India-US ‘Tailoring’ Predator UAV For Multi-Service Buy

India-US ‘Tailoring’ Predator UAV For Multi-Service Buy
India-US ‘Tailoring’ Predator UAV For Multi-Service Buy

The Predator B’s weapons, avionics and comms suites will all need to be specially configured to meet the needs of India’s military.

Pentagon’s Big AI Program, Maven, Already Hunts Data in Middle East, Africa

Pentagon’s Big AI Program, Maven, Already Hunts Data in Middle East, Africa
Pentagon’s Big AI Program, Maven, Already Hunts Data in Middle East, Africa

Project Maven has made huge strides in its first year, but the key is remaining open to updates from whoever has the best idea for new algorithms, and new code, a military leader says.

Coast Guard Fears Two-Year Budget Boost Just A Blip: Adm. Zukunft

Coast Guard Fears Two-Year Budget Boost Just A Blip: Adm. Zukunft
Coast Guard Fears Two-Year Budget Boost Just A Blip: Adm. Zukunft

Adm. Zukunft says he doesn’t want to return to the old culture of “martyrdom” when the service prided itself on doing more with less even as it ran its equipment and people into the ground.

Congress Must Protect Tech From DoD Bureaucracy, And Itself: Experts

Congress Must Protect Tech From DoD Bureaucracy, And Itself: Experts
Congress Must Protect Tech From DoD Bureaucracy, And Itself: Experts

UPDATED w/ Mahnken interview CAPITOL HILL: The US military is not ready for war against Russia or China, leading experts told the House Armed Services Committee this morning. How can Congress help? Champion new technologies that would otherwise drown in the Pentagon bureaucracy, they said, the way it did with the Predator drone and Tomahawk missile in…

A-10 To Fly Til 2021; Plans To Buy More F-35As: Goldfein

A-10 To Fly Til 2021; Plans To Buy More F-35As: Goldfein
A-10 To Fly Til 2021; Plans To Buy More F-35As: Goldfein

WASHINGTON: Congressional supporters can heave a sigh of relief with word from Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein that the ugly and effective A-10 will keep flying through 2021. But Goldfein seemed to make pretty clear that the plane will probably be retired after that because Close Air Support missions can be carried out by…

Goldfein Bids To Make Air Force Lead For All DoD Space

Goldfein Bids To Make Air Force Lead For All DoD Space
Goldfein Bids To Make Air Force Lead For All DoD Space

CORRECTED: Role of U.S. Space Command CAPITOL HILL: It’s a refrain space warriors have heard before: the Air Force should head space training and operations, and we need to fix space acquisition. “In this light, we are eager to be named the lead service for space,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told the…

VCJCS Selva To Hill, Industry: We Can Do Innovation, But We’re Careful

VCJCS Selva To Hill, Industry: We Can Do Innovation, But We’re Careful
VCJCS Selva To Hill, Industry: We Can Do Innovation, But We’re Careful

WASHINGTON: The current Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a careful man with words and much of his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies echoed earlier policy pronouncements he and other senior Pentagon leaders have made over the last two years, about innovation, the Third Offset Strategy and more effective relations between…

Just Warfare Entails Risk; Movie ‘Eye In The Sky’ Perverts Just War Laws

Just Warfare Entails Risk; Movie ‘Eye In The Sky’ Perverts Just War Laws
Just Warfare Entails Risk; Movie ‘Eye In The Sky’ Perverts Just War Laws

Dave Deptula, dean of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Power Studies, was the first general charged with overseeing drones and the Air Force general in command of the Air Operations Center when the first Predator fired a Hellfire missile. Dave knows drones, their capabilities and the laws and policies governing their use. He provides a…

Army’s Got Enough Drones; New Ones Should Be VTOL, Lundy says

Army’s Got Enough Drones; New Ones Should Be VTOL, Lundy says
Army’s Got Enough Drones; New Ones Should Be VTOL, Lundy says

ARLINGTON, Va.: The Army aviation chief, Maj. Gen. Michael Lundy, wants to spend the service’s shrunken aircraft acquisition budget — down about 40 percent over the past three years — on manned rather than unmanned aircraft. After all, this is the Army. “We’ve got a lot of unmanned stuff out there,” Lundy told an Association…

How To Cut Predator, Reaper UAV Crew In Half: Lt. Gen. Otto

How To Cut Predator, Reaper UAV Crew In Half: Lt. Gen. Otto
How To Cut Predator, Reaper UAV Crew In Half: Lt. Gen. Otto

PENTAGON CITY: The dirty secret of so-called “unmanned” systems is they require a whole lot of men — and women — to operate them. They’re just back at base, running things remotely, rather than hands-on in the aircraft. With the Air Force drone community overworked and undermanned, the service’s intelligence chief has suggested a Solomonic…

Backpack Drones, Smaller Weapons: Army Thinks Small On UAVs

Backpack Drones, Smaller Weapons: Army Thinks Small On UAVs
Backpack Drones, Smaller Weapons: Army Thinks Small On UAVs

AUSA: When it comes to drones, the Army is now thinking small. The next new drone the service will buy is a Rucksack Portable UAS, Col. Courtney Cote, project manager for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), told reporters at an Association of the United States Army update on Army UAS plans. Cote’s office already has a…

Bye Bye U-2: CIA Legend Allen Predicts End Of Manned Reconnaissance

Bye Bye U-2: CIA Legend Allen Predicts End Of Manned Reconnaissance
Bye Bye U-2: CIA Legend Allen Predicts End Of Manned Reconnaissance

WASHINGTON: “The world of manned reconnaissance is gone, and soon manned reconnaissance itself will be gone.” So says Charles E. Allen, whose opinion on such matters carries more weight than most. Charlie Allen joined the CIA in 1958 and spent the last seven of his 40 years there as assistant director of central intelligence for collection.…

New China Drone: Looks Like A Reaper But…

New China Drone: Looks Like A Reaper But…
New China Drone: Looks Like A Reaper But…

WASHINGTON: China’s newest drone, the Caihong 5, appeared in last night’s huge military parade in Beijing. Chinese media are comparing the Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone to America’s MQ-9 Reaper, which with up to four Hellfire missiles and two 500-lb. precision-guided bombs under its wings is the baddest drone known. (Today’s parade is ostensibly put on…

Can The Air Force Innovate? Snake Clark And Buzz Moseley

Can The Air Force Innovate? Snake Clark And Buzz Moseley
Can The Air Force Innovate? Snake Clark And Buzz Moseley

Many observers of the US military would agree that the best ideas are often not to be found among its generals and admirals. If you want to find good and disruptive ideas in the military, you get to know the majors and colonels. One of the standard comments you’ll hear about smart colonels is that they…