The same day that the U.S. Navy's X-47B stealth drone took off from an aircraft carrier, photos emerged on Chinese Internet forums that seemingly confirm that China is developing a stealthy unmanned jet, dubbed the Li Jian or Sharp Sword.

(Remember, earlier this week we showed you grainy photos of what appeared to be China's effort to join the United States, France, Britain, and Russia as members of the stealth drone club.)

These jets are meant to replace the current crop of slow, low-flying, propeller-driven UAVs that military planners assume will be highly vulnerable in a modern conflict where one nation doesn't have absolute control over airspace.

For example, the U.S. Navy envisions these planes doing everything from aerial refueling missions to penetrating advanced air defenses to perform strike and surveillance sorties.

Until now, we had only seen Chinese versions of U.S. drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper and what appears to be an attempt to field a high altitude, jet-powered spy plane similar to the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

The only stealth drone designs we saw coming out of China were subscale models that basically amounted to remote-control airplanes. It appears that we can now add stealth drones to the military technology that China is developing to catch up with the West.

Hat tip to Alert 5.

Here's some Monday news: China has apparently commissioned its first aircraft carrier-based aviation unit.

We've known for years that a small cadre of Chinese pilots has been practicing landings and takeoffs on landlocked mock-ups of an aircraft carrier flight deck. Last fall, these pilots conducted their first-ever carrier flight operations when they took off and landed aboard China's first carrier, the Liaoning.

It appears these pilots are set to start training the next crop of Chinese naval aviators, according to a report from Xinhua that came out over the weekend.

The forming of the force, approved by the Central Military Commission (CMC), demonstrates that the development of China's aircraft carriers has entered a new phase, the sources said.

The force comprises carrier-borne fighter jets, jet trainers and ship-borne helicopters that operate anti-submarine, rescue and vigilance tasks.

Pilots of this unit must have at least 1,000 flight hours and have flown five different types of aircraft, according to Xinhua.

Liaoning is meant to serve as China's "starter carrier." It will give this first class of pilots and sailors experience operating a floating airport -- one of the toughest things in aviation. It took decades for the U.S. Navy to master the art of flying fast jets off of 4.5-acre flight decks (they were even smaller 60 years ago) that are bobbing in the ocean.

The carrier started life as the Soviet ship Varyag. However, she sat unfinished in a Ukrainian shipyard for a decade or so after the breakup of the USSR. In 1998, Chinese investors bought the hulk without engines, electrical equipment, or weapons with the stated intention or turning it into a casino. However, toward the end of the last decade, photos emerged of the ship being refitted for naval service.

At the same time, China began developing its own carrier-based fighter jet, called the J-15, based on the Russian Su-27 -- a carrier-borne fighter developed by the Soviets in the 1980s to fly off Varyag's sister ship, the Admiral Kuznetsov. The Su-33 is a navalized version of the Sukhoi Su-27 land-based fighter.

China apparently bought a Su-27 from Ukraine and reverse-engineered it to develop its J-11 fighter after Russian officials refused to sell the type to China. Once they had a J-11, Chinese engineers developed their own navalized version, the J-15.

China is apparently at work building at least two more aircraft carriers that are reported to enter service sometime in the next decade or so. Some say these ships will be based on the Liaoning's design, meaning they can carry about 30 fighters, while others say they may be based on the Soviets' larger, unfinished follow-on to the Admiral Kuznetsov, the Ulanovsk, meant to carry almost 50 planes plus helicopters.

While Iran's got a somewhat less than "Epic" new propeller-powered UAV, China might be jumping on the stealth drone bandwagon sooner than you thought.

Extremely blurry photos posted on Internet forums over the past few months may show a Chinese stealth UAV, supposedly called the Lijan or Sharp Sword, along the lines of the U.S. Navy's X-47B.

Until now, we've seen photos of Chinese-made versions of propeller-driven drones that strongly resemble their American counterparts like the MQ-9 Reaper.

We've also seen photos of what may be a Chinese attempt at building a jet-powered spy drone similar to the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude strategic spy plane.

China has been developing what amount to mock-ups and model airplanes of stealth drones for years now. But it's unclear whether the plane shown above is an actual production jet, or just another mock up. (It might also be a fake, like this false image of a Chinese stealth jet that was circulating the Internet in 2011.)

While there's no way of verifying these grainy photos show a plane that could actually fly, Wired's Danger Room points out that the Pentagon's latest report on Chinese military capabilities says that the PLA is working to field "Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles [that] will increase China's ability to conduct long-range reconnaissance and strike operations."  The Pentagon usually describes stealth drones like the X-47B and others with very similar language.

Some online forums claim the aircraft is being built for use by the Chinese air force and navy and that it conducted ground tests in December 2012 and is being readied for a flight test later this year. The introduction of such a weapon would make sense given the PLA's desire to project greater power throughout the Western Pacific. A partial list of platforms to support this strategy includes the J-20 and J-31 stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, and strategic jet transport planes.

