The U.S. military’s top officer on Wednesday talked about how AI is changing the character of warfare and offered two examples to illustrate his points. His comments included new insights into how two U.S. Army AH-64 Apache crew members were rescued after being shot down by an Iranian drone near the coast of Oman in June. The recovery effort involved America’s first known use of an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) executing a personnel recovery action as part of a military search and rescue operation.
“Information moves so fast that leader decision times have compressed from weeks down to days down to seconds,” explained Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during his keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. “In the future fight, advantage will go to the side who can see first, who can understand first, decide first, and act first, and along the way, be a learning organization, and no factor is accelerating change as fast as artificial intelligence and advancing cyber capabilities.”
“AI is here now, and it’s already changing the way militaries see, sense, decide, and act across the joint force,” the chairman proclaimed.
The first example Caine used to highlight these changes took place on June 8. After the Apache went down, “U.S. CENTCOM launched a rapid, responsive joint search and rescue effort to recover the crew. That response drew on the totality of the joint force, and ultimately was required to use enabled unmanned vessels to participate in the rescue of downed U.S. service members for the first time ever.”
A flight of U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, armed with rockets and Hellfire missiles, taxi out to conduct a scheduled flight in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. In addition to rockets and missiles, the Apache is additionally armed with a 30mm chain gun. (U.S. Army photo) U.S. Army Central
As we noted in our previous coverage, CENTCOM deployed “a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel,” the command’s spokesman told us at the time.
The Corsair uncrewed surface vessel (USV) (Saronic)
The ability to pull off that rescue mission “did not appear overnight,” Caine pointed out. “It came from the men and women of Task Force 59, CENTCOM’s forward-leaning unmanned joint maritime unit who spent the last several years testing, integrating, and operationalizing unmanned systems and AI in one of the most demanding and kinetic environments on Earth right now.”
“What helped make this possible was not a bunch of general officers and flag officers,” Caine continued. “What made this possible was a bunch of entrepreneurial sailors and members of the joint force on watch floors, at piers, managing networks of unmanned systems across thousands of miles of water, and using AI to turn massive amounts of data into a crisp, clear, perfect maritime picture that allowed us to go grab those two soldiers in the water.”
A top-down view of the Saronic Corsair USV. (Saronic)
The second example Caine shared about the use of AI “points in the other direction, not how quickly we are using these tools, but how quickly these tools are changing the threat.”
In Ukraine, “we see first-person view drones operating in heavily contested EMI [electromagnetic interference] environments. Some now using AI-enabled computer vision to continue to drive towards targets, even when there’s no GPS or the links are cut. That gives small units affordable precision and shows how quickly software and autonomy are changing what is possible at the tactical edge, and the results are stark.”
“In certain locations on the front line of troops right now, the life expectancy of a new Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is as little as 20 to 30 minutes,” Caine added. “Think about that. This is what happens when low-cost precision is fielded fast, adapted quickly, and scaled across the battlefield.”
“The price of lethal exchange is decreasing day over day,” the chairman noted. “One wonders what the future of close air support looks like, but I am comforted by the fact that each and every one of you are in this room thinking about that. Taken together, these examples from the Straits of Hormuz to the front lines in Ukraine show how quickly technology is changing the character of war, and this means our joint force needs to do two things at one time.”
“[W]e need to prepare the joint force to win in this kind of conflict,” the general stated. “We have to assume from now on that our formations will be hunted by autonomous systems, jammed across the spectrum, and tracked in real time, and we have to transition the joint force to be prepared to fight and win our future war by generating and delivering lethality at scale with an agile, optimized, high-low mix of combat capabilities to give the young members of the 2.8-million member all volunteer joint force the tools that they need before they need them.”
The U.S. Air Force has been taking a new look at the feasibility of restarting production of the C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane as part of its still-evolving next-generation airlift plans. The service also continues to explore a wide range of next-generation aerial refueling concepts, including new stealthy and/or uncrewed tankers, but a firm vision for the way forward there has yet to emerge.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), shared new details about future airlift and aerial refueling efforts, with TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
On the airlift side, the Air Force’s stated plan to date is to replace both the C-17A and C-5M Galaxy with a single Next-Generation Airlift (NGAL) platform, starting in the mid-2040s. Separately, the service is pursuing what could be a family of future aerial refueling capabilities under what is now called the Advanced Tanker Systems (ATS) program. Very broadly speaking, ATS presents a path toward what might come after the retirement of the aging KC-135 tanker fleet, though those aircraft are still expected to keep flying for years to come. The Air Force is also moving to further expand its fleet of newer KC-46A tankers in the interim, but persistent technical and other issues with that design continue to present hurdles.
