By Boeing Company on Thursday, June 6th, 2013 A U.S. Army and Boeing team completed the 1st flight of the primary of 4 Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS) Engineering, Manufacturing and Development aircraft on May 22. The aircraft was inside the air for greater than four hours and completed all first-flight test objectives, including evaluation of aerodynamic handling qualities, aircraft systems performance, and autopilot functions. The flight befell on the Beechcraft facility in Wichita, Kan., following ground tests that included a high-speed taxi. This milestone is a key event at the route to Limited User Tests and... Read More »

A small car can’t pull a heavy trailer. Sports utility vehicles don’t have a compact car’s fuel efficiency. an ideal, one-size-fits-all vehicle doesn’t exist. The identical goes for unmanned ground vehicles, referred to as UGVs. Soldiers use UGVs — resembling the 40-pound PackBot or the bigger, 115-pound TALON — to detect and defeat roadside bombs, gain situational awareness, detect chemical and radiological agents, and increase the standoff distance between Soldiers and potentially dangerous situations. Just as SUVs offer utility smaller cars can’t match, larger UGVs provide capabilities not available with smaller platforms. The 300-pound iRobot Warrior, developed in partnership with... Read More »

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress May 21 of a potential Foreign Military Sale to the Republic of Korea (ROK) for weapons in support of a possible Direct Commercial Sale of F-15 SE aircraft. Included are also associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $ 823 million. The Government of the Republic of Korea (ROK) has requested a likely sale of weapons in support of a possible Direct Commercial Sale of F-15 SE aircraft. These aircraft weapons include here: 274 AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) 6 AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM Guidance Sections 362 Joint... Read More »

What does a commander do when the unit has a mission in Afghanistan, and they’re partnering with nation’s greater than 6,000 miles away? The 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), also referred to as 10th SFG(A), of Fort Carson, Colo., met Special Forces units from four European nations at Grafenwoehr Training Area, April 16-28, to arrange for an upcoming mission in Afghanistan. “It’s very unique that a U.S. based 10th Special Forces Group battalion can come to Grafenwoehr Training Area from stateside to fulfill with their European partners for his or her culminating keep fit exercise just before deploying to Afghanistan... Read More »

The Euro Hawk remains making waves in Germany, even after the defense ministry pulled the plug at the surveillance drone project last week. The issues were obvious long before the debacle. The German representatives all in favour of the Euro Hawk project still sounded confident back in December of 2012. “The project has reached a degree of maturity that enables the Euro Hawk conditional entry into European airspace,” the German delegation said on the International Aerospace Conference in Montreal on the time. Three months later, the German defense ministry’s undersecretary of state didn’t sound as convinced when questioned in Germany’s... Read More »