AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies has released Predator’s Big Safari (caution, large-sized file), a paper that charts the vision and creativity that ultimately transformed the Predator remotely piloted aircraft from “an ISR platform of limited utility into a revolutionary weapon.” In 2000, the Air Force’s Big Safari rapid acquisition office undertook a developmental project to arm the then-designated RQ-1 reconnaissance platform. The armed Predator “was conceived and developed solely by the Air Force and primarily because of the vision of one Air Force leader”—retired Gen. John Jumper, writes Richard Whittle, who authored the paper. Jumper led Air Combat Command and was later Chief of Staff during this period. “Technologically, this is an Air Force success story, despite inaccurate assertions published elsewhere,” asserts Whittle.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.