Christopher Caruso, a U.S. Air Force avionics technician, has created new technologies designed to simplify maintenance of the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft.

Caruso built a digital video recorder tester and a sniper pod test stand during his deployment at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the Air Force said Friday.

He connected a small television to an aircraft to develop the DVR tester, which works to bypass the DVR head unit and provide a live view into the aircraft’s multifunction display.

Caruso said the DVR tester helps maintainers see any issues with the wiring or the DVR head unit in real time.

The avionics technician built the sniper pod test stand to eliminate the need to mount a pod to the aircraft during maintenance and operational checks.

Sniper pods are mounted on aircraft using tools that block some compartments, limiting maintenance that airman can conduct on pods, the Air Force noted.

Chief Master Sgt. Wesley Ruuti, superintendent of the 455th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron F-16 maintenance, said Caruso’s test stand reduces sniper pod maintenance time by two to three hours.

Ruuti noted that the Air Force unit’s leadership provided guidance and support to help Caruso develop his technology ideas.

The U.S. Navy plans to procure 12 Columbia-class nuclear submarines to replace its fleet of Ohio-class ballistic missile vessels as part of the Defense Department’s plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear triad amid security threats posed by North Korea, Russia and China, National Defense Magazine reported Friday.

The service plans to buy the first Columbia-class submarine in fiscal 2021 and expects the vessel to enter service by 2031.

Vice Adm. Terry Benedict, director of Navy strategic systems programs, said General Dynamics’ Electric Boat subsidiary has begun to develop a new infrastructure to deliver the new Columbia-class submarines to the military branch.

Another nuclear modernization effort at the U.S. Air Force is the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program designed to replace the Minuteman III intercontinentinal ballistic missile system.

The service awarded separate contracts to Boeing and Northrop Grumman in August to conduct technology maturation and risk reduction work for GBSD program.

The GBSD program’s preliminary design assessment is expected to conclude in 2020.

Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Air Force is set to ramp up several modernization efforts by early to mid-2020s and those include the B-21 bomber aircraft, F-35 fighter jets and KC-46 tanker planes.

The Air Force also plans to buy approximately 1,100 Long Range Stand-Off nuclear cruise missiles for integration with the service’s fleet of bombers under a potential $10 billion program, according to the report.

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon received Air Force contracts in August to provide technology maturation and risk reduction support for the LRSO program, the report added.

Defense Secretary James Mattis began a five-day visit to Europe as part of efforts to maintain key U.S. military relations with European allies.

The Defense Department said Friday Mattis will participate in a Northern Group forum on Monday and Tuesday in Helsinki, Finland, to meet with his counterparts from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the U.K.

After that, he will attend a NATO-hosted defense ministers meeting and then lead a separate meeting with ministers to address coalition efforts against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

He will be going to London on Friday and meet with Gavin Williamson, U.K.’s newly appointed defense secretary.

The U.S. Navy called on service personnel to broadcast location data to nearby ships through the use of automatic identification systems and advance plans to update electronic navigation tools aboard vessels, Defense One reported Thursday.

The service made the recommendations through a review publicly released Wednesday about this year’s three surface ship collisions that include an incident involving a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser – USS Lake Champlain.

The Navy attributed the “chain of errors” that led to collisions with inadequate adoption of AIS and failure to use AIS-related data to support situational awareness operations.

“In each of the three collisions, the U.S. Navy ships involved had an AIS receiver and transmitter, but maintained their AIS in receive mode only,” the U.S. Fleet Forces Command said in the Oct. 26 report.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson issued a statement Wednesday saying the collisions involving two Arleigh Burke-class destroyer ships – USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain – were both “preventable.”