If you’re following the Navy’s new drone program, hold on to something. Keeping track of the various names of what used to be UCLASS and then became CBARS and is now the MQ-XX Stingray — or perhaps the MQ-25 — may make you as dizzy as keeping up with what the Navy plans to do with… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Retired Gen. Ham Adds Apache Cost Info At Friday breakfast WASHINGTON: The congressionally chartered National Commission on the Future of the Army recommends splitting the difference between the regular Army and the National Guard in a bitterly polarizing dispute over AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. That’s the most politically high-profile recommendation out of dozens, many of them… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Just how bad is the Army at buying stuff? Earlier this week, the head of the Army’s utility helicopter programs called out the Army’s budget and acquisition system. Even though the Army is “100 percent behind this program,” said Col. Tomas Todd,  “it’s unbelievable what we go through,” to design, build, and starting fielding new engines for… Keep reading →

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA.: Manned-Unmanned Teaming, when manned aircraft crews control drones from their cockpit, is a child of the drone revolution still in its infancy. So maybe it’s no surprise that Army Apache helicopter units with new AH-64Es equipped to control MQ-1C Grey Eagle armed drones have gotten off to a crawl rather than a run using… Keep reading →

The drone revolution, it appears, came along just in time for the Army. The service’s leaders have decided they can afford neither a new armed scout helicopter nor even the old ones they already own, but there’s always MUM-T — aka Manned Unmanned Teaming, in which manned aircraft work with unmanned aerial systems (UAS), aka… Keep reading →