The U.S. Navy is hoping to have a fleet of carrier-launcher stealth jet drones that can perform long-range surveillance and strike missions by the early 2020s. The Navy sees these jets as key to its strategy of operating in the Pacific Ocean, particularly since China's development of weapons aims to keep U.S. ships far from its shores. The battle for unmanned aerial supremacy is definitely heating up.

The Pentagon's latest report on the capabilities of the Chinese military mentions an important aspect to its buildup: China's efforts to develop advanced technologies that have both civil and military use. This means that China is trying to acquire tech that can be used to drive modern aerospace, computing, and transportation industries -- as well as 21st-century military equipment.

How does it get this information? Everything from outright cyber theft to old-fashioned espionage to legitimate business partnerships.

As the report says:

The Chinese utilize a large, well-organized network to facilitate collection of sensitive information and export-controlled technology from U.S. defense sources. Many of the organizations composing China's military-industrial complex have both military and civilian research and development functions. This network of government-affiliated companies and research institutes often enables the PLA to access sensitive and dual-use technologies or knowledgeable experts under the guise of civilian research and development. The enterprises and institutes accomplish this through technology conferences and symposia, legitimate contracts and joint commercial ventures, partnerships with foreign firms, and joint development of specific technologies. In the case of key national security technologies,
controlled equipment, and other materials not readily obtainable through commercial means or academia, China has utilized its intelligence services and employed other illicit approaches that involve violations of U.S. laws and export controls

Here's a look at a handful of interesting cases of Chinese efforts to get a hold of technology -- both military and civilian -- that could help its military catch up with its Western counterparts.

First up is China's biggest chunk of modern military hardware, its sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning.  Chinese investors bought the Soviet-built ship -- sans engines, electronics, or weapons -- from Ukraine in 2001 with the stated purpose of turning it into a floating gambling den. We all know how that worked out. Instead of becoming a casino (or luxury hotel like the former Soviet carrier Kiev) Liaoning was commissioned into the PLA Navy last year and it'll serve as China's starter carrier, a floating lab where the navy can master carrier operations before it commissions at least two more carriers in the next decade or so. These ships -- and a crop of modern destroyers and other ships -- are meant to help China project power throughout the Western Pacific.

Then, there's its development of stealthy jets that strongly resemble (on the outside, at least) U.S.-made F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.  Remember, Chinese hackers reportedly broke into the networks of defense contractors working on the F-35 (including Lockheed Martin, maker of both the F-35 and F-22). In an interesting coincidence, China revealed its J-20 stealth jet in late 2010 boasting a nose section that looks a lot like the F-22's, right down to parts of the canopy design and what might be a 3-D heads up display.  Then, last year, China unveiled its second stealthy fighter, the J-31 (below). That plane bears a way-too-close-for-comfort resemblance to the F-22 and the F-35. (Last year, a U.S. Air Force official pointed out that the F-35's computerized maintenance system containing tons of information about the jet had to be redesigned after it was found to be vulnerable to hackers.)

In September 2012, the United States convicted Sixing Liu, a Chinese citizen working for a U.S.  defense contractor, of bringing electronic files containing "details on the performance and design of" guidance systems for missiles, rocket target-designators, and even UAVS, the Pentagon's latest report points out. The document also recounts that two Taiwanese nationals were charged in March 2012 with planning to get their hands on "sensitive U.S. defense technology" and passing it to China. The pair, Hui Sheng Shen and Huan Ling Chang, were allegedly going to take pictures of the technology, delete the images from their cameras, and then bring the memory cards back to China where the images would be recovered.

The DOD report also lists the case of aircraft engine-maker, Pratt & Whitney Canada (a subsidiary of U.S. defense giant United Technologies Corporation) illegally giving engine control software to China for use in its latest attack helicopter, the Z-10. UTC and two subsidiaries ended up having to pay a $50 million fine and had some of its export license privileges suspended temporarily as part of a settlement deal with U.S. authorities. 

Then there's the case of U.S. defense giant General Electric's partnership with China's state-owned aviation firm COMAC -- a program aimed at developing digital avionics for China's first domestically made jetliner, the COMAC 919 (shown below).  GE came under fire from Virginia congressman Randy Forbes, who claimed the technology used to develop next-generation airliner avionics was inked to the same technology used in the U.S. Air Force's premier fighter, the F-22. Forbes worried that sharing information on even a civilian version of these avionics would allow China to develop them for military use. The deal remains on, but given the news we've heard in the last year or so about Chinese hackers, one hopes that GE is being extra vigilant in protecting its most sensitive information.

The predecessor of the avionics deal is GE's partnership with AVIC (COMAC's parent firm) to develop modern jet engines in China. It might seem like decades-old technology, but building jet engines, especially those used in 21st-century fighter jets, are one of the toughest engineering challenges in aviation. AVIC has partnered with GE in an attempt to develop engines capable of powering large aircraft: from civilian jetliners to military transports, radar planes to bombers. As U.S. Naval War College professor Andrew Erickson has said, these joint ventures could "give the Chinese aerospace industry a 100 piece puzzle with 90 of the pieces already assembled. Enough is left out so that the exporting companies can comply with the letter of the export control laws, but in reality, a rising military power is potentially being given relatively low-cost recipes for building the jet engines needed to power key military power projection platforms."

