Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) Wednesday told the commander of the Strategic Command Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton that he thinks adding a nuclear warhead to the nation’s submarines could be “disruptive” to the maritime program.
A planned nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) would be deployed on the Virginia-class submarines and would include a variant of the W80-4 air-launched cruise missile warhead. The W80-4 is something that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is already working on.
“One of my concerns here is one of the things that makes us stand out is our submarine force, especially the attack submarines are incredibly effective,” Kelly said. Kelly’s remarks came at a hearing with the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on Strategic Forces on the budget for fiscal 2026 and the future of the defense program. The hearing featured Cotton as a witness.
“To integrate a tactical nuclear missile into a Virginia-class sub would take modifications that are significant,” Kelly said. “You’d have to put the security system that we have in effect for nuclear weapons” The problem, Kelly said, is that “I think it would be somewhat disruptive. I think that needs to be a consideration before we go down the road of significant modifications to these systems.”
Cotton responded, “I don’t know that it would be disruptive” and applauded U.S. “allies’ and partners’ ability of letting us have dual-use nuclear-capable things arrive on their shores.”
“I think there’s work to be done, but I think it could be accomplished,” Cotton said.
Meanwhile, other Senators on the subcommittee were also in favor of SLCM-N, including Chair Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), whose state includes the silos for nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, currently for Boeing [BA]-made Minuteman III and intended for Northrop Grumman [NOC] Sentinel missiles that are supposed to replace Minuteman III.
“This committee on a bipartisan basis strongly supports SLCM,” Fischer said earlier in the hearing. Fischer said in her opening statement that she thought the nation was “woefully underprepared” in terms of its strategic capabilities, but when she asked Cotton if he thought SLCM-N would address the “capability gap,” Cotton said it would.
A bipartisan group of congressional representatives want to expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) authority to develop counter drone technology, according to a press release by Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.).
The Nuclear Ecosystem Drone Defense Act (NEDD) was introduced by: Reps. Lee and Mark Amodei (R) from Nevada, Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), according to a March 18 press release.
The representatives
announced what would become a bicameral bill in the House to increase protection of DoE nuclear assets from “unmanned aerial systems,” or drones. The legislation comes amid a series of drone sightings near NNSA facilities.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) is leading companion legislation in the other chamber, the press release said.
The NEDD Act would allow DoE to acquire drone technology, similar to “that of our adversaries,” to test counter-drone systems, the release said. It would also allow DoE to develop defense systems and expand the definition of “covered assets” to include facilities housing nuclear weapons components and transport vehicles.
“Unauthorized drones pose a serious threat to America’s nuclear resources related to national security, including at the Nevada National Security Site where we maintain America’s nuclear weapons ecosystem,” Lee, a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Defense, said in the release. “Our bipartisan NEDD Act bill will give the Department of Energy the tools it needs to defend all its nuclear and national security assets from unauthorized enemy drones.”
“[A]dversaries should not be able to fly a drone over anywhere in this country that makes part of a nuclear weapon,” Moulton, ranking member of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, said.
NNSA is the “cornerstone of our strategic production capabilities” that should have “tools to protect our most sensitive security capabilities,” Fleischman said. He is chair of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee and his district abuts Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Anduril Industries has received an $86 million contract to partner with U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to create the architecture and standards for integrating autonomy technology into the command’s unmanned systems (UxS), the company said on Wednesday.
Under the three-year contract Anduril will be helping USSOCOM create the foundation to take charge of its mission autonomy plans to meet evolving battlespace needs, the company said.
Anduril said it “will support USSOCOM in developing their infrastructure, enabling them to integrate, test, validate, and deploy government-owned and commercial mission autonomy software and enabling technology across their robotic platforms. The infrastructure will cover the entire software development lifecycle, including data export and management, data model and interface validation, and system-level verification and validation, establishing a reliable, interoperable, and trusted foundation for SOCOM to rapidly and continuously integrate collaborative terms of autonomous systems into their operations.”
In the next few months Anduril said it will use its Lattice for Mission Autonomy platform at capability demonstrations and integration events to “prove out” how the platform will speed the ability of USSOCOM deploy autonomous capabilities. The use of Lattice for Mission Autonomy will enable a “paradigm shift in SOCOM operations that is focused on collaborative mission autonomy and coordinated mass effects,” Anduril said.
