The National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) is the United States Air Force unit for analyzing military intelligence on foreign air forces, weapons, and systems. NAIC assessments of aerospace performance characteristics, capabilities, and vulnerabilities are used to shape national security and defense policies and support weapons treaty negotiations and verification.[1] NAIC provides the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) with specialized intelligence regarding foreign air threats.
"By 1944, it had become obvious that German aeronautical technology was superior in many ways, to that of this country, and we needed to obtain this technology and make use of it," said P-47 and Messerschmitt Me 262 pilot USAAF Lieutenant Roy Brown during a speech at NASIC in 2014. To accomplish this task, then Colonel Harold E. Watson was sent from Wright Field to Europe in 1944, to locate German aircraft of advanced design. Watson would become an integral part of forming the intelligence unit that would eventually become NASIC.[10]
On 21 May 1951, the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) was established as a USAF field activity of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence.[4] ATIC analyzed engine parts and the tail section of a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 and in July, the center received a complete MiG-15 that had crashed. ATIC also obtained IL-10 and Yak-9 aircraft in operational condition, and monitored a captured MiG-15's flight test program. ATIC awarded a contract to Battelle Memorial Institute for translation and analysis of materiel and documents gathered during the Korean War. Analysis allowed FEAF to develop fighter engagement tactics. In 1958 ATIC had a Readix Computer in Building 828, 1 of 6 WPAFB buildings used by the unit prior to the center built in 1976.[4]
FTD detachments were located in Virginia, California (Det 2), Germany (Det 3), Japan (Det 4), and Det 5—first in Massachusetts and later Colorado (Buckley ANGB).[14] By 1968 FTD had an "Aerial Phenomenon Office"[15] and in 1983, FTD/OLAI at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex published the Analysis of Cosmos 1220 and Cosmos 1306 Fragments.[16]
In 1971 the FTD obtained, translated, and published a copy of the paper Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction, originally a Russian-language work by Pyotr Ufimtsev of the Central Research Radio Engineering Institute [ЦНИРТИ] of the Defense Ministry of the Soviet Union, which became the basis for stealth aircraft technology.[17][18][19][20]
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In October 1993 at the end of the Cold War, FTD became the National Air Intelligence Center[21] as "a component of the Air Intelligence Agency",[22] and by 2005 had a Signals Exploitation Division SAM.gov | Home after being renamed the National Air and Space Intelligence Center on 15 February 2003.[14]
NASIC's Defense Intelligence Space Threat Committee coordinates "a wide variety of complex space/counterspace analytical activities."[23] The Center includes a library with interlibrary loan to Air University, etc.[1]
NAIC's 4,100 civilian, military, Reserve, National Guard, and contract personnel are split between the Centers' four intelligence analysis groups, four support directorates, and 18 squadrons.
The Air and Cyberspace Intelligence Group; Geospatial and Signatures Intelligence Group; Global Exploitation Intelligence Group; and Space, Missiles and Forces Intelligence Group comprise the four intelligence groups; the Directorate of Communications and Information, Directorate of Personnel, Directorate of Facilities and Logistics, and Directorate of Plans and Operations comprise the four support directorates.[1]
^Futrell, Robert F. (July 1947). Development of AAF Base Facilities in the United States: 1939–1945 (Report). Vol. ARS-69: US Air Force Historical Study No 69 (Copy No. 2). Air Historical Office. p. 114. In December 1942 a contract was executed with Yale University whereby the university leased facilities for the training of the communications, engineering, armament and photography aviation cadets. These detachments were transferred from Scott, Chanute, and Lowry Field in January 1943.137 Harrisburg Academy at Harrisburg, Pa., was leased for the Air Intelligence School, which opened there in April 1942.138
^Ashcroft, Bruce (Autumn 1994). "Air Force Foreign Materiel Exploitation". American Intelligence Journal. 15 (2). National Military Intelligence Foundation: 79–82. ISSN0883-072X. JSTOR44326924.
^Garcia, Jeannette E. (18 October 2019). "16th Air Force emerges from combination of 24th, 25th Air Force". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 5 October 2020