Happy Monday. Here's some drone history being made: This video shows the U.S. Navy's X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator (UCAS-D) making its very first arrested landing. On May 4, the stealthy drone landed aboard a mock aircraft carrier flight deck, painted on a runway at the Navy's airbase at Patuxent River, Md.

The Northrop Grumman-made X-47B is meant to prove that the Navy can operate a fighter jet-sized stealthy drone from aircraft carriers -- paving the way for a fleet of similar aircraft to enter service around 2020 under a program called Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike or UCLASS. The Navy is testing the X-47B's ability to do everything from safely taxi around a crowded flight deck to takeoff and land autonomously on a carrier's four-acre deck (a human simply gives the plane clearance to land and then monitors the jet while a computer controls the actual maneuvers).

The X-47B is slated to fly from an actual aircraft carrier for the first time in the next year or so; the whole demonstration program will run until 2015.

Meanwhile, the sea service will soon give Northrop, Boeing, Lockheed, and General Atomics contracts to flesh out their designs for a stealthy, carrier-launched drone capable of flying through advanced air defenses, spying on potential targets, and even dropping bombs on them under the UCLASS program. That program is intended to incorporate the lessons learned from the Navy's experience with the X-47B to field operational jets by the end of this decade.

This week's crash of a civilian cargo jet at Bagram airfield in Afghanistan highlights the fact that the U.S. military relies on a private air force to move enormous amounts of supplies and numbers of people around the globe.  

The jet that crashed at Bagram (shown above) was a Boeing 747-400 that had been converted from a passenger jet into a freighter for Florida-based National Airlines, one of the many little-known civilian carriers that keep the U.S. military and intelligence agencies supplied around the globe. The plane was said to be transporting five MRAP armored vehicles (which are incredibly heavy) from Afghanistan to Dubai -- a route the airline had been flying for about a month prior to the crash.

Here are just a few more of the many private airlines that serve the U.S. government on a regular basis:

Spend any time at BWI Airport and you'll see MD-11s sitting on the ramp, painted in the livery of World Airlines, a contractor that flies U.S. troops to Europe and the Middle East. They usually operate out of a terminal reserved for the U.S. Air Force's Air Mobility Command -- the organization that operates more than a thousand cargo and tanker aircraft such a C-5 Galaxies, C-17 Globemaster IIIs, C-130 Hercules, KC-135 Stratotankers, and KC-10 Extenders. Despite all these planes dedicated to moving troops and materiel, the service still contracts with dozens of private airlines.

Frequently sharing ramp space at BWI with World Airlines is North American Airlines, the company that provided a Boeing 767 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. The charter-jet provider operates five 767s that are frequently used to ferry U.S. soldiers around the world.

The Washington state-based Evergreen Aviation is supposedly one of the successors to the CIA's legendary Air America -- famous for hauling everything from chickens to drugs (allegedly) throughout Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. (In 1968, an Air America UH-1 Huey chopper actually shot down a Soviet-made An-2 Cub cargo plane flown by the North Vietnamese air force.) The company has done everything from supporting CIA missions to operating one of the largest aerial firefighting aircraft in the world: the Evergreen Supertanker, an old 747 passenger jet that was converted to carry more than 20,000 gallons of fire suppressant.  

Tepper Aviation is a company that operates a fleet of ghost-white Lockheed L-100s (the civilian version of the C-130 Hercules), allegedly conducting missions for the CIA all over the globe, possibly including prisoner transport. As would be expected, Tepper has no website. However, if you search Google Maps for the small airport in Crestview, Fla., where Tepper is reportedly based, you'll find a large facility on the southeast corner of the runway with a U.S. Air Force C-130 parked nearby and a hangar with the logo of defense giant L-3 Communications painted on the roof. (Click here to see apparent pics of the flight deck of one of tepper's planes while it was stopped in Japan with some "diplomatic" cargo aboard.) 

Then there's Kalitta Air. Founded by drag-racing legend Conrad "Conie" Kalitta, the firm hauls supplies and people around the world for the military with its fleet of 747s.

And who can forget Presidential Airways. This former Blackwater subsidiary is famous for a 2004 incident in which a CASA 212 ferrying U.S. troops from Bagram to Farah, Afghanistan crashed into a canyon wall after the pilot became disoriented, killing three soldiers and three civilian crew. This incident brought attention to the fact that small carriers were hauling U.S. troops around battlefields even though the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Marines have thousands of planes and helicopters designated for such tasks. Despite increases in the number of military tactical airlifter missions in the Middle East since then, the U.S. military still relies on contractors to support the massive task of keeping its troops supplied via air in Afghanistan.