The new contract expands Anduril’s work with USSOCOM. In early 2022, the command awarded the company a 10-year, nearly $1 billion contract to be its systems integrator for counter-unmanned systems needs worldwide (Defense Daily
, Jan. 24, 2022). Anduril said that under the earlier award it has “developed, integrated, and deployed hundreds” of its, other vendors’, and government-owned hardware and software capabilities in support of the command’s counter-UxS efforts.
The Coast Guard on Tuesday awarded Bollinger Shipyards a $951.6 million contract modification to complete the detail design and construction of the first Polar Security Cutter (PSC), with work expected to be completed in May 2030.
If delivery of the PSC also occurs in 2030, the Coast Guard’s first new heavy polar icebreaker will be six years late. Moreover, the fixed-price-incentive-firm target contract modification increases substantially the cost of the first vessel.
In April 2019, the Coast Guard awarded the former VT Halter Marine—acquired by Bollinger in November 2022—$745.9 million for the engineering and detail design of the ship class, and procurement of long lead-time materials and construction of the first ship. That contract included options for two additional PSCs for a combined value of $1.9 billion for the three-ship buy.
The Coast Guard’s program of record is for three PSCs, although a fleet mix analysis has shown a potential need for more of the vessels. That analysis shows the service needs a combined fleet of eight or nine polar icebreakers consisting of a mix of PSCs and a yet-to-be-developed and built new medium polar icebreaker to break ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
“The PSC’s mission will be to ensure continued access to both polar regions and support the country’s economic, commercial, maritime, and national security needs,” the Navy said in the contract award notice. The award was made through Naval Sea Systems Command. The program is managed by a Coast Guard-Navy integrated program office.
Earlier this month the Coast Guard said that Bollinger was nearly 92 percent complete with the PSC’s design. The last heavy polar icebreaker built in the U.S., the current Polar Star, was commissioned in 1976. The service’s lone medium polar icebreaker, the Healy, was commissioned in 1999.
Design and construction of the new PSC has been hampered by the fact that no U.S. shipyard has built a heavy icebreaker in nearly 50 years, and the shipbuilding industrial base has to contend with a complex design and a shortage of requisite skills.
The Department of Homeland Security in December approved the Coast Guard allowing Bollinger to continue building prefabrication units of the ship to further develop the skills and expertise needed to move full production (Defense Daily, Dec. 24, 2024). The Coast Guard describes this a “progressive crawl-walk-run approach.”
Approval to begin full production awaits.
“Securing this contract modification has truly been a herculean effort and underscores the incredible trust the U.S. government has placed in Bollinger to build and deliver the first heavy polar icebreaker in half a century,” Ben Bordelon, president and CEO of Bollinger, said in a statement. “We wouldn’t be in the solid position we’re in today without the leadership and the tireless efforts of the entire team at Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding. Their hard work and dedication have successfully put the PSC program on a strong path forward after a rocky start under the previous, foreign-owned builder. We now look forward to receiving the green light to begin full production.”
VT Halter Marine, which was based in Mississippi, was owned by Singapore’s ST Engineering.
A contracting announcement said 56 percent of the work will be done in Pascagoula, Miss., 7 percent in Boston, and the rest spread across other cities and towns in the U.S.
Bollinger said it has invested $76 million across its Mississippi facilities since acquiring VT Halter Marine, which was based in the state. The Louisiana-based company also said it has increased its workforce there by over 61 percent, with production roles at Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding up 178 percent. Hiring will continue as the program moves into full production in the coming years, it said.
To fill a gap in polar icebreaking needs, the Coast Guard in December acquired a commercial icebreaker, which will be commissioned as the Storis, that will operate in Alaska waters this summer.
WASHINGTON – Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), ranking member of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower, on Tuesday said that the U.S. needs to “reciprocate” the commitment Australia made to the shipbuilding workforce.
“I’m very pro-AUKUS,” Kaine said at a hearing on the “state of conventional surface shipbuilding,” adding that he thinks the U.S. needs “more alliances in the Indo-Pacific” and “we need to deal with the China threat.”
