WASHINGTON: Welcome to the fourth of our video stories drawn from our almost hour-long interview with Preston Dunlap, Chief Architect of Air and Space Forces. From that position, Dunlap helps guide the complex and far-reaching work the Air and Space Forces are doing in All Domain Operations, on JADC2,and, most centrally, on the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). 

In part four of our exclusive video interview, Preston Dunlap discusses one of toughest challenges to All Domain Operations: tying in to the larger network “a tactical edge node that doesn’t speak to frequency or the language from one system to another, like the F-22 and F-35 example.” Add to that the challenge of keeping all those nodes and networks secure and the excitement grows!

I’ve included an explanation below of one acronyms and the system it describes — a CRC Reporting Center — since many of our readers (viewers?) may not be familiar with it.

“The CRC is a mobile command, control, and communications radar element of the US Air Force theater air control system. The CRC integrates a comprehensive air picture via multiple data links from air-, sea-, and land-based sensors, as well as from its surveillance and control radars. It performs decentralized command and control of joint operations by conducting threat warning, battle management, theater missile defense, weapons control, combat identification, and strategic communications.”