 Well, good morning to everyone. Thank you for making your way into deep Northwest Washington today at CSIS for this great mini-conference that we're having on our unmanned systems report. My name is Kathleen Hicks. I run the International Security Program here and it's really my and I have a little bit of an allergy so please excuse my voice. It's really my pleasure to introduce today's two panels starting with the one that Colonel Griffin is leading, but this is really all related to the report CSIS has recently released on sustaining the US lead in unmanned systems. Among the report's recommendations includes the development of an office within DOD and specifically directly reporting to the Deputy Secretary of Defense for unmanned systems. Some of you may know that that recommendation has been picked up by Congressman Forbes and is among his proposals for the NDAA so that's one of the things we'll want to discuss today. But there are many other recommendations and findings of the report that I think you'll find of interest if you hadn't had a chance to read through it and really today is a great opportunity for us to hear from all of you, from our great panelists that we've pulled together on the recommendations of the report and really where to go from here. This is a very hot topic in Washington right now in many different types of circles and we think that's a great part of the debate is that it's open and wide and there's a lot of transparent conversation happening and one of the things that we really want to highlight is the need to move from the whiz bang piece of what are unmanned systems into the actual application of moving forward for the United States in this area and as the report makes clear the world is moving forward on unmanned systems. They're moving forward in the commercial sector in the military sector and certainly overseas and so the question before the United States is not whether to have unmanned systems it's about how to best integrate them and how to be at the cutting edge in the forefront of the technology while thinking through all of its implications both positive and negative. I do want to just thank Kurt L. Griffin in particular Sam Brannon has been the lead of this study you're gonna see a lot from Sam today he'll lead the second panel he's done a fantastic job. Colonel Griffin who is our Air Force Fellow for this year could have come into this center and spent his year relaxing and going off to play golf probably and we may not have known but instead he really dug in and worked this issue hard and he's going off to be the vice wing commander at Lewis McCord Joint Base Lewis McCord and we're very excited for him for that and let me turn it over to Ethan to introduce the panel and again thank you all for participating today. All right thank you Dr. Hicks thank you for the kind comments and as always the excellent framing perspective on the issue at hand. Good morning everyone and welcome to CSIS. Friends of CSIS military and industry partners media representatives and generally all colleagues in this unmanned forum thank you for coming. As Kath mentioned I'm Colonel Ethan Griffin the US Air Force Fellow here at CSIS. As Dr. Hicks before me I'd like to express the gratitude of our unmanned systems team which is you know Sam Brannon myself and and Reese McCormick and everyone that's partaking here at CSIS on this topic. I'd like to thank the many companies and organizations that made both this event and our previous working group series possible. In particular this this particular event would not be possible without the tremendous intellectual and logistical support of our colleagues such as Mr. Reese McCormick, Mr. Andrew Metric, Mr. Sam Brothers, Mr. Madison Riley and Mr. Gabriel Cole among others and most importantly I'd like to take a moment to thank our distinguished panelists today. They have volunteered their time and elect and possibly careers to come here and speak to you on the present and future for unmanned systems and Mike has just joined us here so I'm glad to see him. We believe the continued evolution of unmanned systems and the United States role is an important topic that affects our national security. As such we're gathered here to discuss through the Department of Defense lens both the status of unmanned systems today and their future. Our first of two panels this morning service perspectives in fiscal year 15 and beyond we're extremely fortunate to have three experienced officers from the Navy Air Force and Marine Corps that are at the leading edge of strategy, resourcing and implementation of unmanned systems technology within the Department of Defense. As they're able they've generously offered their time to provide their services perspective where their continued service in uniform might be in question they may just say it's their own personal thoughts so bear with them on those. I'll ask each to offer a few brief opening remarks after which I'll pose a few questions and then turn it over for Q&A. As a reminder prior to the Q&A period if you could please silence all cell phones and they may interfere with our quad copters so I would appreciate if you turn those signals off. Our flight profile today will terminate promptly at 11 a.m. so that we make time for Sam Brannon to moderate the second panel U.S. leadership amid commercial sector growth and changing global supply and help me keep me on time when you do get a question or do get the microphone please state your name, affiliation and a concise question. I'm not very good at interrupting and moderating so I count on you guys to self control. So without further ado Colonel Ken Hallahan to down to my right U.S. Air Force is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and holds a doctorate degree in management. He is a rated aviator with over 3,000 flying hours in training aircraft, airlift aircraft as well as the MQ1 Predator. Colonel Callahan has seen firsthand the rise of the remotely piloted aircraft or RPA, sweet properly terminology there. He has seen the rise of the RPA within the Air Force having commanded the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron at Balaad, Iraq as well as having served as the director of staff for the 432nd Airlift Wing at Cree Air Force Base, Nevada. Presently, Colonel Callahan is the director for remotely piloted aircraft capabilities headquarters air staff at the Pentagon where he advises senior leadership on RPA capabilities and policies. To my right immediately is Captain Chris Cognati, U.S. Navy. He is a graduate of Villanova University, holds a master's degree in information technology management from the Naval Postgraduate School, tough assignment. And he is a career maritime patrol and reconnaissance aviator. Captain Cognati has six deployments across AORs to his credit and has commanded at the squadron level as well, specifically Patrol Squadron 1 VP1, Whitby Island, Washington. Captain Cognati currently serves as the director of airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, managing resources for all Navy manned and unmanned airborne ISR capabilities. And finally, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Hickson, down to my right at the end, U.S. Marine Corps, a combat engineer by trade, has served as an engineer in every element of the Marine Air Ground Task Force during his career. Lieutenant Colonel Hickson is currently assigned to headquarters U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development and Integration Department in Quantico as the unmanned ground systems capabilities integration officer, where he is responsible for managing the incorporation of unmanned systems into present-day company tactics and operations. And with that gentlemen, I will turn to Colonel Callahan for a few opening remarks, followed by our other two distinguished guests. Thank you. Okay, good morning. Thanks for the introduction and thanks for everybody for coming. I'm glad to see such a full room, not something I usually get to experience. I could certainly talk to about this topic all day. But in the interest of time, I'll keep my comments kind of short and talk a little bit about where we've been, where we are and where we're going in a very concise manner. Probably the best way to kick off what the Air Force is doing right now in the world of RPAs is to point everybody towards our recently released RPA vector. If you Google the Air Force RPA vector online, you can should get a copy, electronic copy come up. If it doesn't, then just contact Air Force PA. And I'm going to reference a few things that are in the vector, and then a few things that we're doing in relation to the vector. On the very first page of the vector, there's a quote by a good friend and mentor, Colonel retired Bill Sweetart. And he talks a little bit about the history of airpower and he makes reference to post World War One, meaning airpower coming out of World War One was a viable technology, we knew it was going to work in combat, we knew it was exciting, but we didn't really have flushed out how we're going to use airpower in future conflict. And in a similar respect, RPAs are kind of the same way. We've used them now in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've been very effective. We know that the technology is viable. We know that it's exciting. We initially used it just like in World War One for reconnaissance. Then we decided just like in World War One, as we're looking at enemy troops, it'd be nice to be able to strike enemy at the same time. So we armed them. And now we're looking at what are the future roles of these this technology that we've built. And much like airpower at the end of World War One, there's some combat capability there. And then there's also some industrial commercial sector capabilities that are that are viable. And some of these problems will be solved by the Air Force or our joint partners. And some of these problems will be solved by industry. And that's the exciting point of where we are today, and how we're going to use these things. Strategically, if you look at where we are, and this is where I think it ties directly to the report that Ethan mentioned, is we're the United States remains a global power. We're reducing our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. We went from being saturating airspace and massing over one country's borders to now we're dispersing back out into a global environment where we're trying to pay attention to several strategic problems all at the same time. And in the context of or in that context, the RPA is is a great weapon system with utilizing remote split ops like the Air Force does. We can change theaters fairly rapidly. We could just by rebooting our ground control station and re briefing our crews. The longest part of that is the decision to to unlink with one airplane and link up with another. So it's a powerful weapon that supports sort of this global environment that we're in. And what we're really seeing is the the global air AOR, if you will, is shrinking to where we're not really worried about which which lines on the map we're in. And it's more about how do we maintain a presence on a global scale. And those are the types of problems that we're going to solve in the future. One of the things mentioned in the report or was referenced was the Horowitz book about the diffusion of military power. And as in reference to the report it talks about a lot of times the countries that develop new military technologies are not always the ones that figure out how to use them. So we're at the point as the United States certainly as the DoD and and and without a doubt the United States Air Force needs to spend some time thinking hard about how we want to use these systems, what mission sets we want to get into, and where we want to invest our time and money. And that that thinking is where we are today. And hopefully we get that right because it's important to national security. All right, fantastic. Thanks for those comments. Captain Corknoughty to you. Okay, first of all, thanks, Dr. Hicks and Sam Ethan and CSIS for the invitation and the continued work in the field of unmanned systems. I think what you're doing is important and has been certainly productive to date. And I think we'll continue to be so. But it's a pleasure to be here. I look forward to the conversation and the interaction. I enjoyed reading through the report that came out of the last set of roundtables. I think I was able to attend two of the four due to scheduling, but largely I think the report was right. I think the issues that were identified and most of the root causes were spot on. So I again, appreciated reading the wrapper for the portions that I wasn't able to participate in. I think the Navy certainly understands the value