“Hours after top Navy officials explained to skeptical lawmakers why they would retire the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier 25 years early, Vice President Mike Pence surprised everyone by delivering the opposite message to sailors aboard the ship.” See link here.
A different view of the above: President Trump Is Spending $20 Billion on an Aircraft Carrier. The Navy Wanted That Money for Cybersecurity.
“This was an inside joke. The joke was, the Pentagon isn’t so hot at counting buildings. Just a few years ago, in fact, it admitted to losing track of “478 structures,” in addition to 39 Black Hawk helicopters (whose fully loaded versions list for about $21 million a pop).”
Thanks Sherlock: Pentagon says China’s military using espionage to steal secrets.
Related to the scare mongering: China’s furtive underwater nukes test the Pentagon.
Video: F-16 crashes into California warehouse.
F-35 production slowdown. A slice: “Winter told lawmakers he was “hitting a stagnant plateau with Lockheed Martin because they are 600 parts a month behind on average — 600 parts not on the production line when I need them.” Complicating that, he said, is that he needs parts “to fix the airplanes” now that there are more than 400 deployed.”
F-35 in action: An Ordinary Bird Brings Down the World’s Most Advanced Warplane.
How DARPA’s Experimental R3D2 Satellite Was Built Super Fast.
The Pentagon asked for $164 million for DIU in its fiscal 2020 budget request.
More on the TransDigm scandal: A Pentagon Contractor’s 9,400% Profit on a Half-Inch Metal Pin Is Challenged.
3 takeaways from Thornberry’s 2020 DoD reform agenda. Short version: enforce existing reforms, big focus on small business, and embracing the split of AT&L.
DARPA plans to launch a competition to teach artificial intelligence (AI) software programmes how to control aircraft and their weapons in dogfights. I presume this is following on the heels of that Georgia Tech student that wrote a dogfighting program that beat real pilots.
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