Take Sentinel Off the Air Force Books? ‘Doesn’t Create New Money,’ Kendall Says

Take Sentinel Off the Air Force Books? ‘Doesn’t Create New Money,’ Kendall Says

Jan. 14, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force leaders say their budgets aren’t big enough for all the service needs to do to prepare for great power competition with the likes of China—and amid this resource-constrained environment, one of the biggest item on the service’s books is the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

But while some advocates have argued in favor of pulling out Sentinel and nuclear modernization into their own budget account separate from the Air Force, outgoing Secretary Frank Kendall is lukewarm on the idea, saying it wouldn’t really solve any of the services’ budgetary problems.

“You could separate it. You could put it into a separate account. That doesn’t make it cheaper,” Kendall told Air & Space Forces Magazine. In another interview, he said such an approach “doesn’t create new money.”

The Navy has moved some of its strategic deterrent capabilities to separate accounts, trying to relieve financial pressure on its day-to-day investment and operating accounts, but Kendall doesn’t see that as a long-term solution, for either the Navy or the Air Force.

Rather, he concluded that strategic nuclear modernization programs are “corporate problems” for the Pentagon writ large, especially given that DOD is attempt to modernize its entire nuclear triad at once for the first time in decades.

That is “an extraordinary circumstance, and everybody knows that. So when we build budgets … we approach it that way,” Kendall said, adding that, “It’s not presumed that the services have to eat the cost of these things that … come along generationally like this.”

Still, between the cost of Sentinel, recent budget caps, and other conventional modernization projects, the Air Force faces tough choices. Kendall has said the service cannot afford the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, and the Next-Generation Aerial refueling System all at once within its expected budgets.

The most recent estimate pegs the cost of Sentinel at more than $140 billion; an amount that could easily cover the cost of NGAD, CCA, and NGAS combined.

Despite this, Kendall said putting Sentinel in a separate account “just gives you a different level of visibility into it, which has probably some merit, but I don’t think it probably changes the equation.”

Budget Math

Another persistent issue advocates say complicates perceptions of the Air Force budget is the “pass-through,” a collection of funds that placed under the Air Force but that it does not control, instead going to various classified efforts.

Kendall said he never attempted to get rid of the “pass-through” for reasons similar to the nuclear modernization account.

“The people that do our budgets understand this,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a factor in their thinking about how they allocate resources.”

When the “pass-through” is taken out, the Air Force typically receives fewer resources than the Army and Navy, even though the National Defense Strategy for eight years has said that the Air Force and Navy have a disproportionate burden of preparing for conflict in the Pacific.

Yet Kendall said that the overall DOD budget shouldn’t be gauged on how evenly funds are allocated among to the services, calling it a “fundamental mistake” to do so.

“We should be looking at, what does the country need to defend itself, and then allocating resources according to that, and who gets what share should not really be part of the equation, as far as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Budget Speed

Kendall said his biggest regret as he leaves office was the struggle to obtain sufficient funds for “completion and execution” of his program, such as the Operational Imperatives he created to highlight the technologies needed to deter or defeat an adversary like China.

“The biggest limitation we had over the last four years has been money, and the length of time it takes to get it,” he said. Between budget submission delays, continuing resolutions, and other budgetary obstacles, “it took … two and a half years to get money for things we knew we needed to do,” Kendall said.

Kendall did praise Congress for approving the Quick Start authorities he requested, so that urgent programs can get underway outside of the normal budgeting process “I’d love to see that expanded so that we don’t have to wait quite so long to do the early, low-cost, but very important work on a new program. That would be a terrific thing to expand. I think I wish I’d had the opportunity to do that,” he said. The Quick Start program has a ceiling of $100 million, which he has previously said is sufficient for the most urgent programs.

Kendall also thinks he succeeded in raising “a growing awareness throughout the department that we have got to be ready for a pure competitor unlike any that we’ve probably ever seen before, and that that has to be approached with a sense of commitment and urgency across the enterprise. … I think we’ve made a lot of progress in that regard, and that’s going to carry us forward.”

He’s not concerned that such focus will be lost under the new administration, “because I think the focus on China as the pacing challenge really was part of the National Security Strategy during the first Trump term. I think it will be a … central part of the strategy during the second term, just as it was for us in the last four years. So I think moving the enterprise in that direction overall is probably the most significant thing that I’ve done.”

Last D-Day C-47 Pathfinder Pilot Dies at 102

Last D-Day C-47 Pathfinder Pilot Dies at 102

Jan. 14, 2025 | By David Roza

Lt. Col. David Hamilton, the last surviving C-47 pilot who flew pathfinding paratroopers into France during the 1944 D-Day invasion, died Jan. 5 at the age of 102.

Hamilton was born in Watford, England, in 1922 and lived in Paris until he and his family moved to New York City when he was six years old. His father flew in World War I and his older brother was a pilot with United Airlines, so when Hamilton joined the U.S. Army Air Forces on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, his goal was to fly.

It took a few years, but in early 1944 the newly-trained C-47 transport pilot arrived in England, where his substantial amount of instrument flying experience earned him a slot in the Pathfinders, a special unit of 20 C-47 crews forming up ahead of the D-Day invasion.

The Pathfinders carried about 300 Pathfinder paratroopers just two hours ahead of the larger invasion of approximately 13,000 paratroopers. The ground troops’ goal was to mark landing zones and drop zones to guide in the other aircraft. 

