Steve Trimble

Three of our reporters at Aviation Week were just at the AUSA show in Washington, D.C., and they're here to talk about what they saw.

Joining us are Steve Trimble, Brian Everstein, and Vivian Mashi.

So with no further ado, Steve, let's kick off with you.

The acting army secretary got on stage and gave a speech that was almost biblical, if not outright biblical.

Well, not Jared Isaacs himself.

This was spotted by Aviation Week's Steve Trimble.

We know him well.

He spotted that a NASA 71 that had been on display at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in the museum, basically, had gone missing in May.

Today, we'll dive a bit further into the topic of autonomous warfare, spurred on, of course, by the Pentagon's announcement that it is standing up an autonomy command.

Joining me for this conversation are Aviation Week's Pentagon Editor Brian Everstein and Senior Defense Editor Steve Trimble.

I'm Robert Wall, Aviation Week's Executive Editor for Defense and Space.

So guys, I'm always a bit skeptical when it comes to setting up these commands, these functional commands that really kind of cut across what the services should already be doing.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, the innovative project still faces enormous hurdles.

Joining me for a reality check are three Aviation Week editors who have covered the project, Senior Propulsion Editor Guy Norris, Military Editor Steve Trimble, and Air Transport Editor Christine Boyden.

Guy, let's start off with you.

You and I were talking yesterday, and you pointed out that Jet Zero has to pull off a trifecta to succeed.

those are sort of the two huge challenges there.

And the third one, of course, perhaps the biggest one of the lot, is convincing the U.S. Air Force that this is the vehicle for them that really is the new tanker that they need for long-range operations and sort of really the challenges that the Air Force faces mostly in the Indo-Pacific area of operations.

Steve Trimble, let's talk about the military aspect because Jet Zero loves to pitch this as a passenger aircraft that sort of doubles as a military tanker.

But it's actually the opposite, isn't it? I mean the tanker – the project will not go forward without the tanker.

Something like that.

The other interesting thing that's come out in the last couple of months, and I have to shout out our pal Steve Trimble over at Aviation Week for pointing this out in their emergency podcast.

Um, there are two new munitions that have kind of broken cover.

Uh, if you're allow me to use the, the aviation reporter shorthand, uh, is the, um, the malice, uh, I can't remember the, it's like aim two, four, two, which is, uh, it is a long range, 250 nautical mile plus anti-air weapon.

Um, so when we were putting together our story, uh, when the award came up and our kind of deeper analysis in, um, our newsletter, Sea Scroll, uh, that Naval Member Institute's, uh, Naval Institute members get.

Uh, one of the things that kind of popped out, and our, our pal Steve Trimble over at Avian, we, H- uh, our pal Steve Trimble over at Aviation Week pointed it out, is over the last couple of months, there's been some revelations of two really interesting munitions.

Um, the, the MALUS, which is a real long range, um, anti-air missile that's got 250 plus nautical miles is what's declared.

If that's what's declared, it could probably go a lot further than that.

The last SR-71 Blackbird that was ever built, and the last one that actually ever flew, has disappeared from its display spot at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, and NASA won't say where it went.

Now, Steve Trimble at Aviation Week, he broke this story using satellite imagery that shows the jet has been gone since at least May 17th of this year.

His sources say it was moved into a hangar for inspection.

And now there is some truth to static displays requiring inspection, kind of uncommon to have them pulled off their display position for an inspection.

Collocated? Okay.

Uh, satellite imagery indicates it has not been since, or seen since at least May 17th, according to Aviation Week defense editor Steve Trimble, who first reported the disappearance.

You know who I think took the Blackb- Blackbird SR-71?

Who?