angry

The U.S. Air Force is continuing to expand on the capabilities of the Angry Kitten electronic warfare pod, which just recently made its combat debut on the F-16 fighter in the latest conflict with Iran.

New testing has focused on improving the ability of HC-130J Combat King II combat search and rescue aircraft carrying the pods to receive reprogramming updates in near-real-time via satellite. HC-130Js just recently flew extremely high-risk and high-profile sorties over Iran as part of the effort to rescue the crew of a downed F-15E Strike Eagle. Being able to rapidly refine and optimize Angry Kitten’s capabilities will help the system remain as effective as possible, even in a very quickly evolving threat environment, and could be a stepping stone to more advanced functionality.

The Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center (AATC) recently shared details about new testing of Angry Kitten on the HC-130J during an iteration of the Bamboo Eagle exercise. Bamboo Eagle is a large-scale air combat exercise series focused on preparedness for a high-end fight in the Pacific. AATC has already been test flying Angry Kitten on the HC-130J for more than a year now.

The pods have also been test flown on Air Force A-10 Warthog ground attack jets and Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters. As noted, it is now being employed operationally on Air Force F-16s, as well. Angry Kitten was originally developed to replicate hostile electronic warfare threats during testing and training, as part of a cooperative effort between the Air Force and the Navy, and worked so well that it was adapted to operational use. We will come back to this later on.

During Bamboo Eagle, “AATC’s primary evaluation centered on the Angry Kitten electronic warfare pod integrated aboard a HC-130J Combat King II. The force development evaluation built directly on an operational assessment completed the previous year, which found the system potentially effective and suitable on the platform,” according to a press release that the center put out last week. “Testers incorporated recommendations from that assessment while the 130th Rescue Squadron flew the pod against simulated ship-based and ground-based threats during exercise vulnerability periods, evaluating both survivability and the system’s broader electronic attack capability.”

The 130th Rescue Squadron is part of the California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing.

“Running alongside that effort, AATC continued maturing the Ka/Ku-band communications suite, which enables over-the-horizon communications and near-real-time electronic warfare reprogramming via satellite link,” the release adds. “The suite compresses what was previously a multi-day technique development and distribution process to near-real-time between sorties.”

AATC has previously disclosed that it has been working on this capability, which looks to be unique to the integration of Angry Kitten on the HC-130J, at least currently. The Combat King II has the benefit of a wide-band satellite communication system, which is also found on U.S. special operations C-130 variants and other aircraft. The HC-130J carries the pod using a Special Airborne Mission Installation and Response (SABIR) system installed in place of its left rear paratrooper door.

“The C-130 testing features innovative real-time updates to electronic warfare techniques,” AATC said in a previous press release in March 2025. “Unlike the F-16 tests, where pre-programmed mission data files were used, the C-130 testing includes development engineers aboard the aircraft who can modify jamming techniques mid-mission based on feedback from range control.”

As can be seen above, to date, AATC has largely framed the benefits of this reprogramming capability within the context of accelerating continuing test and evaluation of Angry Kitten. At that same time, this would also be extremely valuable in an operational context.

In general, electronic warfare systems use built-in threat libraries to accurately detect, categorize, and respond to waveforms. In turn, their effectiveness is inherently determined by the breadth of data in that library. Specialists, often working in purpose-built reprogramming laboratories far from the front lines, have to work tirelessly to keep these systems up to date. Historically, this has been a very lengthy process, and one that has increasingly had trouble keeping pace with the rate at which threats are evolving.

As noted, Angry Kitten was developed first as a training and testing tool. It is a direct outgrowth of the AN/ALQ-167 electronic warfare pod, variants of which have been used in those contexts for decades to mimic hostile electronic warfare threats. However, Angry Kitten was designed from the start to be more readily updatable and modifiable in order to make it easier to adapt it to new and evolving threats.

“At the core of that technology is Angry Kitten’s Technique Description Language architecture. Georgia Tech designed TDL as a hybrid that pairs dedicated hardware modules for speed and bandwidth with software for complex decision-making,” according to a press release Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) put out last month. “The practical result: government programmers can reprogram the jammer to counter new threats without sending it back to the contractor for expensive, time-consuming code changes. When an adversary adapts its radar tactics, NAWCWD’s team can update the jammer’s response in days instead of waiting months for a contract modification.”

Angry Kitten is also known to make use of advanced Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology. Using DRFM, radio frequency (RF) signals can be detected and ‘captured.’ Those same signals can then be manipulated and retransmitted. As an example of what this means in practice, signals from enemy air defense radars or radar seekers on incoming missiles can be recorded and pumped back in a way that creates false or otherwise confusing tracks. That same data can also be used as part of the reprogramming process to improve the stability capabilities, as well as be further exploited for general intelligence-gathering purposes.

