The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board is delving into three topics in 2011 as part of its mission to inform the USAF leadership. The Sensor Data Exploitation study will explore technologies that would help airmen turn increasingly copious amounts of intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance data into actionable knowledge. Munitions for the 2025+ Environment and Force Structure aims to identify new weapons concepts enabling the Air Force to engage targets that are becoming more difficult to strike, such as mobile and repositionable surface assets or fifth generation fighters with reduced signatures. Sustaining Air Force Aging Aircraft into the 21st Century will focus on addressing aircraft systems other than structures and engines where investments could be made to ensure the safety, availability, and effectiveness of legacy aircraft. Notional scheduling calls for AFSAB officials to brief the Air Force leadership on the three studies in June 2011, followed by publication of the corresponding reports in December 2011.
The 609th Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in early May became the Air Force’s first AOC to operationally use the Kessel Run All Domain Operations Suite to build an air tasking order. The new cloud-based system allows planners to build an air tasking order from anywhere,…