đŸ”· Saved Rounds! 4.2.24

Welcome to Tuesday's Saved Rounds, where we send out all the goodies we couldn't squeeze into our Sunday newsletter.


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They Said It
“I’ve seen some concepts where you’ve got these collaborative combat aircraft sipping off of [airborne] tanks. I can’t think of any worse Keystone Kop idea out there; you have hundreds of these little things trying to take fuel when the important, bigger fighters behind them really need to get on those hoses.” 

— David Alexander, president of General Atomics, on why drones that require aerial refueling are a terrible idea that can’t scale.

FYI: “Keystone Kop” is a person noted for bungling inefficiency—a pop culture reference older than everyone reading this newsletter.

Zoom in

Link-16 is a datalink so common in fighter jets it’s commonly referred to as ‘fighter data link.’ But Link-16 in space is going to be real
.and real soon.

Zoom in here to learn more about how the Space Development Agency already has Link-16 in space and what they plan on doing with it—this year.

In that Number

20

South Korea has announced plans to produce 20 KF-21 Boramae fighters this year, half of the 40 initially planned.

Sponsored
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Word of the Week

Foreign Military Financing: FMF is a foreign policy tool that provides grants for acquiring US defense equipment to strategic partners and allies who otherwise may not be able to afford it or where the US wants to boost region-specific national defense capabilities. Roughly 25 countries get FMF annually (Israel receives the biggest chunk of $$$).

Why it matters: Congress just approved $300m in FMF for Taiwan, and there’s another $2B+ FMF package being considered.

Saved Rounds

And Finally


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