Though achieving 65 combat air patrols of MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft was a worthy goal during the height of the Afghanistan war, Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mike Hostage said he wants out of the commitment. During a meeting with reporters on Sept. 17 at AFA’s 2013 Air and Space Conference, Hostage said he’s “trying to convince” the Pentagon leadership that “65 CAPs is not the force structure we need or can afford.” In an anti-access, area-denial environment, either airplane is “useless,” said Hostage, because they would be shot down promptly.
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…