The head of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) was initially skeptical about the utility of high-altitude balloons, but now sees them as a “game-changing” capability. Lt. Gen. John Rafferty’s comments follow a separate disclosure that the Army axed plans for a balloon swarm test in the Pacific last year and instead sent those systems to support real operations in the Middle East. TWZ has been closely tracking the expanding use of high-altitude balloons and other lighter-than-air systems globally for intelligence gathering, as platforms for launching drones, and in support of other missions, for years now.

Lt. Gen. Rafferty was asked about high-altitude balloons during a media roundtable today, at which TWZ was in attendance, on the sidelines of the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention. Army Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, head of SMDC’s Transformation Integration Directorate for Space Superiority (TID-Space Superiority), also discussed the service’s use of balloons during the roundtable. Breaking Defense first reported on the shift of balloon-based capabilities from the Pacific to the Middle East on Monday.

“I’ll just give a little personal history on high-altitude balloons. I started in the Army Futures Command in the Long Range Fires-Cross Functional Team. There was this talk of high-altitude balloons. I think it was the ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] task force was talking about it,” Rafferty said. “It just sounded crazy to me that we were considering this.”

“Then, a few years later, when the Sergeant Major [SMDC Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson] and I were together in the multi-domain community in Europe, I went with the 2nd MDTF [Multi-Domain Task Force] to Morocco for training and experimentation,” he continued. “[I] saw the high-altitude balloons in action, and I was immediately convinced after I understood better how they worked and how their ability to station-keep, and their ability to sense and even deliver effects from high altitude. It was game-changing for me.”

Broadly speaking, the main benefit that modern high-altitude balloons offer is their ability to be deployed persistently for days, weeks, or even months at a time. Designs available on the market today can hold their position, in spite of prevailing winds, and moderate their altitudes to keep on station, after precisely navigating to an assigned operating area.

On top of their persistence, the altitudes at which these balloons operate provide excellent fields of view for radars, cameras, and other sensors in all directions and across very broad areas. From a perch of 60,000 feet or more, they also offer a way to peer into certain denied areas while still soaring in international airspace and keeping further away from potential threats.

The video below from high-altitude balloon maker Aerostar offers a good general overview of the kind of capabilities on the market today.

As Lt. Gen. Rafferty noted today, ISR is not the only use case for high-altitude balloons, either. They can serve as communications relay nodes, as well as launch platforms for swarms of drones and other expendable payloads. These are all capabilities the Army has explicitly talked about as part of broader plans for balloons in the past. Other countries, especially China, are already actively employing high-altitude balloons for ISR and other missions, as we will come back to later on.

“In my former role as an MDTF commander, we experimented a lot in the Pacific with those [balloon-based] capabilities. We have leveraged different size platforms,” Col. Mroszczyk added today. “In this [TID-Space Superiority] role, as a proponent, what I’m pushing for is a family of stratospheric systems that really covers smaller size all the way up to larger size types of platforms in terms of balloons.”

“What that enables us to provide is space-like capabilities, really exploiting a transition point between what is normally considered the aerial layer and the space domain,” he continued. “Really, where you go from about 60,000 feet to 100,000 feet is what we focus on in the stratosphere. That operational space allows some persistence and broad coverage in an area where you can deliver space-like capabilities in terms of payloads, but then also take advantage of the deep access that you get from a stratospheric balloon.”

“So, being able to go, take advantage of winds that are pushing you where you want to go already to be able to get either launched effects or other types of payloads for sensing and communications and extension of your launched effects portfolio,” he added. “That is a way that we can help exploit the stratosphere, and we’re looking to do that throughout multiple experiments over the course of the coming year.”

“Launched effects,” is a catch-all term the U.S. military now routinely uses to talk collectively about uncrewed aerial systems designed to be launched from other platforms in the air, on the ground, and/or at sea. This encompasses drones configured for a wide variety of missions, including surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, signal relay, and even kinetic attack.

Col. Mroszczyk talked about plans to further demonstrate how high-altitude balloons will be commanded and controlled, as well as networked together with other Army capabilities, when asked to elaborate on what the forthcoming experimentation would entail.

