The 5 Firms Selected to Build the Air Force’s Fleet of Autonomous CCA

Jan. 25, 2024 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak

The Air Force awarded contracts to five companies to design and build Collaborative Combat Aircraft that can fly autonomously alongside manned platforms, a spokesperson confirmed. They are:

Boeing

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Anduril

General Atomics

Acting Air Force Undersecretary Krysten E. Jones had disclosed Jan. 24 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that five companies had been selected, but did not specify the winners.

Details about the contracts remain under wraps. The spokesperson said only that the companies are “under contract to continue rapid development for production for CCA.”

Anduril released a statement Jan. 25 confirming its selection, and spokespeople for Northrop Grumman and Boeing confirmed their selections to Air & Space Forces Magazine. General Atomics and Lockheed Martin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“We commend Secretary Kendall and the U.S. Air Force for their leadership and commitment to integrating new technologies into the force,” Anduril’s release stated. “Anduril was founded to transform U.S. and allied defense capabilities with software and hardware, combining technology including artificial intelligence and computer vision with a rapid approach to autonomous hardware development and manufacturing for defense platforms. We are honored to be the only non-traditional defense company selected to be a part of the CCA program.”

The Boeing spokesperson said the company is “honored to participate in the program and confident in our ability to provide the U.S. Air Force a capable, versatile, and affordable Collaborative Combat Aircraft fleet that can be produced efficiently and delivered at scale.”

Northrop is “working closely with the U.S. Air Force … using our extensive expertise in advanced manufacturing, digital technologies and autonomous systems to deliver Collaborative Combat Aircraft capabilities rapidly and affordably,” their spokesperson said.

The Air Force envisions CCA as an uncrewed, relatively low-observable aircraft that can escort or coordinate with crewed aircraft, performing missions such as electronic warfare, suppression of air defenses, communications, or as a flying extra magazine of weapons. Adding these aircraft could provide additional critical “mass” in a peer conflict, expanding the combat force at lower cost than crewed aircraft.

USAF officials have indicated they want to move quickly on the program, even as experimentation and testing on manned-unmanned teaming continues. The service has advanced the concept through efforts like its Skyborg and X-62 programs.

In its fiscal 2024 budget request, the Air Force outlined plans to spend $5.8 billion on CCAs over the next five years, and $392 million in fiscal ’24 alone. That figure is a small down payment on what is shaping up to be an enormous program. While Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has set 1,000 CCAs as a working number of such aircraft—a figure intended to signal to developers just how seriously he views the program—he has said the Air Force will need far more. Last March, he told the McAleese defense conference, “We’ll end up with more than that. …It could be twice that number or more.”

Industry has responded enthusiastically. General Atomics unveiled its concept for a “Gambit” series of uncrewed aircraft last spring, with optional external configurations optimized for sensing, fighter escort, defense suppression and ground attack, all using a common core to increase commonality and modularity. Anduril, meanwhile, is pushing its “Fury” aircraft—originally developed as an autonomous and stealthy “red air” option—as a multi-mission solution.

Progress threatens to be slowed as the Air Force, along with the rest of the Pentagon and other federal agencies, waits for Congress to pass a fiscal 2024 budget. As things currently stand with the government operating under a continuing resolution, the Air Force can conduct some CCA actions using authorized and appropriated fiscal 2023 funds, but much of the program is considered a “new start” and is on hold.

Regardless, while the Air Force has selected five companies to work on the project for now, service acquisition executive Andrew Hunter has said the objective is to have “on-ramps” for companies not picked in the initial rounds, so that missing a contract now does not preclude participation later.

4 Ukrainian Pilots Undergoing F-16 Training in Arizona as Pentagon Reveals New Details

Jan. 25, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

As Ukraine awaits the delivery of F-16s in 2024, a U.S. defense official revealed new details on the training of Ukrainian pilots and maintainers in America.

There are currently four Ukrainian pilots undergoing F-16 training in the United States, the official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The instruction is occurring at Morris Air National Guard Base, Ariz., in Tucson, where they are training with the 162nd Wing, the U.S. Air Force’s dedicated foreign F-16 training unit.

Several other pilots are undergoing English-language training, the defense official added, while approximately 20 maintainers are also undergoing English-language training at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, for the next several months.