American paratroopers prepare to board their C-47 for their jump into Normandy. (U.S. Air Force photo / National Archives and Records Administration)

The Pathfinder aircrews used a suite of cutting-edge radar and radio navigation equipment. One was the SCR-717 microwave navigation radar, which, according to the National Air & Space Museum, involved a rotating dish in a radome mounted below the C-47. The dish emitted radar waves that reflected off the terrain and gave the navigator a picture of the shorelines, rivers, roads, and cities below on his cathode ray tube display.

“We had a $100,000 airplane with $500,000 worth of radar in it,” Hamilton told the American Veterans Center in 2022. But the investment paid off when the C-47 flew at night at low altitude.

“I could fly anywhere in northern Europe at night 25 feet above the ground and know I was safe,” he said. 

Lt. Col. David Hamilton crouches in the lower right hand corner with a Pathfinder unit.

Taking off for his first combat mission late the night of June 5, 1944, Hamilton said he was not scared, but he was aware of his responsibility as aircraft commander.

“It exceeded that of a fighter pilot who only had himself and his airplane,” he told the Commemorative Air Force in 2021. “I had myself, my airplane, and a crew, plus all the paratroopers and an observer. So I had, you know, 26 people on that airplane when we took off.”

Once over the English Channel, they descended to just 50 feet above the water to get below German radar, then lifted up to 900 feet over the coast of France where they ran into a cloud bank. The clouds wreaked havoc on the Pathfinder formation, as pilots lost sight of the planes in front of them, according to the Air Mobility Command museum, but Hamilton managed to keep track of his flight commander’s right wing. 

“I pulled just down the bottom of the cloud bank, broke out, gave them the green light, out they went,” he said. “Took about 10 seconds to get 20 troopers out.” 

Hamilton then had to lift his right wing fast to avoid clipping the steeple of a church at Sainte-Mère-Église, he said. But the way back took the crew’s breath away, as the navigator showed them the radar display of the English Channel filled with invasion ships.

“Every individual ship was a dot. It looked like you could walk from England to France,” he said. “[That’s] the one mission that I always look back on as the most important mission I ever flew, because D-Day was so important and it was the beginning of something that was so important. And I didn’t start to really feel that until I saw that picture.” 

A Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft “That’s All, Brother” flies over France in support of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, June 4, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Alvaro Villagomez)

On returning to base, Hamilton’s crew found their C-47’s wingtip blown off and engine controls damaged by 20mm cannon fire, along with 300 tiny holes from .25 caliber machine pistol rounds. He later found out that six of the paratroopers who stepped off his plane were shot before they hit the ground.

“They took a beating,” he said.

A Lifelong Storyteller

D-Day was just the start of the war for Hamilton, who dropped everything from British spies over southern France to winter clothes and ammunition over Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. He ferried Allied generals to the battlefields, took a captured German general back to England, and carried gravely wounded soldiers out of Holland after Operation Market Garden. 

After the war, Hamilton flew C-47s and C-54s for civilian airlines, but he rejoined the Air Force to serve in the Korean War, where he flew 51 missions in RB-26 reconnaissance aircraft, according to the Commemorative Air Force. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, five Air Medals, and two Presidential Unit Citations. He played a role developing the Sidewinder missile and analyzing intelligence during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Hamilton retired from the Air Force in 1963 and went on to become “an executive with a well-known food and liquor distributor,” according to the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

“Beyond his military achievements, Hamilton was a cherished storyteller and educator, often sharing his experiences at airshows, universities, and other events,” wrote the Commemorative Air Force. 

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. David Hamilton recalls his experience of the D-Day invasion in a 2022 interview with the American Veterans Center. (Screenshot via American Veterans Center)

Indeed, his flair for storytelling never faded. In his 2021 interview with the Commemorative Air Force, the 99-year-old recalled crash-landing a C-47 in a field in England, where the belly-mounted radome stopped the aircraft from hurtling over a 200-foot cliff. 

“The only thing that was damaged in the plane, other than the plane, was three cases of Italian whiskey,” he said. “Well, not whiskey, wine–Strega, I don’t know if you know what Strega is, but you don’t want to drink it. They put it and battery acid in the same category.” 

In 2019, Hamilton enjoyed his second trip aboard a C-47 over Normandy as part of a 75th anniversary celebration of D-Day, albeit this time without anti-aircraft fire. The next month, he flew a C-47 again over Oklahoma. 

“His continued involvement in CAF events, including airshows and educational programs, made him a beloved figure in the aviation history community,” wrote the Commemorative Air Force.

Hegseth Vows to ‘Look Under the Hood’ of NGAD, Review Air Force Capacity

Hegseth Vows to ‘Look Under the Hood’ of NGAD, Review Air Force Capacity

Jan. 14, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Pete Hegseth vowed to review plans for the future of the Air Force during a contentious three-and-half-hour confirmation hearing Jan. 14 on his nomination to serve as the next Secretary of Defense. 

“That’s a very important conversation, one that I’ve been looking at a great deal,” Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee when asked about the future composition of the Air Force by Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.).

Much of the hearing was marked by partisan clashes about whether the former Fox News host and Army National Guard officer is qualified to serve as the head of a sprawling department that spends more than $830 billion a year and controls the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Hegseth has faced allegations of personal misconduct, which he has denied, and financial mismanagement at nonprofits he previously ran.

Hegseth acknowledged he did not have the same experience as the retired generals, veteran policymakers, and academics who have previously run the Pentagon. But he argued that would give him a fresh perspective since he had no preexisting loyalties to weapon programs. 