“But I am worried about this reality-to-budget,” Kaine said, stressing that Australia committed to giving the U.S. a $3 billion investment toward its shipbuilding workforce to help build nuclear-armed submarines for Australia.
“They [Australia] did it, and they made the commitment, and it demonstrates the concern they have about China, obviously,” Kaine said. “We have a lot at stake in trying to make sure we can meet the commitment. We need to meet our own needs for sure, but that’s a huge commitment that they’ve made to us that we need to reciprocate.”
Kaine told sister publication The Exchange Monitor in January that AUKUS would “probably” be in a “good position” under Trump.
Brett Seidle, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, stressed the importance of submarines in the hearing.
“It would be a significant mistake [to eliminate the Columbia-class],” Seidle said. “We have maritime dominance in that submarine arena, and the Columbia-class is the most important leg of our nuclear triad.”
Seidle added that the U.S. also needed to continue building the Virginia-class subs.
AUKUS is a trilateral agreement among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. In the 2030s the U.S. plans to sell Australia three to five used and new Virginia-class submarines. Australia plans to build its own SSN-AUKUS boats the following decade.
While President Trump said in a joint address to Congress that he plans to set up an Office of Shipbuilding to “resurrect” domestic shipbuilding, it is unclear how the U.S. shipbuilding base will affect AUKUS.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The Army plans to spend over $1 billion through fiscal year 2027 on fielding capabilities out of the next iteration of its Transforming in Contact (TiC) 2.0 initiative, to include buying thousands of drones, counter-UAS capabilities and mobility platforms, a lead official said Tuesday.
Lt. Gen. Joseph Ryan, deputy chief of staff, G-3/5/7, detailed the Army’s plans to expand with TiC 2.0, after the service spent about $15 million on capabilities under the first iteration of the rapid fielding effort.
Paratroopers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, ride in an Infantry Squad Vehicle during Falcon Avalanche at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, Feb. 6, 2025. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Devyn Adams)
“In the year of execution [in FY ‘24] with a fixed budget, we didn’t have a lot of flexibility. But what we did do was we reallocated fielding of specific items of equipment. [I have] great appreciation for our acquisition professionals who helped us do that very rapidly,” Ryan said in remarks at AUSA’s Global Force Symposium here. “Since [the end of FY ‘24], we’ve either allocated or we’ve planned to allocate over $1 billion to Transforming in Contact starting here in FY ‘25 through FY ‘27.”
The Army’s TiC effort, spearheaded by Gen. Randy George, the service’s chief of staff, has focused on testing new operating concepts with select Army units and providing troops with new technology, such as drones and electronic warfare capabilities, to gather feedback and inform rapid fielding decisions.
Acting Army Under Secretary David Fitzgerald said Tuesday here the service is “systematically reviewing” its portfolio of legacy programs and current requirements, with an aim to find funds it can use toward its TiC initiative (Defense Daily, March 25).
TiC 1.0, Ryan noted, included outfitting and testing new capabilities with three brigades, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, the 3rd BCT, 10th Mountain Division and 2nd BCT, 25th Infantry Division, which included fielding 360 drones, about 800 mobility platforms, primarily the GM Defense [GM] Infantry Squad Vehicle, 50 counter-UAS systems, 20 persistent low Earth orbit communications systems and about 10 EW systems.
“So it’s certainly something, not anything to sneeze at. But [it was] not a huge lift,” Ryan said.
The Army is now expanding the effort in TiC 2.0 to include two more divisions, two Armored Brigade Combat Teams, two Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, with Ryan noting it will also include the service’s three Multi-Domain Task Forces and Special Operations Forces units.
With the plan to spend over $1 billion on TiC 2.0, Ryan said there are plans to field 1,110 UAS, more than 250 EW systems, over 2,000 mobility platforms, 1,200 C-UAS systems “and the list goes on.”
“We’re impacting, as I said, more and more units across the Army with Transforming in Contact every day,” Ryan said.
Maj. Gen. Robert Barrie, the Army procurement office’s deputy for acquisition and systems management, said last month the service plans to deliver ‘thousands’ of ISVs and S-MET equipment-carrying ground robots in the coming years as it moves out on its TiC initiative (Defense Daily, Feb. 25).
