The American company General Atomics Aeronautical Systems showed a new reconnaissance UAV XQ-67A. The UAV was created as part of the Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) program, which provides for the placement on the slave UAV of various sensors of the leading aircraft, this will significantly increase the range of the reconnaissance capabilities of the aircraft. The main focus of the OBSS program is on passive infrared sensors that are immune to electronic countermeasures and can detect targets that are subtle to radar. Several drones with such sensors can be combined into a network controlled by the lead aircraft.
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Saudi Arabia discussing potential F-15EX buy, Boeing says
At the 2024 WDS this week, Vince Logsdon, Boeing's vice president of global business development and strategic marketing, said the company is offering 54 Boeing F-15EX Eagle II fighters to meet the same requirements.
He said Boeing is also exploring converting 84 F-15SAs to the EX model, and possibly also converting 84 F-15S to the SA model.
Obviously, this would give improved commonality to the fleet, while the F-15EX also provides a more advanced radar and improved self-protection capabilities.
That is a lot of aircraft!
F-15 and F-16 production rates are going to be significant for the next while. F-16 production is supposed to reach 48 per year by 2025. Not sure what F-15 production looks like currently, but with USAF orders and this potential Saudi deal it should be relatively large as well.
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The US is going to continue to flood low Earth orbit with satellite constellations. This was enabled by lower launch costs thanks to reusable launch vehicles. With regards to Starship the biggest boon from it might be it could be used to put large high resolution low orbit imaging constellations into orbit. There were plans to do that in the late Cold War but high launch costs made the idea prohibitive.
