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BY LARA SELIGMAN On June 28, a young U.S. Navy officer flying in a two-seater electronic warfare jet in the skies over Washington State suddenly felt a tightness in his chest and tingling in his extremities. He instantly recognized his symptoms as signs of hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation. The jet, an EA-18G Growler from a training squadron out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, diverted to a local airport, and made an “uneventful” landing, according to Navy spokesman Cmdr. Scot Cregan. The crew member, an electronic warfare officer in training, was transported to a hospital for medical treatment. Both the pilot and the trainee officer survived, but the incident, the latest in an alarming string of similar episodes, could have been deadly. Across the U.S. military fleets, pilots and aircrew are experiencing a dramatic surge in so-called physiological episodes, which leave aviators disoriented and shaken. At worst, these unexplained incidents can be fatal — the Navy has linked four F/A-18 fighter pilot deaths over a span of 10 years to the events. The continuing mystery over the pilots' sickness is part of a deeper concern about the military's aviation readiness, as the rate of fatal aircraft crashes recently reached a six-year high. It also raises larger questions over the ability of the world's largest and best-funded military to resolve a basic problem that appears primarily limited to the United States. The Navy considers the physiological episode problem its “number one aviation safety priority.” From 2009 to 2016, the rate of such events increased almost eightfold in the F/A-18 and EA-18G — a version of the two-seater F/A-18 — fleets, from 16 to 125 incidents. In the Navy's T-45 training fleet, the spike is even more significant: In 2009, the Navy reported just one such incident, but in 2016, the number was 38. Most recently, two aviators endured a harrowing landing after the temperature inside their Growler cockpit suddenly plunged to as low as -30 degrees. A mist formed in the cockpit, covering the instruments and windows with ice and rendering the pilots almost completely blind. The aircrew had to turn on the emergency oxygen supply. The crew and ground-based controllers managed to work to land the aircraft safely. But both the pilot and the electronic warfare officer suffered “severe blistering and burns on hands” due to frostbite. The Navy believes the incident was caused by a failure of the environmental control system, a series of pipes and valves that regulates airflow to the air conditioning and oxygen systems. The Air Force has a similar oxygen problem. In 2010, Capt. Jeff Haney died when an engine bleed-air malfunction caused the control system on his F-22 stealth fighter to shut off oxygen flow to his mask. Since then, the episodes have continued in almost every aircraft type, including the A-10 attack jet, the T-6 trainer, and the new F-35 fighter. The most recent incidents have not yet been directly linked to fatalities. But in a sign that the military recognizes the severity of the problem, in the past year both the Navy and Air Force have grounded fleets in response to these events: the Navy's T-45s in April 2017, the Air Force F-35s at Luke Air Force Base in June 2017, part of the Air Force's A-10 fleet in November 2017, and the T-6s in November 2017 and again this February. Neither service has identified a single point of failure or a solution to these episodes despite years of investment — a fact that has not gone unnoticed by prominent lawmakers. “What's occurring in the Navy is absolutely unacceptable,” said Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, in 2017. “This is absolutely critical for our pilots.” “I have no doubt the Navy is taking that issue seriously,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, during an event in Washington in 2017. But, “I don't understand why we can't figure out what's causing the oxygen problem.” In May, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), introduced legislation to create an independent National Commission on Military Aviation Safety in response to the surge in deadly crashes over the last year. Some, but not all, of these incidents were related to hypoxia. Meanwhile, NASA has waded into the fray. After completing a congressionally mandated review of the Navy's investigation into the F/A-18 and EA-18G incidents, which faulted both the Navy and manufacturer Boeing, the agency is embarking on a new study of how pilots breathe while flying high-performance aircraft. The services continue making incremental changes to the aircraft design, flight gear, and maintenance procedures in an effort to mitigate the risk to aircrew. In the T-45, at least, these modifications have reduced the number of incidents, according to Rear Adm. Sara Joyner, who until recently led the Navy's physiological episode investigation. Rear Adm.