The new details come after assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Celeste Wallander said F-16 pilot training for Ukraine is “on track” after a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of over 50 countries that coordinates military aid.

The F-16 efforts are coordinated by an Air Force Coalition within the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. The U.S. government must sign off on any F-16 transfers, a move the Biden administration initially resisted before promoting the effort. However, the U.S. does not plan to provide its own F-16s.

Pilots at Morris complete the six-month “B Course”—or Basic Course—designed to instruct foreign and American pilots familiar with other combat jets in the fundamentals necessary to transition to the F-16. That is the course the four Ukrainian pilots are now undergoing, the defense official said.

The 162nd Wing has been training foreign pilots for decades, with pilots from over two dozen countries traveling through Tucson to learn to operate one of the most successful multi-role fighters in history.

Ukrainian pilots began their training in Tucson in late October. In November, the Pentagon estimated training would take five to nine months, based on the skills of individual pilots.

Denmark is leading efforts in Europe to train Ukrainians on F-16s. In August, Denmark said it had begun training eight pilots and over 60 maintainers. An additional six pilots were sent to Denmark after spending time learning “aviation-specific” English and spending time in Royal Air Force training aircraft—the RAF does not operate F-16s—to learn the “NATO standard approach to flying,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense announced in late December. “Alongside the pilot training, dozens of Ukrainian aircraft technicians are also receiving English language training, geared towards engineering,” the U.K MOD added.

While Ukraine has many experienced pilots, they also must learn Western airpower doctrine to be most effective with the F-16. Ukraine has previously flown MiGs and Sukhois, not Western jets. F-16s are single-seat, single-engine airplanes with a complex hands-on throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) system, with toggle switches and buttons on the flight control that can conduct the full range of F-16 functions.

In Tucson, pilots spend extensive time in the simulator, even before getting airborne. Once aerial training begins, typically three-fourths is done with pilots on their own in the cockpit in single-seat F-16Cs, with time in dual-seat F-16Ds with an instructor in the back weighted towards the beginning of the course.

To achieve proficiency, a pilot must spend around 90 hours flying to learn and demonstrate all the necessary skills of the B-Course. However, training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots is not expected to precisely follow a rigid model, especially as training is occurring on multiple continents simultaneously.

But pilots are just one part of a complex weapons system.

“We are very slowly and very methodically going about this, and there is no great sense of urgency to get this moving forward,” retired Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Now, there’s good and bad to that. If we rushed these guys forward, we could rush them to fail.”

Breedlove said Ukraine and its allies need to start thinking about how the F-16s will be used with command and control and sensing platforms to better engage targets, where the F-16s will be based to prevent them from being destroyed, and where munitions will be stored.

“There’s so much that has to be done before the F-16s can be used effectively and effectively protected as an asset,” said Breedlove, a former F-16 pilot who commanded training and operational units. “An F-16 is a magnificent aircraft, and it will bring great capability to Ukraine. But an F-16 thrown into this conflict without any connective capabilities and without a good plan for protecting it as an asset on the ground is not a good recipe.”

Yurii Inhat, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, indicated a comprehensive approach to employing Ukraine’s F-16s was needed before the aircraft could be put in combat.

“Partners are ready to provide us with these capabilities. The question is whether everything is ready for their operation in Ukraine,” Inhat said on Ukrainian television recently. “It is clear that everything must be prepared, including pilots, infrastructure, and maintenance engineers, and also there are other factors that are not discussed as widely.”

PHOTOS: Alabama Guard Wing Carries on Red Tail Tradition with New F-35

Jan. 25, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Red Tails live on.

The Alabama Air National Guard’s 187th Fighter Wing upgraded from the F-16 to the F-35 in December but is keeping up its tradition of honoring the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, as the wing released photos this month of one of its F-35s with its tail painted red.

“The Red Tail legacy is known across the entire Air Force. We do not want to forget and want to continue that legacy not only for our Airmen but for the entire Air Force,” Maj. Brent Ivey, a maintenance squadron commander with the wing, said in a statement. “This tail is a reminder that through excellence we will overcome many obstacles regardless of gender, race, or religion. We are all here for the same mission and that is to protect our nation.”

