2016-04-30 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake After our day with the F-35 Developmental Test Team at Edwards AFB, we met with the KC-30A team at Edwards. The team was continuing the effort to clear the tanker boom with an ever-growing number of receiver aircraft. The team we met with had…
2016-05-11 By Robbin Laird We have been building on Paul Bracken’s work on the second nuclear age to focus on the impact of the rethink regarding nuclear weapons going on globally. https://sldinfo.com/rethinking-nuclear-deterrence-shaping-a-way-ahead/ SLD: And to the point of different perspectives, that really goes to the heart of the matter. We…
2016-05-09 By Richard Weitz Second Line of Defense again attended the annual Moscow Conference on International Security, which met April 26-28, 2016. This year’s focus was international terrorism. The presenters also offered insights into Russia’s military operations in Syria and expectations for future relations with the United States. The Russian…
2016-05-06 By Robbin Laird When Lt. General Davis, the Deputy Commandant of Aviation spoke at the Williams Foundation seminar on new approaches to air-land integration, he described a key aspect of the evolving Marine Corps approach with their air assets as “multi-mission everything". Technology is important to this effort, and…
2016-04-22 By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake We had the opportunity in late 2012 to interview the then head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command (NORAD-NORTHCOM), Army General Chuck Jacoby. Then on March 31, 2016, we sat down with the current NORAD and NORTHCOM Commander,…
2016-05-06 According to the UK MoD: "Royal Navy and Royal Air Force Pilots are training to fly the new state-of-the-art stealth jet the F-35B Lightning II alongside their US counterparts at Marine Air Corps Station Beaufort, South Carolina. The highly advanced 5th generation jet will come into UK service from…
05/06/2016: The highest priority skillset for the Afghan Air Force A-29 Super Tucano pilots is the effective execution of close air support (CAS). Pilots are trained to employ rockets, precision-guided bombs, general purpose bombs, and strafe. The A-29 can employ a variety of weapons to do this mission: .50 cal…
05/03/2016: As Air Commodore Heap, head of the Surveillance Response Group, noted in an interview with Second Line of Defense in March 2016: “We are small but we want to be capable of being a little Tasmanian Devil that you don’t want to play with because if you come at…