We've been hearing for years now that the U.S. military's crop of slow-moving spy planes fielded for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- ranging from MQ-9 Reaper drones to manned MC-12 Liberties -- will be totally useless in a fight against an adversary armed with sophisticated radars and anti-aircraft missiles (often labeled anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) weapons).

This, of course, is how the U.S.  Air Force and Navy are justifying the development of a host of stealthy strike and spy jets (manned and unmanned), missiles and electronic warfare weapons designed to fight countries equipped with sophisticated weapons designed to keep U.S. forces far from their borders.

However, the Air Force's spy arm -- officially called the Air Force Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Agency -- is experimenting with flying low and slow prop-driven spy planes in skies where advanced air defenses are present. In late February, the agency sent several squadrons of Air Force intelligence assets to play in the service's legendary air combat exercise known as Red Flag over the Nevada desert.

"One of the things that we need to figure out is how much risk would we have to take to fly airborne ISR assets ... in a non-permissive environment," said Col. Mary O'Brien, commander of the Air Force's 70th ISR Wing during a speech late last week. "Initially, we had said, ‘well you could never fly them because there would be risk.' But one of the things that you can practice at Red Flag is you can build a package that includes defenses and then see."

The agency managed to successful fly a propeller-driven MC-12 Liberty -- based on Beechcraft's civilian King Air -- to collect intelligence in the face of a simulated advanced air defense network that featured Soviet-designed SA-6 surface-to-air missiles.

"It was not shot down but that's a case of one," said O'Brien. "It made us say, ‘this should be perhaps an exercise objective in a future Red Flag."

(While the MC-12 is a slow, twin turboprop of the type you'd see at your average small town airport, it might help that the SA-6 is a 1970s-vintage system used by dozens of countries that the United States has had decades to figure out how to defeat.)

She went on to say that while advanced enemy air defenses would pose a big threat to planes like the MC-12, U.S. forces may be able to provide such planes with protection for just long enough to collect some pieces of vital intelligence.

"How long do we need to operate in that environment?" asked O'Brien. "Maybe you don't need air supremacy and maybe you only need air superiority for this amount of time depending on what you want to do." 

The whole point of sending prop-driven ISR planes into the fight is  getting people to think about the notion that "hey, we don't need to sit everything on the ramp that we used in Iraq and Afghanistan.... Let's start thinking about" how these aircraft might play a role in a future fight.

She wouldn't say what type of protection the Liberty had as it flew its mission, it could have been anything from fighter escorts who were hunting down the enemy radar and missile sites to advanced electronic warfare gear that jammed enemy sensors or some combination of both.

Given all the news reports citing British, French, and Israeli officials saying that chemical weapons may have been used in Syria we thought we'd give you an updated version of what we know about Bashar al-Assad's stockpile of chemical agents and their delivery systems.

The United States' Intelligence Community's 2013 Worldwide Threat Assessment released last month states that Syria has a "highly active chemical weapons program" maintaining a stockpile of sarin, VX, and the longtime staple of chemical warfare, mustard gas. These weapons can be delivered a number of ways, via cluster bombs dropped from jets and helicopters to chemical warheads placed atop Scud ballistic missiles. They can even be fired via shorter-range artillery guns or missiles systems, like the Soviet-made BM-27 Uragan.

In addition to chemical weapons, the Intelligence Community's report states that it's likely the regime has biological weapons, albeit without dedicated delivery systems.

"Based on the duration of Syria's longstanding biological warfare (BW) program, we judge that some elements of the program may have advanced beyond the research and development stage and may be capable of limited agent production," reads the threat assessment. "Syria is not known to have successfully weaponized biological agents in an effective delivery system, but it possesses conventional and chemical weapon systems that could be modified for biological agent delivery."

The Assad regime may well improvise with delivery systems as its weapons stockpiles are run down by the war. Remember, we've seen Syrian air force personnel pushing "barrel bombs" lit via cigarettes from the cargo doors of helicopters onto Syrian cities. 

The recent reports about the Assad regime's possible use of chemical weapons do not provide information on the types of delivery systems used.

While we've reported that Western officials have stated that securing Syrian weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) would be an incredibly complicated operation, it's worth noting that NATO has deployed counter-WMD teams in the region for months, in an attempt to figure out how to secure Syria's stockpile in the event that the regime loses control of them.

Last week, it was revealed that the U.S. is sending about 100 soldiers to Jordan where they are establishing an Army headquarters unit there -- a possibly precursor to a larger buildup of forces that may move to secure the WMD. FP's Situation Report quoted a U.S. defense official as saying that the troops are "a well-trained, well-coordinated team that can be the nucleus of further mission planning and growth of the command and control element, should that be ordered."

But, as Charles Blair, a specialist on WMD proliferation with the Federation of American Scientists points out, there are no rock-solid public estimates of the size of Assad's arsenal.

"Any open source assessments of a Syrian BW program -- and its notional size and composition -- are purely hypothetical," Blair told Killer Apps in an email.

