A pilot flying an F-22 Raptor fighter has issued commands to a YFQ-44A Fury Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone in a first-of-its-kind test. This is an important development for the U.S. Air Force’s CCA program, as its F-22s are set to be the first aerial ‘quarterbacks’ for these uncrewed aircraft once they enter operational service.

The Air Force and Anduril, Fury’s prime contractor, announced the “airborne tactical-control demonstration” today, but it occurred sometime earlier this month. An Anduril spokesperson confirmed directly to TWZ that this was a first for an F-22 and a pre-production YFQ-44A. Last month, the company disclosed tests involving Fury flying in formation with F-35 fighters, but stressed that the latter were not yet issuing commands to the former in mid-air. A Fury drone also launched an AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) for the first time earlier this year.

The Air Force has orders in now for production of FQ-44As, as well as General Atomics’ FQ-42A Vengeance drones, under the first phase, or Increment 1, of its CCA program. The service is still planning to acquire additional CCAs, which could be of entirely different types, through a follow-on Increment 2. The goal now is to have a fleet of at least 500 Increment 1 CCAs by 2032. The recent test is part of efforts to lay the groundwork for an initial tranche of CCAs to start entering operational service around the end of the decade.

“During the demonstration, an F-22 pilot served as an airborne ‘quarterback,’ issuing high-level tactical directives to a single YFQ-44A,” according to a press release from the Air Force. “The aircraft’s onboard autonomy software interpreted and executed those directives in real time, conducting dynamic flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks.”

“The event brought together personnel from the 412th Test Wing, 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, 309th Software Engineering Group, Experimental Operations Unit, F-22 System Program Office and the CCA Software Autonomy and Teaming Branch,” according to the Air Force release.

The Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) mentioned here is based at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and has been leading efforts to pave the way for future Air Force CCA operations.

The “Fury and an F-22 both took off [from] Edwards AFB [Air Force Base in California] and joined up midair,” according to a separate release from Anduril. “While in flight, the Raptor pilot sent an updated mission plan to Fury using a tactical data link, commanding Fury through operationally-relevant maneuvers from the cockpit of the crewed quarterback.”

Neither the Air Force nor Anduril provided further details on how the F-22 was configured for this test. Past Air Force budget documents have mentioned the need to integrate “tablets, cables, and associated materials” onto the Raptor for this purpose. A single Raptor is also expected to be able to manage multiple CCA drones simultaneously.

The Raptor’s prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, has certainly been working with the Air Force to develop the relevant control architectures and user interfaces for that fighter, as well as the F-35. In terms of in-cockpit user interfaces for controlling drones, known work to date has centered largely on the use of touchscreen tablet-like devices, but this is understood to just be a starting point. Though tablet-based interfaces are a workable option, questions and criticisms about increased workload, especially for pilots in single-seat fighters, have been raised in the past.

It is also worth noting here that General Atomics announced a similar demonstration involving a Raptor and an MQ-20 Avenger back in November 2025. General Atomics has been using the MQ-20 as a CCA surrogate in various types of testing. What the plan might be now to demonstrate the F-22’s ability to control an FQ-42A in flight is unclear. General Atomics has previously released a picture of a Vengeance drone flying in formation with, though not being directly controlled by, Air Force fighters.

In addition, Fury and Vengeance are set to make their debut in a large-scale exercise before the end of the year. Bringing the CCAs to the next iteration of Exercise Emerald Flag will give the Air Force further opportunity to test them in a more operationally relevant context alongside crewed fighters.

“We have not yet done a LFE [large-force employment exercise] with these [CCAs], for real. The first one is going to be Emerald Flag. That’s in December,” Lt. Col. Lyndon “OTTO” Bartlett, the EOU’s Director of Operations, said during a panel at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September, at which TWZ was in attendance. “That’ll be our first tip [sic] dip of the toe in an actual force integration.”

The EOU, working together with other Air Force elements and industry partners, still has to answer a host of other outstanding questions unrelated to tactical operations. CCAs will be deployed, launched, recovered, supported, and otherwise operated in ways that are distinct from their crewed counterparts, and for which new policies and procedures will need to be developed. Just making sure human pilots have trust in their uncrewed wingmen operating as expected will be critical, underscoring the specific importance of the demonstration disclosed today. All of this applies equally to the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy CCA programs, which are being run in very close coordination with the Air Force’s efforts.

When it comes to the recent test involving the F-22 and the YFQ-44A, “this achievement demonstrates what is possible when we are aligned with industry on a shared imperative: delivering capability to the warfighter at unprecedented speed,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in a statement today. “We are driving urgency into every part of acquisition from rapid integration and flight learning to disciplined assessment, so we can turn promising technology into combat capability at the pace the threat demands.”

“This flight shows the power of crewed-uncrewed teaming and the advantage it provides our warfighters,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach also said. “We must test often, learn fast, and give commanders what they need, when they need it.”

“The U.S. Air Force’s CCA program is the fastest moving, most mature CCA program anywhere in the world, and will be the first to field operational aircraft,” Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s Vice President of Autonomous Airpower, said as well. “Getting there demands that Anduril and the U.S. Air Force work together to prove out the capability, define the operational procedures, and build trust between operators and their semi-autonomous wingmen.”

With all this in mind, an F-22 issuing orders to a YFQ-44A in mid-air is an important new sign of what is on the horizon for the U.S. Air Force, though there is still work to be done.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post F-22 Pilot Controls FQ-44 Fighter Drone From The Cockpit For The First Time appeared first on TWZ.

Todays Forecast:

Southern Colorado will be much nicer for Saturday with highs in the 60s and 70s. That will set us up back above averages for most. A bit of a breeze will shift in, but should only be gusting up to 15 MPH. The plains will see some stronger gusts at times. Lows improve significantly tonight too.

Colorado Springs forecast: High: 74; Low: 47.

After a few colder than average days, southern Colorado begins to rebound for Saturday with highs returning back above averages. That sets up Colorado Springs to be in the low to mid 70s. Colorado Springs will see a light breeze Saturday afternoon with more sunshine.

Pueblo forecast: High: 76; Low: 42.

Pueblo will likely see some mid 70s for Saturday with a bit of a breeze. Plenty of sunshine is expected across the area too. More sunshine and warm temperatures are expected into Sunday and early next week too.

Canon City forecast: High: 77; Low: 50.

A much warmer day is ahead for Saturday with more sunshine. The warmer, sunnier trend continues into Sunday and early next week.

Woodland Park forecast: High: 65; Low: 38.

Temperatures rebound to be back above averages in the mid 60s for Woodland Park. A light breeze is expected with sunshine too. More chances for a loose shower move in Sunday, Monday and Thursday in Woodland Park too.

Extended outlook forecast:

The rest of the week will stay above averages by 8 to 10 degrees. The plains will be gusty, but otherwise a light breeze is expected. The calmer trend continues into early next week for southern Colorado. The mountains will see showers, but most in southern Colorado will stay dry.

