US Air Force leader wants to 'maintain dominance'

On the ground at Airspace and Cyber 2025, where senior leadership is weighing in on the state of the Air Force

Plus, we go one-on-one with the brawler. See why this piece of hardware could be bad news for enemy drones

And we check in with Resident Sciences for the latest on the Razor

Hello and welcome to Weapons and Warfare, a show made for people who want to know more about our national defense

Our goal here is to help you have an informed conversation about what's happening with our nation's military

For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson, and we are coming to you from the AFA's airspace and cyber event in National Harbor, Maryland

As per the use, the first item on the agenda was a huge draw for the crowd

and that's why the state of the Air Force is the subject of this week's debrief

I will say it again. Innovation, innovation, innovation. It's no China, China, China like his predecessor, but the new Air Force Secretary has a clear vision for the branch's path forward

In his first major address since being confirmed as the 27th Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Troy Mink looked and sounded the part

An Air Force veteran with years of government service to his credit, Mink pointed to the importance of building on current air and Space Force capabilities

I mean, it's plain and simple. It seems pretty obvious to everybody. I hope it is pretty obvious to everybody

Our job is to maintain that dominance going forward, that advantage the U.S. has had

Mink went on to say doing that means improving readiness and staying ahead of potential adversaries like the Chinese

The only way we're going to maintain our advantage is we have to innovate and we have to innovate faster than our adversaries

And again, it's a rate of change thing. No matter how far you are ahead, unless you're innovating faster than they are, then you're going to lose that advantage

You will lose that advantage. Mink also hit on the importance of maintaining and improving force readiness by maximizing

all available resources and spending wisely. On the subject of modernization, Mink touted the recently announced F-47 6th Gen Fighter

as well as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber and the addition of new engines and radar

to the B-52 bomber fleet. When you watch what our adversaries are doing, unless you're moving faster than they are, no matter how far you are ahead, they will overtake you

No question about it. We've seen it in some areas. Now, we're doing great. And it's not just innovation and technology

I'm going to hit on this again and again. It's innovation across the board. And if if we as the leadership are not doing everything we can to support you moving fast and being innovative, you need to tell us that because we will not be successful without that

Next up was the current Air Force Chief of Staff, General David Alvin, in what was likely his last

address in front of hundreds of airmen. The soon-to-be-retired Alvin acknowledged there's

room for growth and improvement, but he pointed to a highly publicized recent event as evidence

of the Air Force's ability to answer when the call comes in. Operation Midnight Hammer. This was

the largest operational employment, kinetic employment of B-2s in their history. Over 100 aircraft, thousands of man hours in planning and execution

This took airmen from across the bomber force, the fighter force, the mobility force

It took ISR it took command and control all to come together to put almost a half a million pounds of destruction exactly where we wanted it The jury is still out on exactly how much damage June 22nd midnight hammer attack did to Iran nuclear program

But as Alvin pointed out, it did yield some immediate results. But about 30 hours after this, President Trump declared that there was a ceasefire

and the 12-day war was over. We didn't have a surge or mobilization or preparing our force for a protracted conflict

in the Middle East. we reestablished deterrence and we were ready to go. Also on the general's checklist

making sure his airmen are ready to move at a fast enough pace to make sure the air force

keeps its air dominance edge over near peer adversaries. Last time I checked

our mission statement doesn't say fly, fight, and be relevant. Last time I checked

our mission says fly, fight, and win air power anytime, anywhere. So if you want to know what

the pace is, that's the pace. We have to move out the pace to win. If we're not getting there

then we need to find another gear. The 23rd Air Force Chief of Staff said one example of that

kind of urgency can be found in the F-22 Raptors' eventual successor. After years of work, hundreds

of test hours, thousands of years of man years in the lab, the president announced the F-47 as

the 6th Gen Fighter. It's the platform that along with all of the rest of the systems is going to

ensure dominance into the future. We've got to go fast. I have to tell you, team, it's almost 2026

