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loyal wingman
A-10 Scar Tissue “We wouldn’t be having this discussion about the A-10 if we had optimized the deliveries of the F 35A. The F-35 was designed to replace the F-117, the A-10 and F-15E model, but we truncated the buy...
Northrop Grumman said it put a pilot on its new Model 437—ostensibly an autonomous craft—to speed testing, as it won’t need segregated airspace usually required for uninhabited aircraft. A new video of the first flight emphasizes the speed at which the aircraft was fabricated and ...
As the Pentagon looks to deter China in the coming years, officials need to find ways to make new technologies and existing systems work together to build capacity, said former Defense Department policy chief Michèle Flournoy. In particular, Flournoy—a defense analyst who served as undersecretary ...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has backed off the idea of an unmanned bomber to pair with the B-21 Raider—but there could still be value in building low-cost, less sophisticated drones to accompany the B-21. That was the key takeaway from a recent three-day workshop ...
Skunk Works sees value in MUM-T; Firms bid on JADC2 contract; F-22s head to Poland; Mackay Trophy to AC-130J Crews; USAF's next Aircrew helmet; Randall Walden to advise William LaPlante; Issues with Martin-Baker's ejection seat.
As the Air Force moves forward with plans to team manned and unmanned systems in the future, the service might be best served by pursuing platforms that can function on their own as uncrewed aircraft—but are still capable of working as “loyal wingmen” to manned ...
Teams of autonomous vehicles collaborating with a crewed airplane, in which each aircraft in the formation performs a unique mission on its own, is far more effective than the so-called “loyal wingman” approach, in which a piloted aircraft pairs with just one similarly-equipped, autonomous multimission ...
The Department of the Air Force’s annual Spark Tank competition takes place March 4, as six teams will take to the stage at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. Each team will pitch the most senior leaders in the Air and Space Forces on ...
Boeing's losses on the KC-46 tanker now add up to over $5.4 billion, as the company took an additional charge on the program of $406 million in the last quarter of 2021. The company chalked up the loss to continued resolution of the Remote Viewing ...
Robots will join the Combat Air Forces within the next decade, flying alongside manned airplanes, bearing extra munitions, assisting with surveillance and jamming, and even making kamikaze attacks to defend their wingmen. These Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Systems (LCAAS), in development since 2015, seek to affordably ...
There’s a new X-plane in the Air Force’s fleet. The Air Force Test Pilot School in June redesignated the NF-16D Variable In-flight Simulator Aircraft as the X-62A, allowing the aircraft to be used for testing the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Skyborg program. The aircraft, originally ...