A US Air Force C-5, at left, together with one of the sevice’s C-17s, at right. USAFA KC-135, at right, prepares to link with a KC-46, at left, during a test. USAF
At the roundtable today, Lt. Gen. Tulley was asked explicitly about restarting C-17 production. The manufacturer of those aircraft, Boeing, shuttered that line in 2015. The company also just marked the 35th anniversary of the design’s first flight yesterday.
“Heck yeah, but with a caveat, right?” Tulley said in response. “So we were just asking this question over the course of last week, and it’s in the context of next-generation airlift. So we are about to embark on the Analysis of Alternatives to replace the C-17 and replace the C-5. All options are on the table.”
“There’s always the option to service life extend the C-17, but the [production restart] question came up,” he continued. “I’ve heard this my entire career. Once we terminate an assembly line, can we ever bring it back? Does somebody store all the machinery and the dies and whatnot, and can you bring that out? So we’re asking that question.”
“But then whatever that answer is from the vendors, what will be the price tag associated with that?” he added. “You have to ask yourself, okay, is rebuilding a C-17 even if you make improvements – and there’s a loose analogy with the C-130J, [a] much more modern, capable variant of the C-130E [author’s note: the C-130J evolved more directly from the C-130H variant] I first learned to fly – if you do that with the C-17, is that the best move? Or are there new technologies that we can incorporate into it so that it can defend itself, so that it’s connected, it’s networked, it does all the things that maybe the current C-17 doesn’t do?”
“We’re looking into it as part of the Analysis of Alternatives. I’m hopeful that we’ll get to answer that question.”
In June, the House Armed Services Committee also directed the U.S. Air Force to prepare a formal briefing on the matter of new C-17 production in a report accompanying a draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2027.
The RAND Corporation did conduct a detailed, independent analysis more than a decade ago that assessed the costs and complexities that could come from Boeing building more C-17As, as well as other variants and derivatives of the design. RAND’s conclusion was that any of the courses of action would require billions of dollars of new investment and entail risks, as you can read more about in more detail here.
Foreign participation in a new C-17 production run could help at least defray costs. Australia, Canada, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom all currently fly Globemaster IIIs. The Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) initiative, a multinational arrangement with several European members, as well as the United States, also operates three of these aircraft.
Boeing told TWZ directly in June that unnamed C-17 operators had been reaching out about the prospect of restarting the production line, and that the company was “encouraged” by those discussions.
As Lt. Gen. Tulley stressed, there are significant questions about whether buying new-production C-17s, even with substantial improvements, is not only feasible, but a good use of resources. The Air Force’s Globemaster III fleet today continues to prove itself to be critical to the U.S. military’s ability to project power globally, and is in very high demand right now, especially amid the ongoing conflict with Iran.
The Air Force’s desire to replace both the C-17 and C-5, which are very different aircraft in form and function, could still easily lead the service down a different route. Boeing is not the only one looking at future NGAL opportunities. Another company, Radia, has been very actively pitching a clean-sheet design that is physically bigger than either the C-17 and the C-5, and that is geared toward greater operational flexibility, at the Air Force. Radia is targeting a first flight of its aircraft, called Windrunner, by the end of the decade, but it is still in a very aspirational stage at present.
A rendering of Radia’s Windrunner design. Radia
Many questions also still remain about how the Air Force will ultimately proceed on the next-generation aerial refueling front.
“So thinking beyond the current KC-46 buy and the program extension, whatever that next tanker looks like, our Advanced Tanker System, it’s got to be connected. It’s got to be able to defend itself,” Lt. Gen. Tulley said at the roundtable. “But it begs the question: does it need to be manned? Could it be optionally manned? Could it be autonomous? Or is there a family of solutions maybe that would answer that question? So I do not believe that it has to be manned.”
“I think you’re seeing that with the MQ-25 and the Navy’s work, but then, how do we, the U.S. Air Force, bring that to bear in scope, scale, and range?” Tulley continued. “An optionally manned or an unmanned tanker, at range, the ranges we need to operate at, it’s a very large aircraft. And we’re not yet to where we’re employing fully autonomous large aircraft, but the technology, I would say, is there and rapidly getting there if it’s not.”
A rendering of a larger, land-based derivative of the MQ-25, depicted refueling from a KC-46 tanker. BoeingOne of the advanced tanker concepts Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has shared publicly in recent years. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
“We will be going after how to make the tanker survive,” William Bailey, the Air Force official currently performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, had also told TWZ and other outlets at a separate roundtable at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference yesterday. Bailey was responding to a direct question about whether the service was moving away from the idea of a stealthy tanker as part of the ATS plan.
“So, lots of work around what do we do in the future for our tankers, and we spent a pretty dedicated effort to go through and look at what do we think those design solutions could look like,” Bailey also said. “We looked internally. We went out to industry, had those guys come back with their thoughts on how to provide a more survivable aircraft.”