unmanned and how we want to integrate and employ the unmanned capabilities initially. And I use the word initially because we we're where the Air Force was probably a decade ago. We don't have nearly the variety of platforms, the flight hours, the operational experience of the Air Force had. So we're really looking forward to getting these out in the fleet in the hands of sailors and see what we can do with them. We've probably only scratched the surface of what we can do. I think the biggest proponents of unmanned aircraft in the Navy today are anybody who's actually been out in the fleet and use them. If you talk to anyone from the fifth fleet AOR from the three star commander on down, they can't get enough of BAMS-D. If he had his preference, they'd fly every day, sometimes two at a time. And we have to temper that appetite from the Pentagon. But the operational impact of that aircraft every time it takes off is huge, can't be overstated. And any of our soft brothers who've been out working with the fire scouts on the operations they've done continue to sing the praises of that platform. And as we get fire scout more out into the maritime and onto LCS, again, we're going to open up the aperture with that platform and that capability can do in the maritime environment. Again, we're just at the very forefront of doing that. I mentioned the Air Force and their experiences. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that the cooperation amongst the services right now in the field of RPA is as good as it's ever been, in my estimation. And that that started with a couple of flagging general officers about a year ago, and a couple of colonels and captains who picked it up and ran with it. That continues today on air vehicles, the future of ground control stations, interoperability issues, pet architectures. Certainly, again, the Air Force has got a much more robust architecture, a different model, but something we certainly want to leverage and learn from as we go forward. The Navy may end up as a hybrid. We've got ships at sea that need direct pet capabilities, but probably not all of it. So we're looking at all the remote siting possibilities along the Air Force model. And that will certainly be, I think, part of our final solution, but we're probably going to have to have a piece of it afloat for those times when you get into an A2AD environment or the common links go down. You don't want to lose the capability. You got to you got to fight through that. So again, it's wanted to highlight, certainly with our marines, I've got a Lieutenant Colonel in my office working Marine Corps issues where it crosses with Navy every day on a multiple, multiple programs. So that link historically obviously has been very tight and continues to be so but the new piece probably is the Navy Air Force cooperation over the last two years has been outstanding. One of the things we always like to talk about is how we're going to integrate capabilities into the fleet. So, you know, primarily Triton, U-class and Firescouter, the big three we're working today. And we're integrating those into warfare communities. We're not setting up an unmanned community. And that's that's not to say that the Air Force is wrong for doing that. It's just a different mindset and a different model. It's probably pros and cons to both. But we want we're going to use fleet experienced aviators and aircrew to operate these systems, much like they would their manned aircraft. They have the expertise in the mission sets, the environments, and the things that we do as a Navy that we're also going to use unmanned to do and in some cases do much better. So the same folks with the same warfare focus to mindset and expertise of the guys are going to be guys and gals that are going to be operating these systems as we introduce them to the fleet. So again, just a different mindset that that we've gone into this with. I mentioned service cooperation. We don't have an RPA vector like product. Those that have been around and worked with the Navy in the past know we don't do doctrine nearly as well as some of the other services. So we have yet to codify a lot of our thoughts, but the thinking in work is definitely ongoing up at the highest levels of the Navy. I could tell you we get a lot of very hands on interesting guidance from senior Navy leaders on a variety of programs, especially lately. So we'll talk about a little bit of that. Obviously, if it looks like I'm being cautious and I'm dodging any of your questions specifically rated to maybe you class, it's because I probably am. But I will I will answer to the greatest extent possible, but but bear with me if it looks like I'm choosing my words carefully. So again, I look forward to the conversation. Thanks. All right. Thank you very much, Kevin Coronati. Lieutenant Colonel Hickson, on to you, please. Thank you, sir. Dr. Hickson, Colonel Griffin. Thank you again for the invitation. I have a luxury of speaking last and getting to say that I echo all their comments on the Marine side. It's much the same. I'll go back to pre 911. We started with a whole bunch of VOD robots on the ground and organized structure for VMU with UAS platforms and with defense industry, private sector, joint and service technology development only highlighted the force multiplier in Cape Bodies at unmanned ground in their systems, do bring to the MAGTF Marine Air Ground Task Force. OIF, OIF exploded, expanded that that Cape Body enhancement for us. So fast forward 12 years from 911, we will transition what we have come to use and really rely on in OIF, OIF on the ground side almost strictly for ISR counter ID in some targeting. But to get an infantryman to carry a robot with him or use a throwable robot for ISR or looking around corners for point targets can't be overstated. So we have come a long way as a Marine Corps in using some of these ground platforms. More of the same on the on the air side but with a lot more priority in the way of fiscal budgeting applied to it. And we are all under a lot of fiscal constraints. So we really can't roll out anything new. And I would say the best thing that the Marine Corps has rolling out that is new is the RQ 21. So we will we will rely on that. And that would be a healthy bridging capability between what our VMU or aviation combat element UAS group three UAS pilots use out to what the ground combat element what those infantrymen will be using in the near future. And this RQ 21 Blackjack will be fielding this year and it will see some operational deployments and and employment. So future is bright. I wish the fiscal outlook was much the same. This would bound leaps forward. Unfortunately we have what we have from OEF. We will continue to use this in our Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in conjunction with the Joint Services and Defense Industry. We'll continue to look at how we can roll in the future technology in unmanned systems and enhance the active capabilities. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Hickson. Appreciate those comments. I we're doing good on time. I'm going to ask two questions and then I'll open up to Q&A. So if all our all our audience can begin considering their questions that they might have. And just a one one comment. If it appears that we've left out any of our brothers and sisters in arms that was not deliberate by any means. We've been Sam and I and the rest of the team have been very engaged with our Coast Guard brethren throughout the series. And we had an Army expert that was going to sit on the panel. But unfortunately some aviation delays prohibited him from coming. So that it goes without saying that those discussions continue behind the scenes and the collaboration continues. So with the release of the recently of the Quadrion Defense Review and fiscal year 2015's presidential budget. I think each of you gentlemen have addressed your services integration and acquisition in the near term future term from a broad perspective. One question I'd like to ask is as we're all very familiar with the budget and fiscal constraints. What other challenges are you seeing within the community and within your service? You know whether that be from a manning perspective, a training perspective, Captain Coordina, you kind of hit on a different outlook that the Navy has from the Air Force. What other challenges are your communities or your services facing as you try to integrate under fiscal stress the capabilities and experiences of unmanned systems? And where could collaboration facilitate that? Where do you see opportunity for greater collaboration, whether that be with industry or with other services? And one note I'll make on that is as Dr. Hicks mentioned, one of the recommendations out of the report has caught some attention and that's the establishment of a defense unmanned systems office. So feel free to comment on that or just address what challenges you're facing and what collaboration opportunities there are. To any one of you to start. Thanks. Okay. So on the challenges, a manning is certainly a challenge and part of that is because of the way we've chosen to stand this up. But we're also in a manpower drawdown. So all the services are on a glide path to less than the number of folks in the service. So as you bring on new capabilities unless you're directly replacing something that's additive in nature. So you've got to go find that manpower within the system, within a shrinking pool. And you've got competing demands cyber and other things that are that are certainly demand signals on Navy manpower and I'm sure for the other services as well. And getting the manning and manpower right to keep current capabilities operating effectively for as long as possible before we make those transitions. The one we work extensively right now is with Triton. That manpower is going to come out of my old MPRA community from P3 and P8 and the EP3 and spa as we sunset those capabilities towards the end of the decade. So managing that to maintain their warfighting relevance today through the through the end of the decade but also harvest some of that manpower and and have a a smooth transition to get capabilities out. So that that's certainly a challenge and the training aspect we're working through right now. Some of the first combined deaths are going to be deploying within the next year or so on LCS. So those are normally MH60 Romeo or Sierra deaths. Normal wing naval aviator helicopter folks out there operating those helicopters are going to be dual qual with additional training to operate both the manned helicopters as well as fire scout. So we're working through there actually underway at sea right now to try and flesh out some of the identify some of the challenges of of what are the restrictions. How do you switch between the man and the unmanned when you've got one airborne. You've got to keep a deck spot ready in case they need to come back and land. How do you just the logistics of moving helicopters in and out of the hangar flight time maintaining currencies all those things. We think we know the answer but we haven't yet proven it. So we're out actually at sea today working on that problem. So the training piece certainly some of the other communities and we envision will not be operating them simultaneously like the helicopters. Triton will take that manpower and at different points in their career. P3 and P8 folks will move over and operate Triton but when they're doing that they'll be Triton operators and not trying to switch back and forth between the two. You class we're still in in in discussions with the air boss and enable aviation enterprise as to what is the right model. What's the right flavor of folks to have in that squadron and that that constructs that still that work still ongoing. On the collaboration part I mentioned on on that earlier and it has been excellent but one of the things I've also seen on the gaps issue that you mentioned is certainly across the department the joint staff and USDI are taking a holistic view of ISR across the department and there for individual programs and may not be evident but as we go in and we talk to again to primarily USDI and the joint staff we say this is where we think our capability fits amongst the entire joint force and then we get a little bit sticking around I needed a little more here a little more here we've got too much of this so they're doing that balancing again across the department to address the gaps and capabilities. And then the other I think collaboration piece we haven't talked about is again primarily right now with the Air Force is on the hail the high altitude between global hawk and Triton as we go forward. A few years ago there was a big move to come together and find some efficiencies in maintenance