Hegseth focused on the Pentagon’s victories Tuesday, alternating between throwing jabs at former officials and praising President Donald Trump. The conference lasted fewer than 25 minutes, and he answered few questions from the gallery. 

Hegseth said the impeachment articles — brought forth Monday by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie — constitute a politically motivated “farce,” directed at service members.

“Politicians in Washington have accused the sailors and pilots who struck narcoterrorist boats of war crimes for doing their job,” he said, later equating his own impeachment possibility with potential repercussions for service members. “This resolution is the next step. Put the secretary on trial today and then men and women who carried out those orders tomorrow.”

Hegseth painted himself as a champion for the troops, saying, “If they want to come for the warriors, they’re going to have to come through me.”

The proceedings came shortly after Republicans’ massive losses in the midterm elections, which Vice President JD Vance blamed on the war in Iran. Hegseth addressed Vance’s comments, saying that the war was “a necessary undertaking.”

Hours after Hegseth’s conference, Vance took to social media in support of the defense secretary, calling the question of whether Hegseth carried out impeachable offenses “absurd,” and saying that “impeachment has become a ridiculous show that stands in for actual policymaking.” Vance said lawmakers were targeting Hegseth because he “took on bureaucracy at the Pentagon,” not the war with Iran.

Massie brought eight articles of impeachment against the defense secretary. The Kentucky congressman accused Hegseth of going to war with Iran without congressional authorization; continuing the war after lawmakers directed the withdrawal of U.S. forces; continuing to fight beyond the War Powers Resolution’s allowed timelines; ignoring laws to minimize civilian harm; directing the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife; retaliating against Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., over his public statements; ordering deadly strikes against suspected drug traffickers at sea; and starting an illegal war in Yemen. 

Hegseth briefly addressed the specific accusations, calling them “partisan policy disagreements from people who want to politicize our military.” He said none of the actions constituted high crimes, but rather “the job well done.” 

“As for the articles themselves, Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen — every one was a lawful operation ordered by the Commander in Chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress, and executed by American warriors who did their jobs,” Hegseth said. 

The defense secretary praised the success of Operation Epic Fury — the U.S.’s campaign against Iran — claiming that Iran’s navy and more than 80% of its nuclear industrial base were destroyed. Hegseth also claimed that Iran started the war 47 years earlier. 

Late last week, U.S. Central Command posted a plea on social media and a reward of up to $20 million for information about Iran’s nuclear program. 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., will decide if lawmakers vote on each article individually or all eight as a whole. Many Democrats have expressed support for Hegseth’s removal, as have some Republicans, who currently hold a slim majority in the House.

Representatives have two legislative days to vote. A simple majority in favor of impeachment would send the matter to the Senate for a trial, where a two-thirds majority would be required to convict and remove Hegseth. 

There is no set timeline for an impeachment. If the House votes to impeach, the Senate’s trial could begin in the next legislative session, when Democrats take control of Congress.

Trump has been vocal about his support for Hegseth. On Monday, he called Massie a “loser” and a “sick guy,” saying, “There’s something wrong with him, actually. Now he’s after Pete Hegseth. He doesn’t like Hegseth, but really, what has Hegseth done?” 

Massie lost his primary run for re-election to a Trump-backed contender in May. 

Hegseth first announced the press conference while speaking with reporters Monday after delivering smoldering remarks against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, as well as progressive academia, at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He told reporters that the people who sought to remove him disagreed “with success,” later shifting the focus to the soldiers who carried out Pentagon policy decisions.

“If you want to take issue with what we did in Epic Fury or Rough Rider or nabbing Nicolás Maduro, you’re taking issue with the troops and what they accomplished, which is historic,” he said.

Before Tuesday, Hegseth’s most recent press conference was conducted May 5, amid the U.S.’s ongoing war with Iran.

The Unite for Veterans Coalition is hosting a gathering on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol to mark Veterans Day on Wednesday. There, veterans, family members and advocates plan to voice their support for Hegseth’s impeachment, organizers said.

Natalie Oliverio contributed to this report.