“The stuff that was coming in for me might have been an incremental improvement, but [it was] not clear that that represented the next step, the next phase,” he added. “What you’ll see is we’ll take our efforts, and we’ll look at, hey, if the real question is tanker access, then let’s not constrain ourselves to just the aircraft itself and trying to make a stealthy tanker. We need a tanker to have access, so we’ll talk about all those systems that it would take to protect that tanker.”
Bailey said the question of operational “access” applied to next-generation discussions, as well.
This ex-French Air Force KC-135FR tanker, now operated by private contractor Metrea, is an example of the outside aerial refueling capacity the U.S. military has been increasingly leveraging in recent years. Metrea
Greater connectivity “can be a game changer, and it has been a game changer in Operation Epic Fury [against Iran],” Lt. Gen. Tulley said at today’s roundtable. “The ability for air crews to communicate, to coordinate tanker orbits and rendezvous, to pass threat information, to save lives and save aircraft has been everything we expected it to be and more.”
“We have MAF NEXUS that we’re pursuing. The goal is to have this on all mobility aircraft, whether they’re future-built and it’s incorporated, or it’s an add-on capability to existing aircraft,” he continued. “It brings edge compute, the ability to then employ AI [artificial intelligence] and much more computing core power forward on the aircraft, and it does network with the rest of the joint force and the Air Force’s battle management system.”
A picture of a US Air Force KC-135 tanker spotted earlier this year with a new large satellite communications antenna (further highlighted in the inset), underscoring work underway now to improve the network connectivity of those aircraft. Alessandro Ledda
When it comes to new options for protecting existing tankers, “nothing’s off the table,” the AMC boss added. “Whether it’s [in the] electromagnetic spectrum, whether it’s kinetic self-defense, a layered approach, we’re looking at everything to come up with what might be the best system. But it’s got to be a system that we can afford, and it’s got to be one that we can put on all the aircraft we have and the ones we’re about to build.”
The Air Force is otherwise still clearly continuing to shape its future airlift and aerial fueling visions. As part of that work, the service is now at least considering the possibility of rebooting C-17 production.
Yemen’s Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, has released imagery that it says shows the downing of a Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 fighter over Marib governorate. The material includes photos of the wreckage of an F-15 on the ground. At this stage, the fate of the two crew members is unclear. The incident comes amid a major escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.
A video of what Ansar Allah says is the successful shootdown of the F-15 shows the typical ground-based forward-looking infrared (FLIR) systems we have seen in use by air defenses in Yemen previously, and, more recently, in Iran.
Onboard footage of a Houthi SAM system shooting down a Saudi F-15 overnight over Yemen’s Marib province. pic.twitter.com/6mh23B2Ovu
After a period of relative calm following the 2022 truce, fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Houthi forces making significant advances against Saudi-backed Yemeni government positions, including around the strategically important coastal areas of Marib and Taiz. The group has also stepped up missile and drone attacks against southern Saudi Arabia, targeting military and energy infrastructure while strangling the kingdom’s ability to move oil through the Red Sea. The Houthis have further declared the Bab el-Mandeb closed to Saudi oil traffic, directly challenging one of Riyadh’s key energy-export routes.
An aerial view of the apparent impact site. Houthi-controlled mediaThe impact site seen from the ground. Houthi-controlled media
Prior to the release of imagery, earlier today the Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed that Houthi forces had shot down a Saudi F-15 while it was conducting operations in support of Saudi-backed forces in Marib. Saree said the aircraft was engaged by a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile, although he did not identify the weapon. Reuters likewise reported that the Houthis had claimed the shootdown but that the claim had not been independently verified.
Saree also claimed that Houthi air defenses subsequently engaged formations of Saudi F-15s and Eurofighter Typhoons that entered the area while attempting to locate the downed aircraft. According to the Houthi account, those aircraft were forced to withdraw. That portion of the claim has likewise not been independently verified.
Saudi Arabia has not, at the time of writing, publicly acknowledged the loss of an F-15. Reutersreported that the Saudi-led campaign had intensified considerably in recent days, with Saudi aircraft striking targets across Yemen while the Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Saudi territory.
The aircraft appears to be an F-15SA, the most advanced variant of the Eagle operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force. Specifically, it appears to be tail number 5539, assigned to the 55th Squadron based at King Khalid Air Base.
A close-up of one of the tailfins with the apparent tail number 5539. Houthi-controlled mediaAnother view of one of the tailfins. Houthi-controlled media
The Royal Saudi Air Force received 84 of the new-build F-15SA. Meanwhile, the 68-strong fleet of earlier F-15S aircraft has been upgraded locally to a similar standard, also known as F-15SR (for Saudi Retrofit). Aircraft 5539 is understood to be among the latter.
The reported shootdown highlights the continuing threat posed by Houthi air defenses, which have proven considerably more capable and difficult to suppress than their improvised appearance might suggest.