and basing and some other things then as the I think the global hawk discussion sort of perturbated over the last couple years we said okay we had to make decisions on where we were going to go but we're still looking especially on overseas basing logistics pipes lines depot opportunities we continue to look at those to find ways to be more efficient save money across the enterprise because there's no reason both of us should have a depot working two different depots working on the same part for those aircraft. So that work definitely is ongoing and I think the last comment I'll make is on the OSD office that you recommended you know certainly you know like weathering tin and the work he did really I said I think pushed us along that that road he did a tremendous job but until you sort of get it's like anything else in the Pentagon until you get into the budgetary process you know it's really hard to make long-term changes and to cement that vision unless you've got a little bit of authority to at least coerce the services on the budgetary side to implement them but I think there there could be value out of there I think primarily on the interoperability and common control aspect of it that's one that jumps out to me that if OSD were to set up that office and say you know that she'll do it this way and in the future we wouldn't have 17 or 18 different inner not interoperable control stations like we do today. Yes so this is actually one of my favorite questions I do ask that the the short answer is doctrine TTPs and organizations and we've already seen it you start we're talking about you know it should there be a lead office at the DOD level but just kind of to back out even one more level is anytime you introduce a disruptive technology which I think the RPA certainly in the Air Force have been disruptive by a classic definition you have to go back and address what needs to change and I said in a lot of meetings where senior leaders will talk about how do we make this disruptive technology normal and I would reference them to go talk to someone like a Kodak of how they introduced digital photography into what was a wet film business it's it's just something different that has to be dealt with and it's not that every piece of this the system is is different there are some commonalities if you look at doctrine even even the doctrine AFDD one that talks about how the Air Force can mask from disparate locations and put effects without the classic definition of getting all your troops in the central location and going over the hill there you know the Air Force solves problems differently and that's in our in our broad level doctrine but it hasn't worked its way into how we organized right now I work in the A2 most other flying platforms are in the A3 so there's a bait of are we organized properly to handle that the other explanation that I often give is is you know if you put an RPA in a stack of airplanes over a target they are just like any other classic aircraft what makes them different and what we really need to think about is how to parse out the pieces that are that are dramatically different remote split operations fully networked capabilities that that can be operated from great distance that's a capability that not very many other airplanes can do and I've certainly changed theaters before where I've reset my controls and started flying an airplane in a different theater as I as I brought up before so sort of the metaphor I use and I know I'm on shaky ground here because I've had this pointed out to me before is sort of a wave particle theory if you take particles as being kind of the normal this is the way everybody thinks about things and you introduced the fact that that you could also have a completely different explanation that's outside of your paradigm that gets to the Thomas Kuhn book the nature of scientific revolutions of if you've got a paradigm that's been working for years and years and years it's very hard to change that and to change that thinking and the paradigm will continue to work until something doesn't quite fit and there's no explanation for it and then you go in search of another explanation so we're we're kind of at that level of thinking I know I need to come up with a better metaphor my boss has told me more than once if you're using quantum theory to make something simpler then you probably need a better example but there is there is some application to that of identifying what pieces of this will fit in our in our structure what pieces need to change organizationally and doctrine and how we think and I think that's where the Air Force is today on on the system I'd like to highlight in the way of collaboration our work with the army and too bad that lieutenant colonel couldn't make it today but I have spoken with him and his his brother in army requirements and tying the knot on the future for some common robotic systems in and we do have those the army is taking the lead from the Marine Corps on that one whereas on the systems that we do have on the ground side they are common they will be the same I think the army is just a little bit behind because they have a I think a bigger budget challenge than the Marine Corps does and we fenced some ground systems that we will transition to programs of record just a bridges to that common robotic system on the ground side that the army is developing the DOD office I think is a natural progression from a lot of what we've seen at the second level with working groups for unmanned systems across the domains which in telling my colleagues there is no lack of attention given to unmanned systems it'd be prudent if we take what we had and roll it into the future the challenges we have I think might be a little more technical but when we roll out or continue to roll out our special mag taffs at the company level those Marines are going to be very distant in disparate locations they will require a lot of unmanned systems on the air and ground side to enhance their capabilities both close in on the ground side and then at standoff would be by those UAS so the development in that way in coordinate with the joint services when you have marine companies running all over the earth trying to defend themselves and do protect themselves at close in distances is going to be critical so collaboration needs to go on the challenges I think are going to be in the way of EW