In a Wednesday letter to his Democratic colleagues, the Washington representative called for more public testimony from senior defense officials and the restoration of a dedicated oversight subcommittee, listing strikes in the Caribbean and the U.S.’s war with Iran — the latter of which he called “illegal” — among his top concerns. Smith also questioned the need for a defense budget exceeding $1 trillion, arguing that Congress must reassert its authority over military policy under what he described as a “runaway Executive Branch.”

Smith, who won re-election in his district on Tuesday, currently serves as the committee’s ranking member. It’s chaired by Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

Democrats took control of the House and Senate in this week’s midterm elections, and new committee chairs will be elected for the next legislative session. Smith previously chaired the committee from 2019 to 2023.

Smith blasted the Trump administration’s approach to national security, contending that its reliance on military force and unilateral action — he described the administration’s view as one that believes “might makes right” – has destabilized the globe and alienated the U.S. He called for a strategy that prioritizes partnerships, military deterrence and avoids expensive conflicts.

Smith also called for a shift in Pentagon spending priorities, advocating for more investment in low-cost munitions, uncrewed systems and drone and missile defenses. The war with Iran has used up to two-thirds of U.S.’s missile interceptor stock, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis, in a drastic depletion that could take at least five years to restore. The U.S. has burned through expensive interceptors, which can cost millions of dollars per missile, to counter adversarial drones built at a fraction of the cost.

While acknowledging the need for advanced weapons systems, Smith said the Pentagon must strike a better balance between expensive platforms and cheaper, expendable capabilities.

He also criticized Trump’s proposal for a fleet of battleships.

“We need an appropriate mix of high-end survivable systems and lower-cost attritable capabilities, not a fleet of nuclear-powered battleships as proposed by the President,” he wrote.

Smith also raised concerns about how the Pentagon awards contracts and divvies out financial support to private companies, calling for closer examination of whether those awards serve taxpayers or are influenced by favoritism. While acknowledging Congress’s efforts to streamline the Pentagon’s notoriously bureaucratic acquisition process, Smith also argued that lawmakers still needed to know how defense dollars are spent, particularly as the military invests in new weapons systems.

Despite his criticism of the Trump administration, Smith insisted that he remained committed to passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act, though he acknowledged that working with Republicans would be “extraordinarily difficult.” The NDAA, an annual law that sets military policies and funding levels, remains unfinished this year after Senate Democrats blocked a procedural vote in July amid disagreements over the war in Iran and provisions involving Israel.

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote in a lengthy social media post Wednesday morning after Democrats won control of the U.S. House and Senate during Tuesday’s elections. His comments came after President Donald Trump on Tuesday night told The New York Times that going to war with Iran was a “very wise decision,” and that Republicans largely lost because he was not in the race.

Though votes were still being tallied as of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats had secured enough victories for a majority in Congress, flipping Senate seats in historically red states like South Carolina, Texas and Kansas.

“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so,” Vance continued on X. “But everyone knows why we lost,” he added, calling for “honest conversation” about the country’s next steps.

Public support for the Trump administration’s war with Iran sank in July, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, which found that just one in three Americans supported the conflict. The poll also found that four in ten Republicans — and 69% of Americans — did not think Trump had “clearly explained the goals of U.S. military involvement in Iran.”

The U.S. military has spent more than $47 billion on its war with Iran, Reuters reported last month, a number more than 25% higher than the Defense Department’s July estimate. That estimate included $6 billion to replace military equipment lost during the war, such as aircraft and drones, and more than $29 billion to replace costly munitions.

The war has depleted up to two-thirds of the Pentagon’s missile-defense interceptors since July 2025, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis, leaving the U.S. military with fewer available for future conflicts. The analysis found that rebuilding those stores could take at least five years.

Trump has reportedly been polling his advisors on whether he should fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CBS reported Wednesday afternoon. Hegseth has been the subject of increasing scrutiny over the Pentagon’s handling of the war, with some lawmakers previously calling for him to be impeached.

Hegseth has blamed the war’s mounting costs on former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and prior Pentagon leadership.