As TWZ has previously detailed, the Houthi air-defense network includes mobile surface-to-air missile systems, repurposed infrared-guided R-73 and R-27 air-to-air missiles, and Iranian-derived systems such as the Saqr/358.
Houthi Thaqib-1 surface-to-air missiles (repurposed R-73s) in front of Thaqib-2s (repurposed R-27). Other Houthi air defense missiles are also seen at the rear. Houthi-controlled media
Of particular concern is the group’s use of passive infrared sensors for detection, tracking, and missile cueing. Unlike conventional fire-control radars, these sensors do not provide an aircraft’s electronic-warfare systems with an early warning that it has been detected or targeted. TWZhas noted that this combination of mobility and passive sensing can create a difficult problem even for highly sophisticated combat aircraft, with the Houthis having previously demonstrated the ability to threaten U.S. crewed and uncrewed aircraft.
That capability does not mean that Houthi air defenses constitute a conventional, integrated air defense network comparable to those operated by major state militaries. However, they can still be effective through a combination of concealment, mobility, passive detection, unconventional employment of missiles, and the difficult operating environment over Yemen.
Previous Saudi aircraft losses attributed to Houthi air defenses during the Yemen war from 2015 to 2022 include several helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and drones. Total Saudi losses to all causes in the conflict amount to around a dozen helicopters, five jets, and as many as 30 drones. A Saudi F-15 crashed in the Red Sea at the start of the war in 2015 and Eagles were also reportedly engaged and damaged by Houthi surface-to-air missiles in 2018, although they returned safely.
Video footage that emerged in 2021 shows Saudi troops on the ground watching an F-15 swoop in a relatively low level to knock down a Houthi Qasef-series suicide drone:
In the past, Houthi forces have come close to engaging U.S. F-35s and have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to bring down MQ-9 Reaper drones. If the Saudi F-15 loss is ultimately confirmed, determining precisely how the aircraft was detected, tracked, engaged, and hit could therefore provide valuable insight into how this unusual air defense architecture is being employed against Saudi and other combat aircraft.
As we discussed at the time, the clear risk posed by Houthi air defenses is likely the main factor behind Saudi employment of a Chinese-made short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) in the current fighting with Yemen.
The timing of the reported shootdown is also notable. It comes amid a sharp escalation in the conflict, with Saudi Arabia conducting air operations against Houthi positions in Yemen and Ansar Allah launching missiles and drones toward targets inside Saudi Arabia. Reutersreported that the Houthis had attacked the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu and a southern airbase at Khamis Mushait, while Riyadh has reported intercepting Houthi drones.
The F-15 incident also follows a separate confrontation over an alleged Houthi drone attack near Mecca. Saudi authorities said their air defenses intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone south of Mecca before it entered the restricted airspace over the city. The Houthis denied targeting the holy city.
Meanwhile, there are reports that U.S. officials met representatives of the Houthis in Oman over the weekend, with the Houthis apparently telling the U.S. officials that they had no intention of attacking American vessels and that they remained committed to the 2025 ceasefire with the United States unless they stepped in on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom reportedly requested exactly this in recent weeks but was denied.
For the moment, the most that can be established from the available imagery is that a Saudi F-15 was destroyed, with Ansar Allah claiming responsibility.
This is a developing story and will be updated as additional imagery, official statements, or other independently verifiable information becomes available.
Israel’s Rafael and Lockheed Martin are working to accelerate integration of the 1,000-pound-class SPICE standoff weapon with the Israeli Air Force’s F-35I Adir. The development could potentially open the door for the precision-guided munition to be offered to other Joint Strike Fighter operators.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced the effort September 15 during the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending. The work is being conducted as a joint project with Lockheed Martin at the U.S. contractor’s facilities in the United States and is expected to take several months.
AFA 2026: For the first time, Rafael's SPICE 1000 is being integrated on the F-35
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is integrating its SPICE 1000 air-to-surface munition on the F-35 Adir fighter aircraft.
Rafael says the effort could eventually make the weapon available to other F-35 operators. “At a later stage, F-35 operators worldwide will be able to field SPICE 1000,” the company said.
The effort was previously referenced in U.S. government documentation before Rafael’s announcement. Published in August, the Pentagon F-35 Modernized Selected Acquisition Report identified the weapon as the “Israel-unique Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective 1000B,” or SPICE 1000B, and said its integration was progressing “with a strategy to accelerate the implementation via a SPICE Lite process.”
The report does not explain what the “SPICE Lite” process entails.
SPICE — which stands for Smart, Precise Impact, and Cost-Effective — is a family of electro-optically guided standoff weapons developed by Rafael. The family includes SPICE 2000, SPICE 1000, and SPICE 250, with the numbers corresponding broadly to the weight class of the underlying warheads.
