What Cockpit?

What Cockpit?: The Air Force's new Unmann

ed Aerial Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047 forecasts a future where unmanned drones replace manned aircraft as the dominant airpower capability USAF provides the joint military force. The service issued a brief release on its new plan last week, and, when queried, a spokesman told Daily Report there would be a rollout briefing July 23. In the plan's executive summary, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz write of a USAF vision that would "harness increasingly automated, modular, globally connected, and sustainable multi-mission unmanned systems resulting in a leaner, more adaptable, and efficient air force that maximizes our contribution to the Joint Force." The plan centers on development of a "family of unmanned aircraft" that range from small, man-portable vehicles to "medium 'fighter-sized' vehicles" and "large 'tanker-sized' vehicles," and ultimately these vehicles would have "autonomous-capable operations." One of the plan's key assumptions is that "the range, reach, and lethality of 2047 combat operations will necessitate an unmanned system-of-systems to mitigate risk to mission and force, and provide perceive-act line execution." That "perceive-act" is key, for the plan later states: "Future UAS able to perceive the situation and act independently with limited or little human input will greatly shorten decision time," in effect, compressing airpower's OODA loop—observe, orient, decide, and act. This shift to a UAV-centric force depends, of course, on requisite advances in technology, per one of the plan's other key assumptions. (Air Force UAS Flight Plan)

7/20/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.