“The amount of neglect, the amount of stale thinking and bureaucracy was staggering when we took over,” Hegseth told senators during a July hearing to request additional emergency funding — $67.1 billion — for the Iran war and other department expenses, such as the National Guard deployments to the U.S. southern border and Washington, D.C.

The U.S. launched its war against Iran on Feb. 28, and since then, more than 860 troops have been wounded and at least 23 have been killed, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System.

Earlier this year, the Defense Department awarded a nearly $41 million development contract to Singapore-based iX Biopharma to develop Wafermine, a small, ketamine-packed wafer that dissolves under the tongue.

Recently, the drug’s manufacturer announced that it is pursuing an emergency authorization that could make the medication available to troops before it receives full Food and Drug Administration approval, citing a September U.S. declaration of a military emergency that justifies the emergency use of drugs deemed necessary by the Pentagon.

A federal emergency use approval declaration by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Sept. 3 opened the possibility of early official authorization, giving the FDA a route to use unapproved medications to treat war wounds.

According to the notice, on July 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth determined “a military emergency, or significant potential for a military emergency, involving a heightened risk to U.S. military forces of an attack with a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear agent or agents,” or an attack with agents that would cause life-threatening injuries.

The declaration continues: “Injuries arising from these attacks may cause those forces to experience moderate to severe acute pain and place them at risk of developing life-threatening hemodynamic instability, including shock or respiratory distress.”

Because of Hegseth’s determination, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. declared that “circumstances exist justifying the authorization of emergency use of drugs” identified by the Pentagon.

The notice did not elaborate on the emergency circumstances or state which drugs would be identified for emergency authorization.

A Politico investigation published Tuesday found that iX Biofarma’s domestic manufacturing partner lacks the Nevada license required to operate.

iX Biofarma called the non-opioid medication the “world’s first sublingual ketamine for acute moderate to severe pain,” and said the wafer enables a different delivery mechanism, letting patients absorb the ketamine through the mucous membrane into the bloodstream.

Typically administered via injection, ketamine can alleviate pain, increase euphoria and cause dissociation and amnesia.

A 2023 study found that opioid use to alleviate battlefield injuries decreased between January 2010 and December 2019, while ketamine use increased.

The researchers found that “ketamine is generally used first for more severely injured patients and has increasingly been employed by the U.S. military as the primary analgesic for combat casualties.”

The company said it received a “sole-source” award for Wafermine development, meaning it did not solicit other vendors.

James Lyon, 80, admitted to submitting fraudulent documents to the VA to help him pocket over $124,000 in disability payments, lying about his military service and claiming he earned combat accolades — including the Silver Star and the Bronze Star — during the Vietnam War.

Lyon never served in combat and confessed to refusing Marine Corps training roughly 60 years ago. Still, he claimed to serve over three different periods and lied about being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, federal prosecutors said. He used that diagnosis to submit fake paperwork for VA disability payments.

Lyon has not yet been sentenced. He faces up to 10 years in prison without parole, the maximum sentence specified by Congress.

“Veterans’ benefits represent a sacred national promise that is rooted in our gratitude to the men and women who have sacrificed and served our country,” R. Matthew Price, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in the statement.

“When individuals fraudulently obtain these benefits for their own personal gain, they undermine the integrity of these vital programs and divert resources from the veterans who earned them and need them most. That is unacceptable,” he said.

The case was investigated by the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James Kirkpatrick.

Gone are the days when America fought from sprawling command posts with overwhelming air superiority. Now faced with adversaries toting long-range fires and drones, the U.S. military is relearning a basic principle: how to hide.

As services adopt new strategies, the Army’s Combined Arms Command, or CAC, an outfit responsible for overseeing the service’s leadership and doctrine development, is changing how it teaches troops about concealment.

“Hiding in plain sight has become an imperative on the modern battlefield,” Lt. Gen. James P. Isenhower, the commanding general of CAC, told reporters during a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.

“We think very differently about how we employ ourselves [and] how we remain dispersed” compared to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he explained, pointing, in particular, to the size of command posts. “We have to work really hard to look like that which we are not.”