-select Fredrick Luchtman currently leads the effort. But other Navy and Air Force fleets continue to see physiological episodes at alarming rates. “More work remains to be done, and this will remain our top safety priority until we fully understand, and have mitigated, all possible PE [physiological episode] causal factors,” said Rear Adm. Roy Kelley, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, in congressional testimony June 21. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/03/tightening-chest-and-tingling-fingers-why-are-the-militarys-fighter-pilots-getting-sick/

By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany ― The Belgian Navy has finished a weekslong series of test flights with Schiebel's CAMCOPTER S-100 drone as part of the sea service's search for new maritime-surveillance and search-and-rescue equipment, the company announced Tuesday. The test plan, which ran June 21 to July 1, constituted an initial step for Belgian officials to identify “the possibilities of such systems and sensors,” Lt. Cmdr. D. Biermans is quoted as saying in the statement. In particular, officials had an eye on the unmanned copter's operation in the country's confined airspace — on land and over water ― and “opportunities for the domain of coastal security and prospects for further developments,” Biermans said. Belgium sports a relatively straight coastline measuring close to 70 kilometers, roughly equivalent in length to that between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in Florida. The European nation is joining a growing trend among navies worldwide to employ UAVs to act as the eyes and ears of military and coast guard vessels. Equipped with a variety of sensors, the aircraft can help spot potential threats and help rescue people lost at sea. “Given the complexity of introducing a [maritime tactical unmanned aircraft system] within the Navy and its impact on the concepts of operation and tactics, this was a first informative step and will be part of a series of tests and experiments with a variety of vehicles and sensors,” Biermans said. Schiebel's CAMCOPTER S-100 has performed “thousands” of takeoffs and landings from aboard more than 30 ships by a host of international customers, company spokeswoman Sanna Raza told Defense News. She declined to say what countries' programs the company is eyeing next, citing confidentiality agreements. Based in Vienna, Austria, Schiebel plans to focus on integrating next-generation sensors to further expand its portfolio in the areas of intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, according to Raza. https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2018/07/03/belgian-navy-tests-austrian-copter-drone-for-at-sea-surveillance/

Lily Hay Newman EVERY DAY, COMPANIES like Google and Apple wage a constant battle to keep malicious apps out of their marketplaces and off people's phones. And while they do catch a lot of malware before it does any damage, there are always a few nasty infiltrators that manage to sneak by and end up getting downloaded by thousands of consumers. No one wants these mistakes to happen, but when you're a crucial app store for the Department of Defense, these mistakes can't happen. That was the problem facing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as it set about creating a flexible yet ultrasecure app store in 2012. NGA is a combat support organization that primarily assesses and distributes geospatial intelligence. The agency wanted to provide sensitive and mission-critical apps to groups across the DOD through a platform that had the security and resilience of a government defense product, while also offering a streamlined, up-to-date user experience similar to ubiquitous commercial app stores. "We recognized that we did not know everything when it came to apps, and we wanted to be using the innovation that was happening in the commercial sector," says Joedy Saffel, division chief and source director of NGA who has worked on the GEOINT App Store from the beginning. "But how do we do that in a safe, secure manner? How do we do that from a contractual perspective? And how do we do that in a way that nontraditional vendors will trust doing business with the government? It was a great challenge." The key, Saffel says, is getting developers to agree to hand over the source code of their apps for in-depth analysis and review. Whether an app is a simple time/speed/distance calculator for a pilot or a hyper-specialized classified tool, sharing source code