The Tuskegee Airmen, trained in Alabama, were the Army Air Force’s first African American pilots who broke racial barriers during World War II. They flew more than 15,000 sorties between May 1943 and June 1945, getting the nickname ‘Red Tails’ for their distinctive deep red plane markings and earning eight Purple Hearts, fourteen Bronze Stars, three Distinguished Unit Citations, and 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses.

A 187th Fighter Wing spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that a single F-35 aircraft was approved to honor the Red Tail tradition.

Unlike the wing’s previous F-16s, applying paint to the F-35 fighter can be a tricky business. While the precise purpose of the F-35’s specific paint and coatings is classified, it is known to help reflect radar to reduce the aircraft’s radar return. The dull gray color also enhances the F-35’s visibility during nighttime operations. The spokesperson added that if the jet is tasked to deploy, the heritage tail “will return to stock configuration and be fully mission-capable alongside our other fighter jets.”

The only other F-35 color variant in the service is the Aggressor Squadron introduced in 2022 at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., sporting a distinct “Splinter” camouflage pattern.

Residents near Dannelly Field might catch a glimpse of the red-tailed F-35 soaring through the skies—earlier this month, the wing shared a picture of the fighter on its Facebook page with the caption: “We cannot wait for you to witness this jet in the skies around the great state of Alabama.”

The 187th FW welcomed three new stealth fighters to Dannelly Field in December, seven months after the wing retired the F-16s it had flown for 35 years. There are now three Guard units with fifth-generation aircraft, including the Vermont ANG’s 158th Fighter Wing and Wisconsin ANG’s 115th Fighter Wing.

Dannelly Field was selected to get F-35s in 2017, and construction on new facilities began four years later. The wing formally began the conversion process in March 2023, as pilots and maintainers were embedded in other F-35 units around the country to learn to fly and maintain their new aircraft.

The wing is set to receive additional aircraft deliveries from Lockheed Martin later this year. The fleet will eventually consist of 20 F-35s, with the goal of achieving full operational readiness by February 2026.

Pentagon: Ukraine Expected to Employ F-16s in 2024

Jan. 24, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. and Western allies expect the Ukrainian Air Force to achieve “initial operating capability” on F-16s by the end of this year, a senior Pentagon official said Jan. 23.

F-16 pilot training by the U.S. and European countries is “on track,” assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Celeste Wallander told reporters. But the effort to provide Kyiv with the stalwart American fighter is complex one, she said.

“We are aiming to provide an initial operating capability for Ukraine with its F-16 program in 2024, which would entail trained pilots, the platforms, but in addition, trained maintainers and sustainers, infrastructure, and spare parts, ammunition,” Wallander said after a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of some 50 countries that coordinates military aid to Kyiv. Efforts to provide F-16s fall under the Air Force capability coalition—one of several groups set up to focus on specific needs.

“All of these pieces is what the coalition’s responsible for, and so we gave a briefing on where that stood this year,” Wallander said, though she did not provide further details.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been coy on the training specifics. The spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yurii Ihnat, said the West is “training our pilots very, very confidentially” in remarks on Ukrainian television Jan. 22. The 162nd Wing of Arizona Air National Guard in Tucson, Ariz.—the home of the Air Force’s foreign F-16 pilot training—is providing the U.S. training to “several” Ukrainian pilots, the Pentagon says. European countries are also conducting training, led by Denmark.

A more immediate concern in Washington and other Western capitals is the ability to keep providing current capabilities to Ukraine, let alone new ones.

The Pentagon says it has no more aid packages to give after running out of funding—the DOD still has roughly $4 billion in authority to take stock out of its inventory to give to Ukraine, but it does not have money to replenish those stocks. Meanwhile, European allies have lagged in promises to ramp up critical artillery production.

Some U.S. aid promised in previous assistance packages is still rolling in, while long-lead items, such as contracts awarded under another funding program, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), have yet to be produced.

“We do continue to provide support, for example, training, and of course, leadership,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said Jan. 23. “But the point is, in order for us to provide the capabilities that Ukraine needs on the battlefield today, but also in the longer term, we would really appreciate the support of Congress.”

Ukraine aid funding is tied up in Congress as part of a broader political dispute over border security and government spending.

Pilot training is not affected by the funding issue, the Pentagon says. But while some American officials predicted ambitious F-16 training timelines after the Biden administration gave the sign-off late last summer, both the West and Ukraine have now tempered expectations.