Based around a 1,000-pound-class bomb, SPICE 1000 uses pop-out wings to achieve a manufacturer-stated range of approximately 125 kilometers, or 78 miles. Rafael gives the weapon a claimed circular error probable of around three meters.
The glide bomb combines inertial and satellite-aided navigation with an electro-optical seeker. During the terminal phase, its seeker can compare the observed target area with stored imagery using scene-matching algorithms, allowing the weapon to continue its attack without relying exclusively on GPS. That feature allows it to engage targets autonomously, offering the launch aircraft a true ‘fire and forget’ capability, and provides resilience in GPS-denied or GPS-degraded environments.
SPICE can also be programmed to approach a target from a particular azimuth and impact angle. This provides flexibility in selecting the terminal attack geometry and can support steep attack profiles against targets where penetration from above is desirable.
SPICE 1000 is not a new Israeli capability. It has been operational with the Israel Air Force since 2017 and is already integrated with Israeli F-16I Sufa, F-16C/D Barak, F-15I Ra’am, and F-15 Baz fighters.
An F-15 Baz configured for precision strike, with a pair of 2,000-pound Rafael SPICE standoff weapons on the underwing pylons. Amit Agronov
“SPICE 1000 has been sold to several countries and is in operational service with a number of air forces worldwide,” Rafael said. “It has served as a primary munition of the Israeli Air Force for several years, including extensive use in recent long-range operations flown from F-15 and F-16 aircraft.”
The Israeli Air Force has released footage showing SPICE weapons being used during recent operations, including imagery from the weapon’s own perspective during its terminal attack.
Israeli Air Force F-15 Bazs preparing for a strike on Iran, each carrying a pair of Spice 1000 glide bombs.
Notably, one of the F-15s, tail no. 450, took part in Operation Wooden Leg exactly 40 years ago, striking PLO targets in Tunisia. pic.twitter.com/FEy6PiDkdU
Combat validated. The stand-off strike capability air forces are asking about. SPICE 250 at Farnborough. Pinpoint accuracy against high-value targets. Real operational results.
— Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (@RAFAELdefense) July 22, 2026
Israel’s F-35I is already unusual within the international Joint Strike Fighter fleet. The IDF has developed and demonstrated an external Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) carriage capability, and said in March 2025 that the Israeli Adir was the only F-35 to have conducted operational strikes with an external weapons configuration. You can read more about that here.
The unique instrumented F-35I assigned to the Israeli Flight Test Center carrying four external 2,000-pound class GBU-31 JDAMs. A single AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile can be seen in one of the internal weapons bays, which may also house another internal JDAM. Israeli Air Force
However, according toThe Jerusalem Post, the SPICE weapon is expected to be carried internally by F-35Is equipped with Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3, hardware, which would maintain its low-observable configuration. Neither Rafael nor Lockheed Martin has publicly detailed the specific carriage configuration, aircraft modifications or software associated with the current integration effort.
The long-delayed TR-3 is a major upgrade to the F-35’s computing architecture and provides the processing infrastructure required for subsequent Block 4 capabilities. Israel received its first three F-35Is equipped with TR-3 hardware in January of this year.
Lockheed Martin describes Block 4 as the F-35 program’s “most significant evolution of F-35 capabilities to date,” encompassing more than 70 major upgrades, including increased weapons capacity, advanced electronic warfare capabilities, and improved target recognition.
Some of the unclassified upgrades within Block 4. The exact configuration has not been publicly disclosed. U.S. Department of Defense
It remains unclear if the SPICE 1000 integration itself requires the full Block 4 configuration.
The potential significance of the Israeli integration extends beyond the Israel Air Force. If SPICE 1000 ultimately becomes available to other F-35 operators, the completed Israeli integration could provide those countries with another pathway toward fielding a precision standoff weapon rather than requiring them to begin an integration effort entirely from scratch.
Integrating national weapons onto the F-35 can be a lengthy process. It involves not only the weapon itself, but aircraft software, interfaces, weapons-bay compatibility, flight testing, mission-system integration and certification within the U.S.-led F-35 program.
In 2022, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said that scheduled delivery dates for SPEAR 3 had been delayed because of “prioritisation in the overall F-35 development programme,” which is managed by the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Program Office.
An artist’s impression of an F-35 armed with SPEAR 3 and Meteor missiles. MBDA
The program has continued to progress, including F-35B integration work and flight testing. But in June 2026, the U.K. government said that completion of mission-systems integration and jettison trials remained part of a wider weapons-integration program and that SPEAR 3 integration and subsequent release to service would occur in the early 2030s.
Nevertheless, another F-35 operator would not be able to adopt the Israeli SPICE integration without additional work. National configurations, software baselines, certification requirements, weapons procurement, and export approvals would still have to be addressed.