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“Nos han intentado quebrar de todas las maneras y han logrado justo lo contrario. Hoy estamos más unidos y somos más fuertes que nunca. Así que, que lo escuchen alto y claro, te quiero”. Y el auditorio Tomás y Valiente de Fuenlabrada (Madrid), se vino abajo. Así arrancó su mitin de precampaña este sábado Pedro Sánchez, con un mensaje público a su pareja, Begoña Gómez, con la que entró de la mano al pabellón y subió al escenario para besarla ante una enfervorecida militancia que los aclamaba.

El presidente del Gobierno, que aspira a su tercera reelección este 29 de noviembre, continuó así la estrategia electoral que busca una nueva remontada contra lo que pronostican todas las encuestas y contra los intereses, señalan los socialistas, de los grandes poderes que intentan ganarle el pulso a la izquierda. Y en ese contexto le dio todo el protagonismo a su pareja, investigada y enviada a juicio tras la más que polémica instrucción del juez Peinado. “Gracias por ser mi esposa, por ser la madre de mis hijas y por ser mi mujer”. Antes, sobre el escenario, la había besado y abrazado mientras sonaba la canción 'malibU', de Rusowsky, cuyo estribillo dice: “Tú eres mi baby, contigo tó desaparece”.

Arropado por la totalidad de ministros socialistas y por un gran número de dirigentes territoriales que antes habían participado en el Comité Federal de Listas electorales, Sánchez se lanzó entonces contra las derechas y contra la amenaza que supondrá, dijo, un gobierno de PP y Vox para las conquistas sociales, políticas y económicas de los últimos cuarenta años. Y no dejó tema sin tratar. Por supuesto, la vivienda. Pero también el feminismo, los derechos laborales o el cambio climático. Y, sobre todo, el último gran lío en que se metió Feijóo: las pensiones.

“La verdad es que Feijóo es todo un personaje, ¿eh?. El otro día va y dice: 'voy a pedir sacrificios, pero no me aplaudáis'. Hombre, si quieres te hacemos la ola. Pero encima, dice: voy a pedir el voto a los currantes, no a los jetas'. ¡Y se señala a sí mismo! El tío se lo dice todo, es impresionante”.

“Pero tengo un mensaje para Feijóo y para Abascal”, prosiguió. “Las pensiones no son un cheque regalado, es una conquista social lograda. Así que un poco más de respeto a los mayores y un poco más de compromiso también con nuestros mayores”.

Sánchez pidió para el 29 de noviembre una histórica movilización y un respaldo político “mucho más amplio” frente al avance de las derechas “y la ola reaccionaria” en España. “Están aquí, están en España, están en Europa, están en Estados Unidos y hay que frenarlos”, reclamó.

Antes del mitin, el Comité Federal del PSOE ha proclamado este sábado por unanimidad a su líder, Pedro Sánchez, candidato a la reelección y ha ratificado las candidaturas para las elecciones del 29N. Por primera vez habrá más mujeres que hombres encabezando las listas al Congreso de los Diputados (un 52 %) y en el Senado también se avanza hacia la paridad al aumentar diez puntos el porcentaje de mujeres al frente de las candidaturas respecto a 2023, según el PSOE. En ese mismo Comité Federal, los socialistas han nombrado a la secretaria de Organización, Rebeca Torró, nueva portavoz del partido en sustitución de Montse Mínguez, que dimitió tras publicarse que su pareja se dedica al negocio inmobiliario.

A União Europeia anda há uns meses a discutir o orçamento plurianual para o período de sete anos (2028–2034). É a única organização internacional de relevo que apresenta esta singular e boa prática de possuir um orçamento plurianual.

O orçamento proposto para o QFP 28–34 é de €2000 mil milhões. As contribuições dos estados-membros, calculadas sobre uma percentagem do seu Rendimento Nacional Bruto (RNB), representam 64% do atual quadro, e prevê-se que venha a atingir 55% no futuro QFP. Este é um dos fatores que provocam pressão na negociação do orçamento, dividindo os estados-membros entre contribuintes líquidos e beneficiários. Os contribuintes líquidos são a Alemanha, os Países Baixos, a Suécia, a França, a Áustria, a Finlândia, a Dinamarca, a Irlanda e a Itália. Os beneficiários, os restantes. A Alemanha é a grande financiadora do orçamento da UE, contribuindo cada cidadão alemão com €207 para o orçamento comunitário.

Por outro lado, um quadro financeiro plurianual de 7 anos obriga a antecipar prioridades, necessidades de investimento e desafios futuros. E são estes dois fatores, contribuições e definição de prioridades do orçamento, que constituem a base das naturais divergências entre os estados-membros.

A proposta que foi apresentada pela presidência cipriota (em outubro haverá nova proposta elaborada pela presidência da Irlanda) previa que o orçamento 28–34 apresentasse um aumento de 39% a preços constantes (descontada a inflação). Além deste aumento global, há uma alteração significativa da sua composição, uma redução dos recursos destinados à Política de Coesão, à Política Agrícola Comum e ao reforço das verbas destinadas para a competitividade, inovação, defesa, segurança e autonomia estratégica europeia.

A principal e mais relevante mudança não está tanto nos montantes, mas na forma como os fundos serão geridos. Existirão programas de gestão centralizada administrados diretamente pela Comissão Europeia e instrumentos e programas de gestão partilhada geridos pelos estados-membros.

Nesta última modalidade, os estados-membros celebrarão um acordo de parceria com a Comissão Europeia, no qual se vão definir os objetivos gerais e os montantes financeiros. No entanto, contrariamente ao que sucede hoje, haverá uma total autonomia dos estados-membros na definição das prioridades de investimento, nos regulamentos e na aplicação dos apoios. Com esta autonomia, os governos e entidades perdem os argumentos de rigidez e os condicionalismos que imputam a Bruxelas na correta definição das estratégias de competitividade dos países.

De acordo com a atual proposta (que será decerto alterada), Portugal receberá €33,5 mil milhões a preços correntes. A preços constantes, o pacote desce para €28,2 mil milhões, o que significa uma redução em termos reais de 16% dos fundos de coesão e agricultura em relação ao atual quadro. Uma correção feita há pouco tempo no cálculo da dotação do Fundo de Coesão, reduziu-se a diminuição para 11% em termos reais.

Em contrapartida, os programas de gestão centralizada em que as prioridades de investimento, regulamentos, concursos, seleção de projetos serão definidos pela Comissão Europeia terão um reforço significativo de verbas.

A Associação Industrial Portuguesa (AIP) fez uma análise aos perfis de distribuição dos estados-membros por classe do Rendimento Nacional Bruto e por tipo de programas comunitários no período de 2021–2024.

Concluiu o que era expectável: os países com RNB médio superior a 100% da UE receberam 61% dos €105 mil milhões dos programas de gestão centralizada pela Comissão Europeia, enquanto os países com RNB inferior a 75% da UE tiveram um acesso marginal (9%).

A combinação da redução dos recursos da Política de Coesão e o reforço dos programas de gestão centralizada poderá vir a traduzir-se numa transferência de recursos dos países menos desenvolvidos para os países mais desenvolvidos.