Last year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, told lawmakers that the size of Assad's chemical weapons arsenal was "100 times the magnitude we experienced in Libya." (The Libyan government voluntarily destroyed most of its chemical weapons well before Muammar al-Qaddafi was overthrown in 2011.)

"I've heard that Syria has 100 to 200 missiles with nerve agents loaded and ready to go, but that seems extreme," Blair told us last summer.

However, he did point out today that Assad may have doubled down on his bio-weapons program in the wake of the 2007 Israeli airstrike that leveled one of his main nuclear research facilities at al-Kibar.

"We know that when Libya finally concluded that sophisticated chemical agents (i.e., nerve agents) were a bridge too far, they abandoned their CW pursuits and doubled down on their nuclear program (until abandoning that too in 2003)," wrote Blair. "Does this portend anything for Syria's BW program? Perhaps, if the 2007 Israeli destruction of Syria's clandestine nuclear reactor in September 2007 precipitated Damascus to double down on its BW program."

In addition to traditional chemical weapons, Blair says there are unconfirmed reports of Iranian transfers of riot control agents (RCAs) or "incapacitating agents" that have been used against the Syrian rebels.

"The Syrians have undoubtedly used RCAs and/or incapacitants but there are no open source credible estimates of the quantities Damascus might possess of these non-lethal agents," said Blair today.

As for the possibility that the weapons have fallen into rebel hands, Blair said, "to my knowledge there are no credible open source reports of any chemical agents or weaponized chemical munitions transferring hands."

Still, "no one in the open sources knows anything for certain about Syria's lethal CW arsenal and alleged offensive BW capabilities," he added. 

With news that the bombs used in yesterday's attack on the Boston Marathon were encased in six-liter pressure cookers, we've got our first clue about the tech that played a role in this attack

Reports of pressure cookers being used as bombs go back to at least the 1990s when they were first used by Maoists in Nepal during the civil war there, and they are still used in the mountain nation with alarming frequency. (In fact, do a quick Google search and you'll see that pressure cooker bombs are found all the time in South Asia from Nepal to Malaysia.)

By the 2000s, such weapons were being found across the region at terrorist camps on the frontier of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This 2004 warning from the Department of Homeland Security says that "a technique commonly taught in Afghan terrorist training camps is the use/conversion of pressure cookers into IEDs.

By 2010, DHS was reporting that such bombs were frequently used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. (Note this report from 2010 displaying a pressure cooker bomb found by British special operators after a raid on a Taliban bomb factory in Afghanistan.)

"Typically, these bombs are made by placing TNT or other explosives in a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap at the top of the pressure cooker. The size of the blast depends on the size of the pressure cooker and the amount of explosive placed inside. Pressure cooker bombs are made with readily available materials and can be as simple or as complex as the builder decides," reads the 2004 announcement. (Notice that the announcement says nothing about using the pressure of the pressure cooker, it's merely described as a vessel for the explosives.) While the DHS warning doesn't say exactly why pressure cookers are preferred over normal pots, their lids lock into place, perhaps making it easier to hide explosives inside.

Remember, doctors in Boston have reported removing "pellets, shrapnel and nails" from the victims of the marathon attack, indicating that the bombs were filled with these tools in order to cause more damage by shredding flesh.

"These types of devices can be initiated using simple electronic components including, but not limited to, digital watches, garage door openers, cell phones or pagers. As a common cooking utensil, the pressure cooker is often overlooked when searching vehicles, residences or merchandise crossing the U.S. Borders," the 2004 DHS announcement points out.

Still, the 2010 announcement notes that pressure cookers are not as innocuous in the United States as in developing nations: "Because they are less common in the United States, the presence of a pressure cooker in an unusual location such as a building lobby or busy street corner should be treated as suspicious."

That document was released several months after a pressure cooker filled with firecrackers was found to be one of the components used in the failed Times Square bombing of May 2010. In 2011, U.S. Army Private Naser Jason Abdo was charged in plotting to set off a pressure cooker bomb on Fort Hood, Texas -- a weapon he supposedly learned to make from reading al Qaeda's online magazine, Inspire. It's important to point out that investigators have said there is no indication so far of a connection to al Qaeda in the case of the Boston attack.

Happy Friday. Killer Apps sat down with Rob Ruszkowski, Lockheed Martin's man in charge of making sure its new stealth drone becomes the U.S. Navy's next light-strike and reconnaissance jet.

Remember, the sea service is looking to field an unmanned, stealthy, fighter-size jet capable of taking off from aircraft carriers and doing everything from spying to bombing to conducting air-to-air refueling by 2020 under a program called Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike -- or UCLASS. The Navy is about to give Lockheed -- along with Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman -- contracts to develop prototypes.

Lockheed's bid uses technology that the company developed for its newest stealth planes, such as the RQ-170 Sentinel drone and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. This is meant to keep costs and development times down. Lockheed's aim is to have a first flight by 2017 or 2018, a pretty aggressive schedule given the fact that it has taken decades to field the U.S. military's most recent fighter jets: the F-35 and the F-22 Raptor.