is a big risk for developers, because it means trusting third parties with the core intellectual property they have built their businesses on. But NGA soon realized that full access was the only way its project could work. So NGA's GEOINT App Store runs its security protections and screening processes in a way a commercial platform never could. Need To Know You can browse through the GEOINT App Store yourself today and see many of the mapping, aeronautical, weather-forecasting, location-sharing, and travel-alert services that it hosts for Android, iOS, desktop, and web. But that's just the public unclassified section—one crucial aspect of designing the platform was building segmentation controls so DOD employees with different levels of clearance, or simply different needs, could have gated access to different apps. "We built the App Store to be a completely unclassified environment that's open to the public," says Ben Foster, a technical director at NGA who is the product manager for the app store. "But it also has identity management that uses a federated approach to authentication. It's even flexible enough to integrate with other identity-management platforms across DOD. If a user is a helicopter pilot, they might see and get different apps then someone who is a tactical operator in the Army." This system also works with the platform's pricing variations: Some apps are free to everyone, some downloads come with a fee that needs to be taken out of a particular department's budget, and some apps are licensed by NGA or another agency. The most radical part of the GEOINT App Store from a government perspective is the speed with which NGA can process apps and get them live in the store. In general, government acquisition processes take many months or years, a clear problem when it comes to constantly evolving software. So NGA worked with its chief information officer, IT Directorate, legal team, international affairs division, and contracting office to establish a streamlined app-vetting process that would be acceptable under federal acquisition regulations. The agency also contracted with a private firm called Engility to directly manage the outreach, acquisition, and development environment for customizing prospective apps to NGA's requirements. The process, known as the Innovative GEOINT Application Provider Program, or IGAPP, minimizes bureaucratic hurdles and guides developers who want to submit an app through a pipeline that vets, modifies, and generally grooms apps for NGA's store. "What we focused on early on was providing tools so developers can bring their app and do a lot of the pre-testing and development with Engility," NGA's Saffel says. "We're able to be flexible with that because it's being done outside of the government footprint in a brokered environment. And then NGA has a governance board that meets every week, and the whole process has matured enough that by the time an app comes to NGA, we can review it and get that application into the app store and exposed within two weeks' time." Though the process might be even faster if NGA only did the minimum vetting required, Saffel says that the GEOINT team worked to find a balance where the apps go live quickly, but there's still time for the automated code analyses and human audits that commercial app stores can't do. Check It Out After a developer submits their app, Engility does extensive source code analysis and vulnerability scanning and produces an initial findings report. John Holcomb, the IGAPP program manager from Engility, notes that an initial vulnerability report can have as many as 1,000 items on it that a developer needs to address. "It's a little intimidating at first," Holcomb says. "But we walk them through it, and they go back and modify their code—it's their code, we don't modify it for them. We might go through four runs of that on a brand-new app, but by the time we're done, they will have remediated their code down to the level that the government needs. There are still going to be bureaucratic hurdles, but it's our job to break through those." In addition to digging deep into source code, IGAPP also tests how apps function in practice, to make sure that there aren't benign-looking aspects of the code that actually underlie a shady function. "We take the compiled application and we watch what it does," Holcomb says. "Who does it phone home to? Is it sending private information unencrypted?" After an app gets approved for inclusion in the GEOINT App Store, developers continue to work with IGAPP on developing and vetting software updates so that patches and improvements can be pushed out quickly. The brokered vetting process means that the government never holds developers' source code directly. The