Ryder said in November shortly after American training of Ukrainian pilots began that instruction would take five to nine months, with the timeline “very much predicated on the skill level of the individual pilots.” Ukrainian pilots are transferring over from twin-engine Soviet-style Sukhois and MiGs to single-engine, multi-role F-16s, an added learning curve.

“That’s an assessment that essentially is tailored to the current situation,” Ryder said of the training timeline. A typical F-16 training course with the 162nd Wing takes roughly six months.

The F-16, which first flew almost exactly 50 years ago, has been steadily upgraded over the years, and could employ weapons such as AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles to protect Ukraine’s skies from Russian missile and drone attacks. AMRAAMs, which are also used in NASAMS air defense systems, have been hinted at as a possible weapon for Ukraine’s F-16s by Ukrainian and U.S. officials. Some American weapons, including JDAM Extended Range guided bombs and HARM anti-radiation missiles have already been jerry-rigged to Ukraine’s legacy fleet.

While specifics of training remain murky, many materiel questions remain. Denmark has pledged 19 used F-16s and the Netherlands says it will give 42 jets, but exactly when those planes will arrive is unclear. Norway and Belgium are also donating F-16s. The first Danish planes have been delayed until the second quarter of 2024. How Ukraine will maintain F-16s has also not been fully spelled out. Nor it is clear what type and who would provide the weapons for the F-16s. The U.S. does not plan to provide its own F-16s but must sign off on any transfer.

The lack of airpower has become one of the defining features of the war in Ukraine—instead, missiles and drones come from afar. Russia’s aircraft have largely been confined to standoff range due to Ukraine’s air defenses. But Russia has advanced surface-to-air systems of its own, including S-400 long-range systems based inside the Russian Federation—which has been deemed off limits for Ukraine to target using Western-provided weapons—and in occupied Crimea, forcing Ukrainian Air Force pilots to fly low and try to mask themselves with the terrain. As a result, neither side has air superiority.

“We have seen surges in Russian air activities against Ukraine,” Wallander said. “We’ve seen them not only continue to use ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and UAVs, but we have seen periods in which they are using coordinated barrages of those capabilities … to try to overwhelm Ukrainian defense capabilities in a particular location, but also to seek to force the Ukrainians to use ammunition to create vulnerabilities in Ukrainian civilian and critical infrastructure targets, but also front lines in order to be able to try to exploit those potential vulnerabilities.”

Budget Officials: USAF Modernization at Risk If Sequester Hits, But Sentinel ‘Will Be Funded’

Jan. 24, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

If Congress does not pass a new budget by April 30, the Department of the Air Force—along with other federal agencies—will see their budget slashed one percent from fiscal 2023 levels, a cut of billions of dollars from the planned 2024 budget. Such a result would be “catastrophic” to the department’s efforts to modernize, already years behind schedule due to slow congressional action, acting Air Force undersecretary Kristyn Jones said Jan. 24.

The sequester caps were implemented as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed last June, in an effort to ensure lawmakers passed a timely budget. Instead, Congress has repeatedly passed continuing resolutions, which keep funding levels frozen at the previous year’s level, to keep the government open. The latest CR for the Pentagon expires March 8.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jones said a one percent reduction in funds relative to fiscal 2023 levels would be “pretty catastrophic” for Air Force modernization.

“For us, going to the ‘23 [spending levels] minus one percent … is a $13 billion decrease in buying power, and that’s not adjusting for inflation,” she said, quoting a figure that covers both the Air Force and Space Force. “It impacts 89 new starts, cancels $2.8 billion in Space Force growth, impacts seven national security space launches, 34 construction projects that would not happen. I could go on and on.

“And then, because of the fact that we’ve had a really historic increase in our pay for this year, both military and civilian, we’ve had to absorb that already, starting at the beginning of this calendar year. And so that requires us to make even bigger impacts in the non-pay areas.”

This reduction would frustrate the Air Force’s efforts to keep pace with China, Jones said. Quoting Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, she noted that the Air Force has lost four years out of the last 12 due to continuing resolutions and other budgetary delays, time that Kendall often points out is not recoverable in a great power competition.

Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said the Air Force share of the $13 billion cut is $8.8 billion, and the sequester “is shaping up to look much like 2013 did,” when the Budget Control Act slammed the Air Force’s spending power for acquisition, operations, and sustainment.