This all already contributed to the evolution of Angry Kitten into an operational system.

“We had a jammer called ‘Angry Kitten.’ It was built to be an adversary air jamming tool,” now-retired Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, then commander of Air Combat Command (ACC), told TWZ and other outlets back in 2022. “And all of a sudden, the blue team said, ‘you know, hey, we kind of need that, can we have that for us?’ And so I see this iterating and testing our way into this.”

When it comes to near-real-time updates for Angry Kitten, even if the communications suite used on the HC-130J won’t fit on smaller tactical jets, it could potentially be ported over into a capability that is readily deployable to forward locations. Another possibility is that an aircraft with a wide-band satellite communications system could then pass updates for Angry Kitten to other aircraft within line of sight using other datalink capabilities.

The underlying developments have further implications when it comes to developing so-called cognitive electronic warfare capabilities. Cognitive electronic warfare is a broad area of development focused on new technologies to further automate or otherwise accelerate the reprogramming process. The absolute ‘holy grail’ of the overall concept is an electronic warfare system that can adapt autonomously in real time to new threat waveforms, or known ones being modulated in unexpected ways, even right in the middle of a mission. You can read more about all of this here.

Ongoing work to expand and improve Angry Kitten’s capabilities will also now benefit from lessons learned from the employment of the pods in combat sorties over and around Iran.

The multi-day effort to recover the crew of an F-15E Strike Eagle downed in that country earlier this month also highlighted the immense risks involved in combat search and rescue (CSAR) operations, and the importance of adding new self-protection capabilities to the HC-130J, specifically. Air Force Combat King IIs can expect to face far greater threats while conducting CSAR missions during a conflict with a near-peer adversary like China. This has prompted questions about the utility of HC-130Js and other traditional CSAR assets in the context of any future high-end fight.

In the meantime, Angry Kitten continues to evolve in significant ways, including its growing ability to receive key updated data remotely in near-real-time when paired with the HC-130J.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — As Republicans vie for their best shot to win the California governor’s office in two decades, the fight between the most prominent candidates to win over the party of President Trump has switched from subdued to vicious.

Conservative commentator Steve Hilton, at their first one-on-one debate in Rancho Mirage earlier this month, accused rival Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco of coddling illegal immigrants and called him “wishy-washy.” The law enforcement chief called Hilton, a British immigrant, a “fraud” and heartless for denying others the same pathway to U.S. citizenship he received.

“What an outrageous and offensive insult that Chad just made to every legal immigrant in this state and in this country,” Hilton fumed.

The heated exchange took place days before the California Republican Party weighs making an endorsement in the 2026 race for California governor. Hundreds of party delegates will gather in San Diego this weekend to decide, though it’s unclear if either candidate will be able to win the 60% vote threshold to receive the official party nod.

Most polls have shown the two Republicans as the top candidates in the race, despite registered Democratic voters outnumbering Republicans nearly 2-to-1 in California.

Bianco and Hilton are competing against eight heavyweight Democrats who are splintering their party’s votes in the election to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Under California’s unique primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary will move on to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation.

The prospect has alarmed state Democratic leaders, who unsuccessfully urged struggling candidates to drop out to avoid their party being shut out of the November election.

Still, a lot can happen before the June 2 primary to stir up the race. President Trump endorsed Hilton late Sunday, which could significantly influence the state’s GOP voters. More than 6 million Californians voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, though he was trounced by Vice President Kamala Harris, one of the state’s top Democrats.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for governor, and Kate Monroe, chief executive of VETCOMM, talk with a woman lying on the sidewalk on Skid Row in Los Angeles in January.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

On the campaign trail, Bianco and Hilton have frequently raised the prospect of a Republican being elected governor as the result of failed Democratic rule of the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

“For the first time in probably our lifetimes, really since Ronald Reagan … every legitimate poll has either shown me or Steve Hilton at the top two Republicans at the top of [every] statewide poll,” for the last six months, Bianco recently told about 100 attendees at a Valley Unity Republican Women luncheon at the Woodland Hills County Club overlooking verdant fairways.

Hilton, who has participated in more gubernatorial forums and debates than Bianco, said polling that shows him besting Democratic rivals proves that Californians are fed up with 15 years of one-party rule.

“I tell you right now, there is not a single one of them who represents to the slightest degree the change we need in California,” he told a few hundred people at Big Bear’s Calvary Chapel. “We are going to do it this year.”

From afar, Bianco appears to be out of central casting for a GOP candidate for governor: an armed lawman, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and close-cropped hair who has dedicated his life to protecting the vulnerable and locking up criminals.