inspection is always mediated by Engility, which signs nondisclosure agreements with developers and isn't a software maker itself. Holcomb says that the company carefully guards app data while storing it, and once a project is done, Engility doesn't just do a soft data deletion; it hard-purges the information from its cloud servers within 30 days. NGA's Saffel and Holcomb both note that developers were apprehensive about the unusual workflow at first, but over the years the app store has gained credibility. Developers say they benefit from the IGAPP process both by securing lucrative government contracts and by integrating the improvements from the IGAPP development into their commercial products. The code audits and security vetting IGAPP offers are expensive, so developers generally don't do such extensive assessment on their own. "Everyone's dream is to sell to the government, but it normally takes years of effort to get to a position where you can. In our case, I was able to sell to the government in less than a month," says Bill DeWeese, CEO of the firm Aviation Mobile Apps, which has had six apps accepted into the GEOINT App Store. "You do feel a little anxiety about sharing source code, you worry about your IP leaking and someone getting ahold of it. But I haven't had any issues, and the benefit is the increased quality of your products at no cost—you get the analysis for free and you can put it in your commercial offerings." NGA's Saffel says the governance board that evaluates the apps at the end of the process is careful to stay vigilant so nothing goes into the store by accident. The board will still push back on apps or turn them away when warranted, but Saffel says the process has matured such that most of what the board sees these days is ready or very near ready to go live. And IGAPP prioritizes its patching process and infrastructure, to make it easy for developers to push bug fixes and improvements throughout the life of an app. All of this means a consumer-grade turnaround time for critical Department of Defense tools without the consumer-grade security concerns. "NGA is kind of a unique combat-support agency," Saffel says. "With the GEOINT App Store we chose to go into a very risky new frontier for DOD and the government in general, but I think we've demonstrated that we can do things differently and still be secure and still control access. We're supporting a lot of different mission sets, and I expect that the app store will keep growing." https://www.wired.com/story/dod-app-store-does-this-one-crucial-thing-to-stay-secure/

Hydro-Québec and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) have announced a breakthrough in the lithium-ion battery materials field, publishing their research results(This hyperlink will open a new window) in the Journal of Power Sources(This hyperlink will open a new window). Using a cathode made with new high voltage safe materials, the researchers have achieved a world first: building a 1.2 Ah lithium-ion cell with a voltage of 5 V. “With the high voltage of this new cell, we can reach a very high energy density,” says Karim Zaghib, General Director of the Center of Excellence in Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage. “This highly desirable property can improve batteries used in a wide range of applications.” ARL scientists Jan Allen and Richard Jow, also inventors of this high voltage cathode material, believe that the high cell voltage can, in addition to enabling high energy density, improve the design of devices. Lithium-ion batteries are widely used to power many electronic devices, including smartphones, medical devices and electric vehicles. Their high energy density, excellent durability and lightness make them a popular choice for energy storage. In response to the growing demand for their use in a wide range of products, there are many teams working to improve their storage capacity. In particular, there is great interest in developing new compounds that could increase energy storage capacity, stability and lifespan. That is why the innovation announced today has such a strong commercial potential. About Hydro-Québec Hydro-Québec generates, transmits and distributes electricity. It is Canada's largest electricity producer and one of the world's largest hydroelectric power producers. Its sole shareholder is the Québec government. It uses mainly renewable generating options, in particular large hydropower. Its research institute, IREQ, conducts R&D in energy efficiency, energy storage and other energy-related fields. http:/www.hydroquebec.com(This hyperlink will open a new window) About the Center of Excellence in Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage The mission of the Centre of