How the Pentagon Is Buying Runway Time Like an Airline

The U.S. military used to own or lease test ranges for everything from fighter jets to drone swarms, paying for entire facilities year-round even when they sat idle. Now the Pentagon is shifting to a 'test-as-a-service' model, buying runway time, airspace access, and range instrumentation by the hour—like an airline buying gate slots or a cloud customer buying compute. Lucas and Luna break down the economics: how the Defense Innovation Unit brokered a deal with a commercial test range in Nevada, why this matters for small defense startups that couldn't afford their own testing infrastructure, and what the recent dip in Lockheed Martin stock—down more than 5 percent in a week—says about the broader shift toward modular, commercially-sourced defense capabilities. #Pentagon #TestAsAService #DefenseInnovationUnit #DIU #RangeModernization #CommercialTestRange #NevadaRange #LockheedMartin #StartupAccess #ModularDefense #RunwayTime #FighterJets #DroneTesting #Aerospace #MilitaryTech #BusinessAndTechnology #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo