A contractor died in California last year after walking into the moving propeller of an MQ-9 during ground testing. Air Force investigators blamed a host of factors for the deadly accident, including the victim losing situational awareness while focusing on taking telemetry readings, inadequate training, poor ...
General Atomics
It’s possible two distinct solutions could emerge from this stage, one high end, the other more basic.
The Air Force has long embraced remotely piloted aircraft (RPA or drones) for over-the-horizon ISR and one-off strike missions and over two decades has come to see them as central in that role, General Atomics executive David Alexander said at a Hudson Institute event. But, ...
The XQ-67A, a new autonomous collaborative drone, flew for the first time Feb. 28, manufacturer General Atomics and the Air Force Research Laboratory announced. The aircraft, which flew at the General Atomics Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility near Palmdale, Calif., is part of AFRL’s Off-Board Sensing ...
Wargames run by the Mitchell Institute show that moderately-priced and moderately-capable autonomous aircraft would be a huge benefit to the Air Force in a Pacific fight, imposing costs on an adversary, and enhancing the effectiveness of crewed combat aircraft.
The Air Force has awarded contracts to five companies for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program to design and build unmanned, autonomous aircraft to fly alongside manned platforms, a spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Anduril, and General Atomics.
WORLD: Russia-Ukraine; US, Russia Stop Sharing Nuclear Forces Data; DOD Balks at F-16s, MQ-9s for Ukraine.
Collaborative Combat Aircraft should be viewed as force-builders and not expendable vehicles, senior USAF and industry leaders said at a panel discussion during the AFA Warfare Symposium in Colorado this week. Building 1,000 such aircraft in the needed timelines will require tapping the commercial industrial ...
Air Force leaders today are making significant decisions about the future force, betting on the promise of autonomous collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) as a means to increase the Air Force’s combat capacity.
Tim Ryan of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies moderated a discussion on "The Reality of Space as a Warfighting Domain" with Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, Space Force deputy commanding general for operations; Derek M. Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency; Robert Atkin ...
Heather Penney of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies moderated a discussion on "Manned-Unmanned Teaming: Myth and Reality" with Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, Mike Benitez of Shield AI, Robert Winkler of Kratos, and ...
One extraordinary thing about the U.S. Air Force’s unmanned aircraft revolution was that it almost didn’t happen. The RQ-1 Predator changed the battlefield in Afghanistan, and later Iraq and elsewhere. And as GA-ASI workers were proving out and perfecting the Predator’s capabilities, they also developed ...