Isenhower’s remarks come as details begin to emerge about the true scale of destruction wrought by an Iranian strike on a major forward base in the Middle East.

On Feb. 28, the Islamic Republic struck Naval Support Activity, or NSA, Bahrain with missiles and one-way attack drones following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Initially, the Pentagon reported no major impacts to military operations. However, the Wall Street Journal later reported that damages amounted to approximately $400 million.

In one of the most stark official disclosures about the war thus far, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told an Epoch Times reporter that Iran “blew the hell out of Bahrain.”

Far from isolated, America’s sprawling — and easy-to-find — Middle East footprint has been repeatedly subjected to assault since the start of the Iran war. In July, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack penetrated air defenses around Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Six U.S. soldiers were killed in March when an Iranian drone struck a tactical operations center at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.

While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan saw bases attacked with mortars and rockets, U.S. forces did not have to contend with precise, long-range missile and drone assaults.

“For 20 years we didn’t have to worry about anything coming out of the sky, and we lost proficiency that I think we had trained in the Cold War era — through the 80s and 90s — where we were worried about adversaries who had fixed-wing aircraft and the capability to send long-range precision fires at us,” Isenhower said during the briefing. “That wasn’t the case in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Over the course of the Global War on Terror, air dominance allowed American bases to be havens, according to Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, where the U.S. could concentrate supplies, personnel and command centers without facing constant surveillance and threats from above.

“These bases were sanctuaries,” she told Military Times, calling the installations “an aberration, historically.”

The U.S. is now returning to a “period of warfare where the base itself is a vulnerability and something an adversary can attack,” she said, which can lead to the scattering of resources.

Exacerbating that susceptibility has been the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptor munitions to combat Iranian ballistic missiles and cheap, one-way attack drones, actions that have significantly depleted interceptor stocks.

A recent CSIS report estimated that between February and July, the U.S. had expended approximately 65% of its Patriot interceptor inventory. The number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors, meanwhile, decreased by 38% since the start of the war, according to the report.

Grieco said that dispersing troops to account for these new vulnerabilities comes at a cost. Instead of funneling fuel, ammunition, food and other supplies through large hubs, the military must spread across more locations, potentially further apart.

“We’re now trading efficiency for survivability,” she said.

After the damage to NSA Bahrain, U.S. ships were forced to rely on a logistics hub at Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean that sits more than 2,000 miles away from the service’s carrier strike groups in the Middle East.

The distance required personnel to place food orders 30 days in advance, which proved challenging due to the unpredictability of frenzied military operations.

Isenhower noted that as a division commander, meanwhile, he watched command posts shrink smaller and smaller during training because opposing forces — soldiers meant to act as the enemy during exercises — kept finding and precisely attacking them by using electronic signatures.

Units responded by dispersing and employing deceptive tactics to make it harder for the enemy to determine what they were seeing.

“We’ve got to create the benefits of mass without presenting the vulnerabilities of concentration,” he said. “It affects the squad differently than it affects a battalion, but we’ve seen in current combat operations: the vulnerabilities of a large, distinct signature, whether it’s physical, visual or something on the electromagnetic spectrum.

“It fundamentally changes how we operate.”

That vulnerability extends from command posts to moving equipment and aircraft.

In April, Iran downed a U.S. fighter jet after deploying a swarm of drones that were able to identify the aircraft’s GPS location, speed and direction, then feed that data to Iranian commanders, The New York Times reported.

Education about electromagnetic and drone warfare has been incorporated into all levels of the Army, Isenhower said.

Soldiers are learning to use electromagnetic data “to try to get a bearing or pinpoint a fix on the enemy,” he said, while learning “how to operate in that environment so they don’t do the same to us.”

The policy incorporates directives issued throughout 2025 into a set of standards for the services. Among them: commanders must allow time for physical fitness every duty day and troops in jobs designated as “combat arms” must be held to male fitness standards on regular fitness tests.

