FARNBOROUGH AIR SHOW: A new study by the consulting company PwC’s aerospace and defense division concludes that U.S. and European primes must look abroad for the mainstay of their profits. As PwC’s Scott Thompson says in this exclusive interview, industry leaders also beleive controlling costs and improving their own management will be key to surviving… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy’s weapon of the future will take one step closer to reality this month, as service officials prepare to test fire the first industry-built prototype of its fabled Railgun. ONR testers will fire off a BAE Systems-built version of the weapon next week at the Navy’s surface warfare center in Dahlgren, VA., according… Keep reading →

Each generation has military platforms which define it. Inter-continental ballistic missiles, stealth bombers, and nuclear propulsion submarines assumed that mantle during the Cold War. In the post-Cold War period, few military platforms have captivated the War on Terror generation like the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Despite great success on the battlefield, American defense firms have… Keep reading →

Washington: Air Force officials are struggling to wipe out a computer virus that has infected the ground control systems that guide Predator unmanned aerial vehicles and their successors. The control systems are based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The famous Predators used by the CIA to kill terrorists are controlled from a different… Keep reading →

On Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. military possessed just handful of robot aircraft. Today, the Air Force alone operates more than 50 drone “orbits,” each composed of four Predator or Reaper aircraft plus their ground-based control systems and human operators. Smaller Navy, Marine and Army drones number in the thousands. Since they do not need… Keep reading →