Already, however, aided by its uniquely configured test jet, Israel has demonstrated an unusual ability to integrate nationally developed capabilities onto its F-35I. This has been aided by privileged access to the Joint Strike Fighter’s closely guarded software codes.
The Israeli Air Force F-35I test jet on the flight line together with an F-15I strike fighter. Amit Agronov/Israeli Air Force
A U.K. parliamentary report noted delays in integrating British weapons onto the F-35B while contrasting that with Israel’s ability to integrate domestic electronic warfare systems, sensors, and communications technology onto its Adir.
Meanwhile, Rafael and Lockheed Martin already have experience working together on the SPICE family.
The companies signed a teaming agreement in 2019 covering the joint development, marketing and manufacture of SPICE guidance kits for the U.S. market. In 2021, they expanded the agreement to include SPICE 250, including development for potential sales to the United States and Poland. With some unque capabilities, SPICE could be of particular interest to the U.S. military, especially as it seeks to leverage multiple sources of precision munitions.
The SPICE family also extends beyond the 1,000-pound-class weapon now being integrated with the F-35.
At the other end of the family is SPICE 250, a much smaller weapon designed around a 250-pound-class payload. It incorporates a man-in-the-loop capability that allows an operator to redirect the weapon during its flight and abort the attack if necessary.
Its smaller dimensions also allow substantially greater weapon carriage. Rafael has marketed configurations in which a fighter can carry as many as 16 SPICE 250 weapons.
SPICE 1000, by comparison, is a substantially heavier weapon intended to provide longer-range precision attack capability with a larger warhead.
The SPICE effort is taking place alongside several other Israeli initiatives aimed at extending the F-35I’s range and weapons capabilities.
The Pentagon’s F-35 documentation has referenced ongoing work on extended-range fuel tanks and electronic warfare pods for the Israeli Air Force, although it did not provide fielding dates.
In May 2026, Israel’s defense ministry awarded an extended-range capability development contract for the F-35I to Elbit Systems subsidiary Cyclone. The capability is intended to increase the aircraft’s radius of action and reduce its reliance on aerial refueling during long-range missions.
For the F-35I, SPICE 1000 adds a long-range strike option that pairs the aircraft’s low observability with substantial standoff range and a relatively heavy warhead. This offers a survivability advantage in increasingly contested environments, allowing attacks from farther outside capable air defense systems and under heavy electronic warfare conditions. This factor will only become more important as integrated air defense systems become more capable and the F-35 more detectable.
Exactly how the weapon will be integrated remains undisclosed. Rafael and Lockheed Martin have not announced the final carriage configuration, aircraft software requirements, flight-test schedule, or expected date for operational clearance.
At the same time, Rafael is explicitly positioning the effort as a potential pathway for SPICE 1000 to become available to the wider F-35 community. This would conceivably give other operators another option at a time when integrating a new standoff weapon onto the fighter can take years.
As both the Navy and the USAF were racing to field a new generation of advanced tactical jets, the seagoing service’s program hit a wall. A major reason behind this from the Pentagon was concern that the U.S. industrial base could not handle simultaneous final development and production of two extremely complex new fighter aircraft. This was a controversial justification that many had a hard time swallowing. The Navy’s program, dubbed F/A-XX, is supposedly back on and a down-select on who will build it is coming soon, but that concern appears to linger among at least one of the Department of War’s top acquisition officials.
Though he remains confident that the U.S. Air Force F-47 sixth-generation fighter will fly in the next two years, Air Force Gen. Dale R. White, Director, Critical Major Weapon Systems — the service’s leading weapons procurement advisor — remains concerned about the overall capacity of industry to provide the military with the aircraft it needs, including two new fighters. His comments were in response to questions about the Navy’s challenges in building its own sixth-gen fighter alongside F-47.
The concerns are “not unique” to the F-47 or the Navy’s program but the problem exists to various degrees across the industrial base too, White told reporters Tuesday during a media roundtable at the Air & Space Forces’ Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending.
White has a dual-hatted role, serving as the Pentagon’s top weapons procurement officer and as the senior acquisition advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force for all acquisition matters.
A rendering of the F-47. (U.S. Air Force) U.S. Air Force
“We’re seeing it in multiple platforms,” said White, who did not elaborate. “And so what we’re having to do is, at some point, we’re having to make some trade space in between some of these.”
“I see Boeing making smart investments,” White said of the prime contractor of the F-47, selected for the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) ‘fighter’ initiative. “They have a lot of CAPEX [capital expenditure] that they’re pouring in, but we have to get through the process of the design piece, getting that completed and closed out. Then we all hit some major milestones with things like flight tests and software and those things.”
