“The future will be won by those who dominate the full digital spectrum,” Lt. Gen. Francis Beaudette, commander of Army Special Operations Command, says. “It will be as important as seizing and holding terrain.”
“Is it going to be cost effective? That’s why we have several lines of effort early on and there will be plenty of off-ramp [opportunities] along the way to determine if we move forward” said Col. Ken Kuebler, SOCOMs Fixed Wing chief.
"The SOF that we have is not the SOF we will need" for the future, head of Air Force Special Ops Command, Lt. Gen. James Slife, warned today.
"Everything we're doing now is going to be hard," SOCOM commander Gen. Richard Clarke said. “It's going to be multi-domain, it's going to be partnered and it's going to be contested in every step...and there are countries that are close on our heels.”
“If you can give me a white paper in three weeks, I'll pay for your white paper in three weeks, if you can give me a prototype in three months, I'll [pay for] your prototype in three months,” said James Smith, SOCOM's acquisition chief.
Each airplane will have five flights to prove its mettle, with an AFSOC pilot in the back seat for the final mission to observe the plane's flight and handling characteristics.