Outra das novidades do programa reside na criação do Fundo Europeu para a Competitividade (FEC), com uma dotação de €245 mil milhões. O relatório Draghi calculou as necessidades de investimento no reforço da competitividade e inovação para resolver o gap que separa a UE dos EUA e da China em €750 mil milhões por ano entre 2025 e 2030. Se adicionarmos ao orçamento do FEC de €266 mil milhões (incluído o Fundo de Inovação) mais €65 mil milhões do pilar II do programa Horizonte Europa e €120 mil milhões do Fundo de Coesão, totaliza um valor acumulado disponível de €441 mil milhões no período de 2028–2034 para a competitividade.

Conclui-se assim que o orçamento não estará dotado financeiramente para suportar as necessidades de investimento acima referidas. Haverá necessidade de alavancar recursos públicos com forte mobilização de investidores privados, intervenção do Banco Europeu de Investimento e dos bancos soberanos nacionais, o que não se afigura muito provável.

O desafio para as empresas portuguesas é a concorrência no acesso a estes instrumentos ser feita à escala europeia. Como vemos, Portugal tem tido uma utilização residual. O investimento, a qualidade e a maturidade das candidaturas não se ajustam à dimensão das nossas empresas. Por outro lado, as prioridades do programa: descarbonização e transição energética, digitalização, biotecnologia, inteligência artificial, segurança e defesa têm estado afastados do perfil de investimento das PME portuguesas. Verifique-se o que se está a passar com o programa STEP do atual Portugal 2030.

Por tudo isto, o desafio do próximo QFP é de uma grande dimensão para empresas, associações empresariais, municípios e comunidades urbanas. Implicará profundas alterações na estratégia, prioridades dos projetos, perfil dos investimentos, qualidade, mérito e dimensão muito exigente das candidaturas, cooperação e escala nas empresas, posicionamento e mobilização de empresas, associações empresariais e municípios.

La vivienda no estuvo ausente de la construcción del Estado del bienestar, pero su incorporación fue desigual en Europa desde el principio y, en la mayoría de los países, quedó al margen de sus principales garantías. Mientras se aseguró colectivamente una parte importante de la educación, la sanidad, las pensiones, las infraestructuras y la protección social, el acceso a la vivienda siguió dependiendo del mercado, del crédito o del patrimonio familiar. 

La vivienda se concibió como un bien que forma parte del patrimonio y una forma de ahorro. La intervención pública se circunscribía a facilitar la compra, promover la protegida o atender situaciones de necesidad, sin crear una garantía universal. Desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial hasta finales de siglo, los países europeos se fueron incorporando a estos escenarios de abundancia. El aumento de los salarios y el acceso al crédito permitieron convertir la casa en el principal componente del patrimonio familiar.

Sin embargo, la pérdida de poder adquisitivo de los europeos desde 2005 ha coincidido con el inicio de la escalada del precio de compra de la vivienda, que a mediados de 2026 se había duplicado, según Eurostat.

Lo que había sido una vía de ahorro y seguridad patrimonial se ha convertido para muchas familias en una carga difícil de soportar; una pesadilla de la que muchos salieron trasquilados y la mayoría de los jóvenes expulsados. Tener empleo y acceso a los demás servicios del bienestar dejó de asegurar una vivienda asequible.

Evolución de los modelos

El informe Beveridge de 1942, referencia del Estado del bienestar británico de posguerra, identifica cinco grandes problemas: necesidad, enfermedad, ignorancia, desempleo e insalubridad. Sería incorrecto afirmar que sus promotores ignoraron la vivienda. La cuestión es por qué aquella preocupación inicial no se convirtió en ese y en la mayoría de los países en una protección residencial suficiente y duradera. El Estado intervino en la construcción, la financiación y la regulación, pero no aseguró siempre una oferta asequible.

Algunos países desarrollaron la propiedad municipal, las entidades sociales, los alquileres ligados a costes o la compra bajo condiciones públicas. En los Países Bajos, por ejemplo, las woningcorporaties son asociaciones y fundaciones que poseen y gestionan viviendas, principalmente para personas con ingresos bajos. El Estado establece las reglas y supervisa su actuación; municipios y organizaciones de inquilinos participan en acuerdos sobre sus objetivos. La gestión puede realizarse fuera de la administración sin perder la supervisión pública ni su finalidad social.

En Viena, el Ayuntamiento conserva un gran parque municipal y apoya la promoción de vivienda subvencionada. La continuidad de este patrimonio ofrece una alternativa al alquiler privado y mantiene la intervención pública a lo largo de generaciones. En contraposición, el Right to Buy británico, impulsado por la Housing Act de 1980, permitió a numerosos inquilinos comprar sus viviendas municipales con descuentos, sin establecer inicialmente la obligación de reemplazarlas. La venta sin reposición redujo el parque disponible: el beneficio inmediato de unos hogares debilitó la capacidad de atender a los siguientes.

Irlanda vincula el alquiler al coste de la vivienda. El sistema Cost Rental, introducido en 2021, fija rentas para cubrir promoción, financiación, gestión y mantenimiento. Participan entidades de vivienda autorizadas, administraciones locales y la agencia pública de suelo. Los alquileres deben situarse al menos un 25 % por debajo de los de viviendas privadas comparables de la zona. Ofrece una alternativa a quienes no cumplen los requisitos de la vivienda social, pero tampoco pueden afrontar el mercado.

La voracidad

Excepto estos casos, en buena parte de Europa predomina un modelo mixto: las familias compran o alquilan en el mercado privado, mientras el Estado regula, facilita financiación mediante hipotecas, concede ayudas y ofrece vivienda social con una cobertura variable. Las diferencias entre los países son pequeñas. Se relacionan con la condición del propietario o el inquilino, el tipo de gestión, el destinatario de la subvención o servicio y la duración de la función social.

España participa de este modelo mixto que ha conducido a la burbuja de precios que lleva años hinchándose. En esta escalada confluyen varios factores. El primero es la fragmentación de las responsabilidades. Los gobiernos nacionales fijan buena parte de la fiscalidad, la financiación y las reglas del alquiler; las administraciones regionales y locales intervienen en el suelo, la planificación y la promoción. En Alemania, Francia o España, las distintas competencias necesitan coordinarse para que los objetivos de vivienda asequible se traduzcan en terrenos, presupuestos y proyectos. La descentralización permite responder a necesidades locales, pero sin una dirección compartida también dispersa responsabilidades y retrasa soluciones. Las derechas tiran hacia un lado, mientras las izquierdas conciben la accesibilidad residencial como un rol social.

El segundo es confundir las ayudas al acceso con una política suficiente de oferta. Facilitar crédito, subvencionar la compra o ayudar a pagar el alquiler puede aliviar la situación de un hogar. Sin embargo, cuando escasean las viviendas disponibles, parte de esas ayudas puede trasladarse a precios más altos. El dinero público mejora entonces los ingresos del vendedor o del arrendador sin resolver la escasez que justificó la intervención.

Y el tercer factor es la perennidad de las fórmulas de vivienda asequible. Inglaterra redujo su parque municipal mediante ventas sin reposición suficiente; en Alemania, parte de las viviendas subvencionadas pasa al mercado libre cuando vence su protección. En ambos casos, hay que construir nuevas viviendas sociales. 