As mentioned, the Army had also planned to demonstrate the ability of balloons to operate in swarms with a high degree of autonomy in the Pacific region last year before those assets were redirected to the Middle East. When exactly that deployment occurred and how long it lasted are unclear.

“We were asked to pivot and do some experimentation in combination with operations, and we pivoted and supported operations in CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command],” Andrew Evans, Director of Strategy and Transformation with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, or G-2, told Breaking Defense, per the story that outlet published on Monday.

“They were effective for the mission that they were assigned,” he also said, but declined to elaborate further, according to Breaking Defense. “Balloons can be a little finicky in terms of temperature, and you have to contend with environmental characteristics.”

“We had a lot of help from vendors in this space, but as you think about employing your systems and going from something like a Pacific [theater] to something like a CENTCOM [theater], you learn where those friction points might exist between what the military might need to inherently own, and … what a vendor could help provide in terms of the service,” Evans added. Furthermore, “balloons can be a little finicky in terms of temperature, and you have to contend with environmental characteristics.”

The remarks today from Lt. Gen. Rafferty and Col. Mroszczyk underscore the Army’s commitment to fielding new high-altitude balloon-based capabilities and the immense benefits the service sees in them. However, the continued emphasis on testing and experimentation highlights a discrepancy with the state of the service’s current efforts, and even more so in light of global trends.

The Army has been openly talking about balloons as part of its vision for a new multi-layered persistent sensor architecture, and how they could also be used to launch drones and other ‘effects,’ for at least six years now. In that same time, China has very actively shown off its ability to gather intelligence and conduct other missions using balloons and other lighter-than-air craft on a broad operational level across the Pacific. TWZ had been reporting on this reality for years before it was thrust fully into the public consciousness after a Chinese spy balloon passed over parts of the United States and Canada back in 2023.

Other countries, including U.S. allies and partners, are increasingly fielding balloon-based and other lighter-than-air systems, too. Forces in Ukraine have notably been using balloons to conduct kinetic attacks and launch drones in the course of the ongoing conflict with Russia. On the other side of that conflict, Russian forces have used balloons as decoys to confuse and misdirect air defenses.

American-made Hornet middle-range strike UAV being tested with balloon-assisted launch system.

Such resolution allows to drastically increase its original range (approx. 100km).

Hornet OWA-UAVs are actively employed by Ukrainian forces for strikes on Russian logistics and other… pic.twitter.com/S1bHqLNhPY

— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) May 20, 2026

The Middle East deployment does show new efforts on the Army’s part to operationalize high-altitude balloons on a more widespread basis, but also that it is still relying on largely experimental capabilities to do so. Earlier this year, the service called attention to the establishment of a new schoolhouse for high-altitude balloon training to help further lay this groundwork, further underscoring how all of this is still very much in its infancy.

The remarks today from Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, especially, show there is substantial support within the Army for pushing ahead with high-altitude balloon programs. At the same time, there is clearly much work to be done if they are to have a truly game-changing impact, while the gap with China and others only continues to grow.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post High Altitude Balloons Are A “Game-Changing” Capability: Army Space Command Boss appeared first on TWZ.

A U.S. Navy F-35C has made the first arrested landing for the type aboard a Ford class aircraft carrier, with the milestone taking place aboard the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) in the Western Atlantic on October 13, 2026. The milestone marks a major step in testing the Navy’s stealth fighter aboard its newest carrier class, following years of challenges integrating advanced launch and recovery systems.

Two F-35C test pilots assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23), part of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), flew to the carrier as part of an ongoing Aircraft Compatibility Testing (ACT) campaign. A team from the Patuxent River-based F-35 Integrated Test Force (ITF), detached to the ship, is conducting the evaluation using a specially instrumented example of the carrier-capable stealth fighter. The imagery released shows two jets, although only one is seen landing on the flattop. The other is seen carrying inert Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs externally.

The Navy took preliminary acceptance of the carrier from Newport News Shipbuilding on September 29, following successful acceptance trials in August. That development allows the ship and its crew to conduct at-sea testing and build underway proficiency while the shipbuilder completes final systems testing ahead of formal delivery, scheduled for spring 2027.