F-47 specifications infographic (USAF)
“Really, it’s just being able to manage the overall resourcing as it relates to number one, people resources,” the general added. “Number two, when you start getting into the production conversation, do we have enough capacity to be able to produce at that rate? And so, by and large, I have concerns. I have concerns about the capacity of our industrial base, but they are not unique to F-47 or to any program.”
As for the F-47, White said the program “continues to progress exceptionally well.”
“As you know, many, many years in tech maturation and risk reduction gave us a tremendous head start on this program,” White explained. “Extremely proud of what the team has done, what they continue to do each and every day. We are still absolutely on [the] path to be able to hit the mark of flying within this administration. So we see no issues in front of us right now.”
While the first example of the F-47 has been in production for about a year now, the Navy has yet to even select a prime contractor for its next generation fighter. The current competitors for the F/A-XX are Boeing and Northrop Grumman. A decision was supposed to have been made by last month.
“The F/A-XX program remains on track, and we have no further information to provide at this time,” a Navy official told us last week.
In response to a question from TWZ earlier this year, the Chief of Naval Operations acknowledged the uncertainty over the F/A-XX program.
“One of the challenges we’re seeing is, not only [are] our peer competitors improving their capability for anti-air, either air-to-air or surface-to-air, but the lower cost of entry of very capable weapons is also making more players on the field in which that level of stealth and technology is required,” Adm. Daryl Caudle told us back in April at the Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition. “So this is not about the need for a peer adversary. This is just having an aircraft that can operate with a level of uncertainty and with the acceptable level of risk.”
With Boeing as a finalist, it is also possible that F/A-XX could be a variant of the F-47. As we noted in a past story, the Boeing render for its F/A-XX concept is remarkably similar to artwork for its F-47.
Last year, Steve Parker, Boeing Defense and Space CEO, said he didn’t see a problem with his company building both jets stating that this had been part of the strategy all along.
If this is the case, the company’s claim that it would not have a problem building both the Navy and Air Force next-generation fighters would make more sense. There are a number of advantages when it comes to establishing a high-degree of commonality between F/A-XX and F-47, although there would also be challenges, especially when it comes to getting the most out of a design that was not meant to operate from a carrier deck and scaling production up for both services. There is already significant sharing of elements of both the Navy’s and Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter programs. So commonality in some subsystems and interoperability are already baked in.
We should hopefully finally get a clearer picture in the coming weeks about the status of the F/A-XX and possibly the answer to who will actually build it, which will give us a better idea of what the industrial base impact actually will be.
U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) are set to take part in a large-force employment (LFE) exercise for the first time later this year. Sending CCAs to the next iteration of the Emerald Flag test exercise is another important new stepping stone toward fielding the drones operationally.
“We have not yet done a LFE with these [CCAs], for real. The first one is going to be Emerald Flag. That’s in December,” Lt. Col. Lyndon “OTTO” Bartlett, Director of Operations for the Experimental Operations Unit (EOU) at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, said earlier today. “That’ll be our first tip dip of the toe in an actual force integration.”
One of the Air Force’s YFQ-44A Fury CCA drones flies together with an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Anduril
It is worth noting here that Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, a CCA-type design, did take part in Valiant Shield 26, another LFE exercise, earlier this year. The EOU was also involved. However, the MQ-28, originally developed for the Royal Australian Air Force, is not officially part of the Air Force’s CCA program at present.
Emerald Flag in December “will, in OTTO’s mind, be the first time that we will ever do some CCA end-to-end chain [demonstration] live. That’s the first time we’ll ever be integrated in a fourth- and fifth-gen combined OCA [offensive counter air] push,” Lt. Col. Bartlett added. “It’ll be small, but those type [sic] of building blocks are where I think you get the intangibles like trust in the CCA.”
“Those learnings are going to be just as valuable as the technical, [like] does the radio work properly? Does the button I push to say ‘target’ work properly?” he continued.
A General Atomics YFQ-42A CCA drone during an earlier test flight. General Atomics
“If it’s in a simulated environment, it’s immediate,” Lt. Col. Bartlett said during the panel when asked about the “feedback loop” in testing the EOU is already taking part in. In that environment, “when the mission autonomy iterations are happening, our guys are literally with the programmers … They give the feedback, and if it’s possible to do immediately, they take that feedback. If not, then they work on it on the next turn of the software.”
Real-world testing, of course, offers opportunities to explore additional aspects of future CCA operations, including when it comes to loading weapons and maintenance. A key component of the Air Force’s vision for CCA employment is being able to forward deploy the drones to far-flung locations, including airstrips with limited infrastructure and access to logistics chains. Rapid, distributed deployments like this are central to still-evolving concepts of operations currently referred to collectively as Agile Combat Employment (ACE). The EOU has been involved in at least two rounds of ACE-focused testing this year, one at Edwards Air Force Base in California in April and another at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada in July. TWZ was the first to report on the latter event.