Preservar esa oferta exige inversiones más allá de cada legislatura: promoción, rehabilitación y mantenimiento necesitan financiación estable y gestores especializados. Los Países Bajos, Austria, Francia y Dinamarca muestran que entidades sociales, cooperativas y organizaciones de lucro limitado pueden compartir esta tarea con las administraciones, siempre con reglas claras, supervisión y compromisos que garanticen la función social de las viviendas para las siguientes generaciones.

La voracidad del capital encuentra en estas rendijas el espacio adecuado para las grandes rentabilidades. Amplía la oferta, pero exige precisar qué recibe la sociedad a cambio: precios asequibles, calidad, estabilidad del alquiler y duración de la protección. 

Completar este pilar del Estado del bienestar, que hunde a las clases medias, exige reformar urgentemente la deriva de la construcción. El objetivo consiste en que los Estados recuperen la iniciativa de universalizar y perennizar para las generaciones futuras una vivienda digna y asequible. Esto es lo que reza la mayoría de las constituciones de los países europeos. Claro que deben intervenir las empresas en las distintas fases de producción y delivery, pero dentro de un marco estricto de servicio público. ¿Se imaginan ustedes la sanidad, educación o pensiones exclusivamente en manos privadas desde el principio? No habría existido nunca el Estado del bienestar.

Primero, tras la ola de indignación que desató su desahucio, fueron a por Maricarmen. Luego, cuando esa rabia se organizó y consiguió prender en las calles de todo el país con protestas y acampadas multitudinarias, los dardos se volvieron contra los portavoces del Sindicato de Inquilinas. Y ahora, tras la aprobación y entrada en vigor del decreto antidesahucios del Gobierno, los ataques de PP y Vox ponen en la diana a dirigentes del PSOE. La ofensiva de la derecha por intentar neutralizar el acceso a la vivienda como tema central de campaña busca desacreditar a los actores políticos o sociales que se hacen eco ahora de un sentir tan transversal que escala hasta la primera de las preocupaciones de los españoles, según el CIS. Y todo, en mitad de un contexto electoral al que atraviesa, de repente, un viejo debate: el de la relación entre los políticos y los negocios inmobiliarios que este viernes se cobró como víctima política a la socialista Montse Mínguez, que dimitió.

Esta semana, el digital 'Artículo 14' publicaba que la pareja de la ya exportavoz del PSOE es un empresario catalán que se dedica, entre otras cosas, al rentismo. Y cuyas sociedades poseen decenas de inmuebles que compra, rehabilita y luego alquila. Desde el Partido Popular y Vox tardaron poco en lanzarse contra Mínguez para señalar “la hipocresía” o la “doble moral” de la diputada que defendió hace quince días desde la tribuna del Congreso que las viviendas son un derecho y no un negocio durante su intervención en el debate parlamentario sobre los decretos ley del Ejecutivo que la derecha tumbó.

La propia portavoz socialista, que no tiene ningún vínculo jurídico con las empresas de su pareja, salió esta semana públicamente, sin embargo, en defensa de su actividad. “Paga sus impuestos y cumple la ley de vivienda, que en Catalunya está en vigor y limita los precios del alquiler en zonas tensionadas”, dijo durante una entrevista en Antena 3 en la que muchos compañeros de partido opinan que cometió el error de hacer suya una actividad que le resulta, en realidad, ajena.

Aunque no ha vuelto a hablar en público más allá de su breve comunicado de dimisión, Montse Mínguez traslada en conversación con este periódico que, durante toda la semana, ha sufrido una auténtica persecución personal en Lleida, donde asegura que supuestos reporteros de programas de televisión o medios digitales han llegado a acudir a la puerta de su casa e incluso a los puestos de trabajo de su familia. “La política muchas veces maltrata a buenas personas, su caso es uno de ellos. Yo lamento mucho que Montse no continúe como diputada porque es una gran política, es muy buena persona y cuando me ha dicho que eran razones personales por las cuales dejaba la política, pues yo no puedo sino apoyarla y, por supuesto, respetarlo”, reaccionó el viernes Pedro Sánchez desde Bruselas.

Lo que apuntan desde el PSOE es que en ningún caso la actividad profesional de la pareja de su portavoz ha condicionado, ni ha influido, ni ha chocado en ningún punto con el desempeño político de Mínguez. Y que si se va es, únicamente, porque no ha aguantado la presión sobre su familia. “Lo importante es lo que ella ha votado en el Parlamento: siempre a favor de una vivienda digna y accesible. En este país hay quien quiere regular la vivienda y quien no quiere arreglo, como el PP y Vox. Y nosotros no perseguimos a quien cumple la ley y hace una actividad lícita”, sostienen en Ferraz, donde desmienten de manera rotunda dos publicaciones más sobre la pareja, en este caso de El Español: “Ni tiene empresas en Panamá, ni en Polonia, ni en Brasil”. El PSOE también asegura que cuando el empresario recibió en 2017 el visto bueno del Ayuntamiento de Lleida para la construccion de una urbanización de lujo, Mínguez, que presidió como concejal la Junta de Gobierno local de aquel Pleno, no era pareja del constructor.

A la pregunta de si los ataques del PP y Vox contra la dirigente socialista tienen que ver con la evidente ofensiva de la derecha al movimiento por la vivienda o implican una incompatibilidad política real, la abogada del Centro de Asesoría y Estudios Sociales y experta en derecho a la vivienda, Alejandra Jacinto, cree evidente que hay algo de las dos cosas. “La derecha y la extrema derecha han tenido éxito hasta ahora para neutralizar las luchas por el derecho a la vivienda, y la prueba es que han conseguido que en este país se hable más de empresas de alarmas y de bandas de desokupación que de víctimas de desahucios. Es evidente que esta ola en la que el sentido común ha cambiado de bando y se ha puesto de parte de Maricarmen y de las asociaciones que defienden el derecho a la vivienda les ha pillado a contrapie. Y su única herramienta para intentar frenarlo es criminalizar a todas aquellas personas que den algún paso dirigido a defender las políticas públicas de intervención del mercado”.

En ese contexto se enmarca, por ejemplo, que mientras Maricarmen estaba ingresada en el hospital tras su desahucio se desatara toda una campaña de ataques y de desprestigio basada en noticias falsas para intentar arruinar la reputación de la mujer que consiguió prender la mecha de la indignación social. Esos días corrieron como la pólvora bulos como el de que tenía una fortuna en el banco. O montajes fotográficos que la mostraban en restaurantes y peluquerías. Algunos medios se dedicaron a buscar vecinos que hablaran mal de ella. Y desde el PP y Vox llegaron a llamarla “morocarmen”, “puta sinvergüenza” o incluso a ridiculizar su desahucio, como hizo Ayuso.

Algo parecido ocurrió unos días después con el Sindicato de Inquilinas. El primer objetivo fue su portavoz, Fernando de los Santos, al que llegaron atribuírsele cientos de propiedades inmobiliarias. Lo mismo que hicieron con el propio Sindicato, al que le endosaron la posesión de hasta 171 inmuebles. Uno de los digitales que lo difundió, The Objective, se vio obligado a rectificar. Poco después, en 'El Hormiguero', de Antena 3, una de sus colaboradoras afirmó que el Sindicato de Inquilinas recibía 3,7 millones de euros de subvención pública por parte del Gobierno mientras acampaba en Sol. No es así.

