Elon Musk to USAF: Autonomous drones are the future.
MQ-9 Reaper
The Air Force’s plan to cut MQ-9 Reaper production and some air patrols in the fiscal 2021 budget request would negatively impact the ability to conduct operations and provide enough over watch in hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, the top officials responsible for ...
The Air Force is using its first information warfare cell to support cyber operations, part of a new approach to digital, “gray zone” combat. The IW cell brings together experts in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; electronic warfare; cyber; information operations; and public affairs, according to ...
A General Atomics official said the company is surprised by the Air Force’s plan to stop buying new MQ-9 Reapers in fiscal 2020, after expecting to gradually wind down the production line. Chris Pehrson, General Atomics' vice president of strategic development, told Air Force Magazine ...
The Pentagon is asking Congress to move $3.8 billion, including nearly $1.5 billion in Air Force funding, from weapons programs to the border wall project. The Feb. 13 reprogramming request would shift $2.2 billion from already appropriated base budget funds for fiscal 2020 plus another ...
A touted $30 billion realignment of the Air Force's budget, with some wholesale retirements of major systems, did not materialize in the spending documents released Feb. 10. Instead, the Air Force is reducing its operational fleet to pay for technology upgrades emphasizing connectivity, agile logistics, ...
There is still more work to be done to fully realize the power of RPA technology.
Military research on how to protect against threatening unmanned aircraft has so far focused on two ends of the drone spectrum—store-bought products like small quadcopters and large, advanced aircraft akin to the MQ-9 Reaper. But Evan Hunt, high-energy laser business development lead at Raytheon, argues ...
The Air Force’s MQ-9 presence in Eastern Europe has moved south again, as the 52nd Expeditionary Operations Group Det. 2 begins flying in Romania this month. The MQ-9s are deployed to Miroslawiec AB, Poland, and this is the second time they have moved to the ...
The Pentagon will send thousands more US soldiers to the Middle East as tensions skyrocket with Iran following the Jab. 3 targeted killing in Iraq of Tehran’s most prominent military leader. In the aftermath of the strike, the Iraqi parliament has vowed to kick the ...
US European Command and NATO are bringing in new remotely piloted aircraft, and repositioning aircraft already deployed to the region, to ensure it has the best “indications and warnings” of potential Russian activity. But, as always, more capability is needed, the head of US European ...
The Air Force’s pursuit of a light attack aircraft may split into two separate tracks: one that continues down the road to procurement and another that looks into new options for armed overwatch, USAF acquisition boss Will Roper said Nov. 12. Special operations forces have ...