Many changes are already underway across the services. In March 2025, Hegseth ordered the services to identify their combat-arms specialties and develop sex-neutral, mission-related physical standards.

Hegseth has railed against “fat troops,” and “fat generals,” and pledged to return combat arms jobs to “the highest male standard only.”

The changes have unfolded alongside a Pentagon review of women in front-line jobs. In December, the Pentagon’s personnel chief, Anthony Tata, announced a study on the effectiveness of integrating ground combat units, prompting concerns among some that it could be used to justify restricting women from combat roles.

Critics have questioned the study’s independence after it was transferred from the Institute for Defense Analyses to Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory and placed under a researcher involved in a controversial 2015 study Hegseth has cited to argue against women serving in combat jobs.

The new document replaces the Pentagon’s 2022 fitness policy.

Here is what to know:

Fitness tests

Active duty troops are slated to take two fitness tests per year, and National Guard and Reserve members will take one. Under the Pentagon’s new policy, active-duty service members will take their service’s regular fitness test and a second assessment aimed at measuring their combat readiness. Those in designated combat arms jobs will be required to take a Combat Field Test, or CFT, while troops outside of those specialties will take a Combat Readiness Test, or CRT. The services can decide to use a regular fitness test in place of a CRT.

The regulations identify more than 80 occupations as combat arms across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, including infantry, armor, artillery, some engineering jobs and special forces roles. No Space Force jobs are listed.

Combat arms troops will be held to male-based standards on their regular service tests and required to score an average of 70% across events. Those in non-combat roles will have sex and age-based scoring.

Each service is responsible for developing its own CFTs that adhere to Pentagon standards.

Body composition

Active-duty troops will have body composition testing twice annually; those in the National Guard and Reserve will have testing once per year. All service members must meet a waist-to-height ratio of less than 0.55, which is calculated by dividing a person’s waist circumference by their height. Troops who exceed that standard will be subject to a service-specific body fat assessment. If they fail that assessment, service members will be enrolled in a remedial program to meet benchmarks.

Branches may also set stricter requirements.

The body composition policy also gives a minimum 12-month exemption from fitness and body composition testing after childbirth, miscarriage or stillbirth. Postpartum troops may be granted additional time exemptions based on healthcare provider input.

Accountability and Tracking

The policy makes commanders responsible for giving troops time to stay fit. Leadership “will allow such members to perform physical fitness training every duty day,” the regulation reads, except when mission requirements dictate otherwise.

Starting on June 1, 2027, each service must submit a report on its fitness and body composition programs to the Pentagon with data that enables officials to analyze results based on sex, age, race, ethnicity, rank and military specialty. The services are also required to keep electronic records of troops’ test results throughout their careers.

Additionally, the services must provide the Pentagon with the information about the scientific basis used to create their fitness and body composition standards.

The “Summer Surge Incentive,” announced this week with other recruiting reforms, is open to current members who reenlist and airmen transferring from active duty or the Air Force Reserve.

The incentive, first reported by Task & Purpose, comes as other services are offering large bonuses to retain talent. The Army is offering bonuses exceeding $200,000 to keep aviation warrant officers in the ranks, and the Navy is offering up to $150,000 for select aviation roles.

In addition to the bonus, the Guard said that it is now sending its highest-performing recruiters to wings struggling to meet recruiting goals, rather than limiting them to their home states. Other initiatives include a 179% increase in local market funding and a social media collaborator program.

U.S. Air Force Col. Mark Williams, director of Recruiting and Retention for the Air National Guard, said the changes are meant to modernize the force.

“It is all part of an effort to continue reaching individuals seeking purpose, growth and the opportunity to make a lasting impact,” he said.

The Guard also instituted a policy allowing wings that maintain at least 90% manning strength to temporarily fill positions above their authorized numbers.

The change, according to Chief Master Sgt. James Chubb, chief of the Air National Guard Recruiting and Retention Accessions Branch, said was designed to prevent recruiting momentum from stalling once units reach their prescribed limits.

“One of our greatest challenges is balancing recruiting success with limited authorized vacancies,” Chubb said in the announcement. “As recruiters successfully fill formations, available positions naturally become scarce, creating an artificial ceiling on continued growth.”