En el caso de la portavoz del PSOE, Alejandra Jacinto cree que confluyen esa ofensiva de la derecha y la eterna contradicción de los socialistas con políticas estructurales como las de vivienda. “Es un reflejo de cómo opera el PSOE: soplar y sorber a la vez, equidistancia entre derecho a la vivienda y derecho al negocio. Es verdad que no es Montse Mínguez, que es su pareja. Pero es que ella es a la persona que eligió el PSOE para defender el decreto y su pareja resulta que se dedica a la especulación. Y en estos momentos de lucha social, de protesta organizada, resultan contradicciones insoportables cuando la sociedad ya ha dicho basta. No se puede estar con los rentistas profesionales y con el derecho a la vivienda. Pero esto viene de largo en el PSOE. La exdirectora general de vivienda socialista es hoy la presidenta de ASVAL (Asociación de Propietarios de Vivienda de Alquiler), y antes lo fue Joan Clos”.

Para Jaime Palomera, director del Instituto de Investigación Urbana de Barcelona (IDRA) y doctor en Antropología Económica, el debate no debería girar en términos estrictamente morales, muy vinculados al caso específico de Maricarmen por las características evidentes de vunerabilidad y desprotección de su caso, sino más al fondo de la raíz económica. “La propuesta de la derecha es desregular y construir. Pero si tú no atacas el problema de la distribución y del acaparamiento, no resuelves nada. Una vez que las viviendas son activos, se van concentrando. El que gana dinero con la vivienda invierte ese dinero en comprar más vivienda para ganar más dinero. No es un problema moral, es un problema económico. Es un negocio que cada vez tiene más rentabilidad, del que se beneficia gente de izquierdas y de derechas y no hace más que generar desigualdad y fracturar este país”.

Según las declaraciones de bienes del Congreso, casi el 20% de los diputados y diputadas disponen de tres o más propiedades. Aunque hay casos especialmente llamativos. María de las Mercedes Cantalapiedra, del Partido Popular, es, según esas declaraciones de bienes, la diputada con con mayor patrimonio inmobiliario del Congreso, al declarar 19 viviendas. En segundo lugar se sitúa María Mercè Perea i Conillas, diputada del PSC, que declara ser propietaria de once viviendas. En el Senado, la situación es similar. Allí destacan los patrimonios inmobiliarios de dos senadores del PP: José Manuel Barreiro, con 13 viviendas, seis solares y dos bajos comerciales, y María Salom, con 10 viviendas, 8 locales comerciales y 20 plazas de aparcamiento, concentrados principalmente en la isla de Mallorca.

“Tú no puedes representar un día los intereses generales de la ciudadanía española y al día siguiente a los grandes fondos y a la patronal de los especuladores. El mensaje de la ciudadanía es claro: o estás con el rentismo o estás con el derecho a la vivienda”, concluye la abogada y activista Alejandra Jacinto. Según el Instituto Nacional de Estadística, casi 3 millones de personas vive ahogada en España para poder pagar su alquiler, al que destina más del 30% de sus ingresos. En total, 28.000 millones de euros pasan cada año de manos de los inquilinos a los propietarios, un 1,6% del Producto Interior Bruto de todo el país.

Matemática electoral para frenar el rodillo de la derecha en el Senado. El PSOE y los partidos que integraron esta legislatura Sumar y ahora se proyectan a las urnas como Frente Amplio han logrado un acuerdo para presentar listas conjuntas a la Cámara Alta de cara a las elecciones generales del 29 de noviembre. Según fuentes de la negociación consultadas por elDiario.es, el acuerdo garantizaría una representación a sus socios de Gobierno que hasta ahora no tienen y permitiría al conjunto de la izquierda disputarle la mayoría absoluta a la derecha.

Bajo la denominación “Senado de Progreso”, el PSOE, IU, Movimiento SUMAR, Compromís, Más Madrid, Chunta Aragonesista y Batzarre se presentan al Senado con listas unitarias “que han atendido el clamor de la sociedad civil para alcanzar este acuerdo”, según fuentes de FERRAZ. A lo que se suma el acuerdo entre el PSOE y Més-Izquierda Unida-Movimiento Sumar en las cuatro islas de las Illes Balears y el de todas las fuerzas progresistas en La Gomera.

“Hace meses lanzamos una petición: que el voto progresista dejara de perderse en el Senado por ir dividido. Miles de personas lo hicieron suyo y se organizaron en prácticamente todas las provincias donde hoy hay acuerdo. Este acuerdo nace de la sociedad civil, y agradecemos a las fuerzas políticas que hayan sabido escuchar esa demanda y trabajado sin descanso para hacerla realidad”, dice una nota remitida en nombre de la plataforma Senadoras y Senadores por la democracia.

“Creemos en un Senado útil, que acerque los territorios en lugar de enfrentarlos y que dedique su tiempo a mejorar las leyes y no a perseguir al adversario político. Un Senado que se ocupe de lo que de verdad importa a la gente, empezando por lo que hoy más angustia a miles de familias: poder tener una casa donde vivir. No nos movilizamos solo contra algo, sino por algo. Por un país que siga avanzando en derechos, que no deje a nadie atrás y que mire al futuro con esperanza y no con miedo. Ese es el sentido de este acuerdo, y por eso es un estímulo para movilizar también al electorado progresista en las elecciones al Congreso”, traslada el PSOE.

Desde el PSOE recuerdan que el uso “espurio” que el PP ha hecho del Senado en los últimos tres años es uno de los motivos que les impulsa a este tipo de iniciativas para impedir que continúen con una mayoría absoluta. El rodillo de la mayoría absoluta del partido de Alberto Núñez Feijóo en esta Cámara le ha permitido, por ejemplo, bloquear la renovación del Tribunal Constitucional.

Según informe interno en el que ha trabajado Ferraz en las últimas semanas y en base a sondeos recientes, una lista unida al Senado de las fuerzas progresistas podría llegar a significar una diferencia de hasta 40 escaños y la posibilidad real de arrebatarle la mayoría absoluta a la derecha.

America’s adoption of long-range one-way attack munitions like the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) is evolving quickly. Training on how to fold these relatively low-cost, but potentially highly destructive systems into a joint force playbook for targeting adversaries on land and at sea, from the Pacific to Europe, and anywhere in between, continues.

How exactly LUCAS drones, and other types to come, will be used in future fights globally was highlighted during a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual symposium earlier this week, at which TWZ was in attendance. The discussion was centered on how Army training is changing to meet the extreme combat demands of the future.

The U.S. military first announced it had begun fielding LUCAS, which was reverse-engineered from the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, in December 2025. This came just months after TWZ laid out a detailed case for why the U.S. military should start acquiring Shahed-136 clones in large volumes. LUCAS made its official combat debut in the opening phases of major combat operations against Iran earlier this year. The pusher-propeller, combustion-engine-powered kamikaze drones, which are employed from static launchers that can be positioned on the ground or installed on ships, and with the help of a small rocket booster, were subsequently praised as “indispensable” by America’s top commander in the Middle East.

