Innovations & technologies

Drones, lasers, hypersonic weapons will be ‘game-changers’

Air Force Research Laboratory work on key technologies in hypersonic air vehicles, directed-energy weapons and autonomy, or human-machine teaming, will be “game-changers” in a renewed Pentagon push to counter new threats around the globe, according to a top military commander.

Scientists and engineers at Wright-Patterson have developed an unarmed “cruise missile-like vehicle” that reached five times the speed of sound in tests, and have explored pairing drones with combat fighters in latest realm of technological advances, according to AFRL commander Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Masiello, who will retire next month at the agency’s headquarters at Wright-Patterson.

“I think the best way I would characterize the threats facing not just the Air Force, but our nation and our (Department of Defense) is the idea that our technological superiority is not guaranteed,” he said in a rare interview. “It’s not a birthright. Just because we’ve had it, doesn’t mean we’ll continue to have it.”