Daily Report

May 18, 2016

The Future of Drones

The Air Force on Tuesday unveiled its flight path for small, unmanned aircraft systems, drones smaller than Predators and Reapers that the service expects to take over as its dominant means of surveillance. “What we’re saying today is we do...

Keeping the Human Involved

The future dependence on autonomy will dramatically change the manpower makeup of the remotely piloted aircraft force, and it will take humans even more out of the intelligence gathering and targeting process. However, people will not completely be out of...

Building Skynet

A major part of the Air Force’s efforts toward the “Third Offset” of technologies will be in the realm of autonomous machines, service Chief Scientist Greg Zacharias said Tuesday. Speaking at an AFA Mitchell Institute event in Arlington, Va., Zacharias...

HAC Passes Defense Spending Bill

The House Appropriations Committee passed its version of the Fiscal 2017 defense spending bill Tuesday. In line with the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense authorization bill, the $575.7 billion appropriations bill directs a large portion, $15.7 billion...

Carter Concerned About NDAA Proposals

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has “concerns” about some of Congress’ current defense reform proposals, including a Senate Armed Services Committee plan to disestablish the undersecretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics position and move those functions elsewhere, he said Tuesday. “I...

Beware Wishful Thinking

The Pentagon must avoid wishful thinking in times of restricted budgets, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall said Tuesday at the Sea Air Space exposition in National Harbor, Md. “If you start a program when budgets...

At Peace With Profit

The push to reform defense acquisition has not been a “war on profit,” and in fact has actually been positive for industry, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall said Tuesday at the Sea Air Space expo...

A Joint Defense

For the first time, the United States, Japan, and South Korea will hold a joint missile-defense exercise. In June, an Aegis-equipped ship from each nation will jointly practice tracking an imagined North Korean missile launch, CNN reported. US officials have...

New Boss at AFRL

The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, is under new command. Maj. Gen. Robert McMurry replaced Maj. Gen. Thomas Masiello, who has led AFRL since July 2013, on May 13, according to a May 16 release. Before taking...