General Explains Institute Goals

Gen. James McCarthy, USAF (Ret.), director of the Institute for Information Technology Application (IITA) at the U.S. Air Force Academy, served as the guest speaker at the chapter's April luncheon. He explained the history of the IITA, which started as a result of an Air Force Science Advisory Board need assessment. IITA started with Gen. McCarthy and now has a $9 million budget and 24 cadets doing critical information technology research on aspects of shared flight planning in automated air operations centers and designing a 3-D wedge viewer for air drops and piloting unmanned aerial vehicles at the academy that fly complete intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance cycles on an experimental basis. In addition, the GeoBase information technology program was created to locate all buildings and equipment on a base. The general's talk brought forth many questions and generated a long line of questioners after the luncheon. The chapter made a donation to the Wounded Warriors in recognition of the luncheon.

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