Air Combat Command flat “can’t meet” regional commanders’ demand for airpower, due to a chronic and growing shortage of capacity, ACC chief Gen. Hawk Carlisle told reporters at ASC16. The command has been using an approach called “dynamic presence,” wherein if a capability is requested for a year, ACC may “send it over four times” in a year for a few weeks at a time to address some of the need, he said. “We are short of resources. We are undermanned in everything,” Carlisle asserted, “so we have to get as much as we can out of the capacity we have.” The next year-long Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team project will center on command and control, he said, because being able to rapidly put resources where they’re most needed will help multiply capacity, he said. The last ECCT was on Air Superiority 2030.
There is a new entrant in the highly competitive field of collaborative combat aircraft—semi-autonomous drones meant to fly alongside manned combat aircraft. Northrop Grumman unveiled its new Project Talon aircraft to a small group of reporters at the facilities of its subsidiary Scaled Composites.
