In a preview of the 2017 defense budget during a breakfast event at the Economic Club in Washington, D.C., U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter revealed that the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office is working on developing an arsenal plane that an older generation flying platform into a flying launch pad for a range of conventional payloads.
“In practice, the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, networked to fifth-generation aircraft that acts as forward sensor and targeting nodes – essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create wholly new capabilities.”