F-35 Launches First Air To Air Missile; Concurrency Costs Plunge $500 Million

F-35 Launches First Air To Air Missile; Concurrency Costs Plunge $500 Million
F-35 Launches First Air To Air Missile; Concurrency Costs Plunge $500 Million

[UPDATED with video & Winslow Wheeler comment] WASHINGTON: It’s been a tough week for critics of the F-35. Concurrency costs dropped an impressive half billion dollars — note to Winslow Wheeler — and the Air Force version launched an air to air missile for the first time. The F-35A launched the AMRAAM missile on Wednesday (it…

Navy’s Triton Recon Drone Makes First Flight

Navy’s Triton Recon Drone Makes First Flight
Navy’s Triton Recon Drone Makes First Flight

May’s been a good month for Navy drones and Northrop Grumman. First Northrop’s X-47B, forerunner for a future generation of unmanned reconnaissance and strike planes, made its first launch and first touch-and-go landing on an aircraft carrier. Today, Northrop’s land-based MQ-4C Triton drone made its first flight, out of the company’s facility in Palmdale, California:…

Navy X-47B Drone Makes 1st ‘Touch & Go’ On Carrier

Navy X-47B Drone Makes 1st ‘Touch & Go’ On Carrier
Navy X-47B Drone Makes 1st ‘Touch & Go’ On Carrier

The eagle hasn’t exactly landed, but it did the next best thing. This afternoon, off the Virginia coast, the Navy’s experimental X-47B UCAS (Unmanned Combat Air System) became the first unmanned aircraft to do a “touch and go” on an aircraft carrier. That’s a major milestone for the pioneering drone, which just this Tuesday conducted…

X-47B: Navy Drone Launches Off Aircraft Carrier; A New Tailhook Era

X-47B: Navy Drone Launches Off Aircraft Carrier; A New Tailhook Era
X-47B: Navy Drone Launches Off Aircraft Carrier; A New Tailhook Era

It’s hard enough for a human pilot to take off from the cramped and pitching deck of a US Navy aircraft carrier. Today, for the first time in history, a Remotely Piloted Aircraft did it. You can bet that military leaders in Beijing and Tehran sat up and took note as the batwinged X-47B drone…

What Will F-35 Costs Be In New SAR Estimate; Do They Matter?

What Will F-35 Costs Be In New SAR Estimate; Do They Matter?
What Will F-35 Costs Be In New SAR Estimate; Do They Matter?

WASHINGTON: Acquisition experts agree that accurate cost estimates can be devilishly difficult to get right. The Pentagon’s top cost estimator, Christine Fox, says current cost estimates are often accurate within several percentage points. That’s impressive, but on programs measured in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, a few percentage points can mean a…

Wi-Fi Goes To War: 10th Mountain Cuts Electronic Umbilical As Commanders Leave TOC

RANGE 24, FORT DRUM, NEW YORK: “That’s awesome,” said Maj. Edward Sedlock, watching another soldier call up data on his militarized Android smartphone. It was such small, unguarded moments — neither officer had noticed a reporter standing nearby — which suggest that, after more than a decade in development, the Army’s struggle to bring wireless…

Retired Teacher Pens 10,000 Letters To Troops; Touching The 1 Percent

Way back in World War II, when my father was in the Army, everybody knew somebody in the military. More than half of eligible males were in uniform. During the Vietnam War, despite the exemptions to the draft, more than three million young men served in Southeast Asia. Today, however, after eleven years of war…

Bell Unveils V-280 Valor Tiltrotor For Future Vertical Lift Program

Bell Helicopter has unveiled what may become what everyone hoped the V-22 Osprey would be, a tiltrotor able to operate at high altitudes for long ranges and with easily managed downwash. The new aircraft, to be known as the V-280 Valor, is the company’s offering for the Army’s Future Vertical Lift technology demonstration program. FVL…

Preventing Asteroid Armageddon: It’s Deja Vu All Over Again

The public experienced a moment of angst in 1997 when it looked like Asteroid XF11 might threaten the Earth in 2028. It didn’t. But that doesn’t mean the threat doesn’t exist or that we should do nothing about it. Asteroids and comets that come close to Earth are collectively known as Near Earth Objects (NEOs).…

Navy Will Send Prototype Laser Weapon To Persian Gulf: Adm. Greenert

NATIONAL HARBOR: The Navy will send a prototype laser weapon to the troubled Persian Gulf for a roughly year-long test deployment starting “less than a year from now,” the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, announced today at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference. The bad news is this isn’t some superweapon out of…

F-35B Jump Jet Makes Its First Vertical Landing At Night (VIDEO)

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has had more than its share of ups and downs, but this week the jump-jet variant of the JSF had an up and down of historic significance: On April 2nd, a Marine Corps F-35B conducted the first ever short take-off and vertical landing that aircraft has ever done at night.…

Fortunes Of War: American Army Vet Arrested; Does Fighting Alongside Al Qaeda Mean You Belong?

WASHINGTON: Former American Army private first class Eric Harroun morphed from a jovial and swaggering bad ass, riding around Syria two weeks ago with guns, RPGs and such to suspected criminal arrested as he came home yesterday. AOL D readers will remember that we covered some of Harroun’s exploits, following him from suspected member of…

Raytheon Sonar, SAIC Drone Ship Could Transform Anti-Sub Warfare

Anti-submarine warfare has given rise to some of the best war movies — “Run Silent, Run Deep;” “The Hunt For Red October” and “Das Boot” come to mind. The romance of the terror of being hunted and of the human conflict inherent in submarine warfare offers great material for auteurs. But the sometimes unbearable tension…

Sky News Arabia Interviews AOL D On Chinese Hacking

OK — before anyone gets grumpy because they can’t understand the Arabic, this is just a bit of shameless promotion on a Friday about a skein of very serious subjects — hacking, cyber espionage and cyber warfare. Sky News Arabia interviewed me recently after reading my piece on how China recruits hackers to cast the…