The test is an important step in validating the integration of the F-35C with the Ford class. The Navy’s newest carriers use electromagnetic catapults and advanced arresting equipment, replacing the steam-powered launch systems and conventional arresting machinery found aboard the preceding Nimitz class.

Aircraft Compatibility Testing assesses the operational capabilities of a ship’s aircraft launch and recovery equipment with U.S. Navy aircraft. The process helps engineers evaluate how the carrier’s systems interact with individual aircraft and collect data needed to validate their performance.

The F-35C is specifically designed for carrier operations, with larger wings, reinforced landing gear and a beefier tail hook compared with the Air Force’s F-35A. Its ability to launch from a carrier and recover through an arrested landing is central to its role in the Navy’s carrier air wings, which also include F-35Cs operated by the U.S. Marine Corps.

The use of a specially instrumented aircraft is particularly relevant to the test campaign. Instrumentation allows test teams to record data during flight-deck operations, helping them assess system performance and identify any issues requiring further evaluation.

The first arrested landing aboard John F. Kennedy demonstrates that the ship has reached an important F-35C compatibility milestone. It does not, however, establish that all testing, certification, or operational qualification requirements have been completed.

The milestone comes against the backdrop of the Ford class program’s difficulties integrating some of its advanced aviation systems. The lead ship, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), introduced the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG), technologies intended to improve aircraft-launch flexibility, recovery performance, and overall sortie generation. Development and reliability challenges with both EMALS and AAG have contributed to delays in the class’s progress. In a 2019 report, TWZ highlighted concerns that Ford class carriers would not be ready to operate the F-35C for years.

USS Gerald R. Ford was designed and built before the F-35C’s full carrier-integration requirements were sufficiently mature, so the Navy deferred several upgrades to a later modernization period rather than delaying the ship’s delivery. Following congressional pressure, the Navy adopted a single-phase delivery approach for USS John F. Kennedy, incorporating these modifications during construction instead.

The USS Gerald R. Ford completed its Aircraft Compatibility Testing in January 2020, following 16 days at sea, during which the crew launched and recovered 211 aircraft, testing five different airframes — but the F-35C was not included.

Beyond EMALS and AAG, integrating the F-35C on Kennedy requires modifications to the carrier’s maintenance infrastructure and support systems. These include specialized spaces for handling the aircraft’s sensitive mission systems and classified data, computer networks and interfaces linking its maintenance and logistics systems with the Navy’s existing infrastructure, and facilities and equipment to support the upkeep of its low-observable coatings and materials. The Navy has also identified the need for more robust jet blast deflectors (JBDs), which protect flight-deck personnel and equipment from the F-35C’s intense engine exhaust.

Earlier F-35C integration work aboard Nimitz class carriers included JBD modifications to improve heat resistance and cooling, while planning for John F. Kennedy explicitly included both JBD upgrades and changes to maintenance spaces and information systems.

The latest test represents progress toward resolving the compatibility question, although the full scope of the remaining work will depend on the results of the ongoing evaluation.

The development also comes as China advances its own carrier aviation capabilities. Unlike the U.S. Navy, its Fujian aircraft carrier has demonstrated electromagnetic catapult launches and arrested recoveries involving several aircraft types, including the J-35 stealth fighter.

In contrast to the U.S. Navy, which accumulated decades of experience with steam-powered catapults before adopting electromagnetic launch technology, China chose electromagnetic catapults for its first catapult-equipped carrier.

Although China’s demonstrations aboard Fujian and the F-35C compatibility testing aboard Kennedy involve different aircraft, ships, and stages of development, both underscore the technical demands of integrating advanced aircraft with modern carrier launch and recovery systems.

For the U.S. Navy, the immediate priority is to demonstrate that the Ford class can reliably support its intended aircraft. The F-35C’s first arrested landing aboard Kennedy is a significant step in that process, with further testing — not least an EMALS takeoff — needed before the milestone can begin to translate into an operational capability.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post F-35C Makes First Arrested Landing Aboard A Ford Class Carrier appeared first on TWZ.