Bianco, echoing independent pollsters as well as political strategists in both parties, said having “Riverside County Sheriff” next to his name on the official state ballot will be a major boon to his campaign.

“I will tell you this, if we took the names and the party off of the ballot and simply went up with resume — we made you all read a resume of who you’re going to put as your next governor — I would win this election 100% to nothing,” Bianco told the GOP women’s group.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton greets a member of the Big Bear Valley Republican Assembly before speaking at a town hall at Calvary Chapel in Big Bear in March.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

But Bianco’s badge hasn’t shielded him from Hilton’s blistering attacks about the sheriff’s past statements about immigration, pandemic mask mandates and Black Lives Matter protests — which is disqualifying for some GOP voters.

Bianco opposes “sanctuary city” laws, calls for the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and says the border must be secured. But he has also supported a pathway to citizenship for lawful, working undocumented people and told his constituents that his deputies were not taking part in ICE raids.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bianco ordered county residents to wear masks or face punishment, though he later pushed back at Newsom’s stay-at-home orders.

That same year, he and his deputies were photographed kneeling and speaking with protesters in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, an action he has since recast as praying.

Bianco’s wife, Denise, on Thursday accused Hilton of endangering her husband by sending mailers to voters that featured Bianco’s face surrounded by circles that she described as a “bullseye target.”

“We have all watched way too much political violence directed at law enforcement officers in recent years. I never imagined it would come from a political candidate directed at my husband,” she said in an Instagram post. “Steve, why on God’s earth would you think it’s acceptable to put my husband’s face, a dedicated sheriff, on a shooting target?”

Election security has also highlighted differences in the candidates’ views.

Hilton and Bianco echoed Trump’s call to make GOP voter turnout “too big to rig.” But their statements about alleged malfeasance differed.

Hilton decried “total corruption in the voting system in California.”

“I’ve said for the longest possible time that I don’t understand why we can’t do things the way that most places do it, which is vote on one day, count on one day, get the results on one day,” he said.

Asked by a voter about electoral fraud in California in March, Bianco replied that he was confident that law enforcement in California ensures that such fraud is “not happening here,” while agreeing that such “cheating” occurred in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania in the 2020 election.

But the same month, he seized more than 650,000 ballots from the November election as part of an investigation to determine if they were fraudulently counted.

Bianco put the investigation on hold shortly before the California Supreme Court halted it pending further review.

California voters have not elected a Republican as governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006. Two Republicans on the ballot in the June 2 primary election hope to change that.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Hilton has sought to capitalize on these positions, labeling Bianco the “shifty sheriff,” an attack that resonates with some voters.

“The man lies. The man is not honest about taking a knee to BLM, which is unacceptable,” said Agnes Gibboney, 71, of Rancho Cucamonga. “And coming up with three, four different excuses is unacceptable. And then to get mad at the voters for asking the question.”

Bianco has labeled Hilton as a shape-shifting opportunist, pointing to him championing a climate change agenda while advising British Prime Minister David Cameron and expressing support for views expressed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 presidential election, and posting a picture of Hilton hugging Newsom on social media.

“Steve is a fraud. He’s a liar, and I’m not going to sit by and just let him do it anymore,” Bianco said after the Rancho Mirage debate. “When he starts attacking me, he starts attacking my deputies, my profession, I’m not gonna let it happen anymore.”

“He remade himself just for this governor election, and everyone is starting to see through it,” Bianco said.

The son of Hungarians who emigrated to Britain, Hilton served as an advisor to Cameron before becoming an American citizen. At campaign events, supporters have gifted Hilton with a Kézimunka, a traditional Hungarian embroidered cloth, which was stitched with a heart, as well as stars-and-stripes bathing trunks.

“My parents are Hungarian refugees from communism,” Hilton said. “I am fighting to make sure that this state that I love does not turn into the country that I left …. I have renounced my U.K. citizenship. I’m all in for California and America.”

Of the two candidates, Hilton has been more publicly visible, and benefits from GOP voters seeing him speak on Fox News for several years.

Both men argue one-party Democratic rule of California has destroyed a state once viewed as the epitome of the American dream.

Hilton describes state leaders as “far-left lunatics.” They’ve ruined the most amazing, the most beautiful place on earth,” and tweaked a popular Texas slight about someone being all hat and no cattle to describe Newsom.

“He’s all hair, nothing there. Don’t you think it’s time in California we have a governor with less hair?” said Hilton, who sports a smooth crown.

Bianco calls the state’s Democratic leaders “far-left psychopaths” who have enacted policies, taxes and fees that are forcing Californians to flee the state.

“We all know government has completely failed and we’re ready to take our state back,” he said, later adding, “They don’t want our lives better. I do …. No one leaves California because they want to. It’s government agenda and policy that is harming California and making it bad.”

