Lt. Col. William A. Jones III leads a rescue mission for a downed pilot near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. After several low passes, he finds the pilot and realizes he must destroy a nearby gun emplacement. On his second pass, Jones’s aircraft is hit, and the cockpit of his Douglas A-1H is set ablaze. He tries to eject, but the extraction system fails. He then returns to base and, before receiving medical treatment for his burns, reports the exact position of the downed pilot, who is rescued the next day. Jones dies in an aircraft accident in the US before he can be presented the Medal of Honor for his actions the day of the rescue.
Unmanned aerial vehicles and autonomous aircraft may provide a solution to operating in heavily contested domains such as the Taiwan Straits, according to a panel of expert who suggested operationalizing artificial intelligence for such purposes sooner rather than later. The group gathered virtually to help launch the Mitchell Institute for…