The team is committed to get the first one flying in 2028. In the few short months since we've made

the announcement, they are already beginning to manufacture the first article. We're ready to go

fast. We have to go fast. As for his impending retirement, if the 61-year-old is feeling

sentimental about bringing his 39-year career to a close, he's not showing it. The subject never

came up in his 30-minute address. And we now know the president's choice to replace General Alvin

meet General Ken Kruiser Wilsbach, the presumptive 24th Air Force Chief of Staff

most recently led Air Combat Command and was planning to retire himself after 40 years of

service, but decided to reverse course and take on the task of leading the Air Force

pending Senate confirmation. One of the great minds of our time, Dave Chappelle said modern problems require

modern solutions. For our weapon of the week, we have just that. It's called the brawler

or the Battery Revolving Advanced Weapons Launcher Reconfigurable. And if we take a small step back, we can see exactly what that means

This unit is basically a one-stop shop to rock some drones. It has different form factors for Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rockets

or APKWS rockets. That's basically the go-to weapon right now for countering small unmanned aerial vehicles

but doing it in a cheap, relatively cheap way, using hydro rockets with advanced sensors on them instead of multi-million dollar missiles

However, this system is very modular, so you can take off the APKWS launchers if you want

You can put on some pylons for some AIM-9 or different types of air defense missiles

You can see on the very top, it has a forward-looking infrared sensor or a FLIR device

You can put different types of antenna on this, all different sorts of sensors

Basically, if it can fit on the Brawler, the Brawler can use it

Why does something like this exist? Well there a lot of European partners out there and some other folks that SNC wasn really able to talk about who We know they exist and we know that they need answers for dealing with all different sorts

of drones and possibly some fast-moving jets. A unit like this is able to bring them that

multi-form factor approach and really kind of a jack-of-all-trades. You want to take down a drone

this can do it. You want to take down a larger class 5 drone, this can do it. You want to take

down a jet, this can do it. Straight facts

Visit san.com. All right folks, for ComsCheck this week, we are talking to a company we first told you about

last year, Resonant Sciences. And the thing that really caught our eye was the Razor unit

It kind of measures how stealth a stealth craft really is. Here to talk a little bit more about

how the business has been going the past year, Micah North with Resonant. Thank you so much for joining us today

Yeah, thanks a lot, appreciate it. Things have been progressing quite a bit since last year

Lots of growth this year. Lots of growth not only in the razors, but also in the radomes, which we have behind you

Different radome systems and a lot in the electronics. So we've kind of been fortunate

Someone asked me the other day where really the growth has come from. And it's really been more so in just across the board, a little bit of everything out there

We're continuing to roll razors out and add new functionality into the system, giving new capabilities

We have international partners now that are interested in razors. So we're starting to go all over the place with it

That's great. That's great. Now, obviously, a lot of this stuff is going to be secret sauce

We can't get too far into the weeds on it. But you mentioned you had a few dozen razors out in the field right now

There's about 35 razors out in the field right now in various different companies and government sites and prime contractors

We're also a subsystem guys, too, as well. And one thing I'll mention is Razor's not just for LO vehicles, so to speak, but we're also building capability in there to do radome characterization, antenna characterization

It's also looking at threat emulation as well, which really opens the portfolio up to a lot of different other platforms that are outside of what you would consider your traditional LO vehicles

Absolutely. When you talk about the threat emulation, can you kind of briefly talk what that means

Basically, the Razor is powered by the RadarMan 2 radar, which is one of the most popular radars out in the industry

That's another product that we build. But the RadarMan 2 is software agile, so we're able to put in whatever waveforms, threat waveforms, etc

So it's completely programmable, so we can put that out there as a threat emulation system

So really, when people look at Razer, I want you to think less about being a radar-specific measurement system

and more about it being like an iPhone and really in the fact that it's got multiple different apps on the system

