USAF seeks to remould battle planning

US Air Force (USAF) is planning an air war on the fly rather than on a three-day interval and hooking a host of incompatible radio and datalinks together on an airborne Internet, emerged as promising tools during a bi-annual field experiment for network-centric warfare products. The next step after the experiment is for a sponsor, such as US Central Command, to put up the funding to fully develop and field the joint and multi-national command and control system. A planned upgrade for the existing computer system in the Air Operations Centre (AOC), the Theater Battle Operations Net-centric Environment (T-BONE), is also designed to allow AOC staff to quickly visualize and address planning details, such as how modifying the mission of a fighter sortie affects the demand for refueling aircraft. Another major area of emphasis is expanding the reach of Internet protocol-based networking for a force still reliant on radios that cannot talk to each other.