At Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., company pilot William Bridgeman pilots the Douglas X-3 Stiletto to the highest speed this grossly underpowered research aircraft will reach, Mach 1.21—and this only comes after he put the aircraft in a shallow dive. The X-3 was designed to fly at sustained speeds above Mach 2 for longer than 30 minutes at high altitudes.
The Air Force is racing to create a “Point Defense” force of Airmen, specially trained and equipped to protect air bases from unmanned attack more effectively than ever before. But in a new report, an expert says even more is needed to defeat the large-scale enemy drone attacks already wreaking…