March 13, 2024 | International, Aerospace
Pentagon clears F-35 for full-rate production
The decision came almost six months after the F-35 finished a series of Joint Simulation Environment tests.
December 2, 2019 | International, C4ISR, Security
How the Defense Digital Service revamped Army cyber training
Earlier this year, the Defense Digital Service — the Pentagon's cadre of coders and hackers performing a short stint in government — finished the second phase of a pilot program to streamline cyber training for the Army.
The Army wanted to streamline two phases of cyber training: the Joint Cyber Analytics Course, or JCAC, which takes 27 weeks in Pensacola, Florida, and provides basic cyber training for joint forces that have no prior experience in cyber; and the more tactical training that happens at Fort Gordon in Georgia. Combined, the two phases take a minimum of 36 weeks.
To accomplish this, the Defense Digital Service, working with the Army Cyber Center of Excellence and a private vendor, built a course to conduct training in three months — everything a cyberwarrior needed to know from JCAC, said Clair Koroma, a bureaucracy hacker at DDS.
Phase two — which combines tactics involving hardware, offensive and defensive cyber, and networking — takes seven months. It excluded the classified course, Koroma added.
At this point, she said, DDS has transitioned all of its materials to the Cyber School, which will pick up the third phase of the pilot training, though DDS will still be available for assistance.
“The plan is that eventually the 17Cs, [who execute offensive and defensive cyberspace operations], will come to Fort Gordon on inception and do their entry and mid-level training at Gordon. They will run this as the course for those soldiers,” she said.
Koroma said success of the pilot will be measured from the operational world — evaluating the skill sets of the soldiers that graduate from the pilot program and comparing them to prior classes. Thus far, she added, no graduates from the pilot program have been overwhelmed in operations.
Students during the second pilot were also evaluated by senior leaders within the Army cyber community and commands where they might be assigned during their final project and presentation. Students needed to identify issues on the network and conduct an outbrief to these leaders.
“Senior leaders then got an opportunity to ask them questions,” Koroma said. “Every single person who was in that presentation said that they were impressed by the delivery of the students and the quality of the presentation that the students gave.”
In fact, Koroma said, there are two students she's aware of whose orders were changed at the conclusion of training because leaders who attended the presentation wanted them on their team.
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October 8, 2021 | International, Aerospace
L'armée de l'air suédoise se prépare à la réception de ses premiers Gripen E
L'armée de l'air suédoise a récemment annoncé que l'escadre de l'armée de l'air de Skaraborg (F7) serait la première de l'armée de l'air suédoise à recevoir le Gripen E. Les essais en vol et les préparatifs se poursuivent en parallèle au sein des armées de l'air suédoise et brésilienne et chez Saab afin de garantir une introduction efficace et sans heurts de l'avion.
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August 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace
B-21 Avionics Testbed Aircraft Now Operating, USAF Official Says
Steve Trimble The U.S. Air Force has commissioned a flying testbed aircraft to test the avionics system and software for the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber, a senior official said on Aug. 13. The first B-21 test aircraft is still being assembled in Palmdale, California, but the flying testbed allows the stealth bomber program to “buydown risk,” said Randall Walden, director of the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, which is managing the program. “We have a flight test aircraft that we've been hosting some of these subsystems on,” Walden said. “We're doing it kind of in a parallel approach, working out some of the bugs with the software as well as the subsystems.” Walden, speaking to the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute, did not identify the flying testbed, but his remarks come two months after the appearance of a green Boeing 737 owned by the Air Force with registration N712JM. The Lockheed Martin F-35 program also used a 737 to check out avionics and mission systems before test flights of the stealth fighter started in 2006. “When you can buydown risk with subsystems on even another platform, no matter what it is like you get into the air and use some of the software and work those bugs out it goes a long way,” Walden said. The Air Force expects to field the B-21 in the mid-2020s, about a decade after awarding the engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop in 2015. The development program remains on track, but Walden is eager to begin testing as soon as possible. “All of the tough critical designs, all of the hard engineering, is behind us,” Walden said. “I know we're not going to be immune from design flaws. We're going to have to work through those, and we're doing some of that today. I want to find out what those design deficiencies are as fast as I can to get on with the solution.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/b-21-avionics-testbed-aircraft-now-operating-usaf-official-says