U.S. Air Force pilots on Wednesday performed basic surface attack missions and familiarization flights with four aircraft platforms from industry participants in the service branch’s Light Attack Experiment campaign at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The event gathered senior military leaders and international visitors to witness demonstrations of an A-29 Super Tucano from the Embraer–Sierra Nevada Corp. team, an AT-802 Longsword from the Air Tractor–L3 Technologies alliance as well as Scorpion and AT-6 Wolverine platforms from Textron Aviation.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson offered a preview of the flight test campaign last week.

“This experiment is about looking at new ways to improve readiness and lethality,” said Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff and an inductee into Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2017.

“Working with industry, and building on the Combat Dragon series of tests, we are determining whether a commercial off-the-shelf aircraft and sensor package can contribute to the coalition fight against violent extremism,” Goldfein added.

The Air Force noted scenarios to be performed throughout the experiment will cover various combat mission aspects such as air interdiction, close air support, combat search and rescue, strike coordination and reconnaissance.

A U.S. Navy report says the construction of two Virginia-class attack submarines – SSN – and one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine – SSBN – per year is achievable and needed to ensure U.S. maritime superiority, Scout Warrior reported Sunday.

The service branch said in the July report to Congress the move to sustain the production of VCS at an annual rate of two vessels will lead to the acquisition of seven additional SSNs between fiscal year 2017 and FY 2030.

Lt. Lauren Chatmas, a spokeswoman for the Navy, told the publication that building two SSNs annually would help the military branch meet its objective of 66 SSN submarines as stated in the Force Structure Assessment released in December 2016.

“Producing these additional submarines will be a challenge to the submarine industrial base that can be solved only if the shipyards are given sufficient time to adjust facility plans, develop their workforces, and expand the vendor base,” Chatmas added.

General Dynamics’ Electric Boat subsidiary and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division build VCS under a cooperative arrangement with the Navy.

The Virginia-class attack submarine is equipped with torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles and is designed to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as anti-surface warfare and covert mine warfare operations.

Rear Adm. Brian Brakke, head of the U.S. Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, has said the service branch wants to use unmanned aerial system and artificial intelligence to plan repairs for damaged airfields, Defense News reported Wednesday.

Brakke told audience at the Global Explosive Ordnance Disposal Symposium and Exhibition he believes AI and machine learning technologies can help UAS perform initial damage assessment activities on airfields and plan how personnel can get runways back in service.

Some unmanned system experts believe part of the technology required for Brakke’s drone vision currently exists in the market in the form of UAS platforms built to fly over facilities and create high-fidelity maps for analysis, the report noted.

Michael Blades, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said that current commercial drones can fly over facilities a few times to take volume measurements and establish a three-dimensional map of specific areas.

The U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities Office plans to expand its scope of operations beyond the current cyber, electronic warfare and assured position, navigation and timing focus areas, Army Times reported Wednesday.

Doug Wiltsie, director of the Rapid Capabilities Office, told Army Times that the office will look to focus on three additional areas which cover the simplification of devices, the use of unmanned aerial vehicle swarm technology and reconnaissance support for the service branch.

The RCO started to build EW and PNT technologies in July as part of efforts to prepare the Army for potential mission challenges.

The report noted that the RCO’s first priority was to deliver an EW capacity to Europe in a move to address recent Russian developments.

“The focus for the long term is getting at threat agility … we all understand that the threats today are not only near-peer but all of the threats are using electronic warfare, using spectrum-based effects,” said Mark Kitz, director of the system of systems engineering team at Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors.

The Government Accountability Office has said the Defense Department expects the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program to require an additional $3.9 billion in funds over the next five years to support the follow-on modernization plan – Block 4.

GAO said in a report published Tuesday that DoD also plans to implement an incremental acquisition approach to the Block 4 plan.

F-35 program officials have begun to re-evaluate schedule, capability and cost aspects of the knowledge-based incremental approach to Block 4 system development and acquisition due to leadership changes and budget uncertainties, according to the congressional watchdog.

DoD intends to request funds in February 2018 to buy the first Lockheed Martin-built fighter jet equipped with the initial Block 4 increment before follow-on modernization capabilities are fully tested, the report noted.

GAO also found potential concurrency concerns with regard to the Block 4 acquisition plan.

“Program officials told us that the concurrency issue is being considered as part of their reassessment of Block 4,” the agency added.