Future remotely piloted aircraft, like the Air Force’s MQ-X concept, not only need to have jam-resistant signals, authentication, and inscription capabilities, they also must possess additional features to operate in contested airspace that today’s MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators lack, said Col. James Gear, head of USAF’s RPA task force. “MQ-X is still a very important capability and it’s a requirement that continues to work,” said Gear Wednesday at the AUVSI symposium in Washington, D.C. MQ-X also needs to have robust and agile communications, be weather tolerant, and be modular and upgradeable, with mission sets for intelligence-reconnaissance-surveillance and strike, he said. (For more on MQ-X, see The RPA Boom from Air Force Magazine’s 2010 archives)
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach a four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.