Most of the candidates’ pledges, such as tackling unaffordability, reducing gas prices, increasing capacity in state prisons, protecting gun owners’ rights and keeping trans athletes out of girls’ locker rooms, are nearly identical.

They both promise to slash California’s vehicle registration fees, a proposal that echoes former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pledge to repeal the car tax during the 2003 recall election that was immortalized by his campaign dropping a wrecking ball on an Oldsmobile in Costa Mesa.

Schwarzenegger was elected governor soon after.

No candidate in either party can match Schwarzenegger’s global appeal, or voters’ familiarity with the state’s most recent Democratic governors — including Jerry Brown, the scion of a storied political family — or Newsom’s charisma, added GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, a former Schwarzenegger advisor who is not aligned with any candidate in the 2026 race.

“Voters are finding this to be an uninspiring list of candidates. And in fact, the impressive list would be those that chose not to run, right?” he said, referring to Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta. “So it’s not a surprise that there isn’t much interest.”

Though Hilton and Bianco were previously cordial in person, such as when they crossed paths at September’s state GOP convention, their public criticism of each other has ratcheted up in recent weeks, which could sway the many undecided GOP voters in the race.

“My main contention is looking to see whether or not they’re gonna follow the will of the Lord. So I’m paying attention to what they say and what they do,” said retired Air Force IT specialist David Solomon, 42, after seeing Hilton speak in Big Bear. “It really just comes down to who’s gonna be able to enact their plan.”

Jane Price, a 77-year-old Sherman Oaks resident, said she worried that Republicans failing to unite behind a candidate would give Democrats an edge in the governor’s race.

“We don’t want to split, right? That’s a problem,” the charter member of the woman’s GOP group said after seeing Bianco speak. “The state of California is at stake. We were thriving here in California. But now, it has been nothing but a downhill slide. We need people who appreciate what California is all about.”

Ryanair have shared their brutal opinion on passengers who miss their flights and then complain to the airline, and people have said their video was ‘accurate’

Missing your flight can prove an enormously frustrating ordeal, particularly when the hold-up is completely beyond your control. Delays can occur due to security complications, last-minute boarding gate changes requiring you to trek across the entire airport, or even a late taxi journey to the terminal.

However, occasionally the blame lies squarely with the traveller themselves. It’s widely understood that arriving at the airport with ample time to spare is essential to accommodate these possible setbacks, and opting to turn up at the eleventh hour or lingering so long in duty-free that you miss boarding entirely isn’t the airline’s responsibility.

And in a cheeky video, Ryanair have been refreshingly blunt about their views on such passengers. The Irish budget carrier shared a clip on Facebook in which they mockingly demonstrated what travellers who miss their flights apparently expect the aircraft to do to accommodate them.

The footage depicted a man reaching the airport precisely as his plane departed from the tarmac. He yelled in desperation and dashed onto the runway, whereupon the aircraft looped back and employed some kind of science fiction film-style beam to teleport the man aboard whilst still airborne.

Ryanair captioned it: “What passengers that miss their flight expect us to do.”

Ryanair’s candid video had commenters in stitches, with many responding with laughing emojis. Some expressed bafflement at how frequently travellers lose track of time in airports, ignoring boarding announcements and then becoming irate when the plane departs without them.

One individual commented: “Accurate!”

Another chimed in: “I would work for free in this marketing team.”

A third shared: “I watched four people chatting for like two hours in front of me whilst their gate was open and they waited until everyone boarded the flight, and then went to the gate after it was closed and started shouting at the employees. The whole time they were sitting and chatting, 10 steps, literally, from the gate!”

What to do if you miss your flight

If you find yourself missing your flight, the first course of action should be to ring the airline you’re booked with as soon as you realise you’re going to be late. This could be due to traffic en-route to the airport, other travel disruptions, or lengthy queues at security once inside the airport.

According to Which?, this can boost your chances of being rebooked onto another flight at no extra cost, or if a fee is required, it may be less than the price of purchasing a new ticket. Some airlines offer a “rescue fare” or a “rescue fee” for missed flights, but the conditions for this will vary depending on the airline you’re flying with.

You may also incur a “no-show fee” from certain airlines if you fail to turn up to the airport at all, so if you’re running behind schedule, you should still attempt to reach the airport, even if you don’t manage to board the plane.

Certain travel insurance policies might also provide cover if you miss your flight, but this will be dependent on your policy, and numerous policies don’t offer protection if it’s down to lengthy queues at the airport.

The most effective way to reduce the risk of missing your flight is to allow ample time to journey to the airport and pass through security, taking into account any possible delays.