Gen. David Goldfein, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, has said the service wants to field a light-attack aircraft with an information networking capability designed to help U.S. and allied forces counter insurgents, the Air Force Times reported Monday.“If I hear one thing from my international air chiefs, it’s ‘we need to figure out how to share information both ways,’†Goldfein told the publication.
“So, for me, with the light-attack experiment, I’m just as interested in the information sharing and intelligence gathering,†he added.
Goldfein noted that a network technology meant to facilitate data sharing with allies is now being tested on the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft from the Sierra Nevada–Embraer team and Textron’s AT-6 Wolverine offering as part of the OA-X experiment.
“There’s something we call Aeronet, which is again a commercial, off-the-shelf [product] that connects these platforms, sensors and weapons together and provides a digital network for light-attack [aircraft],” Goldfein said.
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