Sikorsky is aiming to start offering a new modular and readily swappable nose for the venerable H-60 family of helicopters within the next year or so. The noses will be made available on new-production H-60s, as well as be retrofittable to helicopters in service now. The ‘nose jobs’ will help operators relatively quickly reconfigure their H-60s for very different missions, from cargo-carrying to serving as gunships, as required. It also opens new avenues to integrating autonomous capabilities and other advanced functionality.

Our Howard Altman had a chance to speak with representatives from Sikorsky, now a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, about the plans for the new nose for the H-60-series at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual convention today. This is part of a larger vision for keeping the design operationally relevant into the 2070s, which also includes uprated engines and increased total payload capacity. You can read more about the overall Black Hawk 2070 strategy here.

Of the different elements of Black Hawk 2070, “the nose is a good one, and it’s one that’s on a pretty accelerated timeline. Within the next, I would say, year or so, the nose will be available to be retrofitted or to be coming off the line,” Jason Wrigley, Sikorsky’s director of business development for Black Hawk, said. “We’ve gone through a design cycle with it.”

As it stands now, the new nose structure will offer roughly double the physical space of the standard nose on current-generation H-60s today.

“We’ve done the design. We then 3D-printed the noses, and we did that so that we can physically interact with it, because the whole point of this is for maintainability and access to be able to integrate these different sensors and comms gear,” he continued. “We’ve gotten some feedback from the engineers, from operators, from maintainers, and that goes back into the next cycle of the design.”

Exploring ways to optimize accessibility to areas of the new nose was a major focus of this ‘test print,’ according to Wrigley. Sikorsky has a scale model on the show floor at AUSA this week that highlights how the current design opens from the top, as seen below. Ensuring that it will be possible to keep any systems inside sufficiently cooled has also been an important design consideration already.

Overall, “we just are kind of confirming, can we reach everywhere we need to? What are the different configurations?” he added. There’s been “a lot of work with the [U.S.] Army around what do you envision potentially could go in here?”

“This is one of those cases also where our whole engineering team gets more comfortable. It’s not something where the Army came to us and said, ‘this is exactly what I want. Here’s my spec,'” he also noted. “It was more, ‘here’s what I want to achieve. Here’s what I want to be able to do.’ And so we went off and designed that.”

“I like to highlight this, because it’s part of the way we’re also changing the way we design and deliver the Black Hawk,” Wrigley added as an aside. “So we’re very much in a model-based environment.”

While Wrigley mentioned sensors and communications equipment as possible payloads to fit into that extra space initially when talking with us today, he made clear later on that these are just some of the potential options.

“It’s using the old term, but it’s open architecture, and so the whole point is whatever the mission requires” can go into these new extended noses, he explained. “There’s always a demand for real estate up front.”

It’s very true that more specialized variants of the H-60, such as the MH-60s operated by the U.S. Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, often have modified noses loaded with radars, other sensors, and additional systems. The new HH-60W Jolly Green II rescue helicopters for the U.S. Air Force are another prime example of this, and there are many more.

“There’s a big focus on open architecture and that ability to quickly plug-and-play,” Wrigley also told TWZ earlier this month in the context of the larger Black Hawk 2070 plan. “The new modular nose will change the look of the Black Hawk up front to provide even more space for equipment that will work directly with the new digital architecture.”

In terms of swapping out modular noses on individual helicopters, Wrigley said that it is still too early in the design process to know exactly how that would be done and how long it might take to do so in practice.

“Part of the design process is to also write up the documentation for the retrofit, but we don’t see this one as very invasive,” he explained.

It is not hard to imagine use cases for long-nosed H-60s, especially ones that can then be reconfigured between missions, and not just for the U.S. Army. As Wrigley already underscored, there is long-standing demand for H-60s with longer and larger noses to accommodate additional mission systems. Modular noses, in general, have been becoming more and more common in aviation design for some time now.

The ability to readily swap modular noses could also allow operators of even relatively small H-60 fleets to gain a valuable new degree of multi-mission capability. As one example, cargo-carrying helicopters could be converted into gunships, and back again, as required, using a small common pool of noses with the requisite sensors, laser designators, and other equipment. All of this could offer cost benefits when it comes to sustainment and logistics, as well as added operational flexibility.

