Bottom Line Up Front: By linking previously incompatible aircraft into a common network, the Air Force has taken another step closer to the internet-of-all-military-things.
Incompatible Aircraft Networked Together
The F-35 and the F-22 are the newest, most high-tech, most highly advanced aircraft in the world today. And they are utterly incompatible. Their onboard data network protocols cannot talk to one another. Until now.
Outfitting a KC-46 air tanker with a common communications node to act as a bridge, an F-22 and an F-35 were finally able to join a common Command and Control digital network.
The internet-of-all-military-things is coming
Like we keep on saying, the DoD’s ultimate goal is to network every military thing into a single all-encompassing high-speed cloud network so that every thing can talk to every thing. This will allow an unprecedented ability to see and coordinate every military action by using the greatest amount of information possible.
What does it mean for me?
The Air Force and the Pentagon are building this massive network, but apps and software capabilities to run on them don’t exist. Astute companies will start envisioning possibilities so that when the DoD opens the internet-of-all-military-things for business, they will have software to buy for it. Which they want. So go build it!