"We're reusing a lot of systems, and software and hardware and technology that we have from other places -- F-35, RQ-170 -- and we're integrating those systems [onto a new airframe] not inventing them," Ruszkowski said. While the company doesn't have an actual prototype yet, it does have a full-scale mock-up sitting in a California facility, according to Ruszkowski.

The new plane's airframe borrows from the design of the RQ-170 and Lockheed's older, experimental drones like the Polecat, he said. It will take sensors, software, and stealth coatings that are able withstand harsh sea air from the F-35.

The plane is designed to easily accept new hardware, such as sensors, electronic warfare gear, and new software that may not be available when the first jets enter service

"We've tailored our [design] to meet, not only what we saw as the evolving requirements to be, but to have the foundation to grow beyond that," said Ruszkowski. What's this mean? "It could start its early operational career with a base model, and then you add to it later."

So, what kind of gear might the jet be equipped with to start? High-powered cameras and radars that will allow it to survey wide swaths of the sea and shore to identify targets from beyond the range of an enemy's most potent defenses.

The jet will carry some sort of electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera that's capable of doing wide area searches and battle damage assessment, "where you want a very, very high-resolution image," said Ruszkowski. "A lot of the things this type of aircraft might be used to gather intelligence on, might be in situations where you need to be further away" from the target in order to stay away from antiaircraft defenses. (The camera will not be based on Lockheed's Electro-Optical Targeting System, which is going on the F-35, he noted.)

The plane may also carry some sort of powerful surveillance radar -- similar to this one -- allowing it to identify targets moving along the sea or land and even to take snapshots through clouds using a technique called synthetic-aperture radar imaging.

While the jet will start its career as a spy plane that's capable of dropping about 1,000 pounds worth of bombs on targets it finds, it could eventually be used as an electronic-warfare platform or as a flying gas station refueling other Navy jets.

"I think the first aircraft that will go to early operational capability may only have an EO/IR sensor. That's up to the Navy. They might say, ‘Hey, we want to get this thing out there, fielded, doing some initial missions and maybe all it needs is an EO/IR sensor and the radar comes two or three years later,'" said Ruszkowksi.

Lockheed has yet to field a jet that can take off and land from an aircraft carrier with minimal human involvement -- something that the Navy and Lockheed's rival in the UCLASS effort, Northrop Grumman, are working to master right now with a program known as UCAS-D, which is meant to pave the way for UCLASS. Ruszkowski says he's not too worried about this since Lockheed has conducted simulated landings on carriers in rough seas and that it will receive information from the Navy about what it learns from UCAS-D. Hopefully, they will get the Sea Ghost's tail-hook design right. (We couldn't write an article about Lockheed and aircraft carrier jets without mentioning it.)

U.S. military commanders around the world are discussing how to integrate cyber weapons with all the other tools in their arsenals, according to the chief of the Navy's cyber forces.

Doing this will give battlefield commanders the ability to choose which weapon they want to use to achieve a desired effect.

"Whether we do that through the spectrum [via electronic warfare], we do that through the network [via cyber] or we do that through something kinetic [bullets and bombs], what we want to be able to do is be able to tee up to the commander, multiple options," said Vice Admiral Michael Rogers during the Navy League's annual Sea Air Space conference just outside Washington today. Then, "the commander can make the decision about what's the best tool to use. . . . I don't get any pushback on that idea at all."

"If we think we're going to do cyber off in some closet somewhere we have totally missed the boat on this thing," Rogers noted.

At the same time, the lines between traditional electronic warfare -- radar jamming, electronic eaves dropping, etc. -- and cyber warfare are containing to blur, at least in the U.S. Navy.

"I see those lines blurring increasingly There is great convergence between the spectrum [EW] and the cyber world at the moment which I think just offers great opportunities, as a SIGINT [signals intelligence] kind of guy by background, I just lick my lips at the opportunities that I see out there in that arena," said Rogers.

While Rogers didn't elaborate on the type of combined cyber-electronic warfare missions he envisions, a fellow admiral noted that the Pentagon is looking at non-cyber ways of shutting down an enemy's ability to fight without firing a shot. (Remember, cyber-philes often point out that cyber weapons can cripple a nation without a single missile being launched.)

"Cyberspace can be an enabler but there's [other] non-kinetic ways to disadvantage the enemy in cyberspace that don't require a cyber activity; [electronic warfare] capability, and other things like that," said Rear Admiral Michael Hewitt, deputy director of the special programs cross functional team on the Joint Staff, during the Navy League's annual Sea Air Space conference just outside Washington today.

Click here to read an example of a type of non-cyber electronic weapon that's capable of shutting down an enemy's electronics systems without blowing anything up.

It's not every day that you get to see a new stealth jet unveiled, but today Lockheed Martin's famed Skunk Works division posted these artist's renderings of its bid for the Navy's next attack jet at its booth at the Navy League's annual Sea Air Space conference just outside of Washington.