The long-nosed Black Hawk model on display at AUSA is notably configured as a gunship. Sikorsky has also talked previously about leveraging the new nose to reconfigure H-60s for search and rescue, airborne drone control, and other missions.

Just being able to install a radar for one series of missions, and then quickly switch over to an electro-optical wide-area surveillance system or another kind of sensor for the next run of sorties, would bring new adaptability to the already very flexible Black Hawk. Defensive systems could also be readily swapped from aircraft to aircraft, as well as more quickly upgraded, as needed.

The modular nose also opens the door to a new way to integrate advanced capabilities, including autonomy packages, which Wrigley said is also driving demand for more space at the front end of the helicopter. Sikorsky has been developing various tiers of autonomous capabilities for the H-60 family for years now, including artificial intelligence-driven ‘copilots’ designed just to help reduce the workload of human crew members and increase safety margins. Autonomous flight capabilities require additional sensors, such as LIDAR and cameras, to help with navigation and to provide additional situational awareness. At least some of those components could be hosted within new modular noses.

At the same time, integrating higher degrees of autonomy could require more substantial modification. Sikorsky is now developing a fully uncrewed version of the H-60, and has been doing so with an eye toward converting older Black Hawks to this configuration as they are retired from service, as you can read more about here.

In line with the Black Hawk 2070 vision, the modular noses could be part of a broader equation for modernizing existing H-60 fleets, as well.

“In our conversations with the Army, I think they’ve been using a phrase that they call targeted modernization,” Wrigley told us, speaking more generally. “There’s a daunting task that says there’s 1,000-1,500 Black Hawks in inventory. If you literally tried to upgrade every one of them, it’s a very expensive proposition, and it probably takes a long time.”

“I don’t think that’s the way they’re thinking about it. I think they’re thinking about it more on a battalion basis or a unit basis,” he continued. “Like, what’s the mission, and maybe certain Black Hawks get upgraded with autonomy, and other Black Hawks get upgraded with sort of the expanded launched effects capability, the engine, the structural upgrades, the [stub] wings, stuff like that.”

“Maybe some of them become ‘Superhawks’ or whatever, [and] get the whole package,” he added.

There is certainly still work to be done on the development of the new modular nose and then actually integrating it onto the H-60 platform. At the same time, Sikorsky clearly already sees demand for this new feature, which could lead to a breadth of new opportunities for new and old helicopters in the H-60 line.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post Sikorsky Aiming For Black Hawk ‘Nose Jobs’ To Be Available Within The Next Year appeared first on TWZ.

Airbus U.S. Space and Defense has been actively developing and iterating the technology for its Lakota Connector, an uncrewed, autonomous variant of the multi-mission UH-72B Lakota helicopter. This includes testing under Team Lakota Connector, that has brought together Shield AI, L3Harris Technologies, and Parry Labs in a prototyping phase for the U.S. Marine Corps.

TWZ’s Jamie Hunter spoke with Carl Forsling from Airbus U.S., at the AUSA 2026 trade event in Washington D.C. A former U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight and MV-22 Osprey pilot, Forsling explained the requirement for uncrewed logistics in contested theaters, and what’s next for Team Lakota Connector.

The post Airbus Details Progress With Lakota Connector Uncrewed Cargo Helicopter appeared first on TWZ.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) and Hanwha Aerospace completed operations in a simulated battlefield scenario with the Mojave short take-off and landing (STOL) drone on September 16. The testing formed part of a Defense Drone Technology Exhibition and included Mojave operating from an austere short runway at the Seungjin Training Field in Pocheon-si. The flying portion of the trials also saw the Mojave operating down at low level to demonstrate its ability to terrain mask to avoid potential threats and to support ground forces at close quarters.

TWZ’s Jamie Hunter spoke to Matt Petraitis, senior manager of U.S. Army programs at GA-ASI, at the AUSA 2026 trade event being held this week in Washington D.C. about how the Mojave landed on a rough maneuver trail typically used by tanks and artillery vehicles, and about the company’s plans for Mojave in partnership with Hanwha Aerospace.

The post General Atomics’ Mojave Drone Completes Austere Testing in Korea appeared first on TWZ.