“I don’t have a special interest in any particular system or any particular company or any particular narrative,” he said. “I want to know what works, what defeats our enemies, what keeps us safe, what deters them, what keeps our enemies up at night—whatever it is, I want more of it, and I want to invest in it. I know that’s the view of President Trump as well.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Hegesth had refused to meet with him before the hearing and that he intended to press him on policy issues soon. One of Kaine’s concerns, he said in response to a question from Air & Space Forces Magazine, is “whether somebody who had, at most, maybe managed 100 persons at a time in organizations that had annual budgets in the $10 million range is up to the task.”

Perhaps the most significant Air Force decision Hegseth will face, if he is confirmed by the Senate, will be the future of the Air Force’s crewed penetrating counter-air Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter. 

The Biden administration, under current Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, left a decision on whether to proceed with the costly program to the incoming Trump administration.

Hegseth did not indicate how he was leaning, noting “precisely the cost and capabilities, including the capabilities of enemy systems” are classified. But he echoed Kendall’s long-standing view about the imperative of countering China’s military buildup. The Trump administration has yet to name a nominee for Secretary of the Air Force.

“You’ve already seen a prototype, at least from the Chinese, that’s a dangerous development—at least concerning the publicly understood condition of NGAD,” Hegseth said, referring to the recent unveiling by China of what he called a “potential sixth-generation” aircraft.

NGAD was organizationally envisioned as an F-22 Raptor replacement that would cost multiple hundreds of millions of dollars. The Air Force ordered a review of the program last summer in light of its considerable cost and budget pressures, which have been aggravated by the Sentinel intercontinental missile program. A blue-ribbon panel assembled by the Air Force recommended proceeding with a crewed NGAD platform with only minor tweaks.

But some in Trump’s orbit, such as Elon Musk, the billionaire who runs SpaceX and Tesla, have said the Air Force should ditch manned fighters such as the F-35 Lightning II, which the Air Force currently plans to operate late into the 21st century, including to control new semi-autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

Hegseth promised to “look under the hood” of the NGAD program but provided few clues on how he might come out in the debate over how much to rely on manned fighters or drones. 

“In the Indo-Pacific, say, interoperability, range could matter because it’s such a large battle space,” Hegseth said. “Unmanned will be a very important part of the way future wars are fought—just the idea of survivability for a human being drives cost and time in a way unmanned systems do not.”

He also called for maintaining a substantial level of defense spending despite the concerns of budget hawks. 

“Going under 3 percent … is very dangerous,” Hegseth said when asked by SASC Chairman Roger Wicker (R.-Miss.) about the percentage of U.S. Gross Domestic Product that should be spent on national defense. 

Hegseth also strongly endorsed the Pentagon’s nuclear modernization efforts, citing the “existential” importance of programs such as Air Force’s B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the Sentinel ICBM, and the ballistic-missile carrying Columbia-class submarine.

“Ultimately, our deterrence, our survival, is reliant upon the capability, the perception, and the reality of the capability of our nuclear triad; we have to invest in its modernization for the defense of our nation,” Hegseth said.

Much of the hearing focused on Hegseth’s previously expressed views that women should not serve in combat, a view the nominee has modified by insisting that women can make important contributions to the military if standards are maintained. 

The hearing is likely to boost Hegseth’s chances of being confirmed by the Senate. Many Democrats, who highlight allegations that Hegseth sexually assaulted women and abused alcohol, pledged to vote against his nomination. But Hegseth rejected those accusations as smears, and he appears to have support among Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the Senate.

The future of the Air Force also figured in Hegseth’s written testimony that was submitted to the committee before the hearing.

Though Hegseth did not explicitly endorse a higher Air Force budget, he said that current Air Force plans would leave the service with fewer than half of the fighters and bombers, roughly two-thirds of the tankers, and three-fourths of the airlift assets it had the “last time the United States was prepared to fight a near-peer competitor.”

“The Air Force did not grow larger during the post 9-11 buildup. Instead, it grew smaller as the acquisition of new aircraft failed to offset programmed retirements of older aircraft,” Hegseth wrote. “Over the last 30 years, the Air Force fighter aircraft inventory has shrunk. This development threatens the ability of the Air Force to achieve air superiority in a near-peer competitor conflict.”

Hegseth indicated he supported a larger Air Force—at least in terms of its fleet of fighter jets.

“The Air Force needs a mix of fourth and fifth generation aircraft balancing advanced capabilities and affordability to increase our fighter inventory, as called for in the 2018 ‘The Air Force We Need’ plan rolled out during President Trump’s first administration,” referring to a plan that at the time envisioned 386 operational squadrons. That plan never came to fruition.

Hegseth also wrote that he would direct a review of the Air Force’s tanker plans, including whether to procure more KC-46s and pursue the Next Generation Air-refueling System (NGAS), as the “KC-135 fleet is aging fast.”

Air Force 2050: Kendall Forecasts Bigger Space Force, More Standoff Strike

Air Force 2050: Kendall Forecasts Bigger Space Force, More Standoff Strike

Jan. 13, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Editor’s Note: This story was updated Jan. 14 to correct the source of the quote about the 2026 budget.

By the year 2050, the Department of the Air Force should see a much larger Space Force; large numbers of combat drones; a growing shift to standoff strike; and stealthy transports, Secretary Frank Kendall said Jan. 13.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies just a few days before leaving office, Kendall used his last think tank appearance to discuss a report mandated by Congress in late 2023 directing the department to consider its force design through 2050.

