DefenseNews

Here are the two companies creating drone wingmen for the US Air Force

The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday announced it selected Anduril and General Atomics to keep designing, building and testing its first batch of drone wingmen known as collaborative combat aircraft. The decision on contract option awards marks the service’s most significant step yet as it aims to create a series of drones using autonomous software to fly alongside piloted fighters, such as the F-35…
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DefenseNews

US Army faces uphill battle to fix aviation mishap crisis

FORT NOVOSEL, Ala. — In the first half of fiscal 2023, more than a dozen U.S. Army aviators died in helicopter crashes, a startling number that prompted an aviation-wide standdown in April 2023. The Army, after a thorough review, eventually lifted the standdown. But five months later, an MH-60 Black Hawk stealth helicopter belonging to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment crashed into…
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DefenseNews

As the US Air Force fleet keeps shrinking, can it still win wars?

In February 2017, then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein issued a warning. Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Goldfein rattled off all the missions the Air Force must undertake: defending the U.S. against attack, operating two legs of the nation’s nuclear triad, projecting air power around the globe and, at the time, defeating the militant…
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DefenseNews

To expand the US Navy’s fleet, we must contract

There is no substitute for fleet capacity. But generating it depends on healthy partnerships between the government and industry. After decades of corporate consolidation, the pendulum now swings toward consensus that the U.S. defense-industrial base must once again…
DefenseNews

Ellis to succeed Rey as director of Army Network Cross-Functional Team

The U.S. Army’s Network Cross-Functional Team is slated for a leadership shakeup. Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey, the team’s director, will be succeeded by Brig. Gen. Patrick Ellis, according to a personnel announcement shared by the Department of Defense. Rey has led the team at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, since 2021. He pinned a second star in his time there. Ellis is expected to take over this…
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