9 mars 2021 | International, Terrestre
At long last, Turkey’s Altay tank finds an engine from South Korea
The Altay program has faced delays due to a lack of access to significant components like the engine, transmission and armor.
29 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
COVID-19 is changing the Air Force’s cyber training
WASHINGTON — The Air Force is ensuring its mission essential cyber training goes on during the global COVID-19 pandemic but officials are also delaying some training related to the service's networks.
“When all this kicked off, we prioritized all of the mission essential courses that are supplying operators to the cyber mission force. We wanted to make sure that those units continue to get the trained operations that they needed so that their readiness levels didn't suffer,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Williams, commander of the 39th Information Operations Squadron, which provides intermediate cyber weapons system training to airmen, told C4ISRNET.
The cyber mission force are the teams each of the services provide up to U.S. Cyber Command. In addition to training cyber mission force personnel, the 39th IOS also trains specific weapon systems for the Air Force network (AFNET), which were either postponed or reduced class size to ensure students are safe.
The reduction in those Air Force specific courses have allowed the mission essential courses to reduce in person class sizes for classified work that can't be done remotely to ensure the proper social distancing measures are taken.
To learn outside the classroom, the schoolhouse is relying on a partnership with Carnegie Mellon for an entirely online cyberspace fundamentals course, Microsoft Teams and WebEx.
Students also don't have to necessarily travel to the 39th in Hurlburt Field, Florida for some training. They can remotely take courses such as the cyber fundamentals course online saving money for temporary duty travel.
Williams said he expects to see more of that in the future.
The remote tools have also allowed students to gain a unique experience with members of the operational force, while simultaneously saving the taxpayer money.
Students are able to hear from operational commanders and operators and even participate in exercises with units. Previously, the students would have to travel to those units to participate, but now, they can dial in.
“That helps us in the classroom hit it home. We get those war stories to use in the classroom and the students actually, those light bulbs start to turn on and it really starts to hit home,” TSgt Jonathan Zinski, a course instructor, said. “Now that we have more of an eye-opening capability to use some of our virtual tools, we've actually been able to enroll and participate an entire team of instructors and cadre here at the 39th IOS to participate in a no-kidding virtual exercise with an operational unit to not only hone our skills and help some of our instructors here bring the lessons learned into the classroom but to also help the operational units from our standpoint and help them get better at their jobs.”
This experience also gives the students a flavor of what to expect at their units prior to arriving.
Officials explained that while the actual courseware didn't change, the schoolhouse shifted the courseware and maneuvered the syllabus to accommodate students doing a combination of distance learning and in person classes. They looked at what courses needed to be conducted in person, then worked around that to ensure the class sizes were small enough while supplementing with remote learning tools.
The pandemic has also accelerated certain initiatives the school planned to undertake at a later date. Williams said one includes combining cyber mission force and AFNET defensive cyber training.
He said they are re-imagining the defensive cyber training pipeline with something they're calling defensive cyber operations initial qualification training.
“Instead of creating a blanket training for each of these weapon systems, we're trying to integrate the AFNET systems with the CMF where it makes sense and also tailor the training,” he said, noting this should be up and running in October regardless of COVID-19.
This re-imagining was always planned, but Williams said COVID accelerated it.
The adaptations the 39th has been forced to make as a result of the pandemic has rendered some valuable lessons as well.
Williams said some initiatives never would have been considered if the pandemic didn't hit. He explained officials are turning a conference room into a recording studio so instructors can either deliver training to students in a separate room or record lectures for students to view later.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/07/27/covid-19-is-changing-the-air-forces-cyber-training/
Sur le même sujet
-
-
13 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Delays Cause Two-Year, $1.5B Extension For F-35 Block 4
Steve Trimble The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said on May 12 that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Block 4 program must be extended two years due to development delays, adding $1.5 billion to the overall price tag. The original schedule called for completing the Block 4 modernization program in 2024, but the timeline must be extended to 2026, GAO said in the watchdog agency's annual review of the F-35 program. The F-35 Joint Program Office initially estimated the cost to develop all 66 new capabilities in Block 4 would be $10.6 billion. The two-year extension to deliver Block 4 raises the development cost to $12.1 billion, with another $3.4 billion budgeted to procure and insert the capabilities in future U.S. F-35s, GAO said. The Block 4 delays started in 2019. Lockheed planned to deliver the first eight Block 4 capabilities last year, but only one—the automatic ground collision avoidance system—entered service, GAO said. In another example, Lockheed delivered software last year to enable the interim full-motion video capability for the Marine Corps F-35Bs, but failed to deliver the associated hardware, the report said. As Block 4 capabilities have entered testing, the Defense Department's operational testers have noticed other problems. Some of the new capabilities have “caused issues” with existing F-35 functions that previously worked, GAO said. “The contractor had not performed adequate testing of the software before delivering it to the test fleet,” GAO said. For its part, the contractor acknowledged the issues and said they would conduct additional testing in software laboratories before releasing future software blocks, GAO added. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/aircraft-propulsion/delays-cause-two-year-15b-extension-f-35-block-4
-
22 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial
US Air Force selects Raytheon Missiles and Defense to develop Long-Range Standoff weapon
Tucson, Ariz., April 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Air Force announced plans to continue with Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a business of Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX), on the development of the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) cruise missile, a strategic weapon that will replace the service's legacy Air-Launched Cruise Missile. Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a business of the newly formed Raytheon Technologies, was formed on a foundation of advanced innovation and excellence in engineering. "LRSO will be a critical contributor to the air-launched portion of America's nuclear triad," said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense. "Providing a modernized capability to the U.S. Air Force will strengthen our nation's deterrence posture." In 2017, the U.S. Air Force awarded Raytheon and Lockheed Martin contracts for the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase of the program. The Raytheon Missiles & Defense LRSO team recently passed its preliminary design review and is on track to complete the TMRR phase of the defense acquisition process by January 2022. Contract negotiations for the engineering and manufacturing development phase, with a strong focus on schedule realism, affordability, and cost-capability trades, will start in fiscal year 2021. The contract award is anticipated in fiscal year 2022. To view the U.S. Air Force's announcement, click here. About Raytheon Technologies Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an aerospace and defense company that provides advanced systems and services for commercial, military and government customers worldwide. With 195,000 employees and four industry-leading businesses ― Collins Aerospace Systems, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Raytheon Missiles & Defense ― the company delivers solutions that push the boundaries in avionics, cybersecurity, directed energy, electric propulsion, hypersonics, and quantum physics. The company, formed in 2020 through the combination of Raytheon Company and the United Technologies Corporation aerospace businesses, is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Media Contact Tara Wood C: 520.247.5630 Tara_woods@rtx.com View source version on Raytheon Company: http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2020-04-20-US-Air-Force-selects-Raytheon-Missiles-Defense-to-develop-Long-Range-Standoff-weapon