The resulting document, completed in December but not publicized until now, doesn’t lay out aircraft quantities, readiness goals, or many other specifics—that would be “almost impossible to do with any kind of accuracy,” given the many variables in politics, technology, international alliances and strategic shifts that may lie ahead, Kendall said.

Instead, the report focuses on the general direction the department should go and the challenges it will face along the way.

“China, China, China remains a problem,” Kendall said, quoting his own oft-repeated mantra. “Russia doesn’t go away as a serious threat.”

Kendall also said he expects that the missions of the Air Force and Space Force “don’t fundamentally change, but both services need to go through a transformation.” 

For starters, Kendall said, “we’re going to need a much bigger, much more capable, much more powerful Space Force,” which the report says should be three or four times USSF’s current size of roughly 9,400 uniformed personnel. He repeated an analogy used often by Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman that USSF must transition from a merchant marine to a Navy, capable of projecting power in a contested domain.

Later in the day, at a farewell for Kendall and Air Force undersecretary Melissa Dalton, top Space Force officers suggested that transition is on a good track, with more funds tabbed for the service in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2026 budget request.

Dalton praised the “outstanding work of the entire DAF team in the last program and budget review for fiscal 2026. Their deliberate campaign enabled our team to successfully advocate for $87 billion of additional topline. While it is up to the next administration to determine where the ’26 budget will land, you have a compelling foundation for them to consider.”  

There has been “pretty good progress” in maturing how the Space Force the develops and requires distributed, resilient architectures of satellites, Kendall said at CSIS. But the work ahead will focus on counter-space capabilities—and that will require significant investment.

In an early January interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine, Kendall said there’s “a widespread understanding that the Air Force alone can’t pay for what the Space Force needs.” Becoming the “navy” described in the merchant marine analogy is “not cheap,” he said. “It’s a major deal. It’s a strategic shift that we have to recognize.”

“We’ve got to look at the total of the DOD budget and the priorities for that overall,” Kendall said. “I can’t see any logic that would support trying to fund the new Space Force that we need … solely out of the Air Force. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

He also said it is nonsensical to simply assign the services roughly equal shares of the defense budget.

“If you approach the DOD budget on the point of view of fairness between the services, you’re making a fundamental mistake,” he said. “That’s not the metric we should be looking at. We should be looking at, what does the country need to defend itself, and then allocating resources according to that, and who gets what share should not really be part of the equation.”

At CSIS, Kendall said the Space Force will rely on heavily automated and autonomous capabilities in the years ahead for space situational awareness, targeting, and missile warning and tracking. Communications will “heavily leverage commercial partners,” and the need for resilient position, navigation and timing—“GPS and other systems like it”—will be of paramount importance, given how much both the military and civil society rely on that capability.

In the 2050 report, Kendall predicted that the cost of access to space will continue to fall for both the U.S. and its adversaries, and space capabilities will “proliferate,” he said. This will create opportunities for the Space Force to put things in space more quickly and reliably and more responsively—potentially even keeping some capabilities in storage ready to go in case of a contingency.

Long-Range Strike

Strategically, Kendall said the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile and the B-21—the Air Force’s two modernization programs for its legs of the nuclear triad—will remain foundational to U.S. national security through 2050, and he suggested shifting the conventional force to emphasize the long-range strike of bombers may be in the offing.

“The Air Force is very heavily dependent on relatively short-range aircraft—fighters—and has a relatively small inventory of longer-range strike platform—bombers,” Kendall said. “I think that balance needs to shift.”

He reiterated previous comments to Air & Space Forces Magazine about potentially increasing the production rate of the B-21, but he also said “you can talk about possibly another [strategic] platform, or other platforms, in addition to the B-21 being in the mix” by the middle of the century.

Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin has previously suggested new long-range strike systems might make it unnecessary to go beyond the currently planned fleet of 100 B-21s.

Conversely, the precision and range of adversary weapons will continue to grow too. Kendall suggested ”intercontinental effects are going to be conventional,” which poses “a really big problem,” particularly for the Navy.

While Air Force bases “may be attackable,” land cannot be sunk, Kendall noted. As such, the Navy faces a “steep challenge,” while the Air Force will be “the centerpiece of resilient U.S. power projection in the future.”

Despite the increasing challenge of fighting in contested airspace, and the safety of forward air bases,  Kendall also said it will always be necessary to forward deploy aircraft and capabilities.

“We’re going to continue our system of alliances around the world, and we need to be there with our partners and our allies. So there have to be aircraft that can operate from those kinds of environments, be survivable, and deliver the effects that we need forward with our partners,” he said.

Tactical Forces

Much remains uncertain about the future of the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, and Kendall has punted a decision on its fate to his successors in the new Trump administration. Still, he claimed the concept is “very valid,” and that while Collaborative Combat Aircraft and autonomous drones will become a greater part of the force by 2050, there will still “a continuing need for crewed aircraft to have reliable communications and command and control over uncrewed aircraft.”

Getting rid of pilots altogether “is an incredibly difficult, emotional thing,” Kendall said, given their centrality to the “history and legacy of the Air Force.”

Mobility Forces

The aerial tanker fleet is increasingly “vulnerable to very long range—even ultra-long range—counter-air systems,” Kendall said, insisting that “we have got to address that survivability issue.” It’s one of the reasons that missions like intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and command, control and communications are shifting to space, though there will always be some need for aircraft, Kendall said.

“We have to rethink how we provide mobility to the force and how we ensure survivability,” he said, “and that may require completely new designs.”

