Design Innovations Articles

Aging Aircraft: USAF F-15 Fleet Sees Renewed Interest

Aging Aircraft: USAF F-15 Fleet Sees Renewed Interest

F-15C over DC (click to view full) "Array of Aging American Aircraft Attracting Attention" discusses the issues that accompany an air force whose fighters have an average age of over 23.5 years - vs. an average of 8.5 years in 1967. One of the most obvious...

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LCS: The USA’s Littoral Combat Ships

LCS: The USA’s Littoral Combat Ships

Austal Team Trimaran LCS Design (click to enlarge) Exploit simplicity, numbers, the pace of technology development in electronics and robotics, and fast reconfiguration. That was the US Navy's idea for the low-end backbone of its future surface combatant fleet....

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KC-46A Pegasus Aerial Tanker Completes Firsts

KC-46A Pegasus Aerial Tanker Completes Firsts

KC-135: Old as the hills... (click to view full) DID's FOCUS articles cover major weapons acquisition programs - and no program is more important to the USAF than its aerial tanker fleet renewal. In January 2007, the big question was whether there would be a...

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