The Iran War has been a rude awakening for the US. In little over one month, the US has lost at least eight aircraft, including Four F-15E Strike Eagles (3 in friendly fire and one shot down), one A-10 Thunderbolt, and one KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft.
The US forces lost (destroyed) two MC-130J transport planes when the aircraft were unable to take off from their makeshift runway in Iran during the rescue of the downed F-15E jet’s crew. Besides, at least seven aircraft have been damaged, including one F-35, one F-16, and five KC-135 tankers.
In drones, the US losses have been even more striking. Reportedly, the US has already lost more than 15 MQ-9 Reaper drones in the Iran War. This means that, on average, the US has been losing one aircraft per day.
Of course, all these aircraft were lost under different circumstances and for various reasons. For instance, the five KC-135 tankers were damaged while parked on a runway.
The vulnerability of drones is well known, and they have been hit in Yemen, Lebanon, Ukraine, Syria, and in various other conflict zones.
However, it is the loss of aircraft during combat operations that is hurting the US the most. The F-35 incident was the first recorded event in which a US Lightning II stealth aircraft was successfully struck.
However, in almost all mid-air shoot-downs during Operation Epic Fury, one thing that stands out is the lack of a common operating picture that integrates all relevant intelligence and data into actionable information.
Now, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is seeking solutions to this vexing problem.
In its problem statement, the DIU described the handicap as follows: “Aircrew operating in contested environments lack an integrated, in-flight common operating picture (COP) that combines threat awareness, tactical datalink fusion, and blue-force integration.”
The three F-15E Strike Eagles were shot down in Kuwaiti airspace in a suspected case of ‘friendly fire’. This friendly fire incident could have been avoided had the fighter pilots had access to an updated battlefield picture that clearly identified all friendly forces and assets.
Similarly, the freak mid-air accident involving two KC-135 aerial refueller tankers could have been avoided had the pilots had access to real-time data on the position of other friendly aircraft in the vicinity.
Furthermore, the US forces had to self-destroy two MC-130J transport planes because they got stuck in muddy terrain.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a press conference, “It was sandy, wet sand, so we thought there may be a problem taking off because of the weight of the plane… And then we also had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down.”
This could have been avoided if the US forces had updated, real-time information on the terrain, weather, and other variables.
This handicap is particularly acute for large aircraft, such as military transport planes and aerial refueling tankers, as they often operate with outdated maps and terrain data.
“This problem is especially relevant for large, high-value airlift and tanker aircraft that utilize avionics and mission systems that are optimized for more permissive operations.”
“This requires crews to rely heavily on pre-mission planning products, voice updates, and aging platform-specific displays that cannot dynamically integrate with enterprise battlefield, intelligence, communications, and logistics networks, or ingest mission-relevant updates under degraded, disrupted, intermittent, or limited (DDIL) communication environments,” the DIU said in its problem statement.
The lack of a common integrated picture directly impacts the survivability of aircraft in contested environments.
“As operations evolve toward contested logistics and increased threat scenarios, this gap directly degrades aircraft survivability, limits dynamic retasking, and constrains the ability of commanders to project and sustain force.”
To overcome these challenges, the US Air Force (USAF) aircraft are currently employing platform-agnostic, open mission systems for networking and interoperability, offering enhanced connectivity and flexibility. These systems include, but are not limited to, Software-Defined Radios (SDRs), on-board compute and storage with aircraft data bus interfaces, COTS display systems, software-defined networking (SD-WAN), sensor/data integration subsystems, and off-the-shelf communications equipment to get the data they need.
However, there are no overarching standards to follow, so during complex combat operations, aircraft often cannot communicate with one another or share critical battlefield information.
To address these shortcomings, the DIU is asking for an open-architecture software suite that fuses real-time data into a clear, credible common operating picture of moving objects, threats, and environmental conditions.
“To fully capitalize on these emerging open system architectures, the Department seeks prototype solutions for a modular, open mission engine (OMEN) that powers a suite of new mission applications and plugins for aircrew operating in contested environments.”
This engine should enable rapid development, deployment, and sustainment of mission applications across approved airborne and mobile form factors, it added.
The first application on the platform, the DIU proposal clarifies, should be an aviation Tactical Moving Map tool that improves in-flight situational awareness, threat understanding, and mission decision support under DDIL environments.
“The moving map tool will serve as a baseline for future mission capabilities,” it added.
In particular, the DIU seeks solutions to three technical lines of difficulty:
First, a government-owned, modular application engine with an open Software Development Kit (SDK), published application interfaces (APIs), reusable high-fidelity commercial-grade user interface (UI) components, and support for cross-platform deployment.
Solutions should support scalable lifecycle management, configuration control, secure software delivery, observability, and operation in connected, disconnected, and DDIL environments, it said.
Secondly, a mission application that fuses relevant operational data into a single aircrew display, including blue-force awareness, threat and airspace overlays, mission updates, and route decision support.
Solutions should emphasize usability, performance, offline resiliency, and suitability for operational aviation use, it added.
And, thirdly, a data integration layer that normalizes operational and aeronautical data through a language-agnostic Critical Abstraction Layer (CAL) and modular protocol adapters. Relevant sources include Cursor on Target (CoT) for TAK ecosystem integration, Universal Command & Control Interface (UCI) / J-series pathways aligned to the Department of the Air Force’s Battle Network (DAF Battle Network), Unified Data Library (UDL), and common aviation sources such as DAFIF, D-FLIP, NOTAMs, and related mission data services.
The DIU further said that a successful delivery of the prototype would result in follow-on production agreements that might be substantially larger in scope.
“The magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the Prototype OT agreement,” it said.
The solution will provide US aircraft pilots, even on older transport and refueling tankers, with access to a common aircrew display that provides real-time, map-based information on terrain, weather, friend-and-foe identification, and threat prioritization in contested environments, including disconnected and DDIL environments.
This could go a long way toward reducing US aircraft losses during complex combat operations.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
- VIEWS PERSONAL OF THE AUTHOR
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
