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Air Force

Air Force Wants Cheap, Expendable Drones And Missiles To Overwhelm Enemy Air Defenses

Friday, March 23rd, 2018

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Air Force Wants Cheap, Expendable Drones And Missiles To Overwhelm Enemy Air Defenses

General Atomics' SkyGuardian, a variant of its Type-Certifiable Predator B UAV. Photo: General Atomics.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Pentagon scientists are trying to beat the cost curve the military likely will encounter in future wars by designing low-cost, expendable unmanned aircraft and munitions that can overwhelm enemy defenses without breaking the bank.“We need an unmanned, low-cost attritable aircraft,” Jeffrey Stanley, associate deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering, said.But the program to develop inexpensive unmanned aircraft itself needs to happen quickly and at a much lower cost than traditional government…

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