With all that in mind, “long-range strike drones like LUCAS, how is that fitting into your planning and training?” our Howard Altman asked the panelists at AUSA.

“We’ve taken our Bayonet Academy, as we call it, a training area at JBLM [Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State], and have started incorporating the employment of long-range one-way attack. Like, how do I maintain it? How do I employ it? How does that then get orchestrated in order to achieve that effect?” Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington, head of the 7th Infantry Division, responded. “So we see that playing a key role in order to be able to achieve that effect at mass, … [and] in an affordable manner, while also being able potentially to preserve something that’s more exquisite for something that requires an exquisite munition.”

Earlier this year, the Army brought the 7th Infantry and the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force together under the umbrella of what it now calls the Multi-Domain Command-Pacific (MDC-PAC). Maj. Gen. Harrington is also now the commander of MDC-PAC, and has talked previously about how he sees uncrewed capabilities as critical to overwhelming adversaries in future conflicts. The service’s MDTFs, of which there are now four, have been at the leading edge of fielding new long-range strike and other advanced capabilities.

In his response to Altman’s question, Harrington elaborated more on how he sees long-range one-way attack munitions like LUCAS factoring specifically into future fights in the Pacific, such as one against China. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has already established extensive anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) bubbles in the Western Pacific and is continuing to expand on that strategy.

“So as we start modeling out what it looks like to be able to penetrate a portion of the anti-access/area denial network in support of the joint task force in the PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command] area of operations, we started looking at, well, how do I bend – how do I achieve mass at a cost curve?” the 7th Infantry and MDC-PAC commander explained. “What effect am I really trying to achieve on a system in order to provide that window of opportunity for that joint force commander?”

“So maybe I don’t necessarily need to sink a ship, but if I take out certain systems on that vessel, well then it creates this temporal window opportunity,” he continued. “Then that joint force commander can surge in that carrier strike group or bomber task force.”

What the general is describing here is typically referred to as a mission kill. For years now, TWZ has repeatedly highlighted how long-range one-way attack drones and loitering munitions could be used in exactly this way against even larger warships. Damaging or destroying radars, communications antennas, and other subsystems could severely degrade a ship’s combat effectiveness and increase its vulnerability to follow-on attacks. The time and effort required for repairs could keep it sidelined for a protracted period of time.

“So when we started looking at that, we saw great value. That maybe I don’t have to use specifically or unmask an exquisite system to achieve that effect,” Harrington added. “If I can achieve [the] effect of mass utilizing lower cost systems, hey, maybe that will get me there. So we modeled that, and what we saw was, particularly with our unmanned surface vessels [USV], long-range one-way attack, long-range launch effects, the ability to synchronize and mass that could potentially get us to achieve that effect.”

As with long-range one-way attack drones, the adoption of kamikaze USVs by the U.S. military is evolving rapidly. America’s first use of this capability in real combat also came against Iran in July.

The term “launch effects” that Harrington used here is a catch-all term the U.S. military now routinely applies to a diverse array of uncrewed aerial systems designed to be launched from other platforms in the air, on the ground, and/or at sea. This includes loitering munitions, but also designs configured for surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, signal relay, and other tasks. The lines separating long-range one-way attack drones, launched effects, and traditional cruise missiles and decoys are in many cases now very blurry.

None of this is limited to the Pacific region or the Middle East, either.

“So, in terms of launch effects, I think you mentioned LUCAS. Covenant’s out there. There’s other systems that are out there,” Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter, head of Multi-Domain Command-Europe (MDC-E), another one of the panelists, also said in direct response to Howard Altman’s question. “In Europe, we like that, more than accepting risk in an area, maybe we’re disintegrating an anti-access/area denial bubble in the center, and then way up north, we’re going to go ahead and accept some risk there. We like to use those systems to create counter-fire parity, long-range fires parity with an adversary.”

Similar to the establishment of MDC-PAC, MDC-E was formed last year by blending together the 56th Artillery Command and the 2nd MDTF, both of which are forward-deployed in Germany.

The “Covenant” mentioned by Carpenter is a U.S.-Israeli company that has been developing a long-range strike weapon system called Anthem. It was just confirmed in September that the U.S. Army has been actively engaged in testing of Anthem. This includes a live-fire demonstration in Morocco earlier this year. You can read more about Anthem and the current plans for it here.

“The reason we like those types of systems is because they’re EMI [electromagnetic interference] resilient, they’re longer range, and they’re higher yield, so they can go ahead and destroy like SS-26 systems, SS-21 systems,” the MDC-E commander added.

SS-26 Stone and SS-21 Scarab are the NATO reporting names for Russia’s Iskander-M and the older Soviet-designed OTR-21 Tochka short-range ballistic missiles, respectively. They are both fired from road-mobile launchers. Russia and Ukraine have employed Tochka in the course of their ongoing conflict, though their role on both sides has steadily diminished amid shrinking inventories. Tochka is also increasingly limited in service elsewhere globally. Iskander-M is a much more capable design that has factored heavily into U.S. military planning in Europe for years now. The U.S. military has previously acknowledged that war in Ukraine has led to improvements to that missile that make it even more dangerous and difficult to intercept.

Long-range one-way attack munitions like LUCAS are well suited to striking surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missile launchers, along with other high-value and time-sensitive targets, as TWZ highlights regularly. It’s also worth noting that Iran’s Shahed-136, specifically, traces its roots back to pioneering Israeli developments in munitions of this kind, where the focus initially was explicitly on finding new avenues to neutralize hostile air defenses. Iran has shown Shahed-136s and other related designs being employed in exactly this way in large-scale exercises in the past, as seen in the video below.

More recently, Iranian forces demonstrated just how effective these capabilities could be in a real-world context in retaliatory attacks on prized air defense radars on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf after the United States and Israel launched their open waves of strikes back in February. TWZ previously explored the far-reaching ramifications of this in a detailed feature that you can find here.

Overall, as we’ve previously written:

“When it comes to this class of drone, speed and advanced guidance concepts do not define its utility. Range and cost do. Survivability comes in numbers, and due to their smaller size, use of composite materials, and small internal combustion engine, as well as their slow speed. These attributes, along with their low-altitude flight profile, mean they possess a reduced signature and general level of detectability that can be a challenge for traditionally configured ground-based radars. Despite their smaller signature, the fact that they are still somewhat vulnerable to interception is actually a positive, but we will get to that in a moment.”

“Above all else, the Shahed-136 and other long-range one-way attack drones exist to put a relevantly-sized warhead on a target far from their launch position at the lowest possible cost. It was previously estimated that the Russian Shahed-136 variant costs around $50,000 per copy, with some estimates being far lower. This cost has also likely declined significantly since Russia has mastered the design and drastically ramped up serial production. By comparison, traditional cruise missiles with similar range have costs in the millions of dollars per round, so the price differential is very dramatic. The Shaheds are also just far easier to build and can be produced in much less time than a typical cruise missile.”

The ‘mass’ afforded by LUCAS and other long-range kamikaze drones also imposes problematic cost calculations for opponents when it comes to the air defense equation, and offers a way to rapidly drain an opponent’s stocks of vital interceptors. These are realities the U.S. military is currently grappling with after expending thousands of anti-air interceptors in conflict with Iran and in other crises in the Middle East in recent years, as well as supporting allies and partners, such as Ukraine.