So we have an app to do RCS measurements, an app to do antenna pattern measurements

an app to do radome characterization, et cetera. So really kind of pushing the bounds of what you can do with a radar

All right, Micah. Well, by this time next year, I'm sure there's going to be all sorts of new apps and updates that we can talk about, right

Yeah, great. Sounds good. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Really nice talking to you. Yeah, yeah, no problem

All opinions expressed in this segment are solely the opinions of the contributors All right that going to just about do it for us this week on Weapons and Warfare But before we say goodbye I want to bring in super producer and Air Force veteran Brett Baker Brett first kind of question I have for you is just initial thoughts after this year

airspace cyber event. Well, I think one of the great signs of this event was the numbers were

back up. We went to the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora in February, and it was sparsely attended

to put it best. This looked more like an AFA event. Lots of enlisted, lots of officers

lots of civilian contractors, governments. It was packed. So I think that's definitely a good

sign. The vibe was back, right? Yeah, and it felt like an event. One of the kind of cool things that

we saw on the day one of the event was Dr. Troy Mink, the new secretary of the Air Force, kind of

giving his first address to the airmen since kind of stepping into that role. But also General David

Alvin kind of giving his last address at an AFA event conceivably because he's getting ready to

retire early. What did you take away from their keynote addresses? Well, first of all, for Dr

Mink, he's a guy who's in touch with the Air Force and with airmen, former KC-135 pilot. He speaks

their language. It felt like he had his finger on the pulse of his airmen now. And so I thought

that was a very encouraging sign. And as for General Alvin, he's been one of my favorites

Like since we started covering these shows, he can grab a room. So I was interested to see

though, that he there was no really it wasn't like an emotional play. It was about business

It was all about the business of being a warfighter and what the Air Force needs to do

going forward, which I was very impressed by. Yeah. Alvin's kind of, you know, parting words

for me was just kind of, you know, we've talked about being able to move at the speed of relevancy

He's kind of lighting a fire under everybody's butts. We need to move fast enough to win. And when we're moving against, you know, our near peer competition, China, Russia

we have to move faster than they are, because even if we're ahead, if they're moving faster

they're going to catch up to us. So kind of a good message there. And of course, I mean

we can't walk away from an AFA event without talking about some of the weapons that stuck

out to us, some of the weapons systems. So what's kind of one thing that stuck out to you

Well, we profiled it. The Brawler, I think, is pretty cool. Very adaptable

I think it's kind of the way you're going to see weapon systems go

especially in the Indo-Pacific, where they can pre-deploy those things, and it's not going to take a lot to get them up and going

and then you can, like, swap out whatever you want in it to fulfill whatever missions that it is

So, yeah, I hadn't seen that before, so I thought the Brawler was pretty cool. Yeah, the different applications that they're creating for the APKWS rocket system

which kind of, we said it in the piece, kind of like the go-to for counter drone

cheap counter drone right now. There's going to be different systems and new systems that come up

but being able to, you know, really take advantage of the Hydra rockets with the new sensors

the Brawler definitely stands out. For me, the thing that stuck out to most was the Fury, Anduril's CCA entrench

What am I trying to say? Entrant. Entrant into Tranche 1. There we go. Yeah, there we go

It's the first time we saw the Fury on wheels. Right. So out of the wild

And a very cool display. Check out the video. I'm sure we'll have it plastered over the top of us, which is preferable

But yeah, it was an impressive display, as well as just seeing the full size in person for the first time

Absolutely. All right, Brett, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate it. That's going to do it for us this week on Weapons and Warfare

As always, if you like what you saw and or heard, please like and subscribe to our social media channels

and download the Straight Arrow News app today. It's the best way to stay up to date on all of the latest stories

that we have coming your way. In the meantime, for senior producer Brett Baker

video editor Brian Spencer, motion artist Dakota Patio, and photographer Dickon Mager

I'm Ryan Robertson with Straight Arrow News, signing off