On the same day that it issued the Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance aircraft capability query (see above), Aeronautical Systems Center in Ohio issued another seeking information on a fixed-wing Light Mobility Aircraft (LiMA) that USAF also would like to field starting in Fiscal 2011. The service wants approximately 60 LiMAs and would expect to achieve initial operational capability in Fiscal 2012. The proposed aircraft would have to accommodate at least six passengers plus aircrew, be able to operate on unimproved austere landing sites—with no ground support other than fuel—carrying a minimum of 1,800 pounds of passengers and cargo. It’s cargo door should allow for loading and unloading of patients litters or a 36-inch warehouse skid. The LiMA candidate would have dual pilot stations, but be certified for single pilot operation.
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…