LUCAS, specifically, is already in line to become even more capable through the introduction of a swarming capability, made possible by the Hivemind autonomy software package from Shield AI. As we’ve explained before:

“Using the software, multiple LUCAS drones will be able to share tasks and maneuver cooperatively, making saturation attacks even more effective. As well as the drones dynamically rerouting, avoiding air defenses, and otherwise adapting to changing battlefield conditions, an AI pilot makes it easier for missions to continue despite hostile jamming or loss of datalink connectivity. Indeed, using AI, drone swarms can maintain near-perfect combat efficiency even if it loses members. Drones can be configured with all different payloads, with the swarm’s makeup tailored to each mission, and the AI system can maximize their collective effectiveness at all times.”

The U.S. Army still has many questions to answer about how it will field LUCAS and other long-range one-way-attack drones on a more widespread basis, as well as train personnel to employ them. As evidenced by the establishment of the MDTFs, and now the MDC-PAC and MDC-E formations, the underlying force structure that will go along with all of this is still evolving, as well.

The remarks from Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington and Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter at AUSA this week show senior Army leaders are working hard now to lay the groundwork to answer these questions. A clear vision for how LUCAS and similar weapons will be employed in future fights against land-based and maritime threats is taking shape already.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post The Army’s Plan For Employing LUCAS Kamikaze Drones Against Its Adversaries appeared first on TWZ.

On September 1, the small town of Almazán, in Spain’s Soria province, found itself robbed of a large portion of its heritage. A section of the palace of the Hurtado de Mendoza family collapsed. Twenty days later a further section fell into ruin, prompting an emergency intervention. The disintegration of part of the façade, the gallery and the roof has affected the interior of the 15th-century Gothic building in which the Catholic Monarchs once temporarily took up residence. It is not the only palace that has crumbled. Its decline flags up an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in Spain.

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Cláudio Pereira, conhecido artisticamente como Kelad, vai lançar hoje às 18h o seu novo single “Menina de Tavira”, inspirado numa “fase muito feliz” da sua vida no Algarve.

Apesar de ser natural de Castro Daire, no distrito de Viseu, em 2024 viveu e trabalhou em Tavira durante quase seis meses. Mesmo longe de casa, diz ter sido uma experiência que o marcou “profundamente” e aponta como causas a beleza da cidade, que considera uma das mais bonitas de Portugal, as pessoas que conheceu e os momentos que viveu. De tal forma que decidiu dar vida a uma canção que “eternizasse” essa fase feliz da sua vida.

Ao contrário dos seus temas anteriores – “mais ligados à dor e ao fim de relações” -, “Menina de Tavira” é uma canção “assumidamente feliz, embora marcada pela saudade”.

A homenagem a Tavira prolonga-se também no videoclipe, mostrando algumas das suas ruas, casas tradicionais, azulejos e a emblemática ponte romana, num formato de curta-metragem romântica, “inspirada no cinema e em histórias de amor em que duas pessoas se cruzam repetidamente até finalmente se encontrarem”.

Musicalmente, o tema parte da inspiração de “Garota de Ipanema”, de Tom Jobim e Vinicius de Moraes, mas procura uma identidade nacional cruzando bossa nova, pop, R&B e música tradicional, com a presença da guitarra portuguesa. 

A música foi gravada nos Satori Studios, em Viseu, e contou com Bernardo Vicente na guitarra clássica, Pedro Bento no baixo e nas guitarras clássica e elétrica, Francisco Henriques na guitarra portuguesa e, na bateria, Daniel Tejo e Pedro Bento. A mistura e a masterização ficaram a cargo de Pedro Bento.

A canção vai estrear às 18h de hoje e pode ser ouvida (e vista) aqui.

Tonight's Forecast:

Freeze warnings are active for the Pikes Peak Region and eastern adjacent plains from midnight until 9 a.m. on Friday. The San Luis Valley will see freeze warnings again too. For Pueblo and the southeastern corner of the state, frost advisories are active from 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Friday. That means overnight lows in the 30s and expected along I-25 and east with some in the mountains see teens and 20s. Winds will calm down for a bit, ahead of heavier gusts in the early morning hours of Friday.

Colorado Springs forecast: Low: 31; High: 56;

Our overnight low will be at 31-degrees for Thursday night with freeze advisories active. Friday will be much cooler than seasonal averages in the 50s with a light afternoon breeze. The weekend will feel much nicer outside.

Pueblo forecast: Low: 34; High: 57;

Frost advisories are active for Pueblo on Thursday evening with colder than seasonal average lows in the forecast. Friday will be much cooler than averages also. Then, by the weekend days seasonal highs return with dry time and sunshine.

Canon City forecast: Low: 34; High: 59;

Another cold evening is ahead for Canon City with 30s in the forecast. Winds calm down overnight too. Friday will be a dash more mild, but still cooler than averages. The weekend will feel much nicer outside.

Woodland Park forecast: Low: 25; High: 50;

A very cold overnight expected for mid-October with lows in the 20s. Friday will be well below averages with less wind. The weekend will bring back sunshine and dry time with warmer temperatures too. Not much change is expected as the work week starts next week too.

Extended outlook forecast:

The weekend will finally feel much more season in the 60s and 70s for most across southern Colorado. There will still be a bit of an afternoon breeze especially for the plains. Early next week won't change much in terms of our forecast though. By the middle of the week there could be some changes. We will continue to track that possibility.

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Curious about the First Alert 5 Weather Storm Impact Scale? Check out our cheatsheet explainer.

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Airbus recently put the demonstrator for its MQ-72C drone helicopter through the paces for the U.S. Army. The MQ-72C has been in development for several years now for a U.S. Marine Corps competition seeking a new uncrewed cargo-carrying Aerial Logistics Connector (ALC). The Marines see uncrewed logistics ‘connectors’ as key to future expeditionary and distributed operations, and a similar Army requirement could be on the horizon, especially to support long-range air assaults.

Jaysen Yochim, Senior Director for the ALC program at Airbus, talked about the demonstration for the Army with our Howard Altman at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention on Monday. Airbus is currently teamed with L3Harris Technologies, Shield AI, and Parry Labs on development of this drone helicopter for the Marines, as you can learn more about here.

The current iteration of the MQ-72C is based on the crewed UH-72B Lakota, which is in turn a variant of Airbus’ H145 twin-engine light helicopter. The Army operates crewed UH-72s today, but only in non-combat roles, including counter-drug and border patrol missions, and almost exclusively within the borders of the United States.

The MQ-72C demonstration for the Army, which Airbus self-funded, took place last week at Huntsville Executive Airport just outside of Huntsville, Alabama. The service has a major presence in the Huntsville area, which is focused heavily on supporting aviation and missile developments. As of April of this year, Airbus and its partners had already conducted four rounds of autonomous flight testing of the initial demonstrator version of this design, which is not in a fully uncrewed configuration.

“We did a demonstration for the Army down in Huntsville, really to show all the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop so far on the Marine Corps-funded program,” Yochim said. “We had a total of five demonstration flights that we did down there, showing everything from the autonomous capability of the aircraft in a hover.”