Stealth is a major consideration for the Next-Generation Air refueling System, but there has been “no final decision on that. That’s part of the suite of decisions the Trump administration will have to make. But the need for survivability is obvious, and it’s going to continue, in general, a very fundamental in warfare about increased range in which people can deliver effects,” Kendall said.

Budget Dangers

Given all the improvements and changes Kendall is forecasting by 2050, the department will need a corresponding increase in resources, Kendall said.

“The picture that we lay out in the report lays out an optimistic … scenario for us getting the funding we need to have the Air Force and Space Force,” and lays out what will happen if those resources are provided.

Yet the report also outlines the challenges in the way of those changes that have nothing to do with adversaries: “constrained budgets, reluctance to retire obsolete platforms; reluctance to embrace new technologies and exploit them fully; reluctance to limit our overseas commitments,” Kendall said. “All these things can have a negative impact on our ability to get to where we’re going … to be competitive with China in particular.”

He also emphasized that habits like continuing to buy already-obsolete systems must be overcome.

“We are no longer in an era where we can … buy a platform, wait for it to wear out, and then replace it,” he said. “We’ve got to buy things to stay competitive over time, and that’s going to be a fundamental change in how we how we resource and plan for the future.”

For example, he said, “We keep buying C-130s. Can we please stop buying C-130s? We’ve got enough.”

VIDEO: Watch an Air Force C-130 Crew Fly Low to Fight LA Fire

VIDEO: Watch an Air Force C-130 Crew Fly Low to Fight LA Fire

Jan. 13, 2025 | By David Roza and Chris Gordon

A new video gives viewers a taste of what it’s like for airborne firefighting crews trying to hold back the massive fires in Los Angeles.

U.S. Northern Command and the National Guard posted the video to Facebook on Jan. 12, which presents an over-the-shoulder view of a C-130J crew with the California Air National Guard’s 146th Airlift Wing as they drop lines of fire retardant on the mountains above the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on Jan. 11. 

Aerial firefighting crews have to fly low and slow to drop fire retardant in the right spot, and the video shows the C-130J scraping over ridge lines as the cockpit altitude warning signal chimes. A curtain of smoke can be seen to the right of the aircraft throughout the video.

A California Air National Guard MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System) equipped C-130J Super Hercules assigned to the 146th Airlift Wing provides support to wildland fire suppression efforts by dropping a line of fire retardant on the Palisades Fire in the mountains above the Pacific Palisades, California, Jan. 11, 2025.

At about 12 seconds in, viewers can see the small white lead plane that guides the C-130 to its target. At about 24 seconds, a faint whoosh can be heard as the C-130J releases fire retardant through the Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS), an 11,000 pound tank that can drop 28,000 pounds of fire retardant in less than five seconds out of a tube sticking out the side of the aircraft. The fire retardant helps keep wildfires from spreading so that ground crews can contain it. 

A second shot from behind and between the pilots also captures the drama of the mission, as the windscreen is filled with jagged, tree-covered mountains flashing seemingly right below the aircraft. 

Jan. 11 was apparently a busy day for this C-130J crew, as the sound of the MAFFS system releasing can be heard multiple times throughout the video. It takes about 12 minutes to refill the MAFFS system. The crews needed fuel too—a box from Chick-fil-A stands by on the pilot’s left about midway through the video. A separate video shot from the ground shows a 146th Wing aircraft releasing fire retardant. 

c-130 fire
The 302 AW C-130H aircraft equipped with the U.S. Forest Service-owned Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) and associated wing personnel departed from Peterson SFB Jan 11, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Kevin Williams)

U.S. Northern Command activated all eight of the Air Force’s MAFFS-equipped C-130s on Jan. 9 to help fight the fires. Over the weekend, all eight flew to the 146th Airlift Wing, base at Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, Calif., located west of the record-breaking Palisades Fire. The other aircraft came from the Wyoming Air National Guard’s 153rd Airlift Wing, the Nevada Air National Guard’s 152nd Airlift Wing, and the 302nd Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit based in Colorado

“It has been difficult to watch the absolute devastation of the wildfires in California,” Col. Brian Diehl, commander of the 153rd Airlift Wing, said in a Jan. 10 press release. “We’re honored to be able to participate in our nation’s efforts to combat these fires and return normalcy to the people and communities of southern California, and as soon as possible.”

Civilian contractors perform the bulk of aerial firefighting, but MAFFS serves as a surge force. Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters Jan. 13 that the C-130s flew six MAFFS missions over the weekend, with more missions expected.

c-130 fire
A C-130J Aircraft from the 146th Airlift Wing, equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, departs Channel Islands Air National Guard Station Jan. 11, 2025. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Michelle Ulber)

First responders made progress on the fires over the weekend, with containment of the Palisades and Eaton fires at 14 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Containment refers to how much of a fire is surrounded by a barrier, such as a river or bare soil, that can stop a fire from spreading further.

But the return of strong winds Jan. 13-15 could hamper those efforts by spreading the fires and grounding aircraft. The lack of air support in the early days after the fires started Jan. 7 was a major hindrance to firefighting efforts.

The C-130s are just one element of the military response to the fires, including over 1,800 California National Guard helicopter crews, military police, and hand crews to work alongside local police and firefighters. More than 15,000 people are fighting the Los Angeles fires, according to Cal Fire.

So far 24 people have been killed and more than 12,000 structures damaged in the fire, though that structure tally might also include vehicles, since telling them apart from small structures via infrared images can be difficult, the Associated Press reported.