During the panel today, Lt. Col. Bartlett also talked more generally about work EOU has done to date. This has included exploring “sortie generation, how easy they are to maintain, [and] how small a footprint could be.”
“We’ve been pleasantly surprised. The jets are extremely easy to maintain,” he continued. “We’re at a one-to-one maintainer-to-airplane ratio, which is crazy small.”
With “CCAs, [it] seems like because they’re a little bit simpler, because their role is so focused, what we found is that just about any – not just about, but we found that any AFSC [Air Force Specialty Code; alphanumeric codes used to identify specific jobs within this service] can be trained to generate sorties to load weapons, and we’ve done some of those things already,” he further explained. “It’s our job to bring them [CCAs] out and make sure that, beyond the technical specifications of it, that we’re kind of experimenting with the more complex things like logistics, and C2 [command and control], and how do we battle manage these things.”
Airmen prepare to load an inert AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile onto a YFQ-44A CCA drone. USAF/Senior Airman Renee Blundon
The head of the EOU did acknowledge challenges that still have to be surmounted. This notably includes hurdles currently imposed by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations on the operation of fully uncrewed aircraft, even by the U.S. military, within U.S. airspace. This is further compounded by the explicit intention to operate CCAs with far more minimal human engagement compared to most existing drones.
“Mission autonomy is going to be the secret sauce that lets these things become decisive or not, and we’ll know that over the next couple years as that develops,” according to Bartlett. “If I were to identify the two biggest problems from the trenches of the EOU, [one] is FAA integration or policy implications to an autonomous airplane.”
“So these things don’t have pilots. They’re not RPAs [remotely-piloted aircraft]. They’re not manned fighters. They have no pilots,” he continued. “Our system is not set up for that, and that is a challenge that we are finding extremely hard to navigate through, and to not go around, but to make a policy.”
“We need to make sure the Air Force is ready for these things, to set policies that make sure the enterprise and the country is [sic] ready to receive these, and internalize an autonomous fighter that does not have a pilot that is running on a mission autonomy agent that doesn’t listen to ATC [air traffic control],” he added.
Another look at a YFQ-44A prototype during at test in 2026. USAF
The second problem, per Bartlett, is making sure the Air Force develops new internal policies and doctrine that are not “copy and pastes from old regulations” that do not take into account the specific nuances that CCAs will bring. What the service needs is “something that enables us to move quickly with these things, to weigh what we need, and to experiment with novel types of air superiority.”
All of this circles back to the discussion of trust in autonomous capabilities. It also speaks to the potential for future operations where CCAs could operate far more independently.
“It’s in the name that they’re collaborative,” Bartlett said. “Taking them out of that could technically be effective, but would not enhance the joint force the way that we see a collaborative, integrated force package to be.”
“What we need autonomously to do is written down. I won’t discuss the particulars in this forum, but we know what we need it to do, or we know what we think it really needs to do,” he noted. “We’ve structured our experimentation game plan to analyze ‘can it do those things?,’ and if not, then how do they need to be different? And then as they iterate on it, which we’ve already seen a couple times, we get that at the EOU, we get the new version down, we fly it again. Is it fixed? Yes or no.”
A General Atomics YFQ-42A seen from another angle during earlier testing. General Atomics
Some members of industry are clearly envisioning futures with different definitions of ‘collaborative’ that could lean more toward independent operations involving highly autonomous drones.
What “the whole entire program is trying to do is [figure out] what is the requirement to put out into the field to get to the warfighter and to start operating this thing this [sic; in] real time?” Robert “Otis” Winkler, Vice President of Corporate Development & National Security Programs at dronemaker Kratos, another one of the panelists, said. “The collaborative part of this makes it a much easier, I think, technical problem to be able to limit and grow the autonomy as you field this.”
“I think eventually we may see these aircraft utilized as collaborative aircraft, but not in conjunction with your traditional pulsed operation, but in support of that pulsed operation when the pulse isn’t there yet. But I do think that that is a bit of a stretch goal that’s going to be down the road.”
CCAs “have been designed really around increasing both survivability and lethality of current force packages. So there are many manned platforms that you would describe in the exact same fashion,” Jason Levin, Senior Vice President for Air Dominance and Strike at Anduril, who was also on the panel, said. He was responding here to a specific question about whether his use of the term “fighter” to describe these drones implied more emphasis on independent operations.
All of this underscores the importance of bringing CCAs to Emerald Flag in December, as well as other events in the future offering opportunities to see how the drones really fit in with other crewed platforms. The Air Force is hoping to start seeing CCAs enter operational service around the end of the decade, and have 500 of them, at least, in inventory by 2032.
During the panel today, the EOU’s Lt. Col. Bartlett made clear that “we’re going to learn a lot over the next couple years.”
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