Ryan cited the Army’s push for flexible funding authorities as critical to meeting TiC fielding plans, describing budget line item consolidation as “being able to buy in item from a menu” of platforms or capabilities, rather than a line item tied to one specific program.
“None of this would be possible if we didn’t have a great effort toward an agile funding strategy with our Congress and our appropriators,” Ryan said. “It uses the same funding we’ve already got. There’s no increase in the topline for the Army. [It’s] simply making that funding more agile so that I can pick the best of breed and deliver it to the warfighter.”
“It’s incredibly important. Because if we get [this flexible funding authority] done in a budget someday…,because we’re still operating under a CR, we might be able to realize an even more capable way to deliver company capability to the warfighter,” Ryan added.
Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich, deputy chief of staff G-8, said last week the Army views its effort to get flexible funding for drones, C-UAS and EW as a “pilot program” it could look to expand upon if there’s success with the effort (Defense Daily, March 19).
Congressional appropriators last week provided Pentagon leadership with a plan for how they would like fiscal year 2025 defense funds spent under the continuing resolution, which included granting the Army flexibility for counter-UAS spending (Defense Daily, March 20).
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The Army is “systematically reviewing” its portfolio of legacy programs and current requirements, the service’s acting under secretary said Tuesday, with an aim to find funds it can use toward its Transforming in Contact (TiC) rapid fielding initiative.
“We cannot afford to continue robbing modernization by continuing to pay for things we no longer need. To address this, we’ve begun systematically reviewing legacy programs and reevaluating our existing requirements,” David Fitzgerald, the senior official performing the duties of the under secretary of the Army, said in remarks at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium here.
Acting Army Under Secretary David Fitzgerald speaks at the AUSA’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, AL on March 25, 2025. Photo: Matthew Beinart.
“As we free up resources and [make] hard choices, we will redirect them to the transformation of our force. The Army’s transformation plan is not just about spending on different things, it’s about spending differently,” Fitzgerald added.
Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, offered a similar outlook recently stating the service faces “tough choices” with its budget in the year ahead as it moves out on fielding promising technology out of the TiC initiative (Defense Daily, Jan. 29).
“Really, nothing is off the table. We’re looking at everything. I just had all the leaders together talking about that. We’re going to have to look at [if] the stuff that we’re buying is going to win the next war. We just can’t continue to do those kinds of things. We’re going to have to be ruthless about that,” George said in late January.
The TiC effort, spearheaded by George, has focused on testing new operating concepts with select Army units and providing troops with new technology, such as drones and electronic warfare capabilities, to gather feedback and inform rapid fielding decisions.
Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich, the Army’s deputy chief of staff G-8, said last week he does not anticipate the full-year continuing resolution having a “dramatic impact” on the ability to rapidly field new TiC capabilities (Defense Daily, March 19).
“Is the full year CR going to have an impact? Yes, it is. Is it going to have a dramatic impact? In my opinion, no. And why is that? Because we have worked with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and we really appreciate Congress and the allocation of replenishment funding,” Gingrich said. “And we are starting to get that on contract now so that we can actually bring that into the force later on this year and early into ‘26 depending on the timing, each one of those commodities is a little bit different.”
The Army in late January also confirmed it’s “conducting a review” of its current solicitations and planned contract awards as new leadership takes helm of the Pentagon, while noting that contracting activities “continue to move forward” while the assessment is ongoing (Defense Daily, Jan. 28).
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said his focus on “rebuilding the military” will include rapidly fielding new technologies and scrutinizing the effectiveness of legacy programs for future deterrence and potential conflict (Defense Daily, Feb. 7).
“There’s a lot of programs around here that we spend a lot of money that when you actually war game it [they] don’t have the impact you want them to,” Hegseth said previously. “One of the benefits I have is I don’t…have any special interests. I don’t have a background invested in any systems or services. I’m agnostic to that. It means I’m [going to take] a lot of arrows and I’m prepared to do so. That’s fine. We need the best systems in the hands of warfighters when they need it.”
Fitzgerald said Army senior leaders want program officials to “maximize the use of all authorities available to us to streamline acquisitions.”
