About African Lion

African Lion 25 is U.S. Africa Command's largest, premier, annual exercise, hosted across Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia. This joint, all-domain, multi-component, and multinational exercise includes more than 10,000 participants from more than twenty nations, including contingents from NATO. African Lion aims to strengthen interoperability among participants and build readiness to respond to crises and contingencies in Africa and around the world.

The exercise will include a command post exercise, field training exercises, a live-fire demonstration, and humanitarian civic assistance program events. Additionally, humanitarian civic assistance missions will feature a combination of medical, dental and veterinary assistance and exchanges across Morocco, Ghana and Senegal. 

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African Lion 25 Announcment

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Videos
Video by Tom Shortridge
AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY (ANCILLARY)
DARPA
April 5, 2023 | 1:23
DARPA’s AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY X-Plane program, nicknamed ANCILLARY, aims to develop and flight demonstrate critical technologies required for a leap ahead in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), low-weight, high-payload, and long-endurance capabilities. The goal is to build a plane that can launch from ship flight decks and small austere land locations in adverse weather without launch and recovery equipment typically needed for these systems. “The ability for the warfighter to deploy and retrieve such systems in challenging conditions without reliance on infrastructure would minimize personnel, costs, and vulnerability during sensitive operations,” said Steve Komadina, the DARPA program manager for ANCILLARY. A large non-traditional commercial industry base has fueled recent VTOL research investments and advanced controls leading to innovative vehicle configurations spanning size, weight, power, and cost. Advancements in small propulsion systems, high capacity low weight batteries, fuel cells, materials, electronics, and low-cost additive manufacturing can now enable new architectures and designs to be explored in this trade space. “ANCILLARY plans to use a multi-disciplinary approach that will bring together developments in advanced control theory, aerodynamic modelling, and advanced propulsion to solve a combination of challenging design objectives,” said Komadina. “The upcoming Proposers Day and Expo on September 20, 2022, will not only bring together traditional aircraft manufactures, but also non-traditional military contractors that have been investigating commercial VTOL solutions.”
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