But following a series of successful live-fire tests of its new Iron Beam capability, Israel is moving forward in hopes of putting that joke to rest, potentially within two years time.
One More Thing
Task & Purpose
U.S. service members are often referred to figuratively as “brothers in arms,” but the phrase applied literally to two airmen who were buried in Arlington National Cemetery last month. The Airmen, Maj. Gen. Cuthbert “Bill” Pattillo and Lt. Gen. Charles “Buck” Pattillo, were fighter pilots who flew in their nation’s wars, helped form the Air Force Thunderbirds, the branch’s premier aerial demonstration team, and received rows of decorations and awards over their long careers. The aerial demonstration team flew a one-of-a-kind send-off.