“And where necessary, they will secure additional authorities to move faster,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald also noted new Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s priority to make the Army a “better customer” as it works with industry (Defense Daily, Jan. 30).
“Army senior leaders [are looking to] accelerate current efforts to reimagine the way in which the Army produces its requirements documents. We want to unleash the full potential of American ingenuity by propagating capability-based requirements and describing problem sets and then allowing the innovators to innovate rather than prescribing overly restrictive gold-plated wishlists. I think we’re making a bit of headway on that front,” Fitzgerald said.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Navy tested using the Lockheed Martin [LMT] Aegis Combat System against a maneuvering hypersonic target on March 24, the government said Tuesday.
In the March 24 Flight Test Other-40 (FTX-40), or Stellar Banshee, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG-91) used its Sea Based Terminal (SBT) Increment 3 to demonstrate using the latest Aegis software baseline to detect, track and perform a simulated Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) Block IAU engagement against an “advanced maneuvering hypersonic target.”
A Medium Range Ballistic Missile with a Hypersonic Target Vehicle (HTV) – 1 front end is air launched from a C-17 aircraft off the coast of the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hawaii, during Flight Test Other-40, or FTX-40 on March 24, 2025. (Photo: MDA)
This test occurred off the coast of the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.
MDA specifically used an air-launched Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) with a Hypersonic Target Vehicle (HTV)-1 front end, which it said was engineered to allow testing and defeat of a variety of hypersonic targets. The agency noted FTX-40 also gave the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) demonstration satellite an opportunity to collect data.
“Our ability to defeat maneuvering, hypersonic missiles is critical if we are to defend our homeland and our forces against an increasingly dangerous threat. The Aegis Weapon System will play a vital role in the next-generation integrated air and missile defense system, and today’s test demonstrated key achievements as we continue to partner with the Navy in advancing our Nation’s counter-hypersonic capabilities,” MDA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said in a statement.
MDA also said FTX-40 served as a “key risk reduction flight” for the new test target MDA developed and as a data collection opportunity for the Aegis baseline against hypersonic-representative targets.
FTX-40 followed the 2024 FTM-32, another SBT Increment 3 flight test experiment that demonstrated the capability of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer to detect, track, engage and intercept an MRBM target with an SM-6 in its terminal flight phase.
Lockheed Martin argued FTX-40 introduced and integrated several new factors: a new target and simulated missile while marking the successful use of a virtualized configuration of the latest Aegis software for this ballistic missile defense test.
“Our Aegis Combat System successfully defended against a simulated hypersonic threat. Aegis Baseline 9’s hypersonic defense advantage against a MRBM target brings incredible capability that allows our warfighter to see the unseen, sooner, ensuring our sailors get in front of threats quickly,” Chandra Marshall, vice president of Multi-Domain Combat Solutions at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement.
FTX-40 is ultimately another step toward a live intercept of an MRBM HTV-1 target using the upgraded SM-6, the future Flight Test Aegis Weapon System-43 (FTM-43). MDA plans for FTM-43 to occur in fiscal year 2027.
The agency boasted this was also another successful example of integration of space capabilities passing data that is processed through fire control and then sent to the ship for the simulated Aegis engagement. MDA said data analysis from the rest may help inform future counter-hypersonic and missile defense capabilities.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – RTX’s [RTX] Raytheon unveiled and demonstrated its new DeepStrike autonomous launcher at the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 5 experiment, which included firing the company’s offering for a new training rocket.
Brian Burton, Raytheon’s vice president of precision fires and maneuver, told
Defense Daily the company has been developing the DeepStrike concept for just over a year as it looks to showcase a solution to offer an autonomous mobile platform capable of combining offensive and defensive fires, and that it received “incredibly positive” feedback on the demo.
Raytheon’s DeepStrike autonomous launcher at the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 5 experiment. Photo: RTX
“We designed the DeepStrike launchers in mind to have both offensive and defensive capabilities in a single platform. So that is something that we see, as the Army develops requirements and in recognizing their needs, that more depth of fire is always something they’re going to need. Magazine depth is something they’re always going to need. And our system provides that too,” Burton said in interview at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium here.