Excellence in Transportation Electrification and Energy Storage is to conduct battery materials research for Hydro-Québec. The center of excellence is headed by Karim Zaghib, an expert of international renown. Dr. Zaghib was recently named one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds(This hyperlink will open a new window) for the third year running. The center of excellence commercializes Hydro-Québec technologies, protected by several hundred patents. It will also create new research partnerships and develop new technologies. About the U.S. Army Research Laboratory The U.S. Army Research Laboratory is the U.S. Army's premiere laboratory for land forces. It is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to provide innovative research, development and engineering to produce capabilities that provide decisive overmatch to the Army against the complexities of the current and future operating environments in support of the joint warfighter and the nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. http://news.hydroquebec.com/en/press-releases/1379/hydro-quebec-and-the-us-army-research-laboratory-announce-battery-materials-breakthrough/

By: Andrew C. Jarocki WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps continue to invest in vertical takeoff aircraft, announcing a $4.2 billion contract with the Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office for dozens of new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. The agreement provides for the manufacture and delivery of 39 CMV-22B aircraft for the Navy and 14 MV-22B aircraft for the Marines. The delivery is expected to be completed by November 2024. The Navy will use the new tilt rotors for transporting personnel and cargo from shore to aircraft carriers. The Osprey is also used in infiltration/exfiltration operations. The V-22 and its variations have seen use by the U.S. Air Force for resupply operations, and by the Marines in Syria. The Army is also interested in developing vertical lift capabilities for deploying strike teams. The contract included a sale of four MV-22B aircraft for the government of Japan, where five American Ospreys arrived this spring to begin a deployment based in Tokyo. The purchase “enables the U.S. Navy to begin advancing its carrier onboard delivery fleet with modern tiltrotor aircraft” Kristin Houston, vice president for Boeing tilt-rotor programs and director of the Bell-Boeing V-22 program, said in a news release. The Air Force will also receive one new CV-22B from the contract. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/07/03/us-navy-marine-corps-order-dozens-of-osprey-aircraft-in-42b-deal/

Gareth Jennings The United Kingdom must hold a fair and open competition before selecting any new surveillance aircraft to replace its current Boeing E-3D Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS), the country's parliament has said. The intervention by the Defence Committee followed earlier media reports that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had already decided to procure the Boeing E-737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft to replace the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) increasingly unserviceable and expensive E-3Ds. “The chairman of the Defence Committee has written to the Minister of Defence Procurement to request that any requirement for replacing the UK's AWACS aircraft be put out to a competitive tender, rather than bought ‘off-the-shelf' with no competition taking place,” the committee declared on 3 July, adding: “On the possibility of Sentry being replaced with a new system, the [committee] notes the advantages of a competitive tender in terms of maximising value for money and allowing proper consideration of a range of alternatives. The committee also considers that a competition is particularly appropriate in this case, as there are viable alternatives available, which deserve to be given fair consideration.” The RAF currently has six E-3Ds in its operational fleet, with the type having entered service in 1991. While other operators of the type have benefited from regular upgrades, the RAF's fleet has fallen behind in terms of capabilities due to a lack of investment. In January 2017, the fleet was temporarily grounded due to an electrical fault, and despite an announcement in the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) of 2015 that the fleet would be upgraded and extended from 2025 to 2035, the legacy Boeing 707 host airframe is becoming too expensive to sustain and an alternative is understood to be being sought. http://www.janes.com/article/81497/uk-must-compete-future-surveillance-aircraft-procurement-parliament-states

