Richard Whittle

Richard Whittle, author of Predator: The Secret Origins of The Drone Revolution and The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey, is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and 2013-14 Alfred V. Verville Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Rick covered the Pentagon and other Washington beats for The Dallas Morning News for 22 years. Earlier in his career, he covered defense and foreign policy for Congressional Quarterly magazine and was an editor at National Public Radio. - See more at: http://richardwhittle.net/#sthash.IKrEdck6.dpuf

Stories by Richard Whittle

There’s No Business Development Like Show Business Development

There’s No Business Development Like Show Business Development
There’s No Business Development Like Show Business Development

Bell’s snazzy new demonstration center may be the future of how defense contractors pitch their tech to Pentagon and congressional staff.

Bell 360: Will Slower & Steadier Win The Race For FARA?

Bell 360: Will Slower & Steadier Win The Race For FARA?
Bell 360: Will Slower & Steadier Win The Race For FARA?

“What you see before you is an aircraft … providing a low-risk path for the Army to meet the timeline, the schedule, and the cost objectives.”

Tilting Wings, Tilting Tailprop, But Not A Tiltrotor: Karem’s FARA Design

Tilting Wings, Tilting Tailprop, But Not A Tiltrotor: Karem’s FARA Design
Tilting Wings, Tilting Tailprop, But Not A Tiltrotor: Karem’s FARA Design

How does a company best known for designing tiltrotors, which are notoriously wide, meet an Army requirement for a scout aircraft that can fly down narrow streets?

Fly The Deadly Skies With Raider-X

Fly The Deadly Skies With Raider-X
Fly The Deadly Skies With Raider-X

Only one contender for the Army’s future scout is derived from an aircraft that’s actually flown. Guess which?

What Will Boeing Offer For Army’s FARA Scout? Don’t Ask.

What Will Boeing Offer For Army’s FARA Scout? Don’t Ask.
What Will Boeing Offer For Army’s FARA Scout? Don’t Ask.

Whatever their aircraft is like, Boeing’s PR strategy is definitely stealthy. There’s a strategic reason for that.

Robot Aircraft For Robot Tanks: GD & AeroVironment Team Up

Robot Aircraft For Robot Tanks: GD & AeroVironment Team Up
Robot Aircraft For Robot Tanks: GD & AeroVironment Team Up

AUSA: The Marines want their Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle to carry a scout drone that can look for threats and target them with loitering strike missiles or drones. Now General Dynamics Land Systems and drone maker AeroVironment are teaming up to offer the same built-in drone for future Army vehicles. The two companies announced here today that they’ve…

Predator Started Drone Revolution, And Made Military Innovation Cool

Predator Started Drone Revolution, And Made Military Innovation Cool
Predator Started Drone Revolution, And Made Military Innovation Cool

  The iconic weapon of the post-911 era, the Predator, is being retired today. I asked Rick Whittle, who quite simply wrote the book on the subject, to tell our readers why Predator matters both as a weapon and as a concept. See what the man who fired the Predator’s first Hellfire missile — and…

GM Touts Hydrogen Cell Vehicles At AUSA

GM Touts Hydrogen Cell Vehicles At AUSA
GM Touts Hydrogen Cell Vehicles At AUSA

AUSA: Last year we introduced Breaking D readers to a camouflage-painted, hydrogen-powered pickup truck GM was going to test for the Army. This year, the Chevrolet Colorado ZH2 is back at AUSA, still dirty from months of tests at various Army bases around the United States. Its fuel cell turns hydrogen into electricity, powering an…

Bell Update On ‘Amazing’ V-280

Bell Update On ‘Amazing’ V-280
Bell Update On ‘Amazing’ V-280

AUSA: Bell Helicopter is moving right along with its new V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor being built under the Army-led, multiservice Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. The V-280 – which flies at 280 knots cruising speed — resembles the bigger V-22 Osprey built by Bell and Boeing for the Marine Corps, Air Force Special Operations Command…

‘Flying’ Sikorsky-Boeing’s SB>1 Defiant At AUSA

‘Flying’ Sikorsky-Boeing’s SB>1 Defiant At AUSA
‘Flying’ Sikorsky-Boeing’s SB>1 Defiant At AUSA

AUSA: Lockheed Martin company Sikorsky and teammate Boeing are taking a deliberate approach to building their prototype for the Army-led Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program, the SB>1 Defiant, officials told our contributor Richard Whittle when he visited their booth. Based on Sikorsky’s award-winning X2 technology demonstrator, the Defiant is a compound helicopter with coaxial rotors…

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Defense Contract On Cost And Early!

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Defense Contract On Cost And Early!
Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Defense Contract On Cost And Early!

AFA: Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky is on track to deliver nine new HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopters to the Air Force for the price the company promised and six months early — a “man bites dog” story, the very definition of news. Delivering early and for the promised price is far from the norm in defense acquisition,…

New DIUX Software Saves Air Force Millions Of Pounds Of Airborne Tanker Gas A Month

New DIUX Software Saves Air Force Millions Of Pounds Of Airborne Tanker Gas A Month
New DIUX Software Saves Air Force Millions Of Pounds Of Airborne Tanker Gas A Month

AFA: The Defense Innovation Unit experimental (DIUx) is working with airmen and DOD civilian software coders to rapidly change the planning and conduct of air operations, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, commander of Air Forces Central Command, told reporters here Tuesday. Over the past few months, Harrigian said, DIUx has helped develop new software used by the Combined…

MUX By 2026: Marines Want Armed Drone ASAP To Escort V-22

MUX By 2026: Marines Want Armed Drone ASAP To Escort V-22
MUX By 2026: Marines Want Armed Drone ASAP To Escort V-22

When V-22 Ospreys full of Marines take to the skies 10 years from now, they could be escorted by armed high-speed drones called MUX. That’s become the Marine Corps plan because drones let you do things differently. Doing without a pilot inside makes it possible to build unorthodox aircraft that would work poorly carrying tender humans. You…

Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included

Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included
Tern Tailsitter Drone: Pilot Not Included

One of the oddest military drones aborning reinvents a stillborn technology from 1951. That’s because the unmanned aircraft revolution is resurrecting configurations that were tried more than a half century ago but proved impractical with a human pilot inside. The case in point: Northrop Grumman’s new Tern, a drone designed to do everything armed MQ-1 Predators…

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