Col. Eric Mathewson, head of USAF’s unmanned aircraft system task force, who recently helped brief reporters about the service’s new long-range UAS flight plan, is on the road drumming up help on designing the next-generation of unmanned aerial vehicles. According to an Associated Press report (via Forbes.com), Mathewson visited the University of North Dakota Aug. 4 during a three-day conference on unmanned systems to encourage students and researchers to work on new UAS capabilities. He said, “We don’t have the time or the brainpower in the Air Force to answer all these questions [concerning new concepts].” The service’s flight plan envisions a UAV-dominant Air Force.
The Air Force is moving forward with a new, algorithm-driven system to help U.S. Northern Command better detect airborne threats. NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which are tasked with protecting the homeland from attack, depend on a slew of radars and other data systems to monitor U.S.…