(B2 – En mer de Norvège) Alors qu'il naviguait entre l'Islande et la Norvège, nous avons pu embarquer quelques heures à bord du Nato Research Vessel (NRV) Alliance. Ce navire original, qui embarque des spécialistes de différents pays de l'Otan, teste des drones sous-marins dans les eaux glacés de l'Arctique. « Nous amenons la science à la mer », résume le docteur Catherine Warner, l'Américaine qui dirige le Centre de recherche et d'expérimentation maritime (CMRE) dont dépend le bateau. Bardé d'antennes, de sonars et de machines expérimentales, ce b'timent fait la fierté de l'Otan. Les officiels en visite à bord y voient une preuve de la capacité des Alliés à développer de nouvelles solutions pour répondre aux besoins des militaires. Les drones sous-marins ou gliders Si le NRV Alliance est susceptible de travailler sur tous les domaines identifiés comme prioritaires par les marines de l'Otan (lutte anti-sous-marines, lutte-anti-mines, renseignement...), ses travaux sont actuellement concentrés sur les drones sous-marins, appelés gliders en anglais. Des engins qui pourraient révolutionner de nombreuses missions. NB : Le NRV Alliance et ses drones participent régulièrement à des manoeuvres de l'Otan, comme l'exercice de renseignement interalliés Unified Vision 2018. Lire ici. Plus endurants que les hommes ? Ces drones séduisent au sein de l'Otan. C'est un haut gradé, riche d'une expérience dans le renseignement militaire maritime, qui en résume tout l'attrait : « Un équipage humain a besoin de retourner au port pour dormir, manger et voir sa famille. Ces robots peuvent rester des mois en mer. » Peu coûteux, discrets, polyvalents, endurants et autonomes, ces engins sont au cœur des expérimentations menées par les 25 scientifiques à bord. Ceux qu'ils utilisent actuellement, des Slocum G3 de l'Américain Teledyne, cartographient les fonds marins et font des relevés de températures et de courants. Des informations cruciales pour repérer et surveiller les mouvements de sous-marins, par exemple. Multiusages Le potentiel des gliders intéresse dans des domaines divers. Ces engins ont été testés dans la lutte anti-mines, avec des robots capables de patrouiller, de reconnaître des menaces et de les signaler à l'homme qui pourra ensuite intervenir. Un moyen intéressant de palier à une flotte européenne de navires de lutte anti-mines de plus en plus vieillissante et coûteuse à remplacer. Dans un autre registre, des drones pourraient mailler les fonds de certains points stratégiques pour surveiller les mouvements de sous-marins adverses. D'ici quelques années, si des puissances étaient capables de bloquer ainsi certains axes clefs, la dissuasion nucléaire pourrait se voir impactée et devrait se réinventer dans sa composante navale. C'est l'un des intérêts du grand Nord, où transitent régulièrement des sous-marins nucléaires. De l'aveu d'un haut gradé de l'Otan, spécialiste en matière de renseignement, ces drones sous-marins sont à l'heure actuelle presque indétectables. Les sous-marins remis en cause L'arrivée de ces submersibles risque de remettre en question tout le fonctionnement sous-marin. D'autant plus qu'ils sont très majoritairement automatisés : vu la difficulté pour assurer les communications sous l'eau, il n'est pas possible de les piloter en permanence. L'homme se contente donc en réalité de suivre les mouvements sur des écrans, ne donnant que quelques ajustements pour les remontées régulières en surface. Une évolution stratégique qui rappelle au docteur Catherine Warner un autre grand changement au sein de l'US Air Force, où elle s'occupait de plusieurs programmes de drones : « Les sous-mariniers sont pour l'instant sceptiques. Comme pour les pilotes de l'US Air Force lorsque les Predator sont arrivés à l'époque. Mais aujourd'hui, ils ont pleinement intégré l'intérêt de ces drones et ils ont accepté de travailler dessus. » Un navire presque unique Conçu sur mesure Le NVR Alliance est un navire conçu sur mesure pour les besoins de l'Otan, dans les ateliers de l'Italien Fincantieri. Livré en 1988, il embarque une multitude d'équipements de recherche qui en font un laboratoire en pointe dans le domaine des études maritimes. Il dispose des dernières technologies dans les domaines océanographique, acoustique, météorologique ainsi que de son propre atelier pour réparer ou modifier le matériel. « La force de ce navire, explique un scientifique à bord, c'est qu'il permet d'aller tester des idées dehors, en conditions réelles. » Le b'timent peut de fait aller naviguer dans les eaux polaires. Le tout avec des conditions de vie à bord qui restent très confortables : la quasi-totalité des chercheurs dispose de cabines individuelles ! L'Alliance au sein de l'Otan Le NRV Alliance est, avec le CRB Leonardo, l'un des deux navires détenus en propre