Guard F-35s Deploy from Vermont to Kadena

Guard F-35s Deploy from Vermont to Kadena

Jan. 13, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

F-35 Lightning II fighters from the Vermont Air National Guard deployed to Kadena Air Base, Japan, on Jan. 13, in the latest rotation of fighters to the strategic U.S. outpost in the western Pacific, the Air Force announced.

The F-35s are assigned to the Vermont ANG’s 158th Fighter Wing, which in 2019 became the first Guard unit to be equipped with the fifth-generation multirole fighter. The aircraft that deployed to Japan will operate as the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron.

The Air Force is retiring its aging F-15C/D Eagles, a type that has been stationed at Kadena since the late 1970s. The service plans to eventually permanently station new, enhanced fourth-generation F-15EX Eagle II jets on Kadena. In the meantime, it is maintaining a fighter presence in Japan with rotational deployments.

The F-35s join other F-35 Lightnings already at Kadena, as well as air superiority F-22 Raptors and multirole F-16 Fighting Falcons, according to a press release from the 18th Wing, Kadena’s host unit. The F-35s already there are from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, while the F-16s are from the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron out of Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., and the F-22s are from the 525th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron out of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. 

The U.S. Marine Corps also operates F-35s from Japan.

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II assigned to the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron lands while F-16C Fighting Falcons assigned to the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron taxi at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Jan. 13, 2025. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Tylir Meyer

The F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s will “continually provide forward fighter capabilities in support of theater deterrence and U.S. Indy-Pacific Command objectives,” the 18th Wing said. “These continuous rotations of aircraft at Kadena ensure the 18th Wing remains flexible and postured to deliver lethal and credible airpower to deter acts of aggression.”

Kadena is a pivotal base for the Air Force, located on the Japanese island of Okinawa, part of the first island chain off of the Pacific mainland. Kadena is located roughly 200 miles from Taiwan. The deployments of advanced fighters allow the Air Force a steady-state fighter presence as the F-15C/Ds head home to retirement or Air National Guard units. The Air Force has not disclosed how many operational F-15C/Ds are left at Kadena.

“Rotational aircraft are a normal part of Kadena’s operations, and their presence ensures the continuation of our long-standing mission to defend Japan and maintain an open and free Indo-Pacific,” Col. David Deptula, the commander of the 18th Operations Group, said in the news release.

The Air Force said the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron will practice Agile Combat Employment, the service’s model for flexible, bare-bones basing. Rotational fighter units deployed to Kadena have routinely conducted operations throughout the region.

“Our squadron eagerly anticipates the chance to elevate our training by testing ACE concepts during this deployment,” Lt. Col. Trevor Callen, the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron commander, said in the release. That training will “significantly enhance our operational versatility in the Indo-Pacific,” he added.

For now, the “18th Wing will continue to receive rotational units that strengthen capabilities, such as ACE, and project combat power in concert with allies and partners,” according to the unit.

Space Force Honor Guard Faces Milestones with ‘Two of the Largest Ceremonies Possible’

Space Force Honor Guard Faces Milestones with ‘Two of the Largest Ceremonies Possible’

Jan. 13, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force Honor Guard is in the thick of a busy three weeks, checking off historic firsts for Guardians, having supported its first-ever state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter and preparing to participate in its first presidential inauguration for President-elect Donald Trump. 

For the 43 members of the Honor Guard, that’s two major undertakings involving rigorous planning and rehearsal. 

“The [Honor Guard] is about 17 months old and we are faced with two of the largest ceremonies possible, a state funeral and presidential inauguration, all within a 20-day window,” Senior Master Sgt. Matthew Massoth, senior enlisted leader of the Honor Guard, said in a release. “This is an amazing opportunity to represent all Guardians to the American public and world as we perform two historic events.”  

Honor Guards are the premier ceremonial units representing military branches at top public events. Honor Guardsmen bear caskets of deceased service members and their dependents to Arlington National Cemetery, present flags at events, fire volleys at funeral services, and perform rifle drill routines. 

For Carter’s state funeral, events started on Jan. 4 in Georgia and lasted through Jan. 9, including services in Washington, D.C. Guardians, along with members from every other service’s honor guards, were there to greet the former president’s casket at Joint Base Andrews, Md., carry it, and present arms during the funeral service. 

They did so despite freezing temperatures and snow hitting Washington D.C. the day before Carter’s funeral procession. In the release, Massoth credited the Honor Guard’s focus on physical fitness, nutrition, proper rest, layering cloths, and training in heat and cold weather for being able to perform in adverse conditions. 

They may have to do so again on Jan. 20, as early forecasts are calling for temperatures around freezing and wind chills in the teens on Inauguration Day. 

There will be backup, though, in the form of 45 Guardians who volunteered to augment the Honor Guard and march as part of the newly formed Department of the Air Force division for the inauguration parade, according to a seperate release. 

U.S. Space Force Guardians assigned as Honor Guard augmentees practice drill for the joint service cordon for the 60th Presidential Inauguration at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington, D.C., Jan. 8, 2025. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff. Sgt. Jordan Powell

At the time of the last presidential inauguration in January 2021, the Space Force was just over a year old and still getting its feet under it as the nation’s first new military service in decades. Now, it will be on display for an event that draws hundreds of thousands of spectators and millions of viewers on television.

“This is a great opportunity for Guardians to get out on their marks and represent their service in front of a global audience,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. David McLellan, commander of the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard, who oversees U.S. Space Force Honor Guard training. 