Remember, the Navy is trying to field a fleet of stealthy, unmanned fighter-sized jets that can launch from an aircraft carrier, fly through enemy air defenses and do everything from bomb targets to spy on them under a program called Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike or UCLASS.

Last summer, Lockheed showed us a very unrevealing drawing of what it said would be its UCLASS bid, nicknamed the Sea Ghost. These pictures offer a far better look at the jet.

The plane above looks remarkably similar to Lockheed's super-secret RQ-170 Sentinel spy plane, nicknamed the Beast of Kandahar by reporters after grainy photos of it operating in Afghanistan emerged in 2008. (A Sentinel was famously captured by Iran in late 2010, giving the world its first close-up view of the jet.)  When yours truly pointed out the similarities between Lockheed's UCLASS bid and the Sentinel to a company spokeswoman, she just smiled and said she had no idea what I was talking about. It makes sense for Lockheed to base the airplane on an existing stealth drone since the Navy wants UCLASS operating from carriers by the end of this decade.

While the spokeswoman couldn't say anything about the plane beyond that it will be flying sometime around 2018 to 2020, she did provide Killer Apps with a quick fact sheet.

Lockheed says the jet will be based on its existing manned and unmanned planes and will feature a "maximum reuse of hardware and software," according to the factsheet posted below. (This means the plane will incorporate technology developed for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well as the RQ-170.) Still, the jet will need to have a tail hook added, wings that fold (to fit on a carrier's crowded deck), and have its airframe strengthened to withstand the pressures of catapult launches and arrested landings, as well as the corrosive sea air,

As you can see from these pictures, the plane doesn't feature the RQ-170's two large humps, which likely sensors contain communications gear, on the top and bottom of its fuselage. This is likely because the Sentinel was designed a decade or more ago and sensor and comms technology has shrunk in size dramatically since then.

Like all modern stealth jets, Lockheed's UCLASS bid features "signature control," meaning it doesn't just rely on a stealthy shape to remain undetected. It will feature a combination of radar absorbing coatings, heat-masking technology, and various ways of protecting its electronic emissions (radar, satellite communications, etc.) from detection by an enemy, according to the factsheet.

Finally, one operator aboard an aircraft carrier or ashore will be able to control multiple jets as they carry out missions. This last attribute is a key tenet of the UCLASS program, which seeks to field a fleet of semi-autonomous drones that can do everything from land themselves on aircraft carriers to refuel in midair with a pilot simply supervising the mission.

As tensions on the Korean Peninsula rise, the Defense Department officially told Congress that the U.S. may sell 60 stealthy jets to South Korea.

Last Friday, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency -- the arm of DOD that handles foreign military sales -- announced the possible sale of 60 Lockheed Martin-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for $10.8 billion or 60 Boeing-made F-15SE Silent Eagles for $2.4 billon to the Republic of Korea.

The two U.S. defense giants have been pushing their premier export fighters on Seoul for years under the South Korean air force's effort to replace its ancient F-4 Phantoms and F-5 Tigers with a 21^st century fighter, a contest known as FX III.

The U.S. jets are competing against the Eurofighter Typhoon, one of the most advanced operational fighters in the world.

"The proposed sale will augment South Korea's operational aircraft inventory and enhance its air-to-air and air-to ground self-defense capability, provide it with a credible defense capability to deter aggression in the region, and ensure interoperability with U.S. forces," reads DSCA's April 3 announcement of the possible F-15SE sale. "The Republic of Korea Air Force's F-4 aircraft will be decommissioned as F-15SEs are added to the inventory. Korea will have no difficulty absorbing this additional equipment and support into its inventory. "

The April 3 notice of the possible F-35 sale has a nearly identical paragraph with an additional sentence that reads: "The proposed sale of F-35s will provide the Republic of Korea (ROK) with a credible defense capability to deter aggression in the region and ensure interoperability with U.S. forces."

While the fighter contest has been going on since 2012, the notification to Congress comes as tensions are running high between the U.S. and North Korea. Last week U.S. F-22s and B-2 stealth bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. Navy sent two additional destroyers to the region, and the Pentagon announced that it is sending missile defense units to Guam. Seoul was supposed to pick a winner in the FX III contest last fall, but the decision has been pushed back to mid-2013.

The famously over-budget and behind-schedule F-35 is meant to perform both air-to-air and ground-attack missions for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and the militaries of 10 other countries.

Boeing's Silent Eagle is an upgraded version of its venerable F-15 Eagle/F-15E Strike Eagle, featuring V-shaped tails, internal weapons bays, and radar absorbent material in an effort to make it stealthy. Unveiled in 2009, the Silent Eagle is being offered by the Chicago-based company as a low-cost alternative to the F-35. It has no buyers yet, but South Korea's Korean Aircraft Industries is teaming with Boeing to develop the F-15SE's weapons bays.

