Lt. Gen. Clint Hinote, who leads Air Force Futures, said that the service is getting ready to take delivery' of a drone prototype through the Pentagon's research and engineering office, also known as OSD (R&E). "It might look a lot like an Australian thing," he joked, referring to the Ghost Bat, which first flew in 2021 at Royal Australian Air Force Base Woomera. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman confirmed that the research and engineering office is involved in development and experimentation efforts involving Ghost Bat, saying that "OSD (R&E) continually works with the services to validate technologies that are key to advancing and fielding next generation capabilities."
He declined to give further details except to confirm that Ghost Bat is not being funded through the Rapid Defence Experimentation Reserve (RDER), an OSD (R&E) -led effort wherein the services propose experiments and compete for funding.
In recent weeks Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has hinted that the Ghost Bat could be a useful tool for the US Air Force as it seeks to understand how semi-autonomous combat drones, what the service calls Collaborative Combat Aircraft could interface with the service's fifth and sixth-generation fighters. Both CCA and a manned sixth-generation fighter are planned to be part of the service's Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems and Kendall has said a CCA competition could begin as early as fiscal 2024.
This story is from the October 2022 edition of Future Flight.
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This story is from the October 2022 edition of Future Flight.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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