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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
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Verbatim
Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.
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