The Korean air force already flies 60 F-15E Strike Eagles, known as F-15K SLAM Eagles due to their ability to carry SLAM-ER cruise missiles.

Still, the South Korean government has stated that it wants a modern stealth fighter such as the F-22 or the F-35 and even expressed interest in the Russian-made Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA stealth jet. While the F-15SE is stealthier than a regular F-15, it's not as stealthy as a plane designed from the start to be stealthy.

The Defense Department's Inspector General called out the U.S. Army for the fact that thousands of those smartphones that troops buy off-the-shelves to use on the job aren't properly secured.

"The Army Chief Information Officer (CIO) did not implement an effective cybersecurity program for" commercially purchased smartphones and tablets, reads a new announcement from the DOD IG. "Specifically, the Army CIO did not appropriately track [off-the-shelf devices] and was unaware of more than 14,000 [such devices] used throughout the Army."

(The IG investigated the Army's use of phones and tablets running Google's Android, Apple's iOS, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating systems in 2012. It didn't look BlackBerrys since it did a 2009 investigation into their security.)

Troops are already using commercial smartphones and tablets to do things like file flight plans. As the utility and availability of such devices grows, so will the amount, and type of data stored on them. If spies can break into these devices, they can likely glean plenty of useful information. As the report notes, the CIO "inappropriately concluded that [these devices] were not connecting to Army networks and storing sensitive information. As a result, critical information assurance controls were not appropriately applied, which left the Army networks more vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks and leakage of sensitive data." 

The IG goes on to say that the Army failed to: sanitize these devices; failed to install apps on the phones that would protect stored information; allowed troops to store sensitive data on the devices; didn't implement the ability to remotely wipe data off of stolen or lost devices; and failed to make users sign agreements governing the security of their devices or to make them take training on how to keep their smartphones secure.

What's interesting is that the Army's CIO, Lt. Gen. Susan Lawrence, told yours truly last October that the service would be taking some of these very steps to protect the data on commercially purchased smartphones and tablets. Remember, the military -- following the lead of plenty of private sector businesses -- is starting to embrace the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend. It ultimately wants troops to be able to use one device for both personal and official use, barring all but the most classified data

Here's what Lawrence said when Killer Apps asked how the Army would protect its information:

"At the end of the day, we're really are going to become hardware agnostic. Whatever device you feel most comfortable with to do command and control, to be mobile with, is the device that you'll have and that's the one that we'll work with."

"We're in the RIM [Blackberry] environment, we're in the Apple environment, and we're in the [Google Android] already as we go through this."

"What you will agree to do is, if that's the device you want to use, you're going to sign an agreement with me that I get to scan you before you log on. I get to scan your device and then, you're also going to let me monitor you so that I can look for an inside threat as well. So if you're on the government network, you're gonna let me scan you first and you're gonna let me monitor you second."

DOD officials including Lawrence have said that enabling secure mobile computing is a top, if not the top, computing priority within the department. To enable this, Pentagon officials are hustling to field something called the Joint Information Environment, a massive cloud- based network that, over the next decade, will replace the dozens of networks that the DOD currently maintains. Officials say this will make it easier to defend and monitor data and make it easier to access from anywhere.

As Killer Apps quoted Lawrence as saying last October, one of the most important issues in the shift toward mobility and cloud computing "is in fact, ensuring that it's you on the network and that we've got your certifications and accreditations so that when you log on, I say yes, that's that person," said Lawrence.

How do you make sure users are who they say they are? Click here to read about how DARPA wants to monitor everything, from users' typing patterns and sentence structure to the way they hold their phone, to ensure that the person using a computer, smartphone, or tablet is the person who is authorized to use that device.

The Army tells the IG that, as soon as this month, it will start buying software allowing it to "wipe or remove a device from the [Army's networks] as well as monitor applications used, web sites visited, and data viewed, saved, or modified on the mobile devices." This satisfied one of the IG's recommendations that the service develop the ability to make sure mobile device users are secure.

The IG also says the Army "should develop clear and comprehensive policy to include requirements for reporting and tracking all" such devices. "In addition, the Army CIO should extend existing" practices aimed at protecting sensitive information to all off-the-shelf smartphones and tablets.

The Army however, provided what the IG called "nonresponsive" answers to those suggestions.  Specifically, the Army says it already has a reporting program for mobile devices that may carry sensitive data. The IG says this reporting program for registering mobile devices isn't good enough: thousands of unregistered and unauthorized devices were found to be in use.

In response to the IG's recommendation that it do more to protect the data on its devices, the Army said that the DOD is already working on a plan to secure the information on "every managed mobile device" via its Commercial Mobile Implementation plan.  Again, the IG called this answer to its recommendation "nonresponsive," since off-the-shelf mobile devices aren't designated "as information systems, users [of such devices] would not apply the appropriate information assurance controls to protect the devices and the data" on them. Furthermore, because there is no clear timeline to manage the security of these devices, "there's an increased risk that Army networks could be vulnerable to data leakage."