For fiscal year 2026, the Air National Guard is looking to recruit 8,842 enlisted airmen, 1,123 line officers, 68 chaplains and 53 warrant officers.

With the acceptance of the 359th — and final — tiltrotor aircraft, the Marine Corps marked the end of the MV-22B Osprey program of record, a milestone that will now shift efforts towards “sustaining and modernizing the fleet for decades to come,” the V-22 Joint Program Office, which manages the Osprey program, said in a statement.

“The MV-22B … fundamentally changed the way the Marine Air-Ground Task Force generates combat power,” Lt. Gen. William Swan, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation, said in the statement. “It provides commanders with decision space that only speed and reach can provide, connecting ships, bases and distributed forces in ways previous generations could only imagine. Today, Marine commanders build operations around the assumption that the MV-22B will be there.”

Though the Navy and Air Force also use variants of the Osprey, the Marine Corps maintains the majority of the fleet.

The Corps intends to keep the Osprey operational through 2055 with efforts that include improving wiring, working towards pro-rotor gear boxes, standardizing the fleet and redesigning parts of the aircraft for better safety.

The aircraft has a history of safety issues and accidents that have led to the deaths of over 60 service members since 2000, according to prior Military Times reporting, and in 2023, the Defense Department grounded the aircraft after eight service members were killed when an Air Force Osprey crashed.

A 2025 government watchdog report found that the services had not appropriately shared information about Osprey issues amongst each other.

The Osprey was developed to reduce the gap between rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft. Since going operational in 2007, the platform has been involved in 114 deployments and flown more than 683,300 hours, according to the program’s office, which also said the Osprey represents three quarters of all Marine Corps rotary wing support.

The Osprey is produced jointly by Bell and Boeing and according to a Wednesday release from the companies, has been involved in various high-profile missions, including the ongoing Venezuela earthquake response, the 2022 earthquake response in Haiti, operations to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips in 2009 after his ship was hijacked by Somali pirates.

And it may accompany fighter jets, but no pilot will ever buckle themselves into a seat in the cockpit of a Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat.

Australia’s flight-ready uncrewed aircraft made its Farnborough International Airshow debut this week, the static display representing what the company this month said was the first collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, to participate in a multinational, joint operational exercise.

The Ghost Bat in June soared alongside crewed aircraft around the Marinas Island Range Complex in the Western Pacific as part of Exercise Valiant Shield 2026. According to Boeing, the CCA participated as F-35A, F-35B and other crewed coalition jets honed tactics.

The aircraft were included with U.S. Pacific Command forces to support the U.S. Air Force’s Experimental Operation Unit.

“Having MQ-28 participate in such a significant military training exercise is a first, and this is just the start of demonstrating how advanced human-machine teaming extends the reach and awareness of crewed platforms and enhances joint force operations,” Steve Parker, the president and chief executive officer of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in a release. “We’ve proven that it’s combat capable.”

The integrated exercise came after the Ghost Bat successfully completed a live fire demonstrating, shooting an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile to destroy a drone.

With a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles, the Ghost Bat was designed to support crewed jets by performing missions like surveillance and electronic warfare.

The aircraft has “length of a trainer and the full wingspan of a modern stealth fighter,” according to Boeing, and it can reach a ceiling of over 40,000 feet.

For years, industry leaders have seen autonomous aircraft as a market primed for potential growth, as experts push for crewed-uncrewed teaming as a key difference maker in beating a near-peer rival like China.

This year, some companies took that a step further, as they prepare for an era of air combat characterized by unmanned aerial systems — like the Ghost Bat.

Betting on the need for future crew to manage drone wingmen — fleets of drones under human command — BAE Systems unveiled a helmet to help pilots manage more data than ever before.

The U.S. Air Force has also introduced incorporating uncrewed aircraft into missions, and in June it awarded CCA contracts to Anduril, for its FQ-44A “Fury,” and General Atomics, for its FQ-42A.

Models of both were on display at the airshow.