par l'Otan. Rattaché au Centre de recherche et d'expérimentation maritime (CMRE) de La Spezia (Italie), il est chargé de tester des technologies au profit des Alliés. Le b'timent a longtemps été opéré par des marins allemands, jusqu'en 2015. Pour simplifier la logistique dans son port d'attache, il a été transféré aux mains de la marine italienne qui a rapidement séduit les scientifiques à bord avec sa botte secrète : la pizza en guise de casse-croûte nocturne ! Des pionniers pas toujours suivis Les équipes du NVR Alliance travaillent en collaboration avec des industriels et des universités. Ils développent souvent leurs propres solutions aux problématiques identifiées. Ils ont par exemple acheté un drone Bluefin au Français Thales, dans lequel ils ont intégré leurs propres équipements. Le fabricant a pu bénéficier des retours et progresse ainsi dans son développement, gr'ce aux essais de l'Otan. Côté autorité publique, l'enthousiasme n'est pas toujours aussi présent. De l'aveu du docteur Catherine Warner, les découvertes à bord ne sont pas toujours suivies par les États commanditaires qui hésitent à poursuivre les investissements. https://www.bruxelles2.eu/2018/07/03/lalliance-navire-de-recherche-de-lotan-teste-des-drones-sous-marins-dans-le-grand-nord/

REELING IN THE YEAR The operational, procurement, training and historical milestones of the past 12 months. By Joanna Calder NORAD AT 60 NORAD AT 60 By Ken Pole SUBMARINE HUNTER The formidable CP-140 Aurora is getting reacquainted with anti-submarine warfare. By Chris Thatcher FUTURE FIGHTERS To manage “interdependencies,” the RCAF placed all fighter projects in one office. By Chris Thatcher YEAR OF THE CYCLONE Declared operationally capable, the CH-148 is embarking on its first deployment. By Lisa Gordon SHAKEDOWN OVER IRAQ The mission in Iraq may have changed, but CH-146 Griffons are still critical support. By Chris Thatcher BIRTH OF SWIFT DEATH In one of many firsts, 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron is marking its 100th anniversary. By Richard Mayne RAM TOUGH After 100 years, 401 Squadron remains on high readiness duty. By Chris Thatcher TROUBLE WITH TRANSITIONS Managing personnel poses a challenge in the transition from old to new fleets. By Chris Thatcher DAWN OF MARITIME AVIATION Formed to counter German submarines, 12 Wing Shearwater celebrates 100 years. By Ernie Cable BOMBER COMMAND Sharing tales of the true nature of courageous fighting spirit. By Richard Mayne CRITICAL SPACE The RCAF has responsibility for the defence Space program. Now comes the hard part. By Ben Forrest AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION Before deploying to Mali, CH-147 Chinooks became forward aeromedical evacuation capable. By Chris Thatcher TECHNICIANS AT WORK Cpl Taylor Hartnell shares a day in the life of maintaining the CH-147 Chinook. By Ken Pole INSIGHT SHOWCASE 2018 supplier capability https://assets.skiesmag.com/digital/2018/RCAF-2018/html5/index.html?page=2:

BY: CRAIG HOYLE General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' MQ-9B SkyGuardian medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely-piloted air system (RPAS) will make it first transatlantic journey early next month, before appearing at the UK's Royal International Air Tattoo. The aircraft – which forms the basis for the UK Royal Air Force's future Protector RPAS – is scheduled to land at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire on the evening of 11 July, and is due to appear in the static display at the 13-15 July RIAT event. Expected to last more than 20h, the non-stop sortie will commence from General Atomics' flight-test and training centre in Grand Forks, North Dakota. On 25 June, the UK Civil Aviation Authority detailed a series of planned airspace restrictions that will be made in support of the SkyGuardian's arrival. These will be activated "for the safety of the remotely-piloted aircraft and other airspace users", it says. "Temporary danger areas will be activated by NOTAM with potentially less than 24 hours' notice," the CAA says. "Each danger area will be managed by an air traffic control unit." During flight testing, the SkyGuardian has demonstrated its ability to remain airborne for more than 48h. "The civilian aircraft, which is certificated and registered through the US Federal Aviation Administration, has been issued permission to operate within UK airspace," the CAA says. RAF operations with at least 20 Protector RG1s are due to commence during the 2020s, with the type – to be certificated for use in non-segregated airspace – to replace the service's current armed Reapers. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/unmanned-skyguardian-to-cross-atlantic-for-riat-debu-449768/