Credible Defense

Annoying headline, but this seems like a very effective type of design especially for disaster and emergency response.

Edit older but arguably better article >

https://aviationweek.com/defense/aircraft-propulsion/pyka-unveils-dropship-military-focused-long-range-uav

“One of the things that we’ve noticed over the last couple years is our accident trends are moving in the wrong direction. When Army senior leaders go out and talk to experienced aviators, they say, ‘What’s going on out here?’ They say, ‘We have a very talented population that’s coming out. They’re inexperienced. They’re very good at systems operations. They’re not very good at flying fundamentals,’’’ Gill said. “So some of that we attribute back to the fact that we have a very advanced trainer.”

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In the current draft CSO, the Army is requesting that the aircraft for Flight School Next meet a slew of requirements, but the three most prominent are that the aircraft have a turbine single-engine, counterclockwise rotating rotor system and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) certification. The certification, awarded by the Federal Aviation Administration, takes around 12 months to complete; it requires certain equipment to be installed for various situations such as low visibility environments, equipment for anti-icing or de-icing, appropriate warning systems, enforcements for dual generators or back up batteries and more.

“Current repair arrangements are through a series of clubs, essentially geographic clubs, of private operators who band together and then hire a repair vessel to be on standby to repair cables. Now the prioritization of repairs is a matter for private operators, not for countries. So we don’t have a say,” Brewster said.

And those measures are only designed to deal with relatively shallow, periodic and accidental cable breaks, not breaks that occur in different places and are below 200 meters or more. India is considering building a ship to repair cable, but it will cost up to $150 million AUD ($95 million USD) to build, he said, and Australia lacks the human capabilities needed to sail and run such a ship, so that is not a likely solution here.

The presence of eight F-35s together on the ground is notable. For forward deployments, fighter units generally rotate in smaller detachments unless preparing for sustained activity or joint operations. The combination of stealth fighters with heavy airlift and refueling capacity suggests preparation for either rapid-response missions or positioning of forces intended to remain in the region for an extended period.

The imagery does not show weapons loading, emergency posture or other indicators of imminent combat operations. The airport surface appears orderly, and there are no visible dispersal shelters, indicating a conventional staging configuration.

The Royal Navy has trialed Infleqtion’s Tiqker quantum optical atomic clock aboard the testbed submarine XV Excalibur, demonstrating ultra-precise timing for navigation under GPS-denied conditions.

Unlike surface vessels, submarines rarely surface to access GPS signals and instead rely on internal systems such as inertial navigation and acoustic positioning.

Precise timing is essential for navigation systems, as minor sensor errors can gradually accumulate and cause the system’s position estimate to drift.

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According to Infleqtion, the clock’s atomic transition frequency is 10,000 times higher than that of microwave clocks, resulting in superior precision and environmental stability.

I link this because there is a definite trend in business jets being acquired by militaries for surveillance and electronic warfare, which is a major use case but it seems even bigger than just that.

The intensity and consistency of these acquisitions to me suggests something deep in the calculus has changed.

Speculatively I would suggest that given the rapidly increasing range, endurance and automated capacity of airplane launched weapons and unmanned systems, airforces around the world may consider the most useful platform no longer exclusively to be the fighter-bomber in quite the same way. Business jets, especially ones that can operate from a variety of airfields may be evolving into a surprisingly significant role in aerial warfare and deterrance.

In US military speak the capabilities we are talking about here are referred to as "launched effects" and while the US military has a long history of using aircraft in this role it seems like a general global trend at this point and no longer a doctrine peculiar to some militaries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-24

The second age of sail?

Though these wouldn't be "ships of the line" more like "ships of the squiggle" given how they are deployed as persistent surveillance.