Combat Cloud and Drone Swarms on the way
 

Chief of the Air Staff says he is ready to declare a multidomain combat cloud capability as operational, and is approaching the same state for swarming drone technology.

ACM Sir Mike Wigston was speaking at the online Global Air Chiefs' Conference.

There's quite a good resumé from Andrew Chuter at C4ISRNET
https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/20...ish-air-chief/

Or you can get the full MoD transcript of Sir Mike's remarks at
https://www.gov.uk/government/speech...nt=immediately

airsound

PS Apologies probably necessary to the Acronyms And Other Gobbledygook thread.....

He's had a bit of backlash on Twitter reference his gender/ethnicity recruiting targets for 2030 (40% female, 20% ethnic minorities).

I think he may have alienated some of the Force with his use of language to describe his vision...and further still by basically saying everyone will be a sim pilot in the near future.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....afffe8b2f8.jpg

The thing is, whatever we do, you can be sure the Chinese are doing it bigger, better and faster.

New hat?
Wiggy said (among a lot of other things)
... "Next week we are announcing a significant change to our appearance policy and there will be more to follow for all our people." ...

Pointless woke-ism having any such 'targets' - just select the best. 'Inclusivity' seems to be the current Holy Grail besotting VSOs..

When I managed the recruiting at my UAS, I discovered that a pile of applications had been put on one side. "Why is this?", I asked - only to be told "Oh that's the girls. We're only allowed 10% and we've already got our quota". To which I replied "Bolleaux - if they're good enough to get through the first interview, then we want to see them. We select on merit, not gender!"

It must have worked the other way around at my UAS. Males made up most of the sponsored cohort (selected by OASC) but were firmly in the minority of each VR intake, which for some reason was always dominated by attractive young ladies!

Sovereign multi-spectral constellation probably the most interesting bit in there = multiple UK Nat recce satellites.

The notion of a quota isn’t appealing but I can’t say I’m adverse to the idea of 40% of the intake being female. But how many will stay? Once families come along it can be really challenging for main care providers to maintain a full Service career. (I write as the proud owner of a lovely pair of X chromosomes..)

Quotas are appalling. I remember just before the last Gulf Unpleasantness, I was chatting with my USAF opposite number in theatre, over a couple of alcohol free Buds (even worse than the alcoholic ones!)

USAF Chap: Our aim is that the USAF represents exactly and proportionally the diverse ethnicity of the US of A!

Teeters: So why don't you apply the same rules to your Olympic Track and Field Team?

USAF: Well, we have to pick the best for that.

Teeters: Exactly......

But they would have done something if they felt that they were missing talent from sections of society because there was a lack of interest driven by systemic selection factors, whether you would call them discrimination or something else.