and threat unmanned systems we have just started to look into what that might mean specifically as well as working with the joint services and their working groups on what that threat might be to us and how we might combat that I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention one of the C&O's priorities which is the LDUV I always get a large diameter unmanned underwater vehicle as we go through this again that's just in the requirements generation stage right now but certainly I think in the future the Navy's is going to count on unmanned underwater vehicles to a great degree as we go forward for a variety of reasons they can obviously do things you don't want to put a man's submarine in to do and they can also supplement what is a certainly a limited asset in our submarine force today so we focused primarily I think here on the airside but didn't want to go and they've got some unique challenges in the undersea because they're cut off command and control we have C2 links satellite links to our unmanned so you always can have the man on the loop and you're monitoring that's a fundamentally different problem when you have a vehicle who's going to submerge for hours days or weeks at a time that's a different challenge the power challenges the level of automation and autonomy required is much greater so they may actually lead I think within DoD on some of those as we develop those capabilities yeah and that's a great additional point thanks for all your comments on that question I'll ask one more quick one before going to the audience many would argue that the US leadership in unmanned systems is becoming tenuous from a technology perspective clearly one of the most obvious advances that the US military has is in its people and in its operational experience two decades of operating unmanned systems and perfecting those chains of command etc how are we preserving that experience from your from your perspectives how are we making sure that those lessons learners and those capabilities become organic to the services and and don't die off as we move on to a different geo- strategic situation yes so more than once I've gotten to fly sitting next to an you know 20-year-old airman and I've always felt that I was fairly technology savvy you know growing up operating having machinery in the air force and using computers were generally a technical force what I found was the airman sitting next to me typically laughed at me as I was trying to use all my keyboards and make inputs in the computer so the the bottom line is I would say that the kids that are living in their mom's basements today in the United States are better than the kids living in their basements anywhere else in the world and it's because they have access to technology and it's in their DNA I mean they walk around connected with technology and it's just something that they do so I have a very optimistic look about the future and the and the youngest airman as they come up in the air force and their ability to use these these technologies in a in a bigger scheme I would say in your reference to we've got the experience is the actual platforms themselves are not they're they're interesting but if you've ever the first time I looked inside an MQ1 I was completely unimpressed it's a couple computers some servos and what look like a dish network satellite dish so it's not a complicated piece of machinery what's really hard about what we do is how we're networked excuse me and how we share information and how we distribute it the platforms themselves are evolving and will continue to evolve but the ability for command and control and to think about how we employ the assets are where we I think we have the most experience and will continue in the near future to keep this rolling forward continue training and the challenge is the the Marines and sailors in the magtef that use these unmanned systems at some point they do leave the surface so we go back to the school house to make sure that any of those lessons learned in operational experience is captured by those trainers fortunately or you can I guess you could say unfortunately they they are contracted help the benefit is these are smart guys who reach out to defense industry and they do stay current they are not Marines by and large that do the training and not being Marines doing the training these contract contracted trainers do have a wider access to what is current Marines do come and go and without them reaching out would kind of keep the TTPs to a narrow margin where as the Colonel mentioned these are pretty smart kids coming to the military these days they will pick this stuff up it is that operational experience that does need to be passed on from from generation to generation they will keep coming in the way of unmanned systems we need to make sure that how we've employed them in OEF and OIF is resident in the training in the schoolhouse pipeline I would say on the trying to recoup expertise in manpower I look at a little bit differently we're trying to figure out how to keep the fleet experience and feed it into unmanned vice-keeping unmanned and again that's probably just because of where we are in the process MQ8 fire scout is out on its I believe 7th deployment right now on the frigates and I don't know of anybody who's done a second deployment wouldn't it be great to have somebody in your debt when you go out there this is hey last time we did this this is what worked what didn't work and you don't have to relearn obviously we have lessons learned we train the crews up but that corporate experience we have yet to build I think the way some of the other services have and again it's just a matter of number of deployments and flight hours and we're looking at ways to recoup folks that have flown BAMs D and feed them in as the initial cadre of folks into the Triton program so there are opportunities to keep that expertise. All right thanks gentlemen if we could get our colleagues with the mics and if I could see a show of hands if there's anyone who has a question I think you were first sir and we'll bring it up to the front right. Could you just provide the Air Force's current vision do you see a potential for example an MQ9 in cooperative flight with a fourth or fifth-gen fighter or is that still technologically and culturally a bridge too far at this point. Steve Tanner from Lockheed Martin. Yeah so if it wasn't obvious in the vector sometimes you know as you try and hit every mission that you could you could possibly think of you know we're not as specific as I think certainly industry prefers more something more specific but if you get into the teaming aspect and the loyal wingman and swarming to some degree if you start talking in those terms that's where that's where we kind of address those issues are you know do you the perfect two in a formation is the guy that's always there and just says two so if it can you automate that you know do you need a lieutenant that's still kind of figuring out how to do that or can you automate that we talk a lot about you know can one of the limitations of current man fighters today or is you know at some point when you build a few a very high-tech weapons they're going to run out of munitions and you got to go home and get some so can you can you provide a loyal wingman or a truck a bomb truck if you will that can that can be there and just show up when you need him and then you can direct and employ the weapons so those concepts are definitely being debated inside the inside the building and we've certainly talked to industry about how to do that as far as connecting them to specific platforms often what I find is is that's a training in the software upgrade you know maybe add an antenna so I and that's where I get back to the technology part of this is generally not the hard part it's trying to figure out how you want to use it and if it's valuable in combat so that's kind of how we're approaching those problems auto cruiser with c power magazine for Colonel Hickson and Captain Cognate Audi both of the services in the naval service have been a little behind the Air Force and even on arming their unmanned systems the Marines have looked at you know arming shadow there's also been some talk about whether you can put a weapon system on your ground some of your ground vehicles and the navy you know has talked about but I haven't seen much action on what you're gonna do with far as arming a fire scout I guess you've done you've done some testing but what's the status of that hi Sean Lingus with Federal Computer Week my question is is how much of the erosion in us an edge in unmanned systems is due to intellectual property theft and what can be done about I'm not sure I can comment on the intellectual property theft aspect of it certainly that's a concern I think across industry and across the department but certainly any specifics I couldn't comment on on the arming you ask about fire scouting APK WS we have done the initial testing and the we are looking to figure out when the first deployment of fire scout will be on board LCS there's some small modifications to the ship that will need to do to carry APK APK WS for those who don't know it's a laser guided rocket system that we've it's an older system not developed specifically for the MQ 8 but we adapted it to the MQ 8 and it's also common to the MH 60s now that are carrying it which will be nice for the combined avdeft flying both to the helicopters and have a common weapon on board and then the other certainly as we get into the definition of you class it is certainly going to be be armed it's going to have a strike capability exactly how much and of what flavors yet to be determined but both those will both fire scouting you class certainly will be armed yeah I apologize I can't address the intellectual question but on arming I will say that considering it between indirect and direct fires easier to weaponize a UAS and have a marine employ that weapon as opposed to a ground unmanned system infantry commanders are very hesitant to put a level of unmanned weaponization and even with some autonomy on a direct fire weapon because that round is going to keep going until hit something that probably shouldn't hit marine infantry commanders just generally like to have an eyeball behind that site what they do want to see is some development in and I think the army is already way ahead of us on this one can you link in an authority to shoot in an unmanned system identify a target and have a marine say in an LAV or an AV identify a target or have the unmanned system identify a target and let let that marine go ahead and press send on it so and those are in training systems if I'm not mistaken and the army has already fielded those I think that's one thing the marines would like to jump into but again we're talking about budget constraints especially in way of simulations sure I'll take that one yeah so I can't speak to what's been stolen or not stolen or you know how that's been been violated but I do go back to my previous point of if you look at the technology we're using in some of the at the very basic level it's really not that impressive there are folks are most savvy enemies that would be savvy enough to steal our secrets already know how to build a remotely piloted aircraft and and put a camera on it the idea that the intellectual property that that they're probably more looking at is how do we employ them in combat and you know being able to do joint operations work with coalition partners have a global responsibility where we're really looking at how do we how do we cover the globe versus just a spot over the ground those are the harder problems to solve even employing weapons that I always find it interesting when you see the newsreel clips of third world civil wars where you've got guys holding weapons over their head and firing around corners unnamed fire looking down mortar tubes things like that where you go okay this is not a well-trained force and then certainly when you get into the third dimension and you start talking to airpower it gets harder and harder one to deliver weapons and and and two to have it be effective and those are those are the types of problems that that that are really the hard part to solve they we've got in fact I think one of the senior level engineering classes at the Air Force Academy bought parts off the shelf and put together a UAV and then dropped a bomb inside of a one meter target for for a science project so I mean those are guys that understand airpower and are well educated but have bought parts off the shelf and and figured out how to to employ them so I guess I'm less concerned about that type of intellectual property than some of the other stuff that's out there the RPA forces is somewhat low-tech