Those 45 Guardians are going through 12 days of training to “master the fundamentals of serving in an honor guard,” according to the release, including precision movements, military drill procedures, and ceremonial protocol. 

Regular members of the Space Force Honor Guard develop those skills through weeks of training with the Air Force Honor Guard command. The first Guardian Guardsmen were prior Airmen who had transferred to the Space Force, but “homegrown” Guardians started graduating from the training in August 2024.

The Space Force Honor Guard is not the only organization pulling double duty with the state funeral and inauguration. The Air Force Honor Guard and Air Force Band participated in both as well. 

USAF’s ‘Aircraft Shelter Gap’ with China Creates a Flaw in Deterrence: Report

USAF’s ‘Aircraft Shelter Gap’ with China Creates a Flaw in Deterrence: Report

Jan. 13, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

Pouring concrete to make hardened shelters for aircraft on the ground may not be as sexy as building next-generation fighter jets, but it may be just as important for the U.S. in a potential conflict with China, according to airpower scholars.

While China’s military has built hundreds of hardened shelters in the past decade or so to protect its air force on the ground in the Western Pacific theater, the U.S. has built only a handful, a strategic imbalance that creates a destabilizing first-mover advantage for the People’s Liberation Army, which could cripple American air power on the ground in a surprise attack, said the authors of a new report from the Hudson Institute.

“Regardless of how capable U.S. aircraft may be in the air, unless the Department of the Air Force, and DOD more broadly, rapidly enhances the resilience of its airfields, it is reasonable to expect that they will be crushed on the ramp,” co-author and Hudson scholar Timothy Walton told Air & Space Forces Magazine. In Air Force parlance, the ramp refers to the paved area at an airbase where aircraft are parked, loaded, and refueled. 

To protect its aircraft on the ground from Chinese missiles, the Air Force has developed its Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, whereby small teams of Airmen and airframes spread out from central hubs to multiple remote or austere bases. But this “dispersion-heavy, hardening-light” approach is “inappropriate” in the light of Chinese surveillance and other capabilities, Walton said.  

The problem, said Walton, is that Chinese surveillance, targeting and engagement capabilities would overwhelm the effort. “Dispersal isn’t enough. .. If you just disperse, the Chinese can track you and just shoot you in those other places.” 

Worse, the dispersal might take U.S. assets to places that are poorly defended. “Depending on how you disperse, you might just disperse to places that have even fewer defenses, which in turn, are easier targets to defeat,” he said 

“We’re not saying don’t disperse,” said Shugart. “ACE is a great idea, but hardening and other passive defenses have got to be part of the equation.” 

Air Force leaders have recognized for years that more needs to be done to protect airbases in the Indo-Pacific theatre, especially those closest to the adversary. Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told a Senate subcommittee last year the Air Force was “committed to building forward basing resilient enough to enable continued sortie generation, even while under attack.” 

Nonetheless, J. Michael Dahm, a senior resident fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, concluded last July in a research paper that “the current capabilities and capacities of both active and passive air defenses are inadequate to sufficiently protect U.S. air bases and other critical facilities on adversary target lists.”

That’s concerning because China has built a military force capable of a devastating one-two punch against the U.S and its allies in the Western Pacific, said Thomas Shugart, a co-author on the Hudson Institute report and a former Naval officer who worked in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment prior to his retirement in 2020.   

“The crown jewel in the Chinese military that makes this scary … is the PLA Rocket Force,” Shugart said. In the past five years, he explained, the number of PLA medium-range ballistic missiles grew from a few hundred to 1,300, and the numbers of longer-range intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can reach the U.S. territory of Guam have grown from a few dozen to 500.  

“The numbers speak for themselves,” Shugart said.

Open-source commercial imagery in 2021 offered a hint of how the Chinese military could use those ballistic missiles, showing targets built to resemble U.S. and Japanese airborne early warning and control aircraft. 

While the PLA Air Force can deliver as much kinetic power in a single day as the whole Rocket Force, the missiles are important as the first punch of the one-two because they’re much harder to stop than aircraft, Shugart explained.  

In a sneak attack scenario, the Rocket Force “would hit ships at the pier before they could get away. It would crater runways, trapping aircraft on the ground,” Shugart warned. “And then it would hit command centers with the battle staffs on board. It would take out ballistic missile defenses and air defenses. Once you’ve done that and essentially paralyzed the force, now the much greater volume of [PLA Air Force] munitions is able to sweep in and then clear the ramps at every air base in the western Pacific.”

The idea of sudden or surprise attack is something that’s woven through Chinese military doctrine, he added.

“So they’ve got the doctrine that talks about it,” he said. “They’ve built a force that appears to be designed to do it, and then they seem to be practicing doing it on a regular basis.” 

U.S. officials have also highlighted efforts by Chinese hackers to preposition malware in the IT networks of U.S. critical infrastructure providers like water and power suppliers, another sign that China might be preparing a surprise attack. 

At the same time, Shugart pointed out, “China has engaged in a very substantial, deliberate campaign to make significant upgrades to the degree of hardening and the capacity of its air bases,” especially around Taiwan. Dozens of these hardened shelters in the Western Pacific don’t seem to have any permanently assigned aircraft, probably because they would be occupied by forward deployed squadrons in a conflict, he said. By contrast, the U.S. has built only a handful of hardened shelters in the last five years. 

