Pararescuemen of the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Special Tactics Squadron performed a live demonstration for engineers and scientists at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, who are looking to improve the equipment that the combat rescuers use. Extracting a mock victim from a representative Humvee, the PJs provided the 711th Human Effectiveness Directorate a place to begin. “By viewing the demonstration from a lab perspective, our scientists and engineers can determine if there is a better way for the PJs to perform any part of their mission,” explained Randy Mieskoski, manager of the Specialized Warfighter Operations Research Development program. “Maybe we know of a technology that exists that can be adapted.” The directorate recently expanded its work, which formerly concentrated on improving the effectiveness of joint terminal attack controllers, to include pararescue. (Wright-Patt report by Elizabeth Long)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…