A revisit of awarding executive agency for remotely piloted aircraft to the Air Force or any other service is “not in the cards” Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said Tuesday. Speaking during an Air Force Association-sponsored Air Force Breakfast Series presentation in Arlington, Va., Schwartz said he’s not interested in “theological notions about who’s in charge” of RPA development and operational concepts. Rather, he merely wants to ensure that all deployed RPAs tie back into a central clearinghouse such that their products are available to any user that needs them. “The closer you get to the field, the less troubling” such interservice tugs-of-war become, he said. He added that the Army and Navy having RPAs “doesn’t threaten me in the least,” and that, in fact, he and the Chiefs of Staff of those services are having a productive give-and-take on RPAs. (For more from Schwartz, see Unambiguous above.)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.