NAWCWD’s military and civilian workforce filled Stackley’s daylong visit to China Lake with demonstrations and discussions about several work focus areas including electronic warfare systems, target and threat simulation, and unmanned systems. Stackley then went on a walking tour of NAWCWD’s Advanced Weapons Lab where he saw firsthand how the integrated approach to development, integration, and test (operational test and developmental test) of software, systems and weapons for the F-18 aircraft, maintained during the last 35 years, has provided the fleet with significant capability improvements affordably and effectively. He also heard how the Navy can leverage this experience to help support the Joint Strike Fighter in the future.

Other discussions focused on the technical advances made by NAWCWD weapons developments including Spike missile, synthetic guidance, the digital precision strike suite, and weapons propulsion opportunities for the government to assume more of a leadership role going forward. He also saw the unique resources that are already in place and ready to support a variety of work important to the Navy during an overview of the NAWCWD land range at China Lake.