as surprising as that may sound the headline tomorrow is going to be Academy folks are dropping bombs so I think we have time for one more set if we keep it tight so up in the front and the lady down the middle of the aisle thanks good morning sirs my name is Dan Matthews from kinetic North America thanks for your time my question is how should we manage the shift from using unmanned platforms in sort of niche missions and capabilities such as IED defeat for example to more broader all-encompassing sets of mission profiles like convoys logistics maybe even advanced strike in my view in order to sustain the lead in technology and innovation innovative con ops they need to be introduced into more of those broader mission sets and that also is where it's assumed that some of the efficiencies will come but there's also organizational resistance to things like that the debate over the stealth or non-stout you class procurement is sort of indicative of that so as we move as we make that transition how should we do that maybe from within your cultures and where you sit thanks hi my name is Sarah Han I'm from open society foundations and just to pick up on your last comment how there's been a lot of discussion about sharing UAS technology with American allies to what extent are those allies prepared technologically in terms of skills to adopt that technology and how how is the U.S. military addressing that that question thank you ma'am we've got about five minutes gents I quick comment on both I honestly I think from my vantage point the cultural piece has been overstated I think there are a lot of smart folks in all the services that know the value of these systems there are certainly folks who say hey put me in a cockpit don't want any of that they're fewer and fewer every year and you'll see a generational change I don't see that as a showstopper the integration piece is certainly with you class we are it's going to be fully integrated into the carrier air wing it is not going to be off in a corner doing ISR by itself it is going to be linked to the growler to the e2d to all the other aircraft in the air wing and in a combined fashion certainly it'll be a crawl walk run approach to do in that because there's challenges both technologically and as we talked about and and operationally but we're going to work through those and it will be fully integrated what was the second question it's on the same questions on technology sharing and I think you tackle that pretty hard in the second panel as well okay but if you have something to add please I would just say that I'd participate in a joint capability group for unmanned air systems through NATO on the head of the US delegation to that group one of the things we we find with our partners certainly different tiers some of them own and operate you know every bit is you know UAS that are every bit as good and capable as ours there's others that for budgetary reasons can't afford them but they're interested in the technology and we look more on technology side on the interoperability of the pet we would like our all of our allies to be able to to have access to the data and to be able to process it when we're working in conjunction with those countries so the technology transfer part not as much I think on the air vehicles as it is on the use of the data yeah and I'll just address quickly the coalition question I actually have a published paper that you could probably find online as well that talks about you know building partnership capacity by using the remotely pilot aircraft and the bottom line is we would like our allies as with as with any weapon system we would like to have interoperability the ability to train and fight together especially if there's close partners if you look at the the issues behind that the you know some of our partners are more capable than others based on where we are in the world certainly at the high end and when you talking inside of NATO I think they're all highly capable type countries that we could interoperate and train and fight together when needed but as you go into sort of the the third world excursions that you just got to remember that these are not global powers they a lot of times are interested in what and seeing things internally or at their borders and that's just a different problem set than what we've built and trained for and in some cases you could argue they may not even need the technology that we have so it's an interesting problem what our allies do bring though is access logistics they solve the problems as we go forward that may that that we may not have solved and then it makes our transition to to an operation just that much easier and in that respect I would say we need to we need to work on on those allies and making sure that we're ready to train and fight together as necessary okay I can address the first question and I mentioned that the marine infantrymen are kind of hesitant about unmanned systems working with them that at the very least or maybe at the very most our ground combat element marines would want to have augmented unmanned capability and not to replace what a marine can do it's most dangerous thing but it's the best thing that we can put out in the fields of marine and rifle if we can enhance this capability let's do with augmented capability in an unmanned system if we're going to replace anything let's look at the forward operating bases let's look at combat support and combat service support so I think the L3 s or the guss those kind of things that can really free a marine to fight and take care of some of those combat service support issues in a secure environment while marines are outside the wire that's probably where the focus and I think the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is I think focusing a lot of their ground side unmanned systems development in that realm all right thanks Lieutenant Carl Hixon everyone thank you so much for coming today you're all important voices in this very pertinent discussion that we have ongoing in our United States government as well as our Department of Defense and other agencies so thank you for attending and being a part of this please keep your seats unless you need to use the facilities we will transition immediately to the second panel and I just like everyone to please give a round of applause to our expert officers for their service and their time