This included “complex hovering patterns, both step turns and fly-through turns, similar to what you’d see on an airfield, to just show how it can be integrated onto an airfield inside of the existing routing structure and everything that exists on an airfield,” he continued. “We did multiple traffic patterns to demonstrate just a normal traffic pattern, like a normal day would be, but also traffic patterns or a flight with a no-fly zone popping up in the middle of the flight.”

The video below shows previous flight testing of the MQ-72C demonstrator.

In that latter instance, the MQ-72C had to “autonomously make decisions” about how it was “going to route itself around the no-fly zones” once they popped up, he added. The human operator did provide the initial flight plan. There was also a pilot on board during the autonomous flight demonstrations, but only as an added safety margin, and they “never had to take control of the aircraft once,” according to Yochim.

Though the demonstrator now has provisions for a pilot, the intention is for the MQ-72C to eventually operate in a completely uncrewed mode. The current version of the design has two LIDAR sensors, facing front and back, as well as an electro-optical camera at the nose end, to help with navigation and otherwise provide situational awareness while operating in the uncrewed mode.

Those sensors feed “imagery into the flight computer with HiveMind that’s interpreting that through its perception systems to make decisions on the go,” Yochim explained. HiveMind is an autonomy software package from Shield AI, which is in use on a growing number of other uncrewed platforms, as you can read more about here.

Yochim also talked about work that has already been done to start laying the groundwork for controlling the MQ-72C in the fully uncrewed mode. Parry Labs has been leading ground control station work.

“Over the summer is really where now the aircraft, rather than having a pilot inside the aircraft, or sorry, an autonomous operator inside the aircraft, using a gaming computer to tell the aircraft what to do, now the aircraft is receiving commands from a ground control station,” he told us. “That is that human in the loop, sending commands to the aircraft over Starlink, so that it has beyond line-of-sight. We’ve had flights that have been autonomously commanded from up to 70 miles away. All of that is stuff that’s happened in the last year. We also have where the aircraft can be commanded from both a ground control station like this and also with the Samsung tablet.”

SpaceX’s Starlink space-based network and its more secure, government-focused cousin, Starshield, are in increasingly widespread use across the U.S. military for communications and other purposes. At present, Starlink also dominates the commercial market for these services globally. Starlink and Starshield offer highly persistent and robust connectivity that is ideal for uncrewed aircraft command and control operations.

The current MQ-72C demonstrator also lacks certain features that are expected to be found on the final configuration. Plans for a set of clamshell doors at the nose notably still have yet to be realized. The UH-72 design already features clamshell doors at the rear of the fuselage, as seen below. The end goal is for the uncrewed version to have an open pass-through main cabin, offering major advantages for loading and unloading cargo, and doing so rapidly.

The nose door arrangement has been “designed. It’s been 3D rendered. It’s gone through some testing on that end, but not flight testing,” Airbus’ Yochim told us. “The flight testing, wind tunnel testing, things like that, take time, and it’s just not been the priority to get there with getting the aircraft ready.”

Yochim said that Airbus is now looking toward the 2029-2030 timeframe for integrating the nose doors. This is tied, in part, to the Marine Corps’ ALC program, where delayed funding has shifted the schedule to the right. On that front, the Marine Corps is aiming for demonstration of this capability in an operationally relevant context next year. The Airbus-led team is also not the only one under contract for that program, with Near Earth Autonomy and Honeywell also working on a design based on the Leonardo AW139 helicopter. The expectation is that the Marines will eventually pick a single ALC design to actually acquire.

In the meantime, Airbus is clearly eyeing other opportunities, including with the U.S. Army. The company’s main arm in Europe is also now pitching a functionally identical U145 drone helicopter based on the current generation H145 design.

Airbus did the “demonstration to just show the Army the capabilities that we’ve been developing with the Marine Corps,” Yochim told us. “So the Marine Corps has been funding the program up to now, and so the message we are giving the Army is this is how far your sister unit [sic; service] has been able to get us with the funding that we’ve had. It’s already product that’s out there. It’s already product that’s working.”

As mentioned, the Marines see ALC as part of a larger family of uncrewed logistics ‘connectors,’ in the air and on the surface, which will be critical to supporting expeditionary and distributed operations involving units spread across far-flung forward locations. The service sees this as particularly central to an island-hopping campaign scenario in the context of a larger potential high-end fight with China in the Pacific, where traditional logistics chains will be top targets. The conflict with Iran has only underscored how disruptive those threats can be.

The Army is facing many of the same kinds of future operational scenarios, especially when it comes to supporting future airmobile operations. The service is already expecting air assaults to take place over far greater distances in the future thanks to the introduction of the MV-75A tiltrotor. Those units will need to be supported once they arrive at their objectives, which could be heavily contested.

“We did several [air assaults] over the last few years directly from Fort Campbell to the Joint Readiness Training Center, which is 500 miles, give or take. The [Marine Corps’ MV-22] Osprey can do that very fast and in one leap,” Army Maj. Gen. David Gardner, head of the 101st Airborne Division, told our sister site Task & Purpose at AUSA. “Our current helicopters, you’ve got to make some fuel and re-arming stops along the way, and the distance isn’t there. But now that helped us think through as a division how we were going to command and control something that moved, expanded our battlefield, so to speak, twice as far, three times, four times as far, and twice as fast.”

The 101st is the Army’s premier air assault formation and is set to be the first to fly MV-75As operationally.

“We can put some things inside the helicopter, and we can put some things under a helicopter with a sling load. We’re not going to sling load something moving 250-ish knots for 500 miles. We’re not going to hang Humvees under that,” Gardner also told Task & Purpose. “We learned some things about how we need to get our equipment to the battlefield, how we need to get our sustainment to the battlefield at those distances, how we might need to rely on autonomous logistics delivery systems.”

It should be stressed that the market for semi-autonomous aerial logistics support is heating up, and that the MQ-72C is not the only option to meet such a requirement. As noted, there is another competitor in the running just for the Marines’ ALC effort, the AW139-based offering from Near Earth Autonomy and Honeywell.

Last year, Sikorsky, now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, revealed that it was working on a fully uncrewed version of the Black Hawk helicopter that also features a clamshell nose. Sikorsky has also been working with Robinson Unmanned on a pilotless version of the smaller R66 helicopter that again features clamshell doors at the front of the fuselage. Bell, together with Near Earth Autonomy, is developing an uncrewed cargo-carrying version of its Model 505 Jet Ranger X, as well. The drone versions of the R66 and Jet Ranger X are aimed primarily at another Marine Corps ‘connector’ program called the Medium Aerial Resupply Vehicle-Expeditionary Logistics (MARV-EL).

As mentioned, the Army does already operate crewed UH-72s, but it also flies Black Hawks. The service is also expanding its use of contractor-operated R66s for pilot training.

The Army does not appear to have formalized any requirement for a cargo-carrying drone helicopter yet. At the same time, the comments from Maj. Gen. Gardner certainly suggest one may be emerging now.

There was at least enough interest within the Army already to accept Airbus’ offer of a demonstration of its MQ-72C last week.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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