Hardened shelters are only one kind of passive defense. Other techniques include camouflage, concealment, and deception. Rebuilding capabilities such as rapid runway repair are also counted as passive defense capabilities. Passive defenses are among the most cost-effective and sustainable ways to protect airbases, according to the RAND Corp.  

Passive defenses don’t necessarily prevent planes from being destroyed, but they do make it more costly for the enemy to target them, said Walton. A base with hardened shelters might require dozens of missiles to be taken out of commission, while all of the aircraft on a similarly sized base without any hardened shelters could easily be destroyed by a half-dozen missiles.  

Because of Chinese hardening, the PLA would only have to fire about three-quarters as many munitions to neutralize U.S. and allied airfields as U.S. and allied forces will have to fire to neutralize PLA airbases, Walton estimated.  

That imbalance creates the destabilizing first-mover advantage, he said, a flaw in U.S. deterrence, because it incentives the adversary to attack first. 

The U.S. has neglected base hardening for a complex set of reasons, Shugart said, including cultural factors in the Air Force. “I think the Air Force would rather spend money on combat aircraft than on concrete,” he said. Moreover, military construction funds are approved by Congress separate from the rest of the Air Force budget in a bill that also funds the Department of Veterans Affairs. The politics of the so-called MILCON-VA bill tend to revolve around base housing and big construction projects in the homeland that “make people happy,” he said.  

“It’s a tough sell to explain to people that precious taxpayer dollars need to go to pouring concrete in Japan,” he said.

In an emailed response to questions, Pacific Air Forces said they were leveraging almost $1 billion in funding from the FY24 Pacific Defense Initiative, “investing in infrastructure and technology to enhance the resilience and survivability of our bases and facilities including hardening our airfields and buildings to withstand natural disasters and potential attacks.”

This story was updated Jan. 14 to include comments from Pacific Air Forces.

Accelerating B-21 Production Would ‘Make Some Sense’—If It’s Affordable: Kendall

Accelerating B-21 Production Would ‘Make Some Sense’—If It’s Affordable: Kendall

Jan. 11, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, on the verge of leaving the Pentagon, said he would accelerate production of the B-21 bomber if there was money to do so. But even so, it couldn’t happen right away, he said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine.

More broadly, Kendall said drastically shortening the acquisition time of modern weapons is probably unrealistic, but that selective stockpiling of long-lead parts and materials could help position the nation for wartime surge production.

“If it’s affordable, that would make some sense,” Kendall said of accelerating B-21 production, but the problem is the flexibility of the existing infrastructure and contracting.

“There’s only so much we can do about it [the production rate] in the near term, and the near term, for me, is the five-year plan,” he said. “I have talked to industry about the possibility of higher rates than we currently have planned.”

The production rate of the B-21 is classified but is estimated to be fewer than seven aircraft per year at peak. Outgoing Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante has said the B-21 was structured to be a low-rate program to safeguard it against budget poaching. However, Air Force Global Strike Command leaders and others have suggested building more than the planned 100 airplanes is necessary to achieve needed sortie rates in a future major war.

Kendall noted that the ultimate number of B-21s to be bought will be a question for future Air Force leaders to determine. But he said the Air Force’s force structure has been “very heavily weighted toward relatively short-ranged fighters” for some time, and putting more emphasis on buying bombers could be “worthwhile” because “we’re somewhat out of balance right now.”

“It’s worthwhile to rethink that,” he said, because bombers have great flexibility to support global operations. But rebalancing the force could take years, if not decades.

“It will take a while to acquire more B-21s even if you increase the rate,” Kendall said. Even if that happens, “you can hang on to some of the existing bombers a little bit longer than we currently have planned” to preserve long-range strike capacity.

“Making that transition is going to take a little bit of time, but I do think it’s well worth considering, as we look to the future, and the flexibility you have with the bomber force.”

Kendall also said it is unlikely the Pentagon can return to some of the production capacity strategies heavily used during the Cold War, when there were competitive annual buys of engines, missiles, munitions, and more.

“When the Cold War ended … we shrank budgets dramatically, and an enormous amount of consolidation occurred” within the defense industry, he noted. As long as cost effectiveness and affordability are important, the cost of redundant production lines can be hard to justify.

“I don’t know that we’re going to be able to do a lot” of those Cold War-era competitive production programs, Kendall said, though he’s been approached about the idea, particularly for munitions.

The Pentagon should probably “put some capital into increasing our industrial capacity” to produce weapons, and especially “high-demand spare parts,” but it’s difficult because “there’s no way you can guarantee future production so we’ll have to find a way to do that up front.”

It’s a question that will be “critical” for the new administration, he said.

“Industry is not going to do it because we ask them to. They’re going to do it because we’ll pay them to,” he warned.

Expecting breakthroughs that will “dramatically shorten the lead times” in the production of sophisticated weapons is also “unrealistic,”  Kendall said.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said. “We can probably cut some things off on the margin, but the complexity of those products and the supply chains that support them, make dramatic reductions in lead time really difficult to come by.”

Stockpiling some items “that are big drivers for those long lead times, done thoughtfully” could help shorten production surge time for some systems.

Kendall noted that privately held companies have the flexibility to change the production model much more than publicly traded contractors, and that tension will be felt in the coming years.

Anduril Industries, a private firm, has announced investment in new factories that it claims will drastically shorten production times on sophisticated systems like cruise missiles, and Kendall said it can move in that direction. “There is capital available out there,” he said, “but eventually it’s going to need a return. So I think the government should work with industry to find opportunities to do that sort of thing. But it’s going to have to be done in a way which makes sense for both sides.