“Our systems will provide that [mobility], whether you’re talking about a larger [capability], like a Tomahawk or an SM-6, or you’re talking about AMRAAMS or AIM-9X class [weapons]. So to have that capability, the mobility and the autonomy to take some of the pressure off of the warfighting team, all of those are I think capabilities the Army is going to desire and want,” Burton added.
Raytheon teamed with Oshkosh Defense [OSK] and self-driving technology startup Forterra on DeepStrike, with the former providing Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) A2 as the base for the platform and the latter contributing the autonomy kits that utilizes its AutoDrive software.
“You would have seen a lead vehicle with an autonomous follower behind it. And then you would have also seen waypoint navigation to be able to leave a formation, come back to the formation, go on rugged terrain, go off road,” Burton said.
The capability fired from DeepStrike at Project Convergence was Raytheon’s offering for the Army’s Joint Reduced Range Rocket (JR3) program, which utilizes a rocket motor developed by Ursa Major.
“That’s one of the things we’re trying to leverage, how do we take the speed, agility, investment and enthusiasm that we see with the non-traditionals and marry that up with high volume production, robust testing and put the two together and give the Army a better capability,” Burton said.
Burton noted the JR3 development effort is an active competition currently, with the Raytheon awaiting the Army’s next step to potentially select vendors to produce shorter range training rockets in low-rate quantities.
“It’s an urgent need for [the Army] to have the training capability,” Burton said. “I would say the diminishing sources of supply have made it a top priority for them.”
“From a rapid prototyping perspective, to be able to have our own launcher capability, a more modern launcher, and to be able to use it with [our offering] for JR3 rockets and other family of missiles was our vision for that,” Burton added.
Raytheon is planning for continued internal investment and demonstrations with DeepStrike, to include looking at the addition of an autonomous resupply capability, Burton told Defense Daily.
“We are going to continue to evolve the maturity of the auto-drive and demonstrating that capability and demonstrating in more weather adverse environments,” Burton said.
BEJA AIR BASE (AIR BASE 11), Portugal–The Portuguese Air Force (PRTAF) received its first Embraer KC-390 transport in October 2023 and its second in June of last year, as the PRTAF awaits the expected delivery of a third by this summer and two more by the end of 2027.
In addition, PRTAF personnel are to start air-to-air refueling qualifications for the KC-390s next year.
Both the KC-390s and
Lockheed Martin [LMT] C-130Hs based here have supported logistics for NATO F-16 air policing from Amari Air Base, Estonia, as the Russian assault on Ukraine enters its third year.
The Portuguese Air Force has four C-130Hs, the first of which dates back to a September 1977 delivery, and three of which have received recent upgrades, including improved communications and the Traffic Collision and Avoidance System.
Maj. Miguel Pousa, the commander of the 506th Squadron–the “Rhinos”–told reporters here on Tuesday that he has 11 years of experience on the C-130H and some 3,000 C-130H flight hours. “I flew this aircraft and really like it,” he said. “I went to Iraq and Afghanistan…and the performance of the aircraft was amazing.”
Pousa said that he first flew the KC-390 in 2021 in Brazil.
The KC-390 is “easy to fly,” he said. “The performance of the aircraft–and the speed, range, and payload–is completely different compared to the C-130.”
Portuguese Air Force Maj. Miguel Pousa briefs reporters on the ramp of a KC-390 on March 25.
The “Rhinos'” fly-by-wire KC-390s, equipped with Elbit Systems‘ electronic warfare suites, have an advertised maximum speed of 470 knots, a maximum altitude of 36,000 feet, and a range of nearly 4,360 miles with internal tanks.
“We have a lot of [F-16 support] missions,” Pousa said. “On the C-130, we have to make two missions to transport the six or seven pallets and 30 packs. With just one KC-390, we can do that with one mission.”
In a close call for loadmasters with just centimeters to spare, the KC-390s have moved three Lockheed Martin Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks from the United States to Portugal for firefighting, and a fourth is to come next week.
Germany’s Rheinmetall and Embraer are also supporting a full-motion KC-390 simulator at Air Base 11.
Pousa said that he commanded a mission in July last year to load and unload a Lockheed Martin M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
“It was really fast and easy,” he said. “The Americans at Ramstein were really surprised.”
