An Electronic Systems Center spokesman at Hanscom AFB, Mass., confirms that USAF plans to purchase a Bombardier BD-700 aircraft to serve in Southwest Asia as an overhead communications-relay platform, dubbing it E-11A. USAF has been leasing the aircraft, to which it added Northrop Grumman’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) to enable disparate battlefield communications systems to share data.
The Department of the Air Force has identified 50 programs that will make up the core of its contribution to the Pentagon’s joint all-domain command and control effort, branding them part of the “DAF Battle Network,” according to newly-released budget documents. The DAF Battle Network programs span multiple offices and agencies…