“A decade later, we’re still not past that,” he said, referring to lingering effects of that budget reduction.

The timing compounds the problem, Moore added.

“By the time this implements, we’ll be halfway through the fiscal year, but the number doesn’t change. So that means the last two quarters of this fiscal year, we’ll have to find $4.4 billion [of] things that we thought we were going to be able to do, that we now can’t.” Those effects range from deferred but needed military construction to program advancement, he said.

“It will take us a long time to get past this. The combat capability that we need to field in order to stay relevant and to try and keep up with the pacing threat, [those things are] not possible under fiscal guidance like this,” Moore argued.

Sentinel

While the threat of sequestration looms, one of the Air Force’s most expensive modernization efforts faces another threat—last week, the Air Force announced that the Sentinel ICBM program will cost 37 percent more than expected and take at least two years longer than previous projections. Now in breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, the program needs certification from the Secretary of Defense to not be canceled.

Yet Moore said the effort is too critical to national defense to be delayed and will be funded. However, the nuclear modernization “bow wave” will slip to the right as a result, he added.

Asked about the Sentinel cost and schedule breach, Jones noted that the Air Force is modernizing two legs of the nuclear triad—bombers and silo-based ICBMS—and that the B-21 is doing well and moving into low-rate initial production.

But Sentinel is “core to national defense,” Jones said.

“We have predicted that the nuclear ‘bow wave’ for the Air Force”—the must-do modernization of the bomber, cruise missile, warheads, command and control and ICBM—“would peak in 2027,” Moore said. “We now see that that is slipping to the right: probably 2028, and maybe even 2029.”

At the peak of the nuclear modernization effort, it accounts for “a third of the investment portfolio of the Air Force. It’s not just two-thirds of the nuclear triad, by the way, it’s also 75% of the nuclear command and control that we have,” he said.

All the nuclear portfolio programs “stack up on top of each other” and are “a daunting task” to fund, he observed.

While the Sentinel missile itself is “doing pretty well” in development, Jones said the breach mainly has to do with the program’s civil engineering aspect: the silos and infrastructure of deploying the missile, which is a huge undertaking the Air Force has not really done since the 1960s.

As to covering the $40 billion-plus overrun on Sentinel, Moore said the program is not optional, and there are no workarounds.

“Sentinel will be funded,” he said. The Air Force will “make the trade that it takes to make [Sentinel] happen. We’ll see as we work through this process what the results are, but we are committed to Sentinel and that not going to change. It is funded now. And that’s also not going to change.”

Moore also ruled out any possibility of extending the service’s existing Minuteman III missiles for any lengthy period of time.

“There is not a viable service life extension program that we can foresee,” Moore said. Minuteman III was fielded in the 1970s.

“We will do everything we can to keep it in the field” until Sentinel is ready, he said. “It will remain safe, secure and reliable, but extending it for some lengthy period of time, that’s not a viable option.”

Air Force Now ‘Very Weak’, New Report Says, But Space Force Is Gaining Strength

Jan. 24, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force readiness is “continuing to spiral downward” says the Heritage Foundation in its latest comprehensive assessment of the U.S. military, which labels USAF’s capability as “very weak,” the lowest possible grade on the conservative think tank’s five-point scale.

The Space Force, meanwhile, scored an upgrade over a year ago, moving up from “weak” to “marginal,” the mid-point on the scale.

The low Air Force score stemmed from lagging mission-capable rates and aircrew training, as well as questionable “deployability,” according to Heritage’s assessment, which was based on 2023 data released Jan. 24. It was particularly critical of USAF’s capacity to endure a conflict with a peer competitor.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has expressed similar concerns in recent months. Last September, Kendall launched a sweeping review to “re-optimize” the Air Force, and he had begun to question readiness openly as early as last August.

“If we were asked tomorrow to go to war against a great power, either Russia or China, would we be really ready to do that?” Kendall said in an August livestream on Facebook. “I think the answer is not as much as we could be, by a significant margin.”

Air Force leaders will detail the findings and plans stemming from the “re-optimization” study at the AFA Warfare Symposium, Feb. 12-14. Officials began rolling out force projection concepts, including how they aim to implement the Air Force Force Generation model (AFFORGEN), and plans to create “Air Task Forces” last fall. Those plans are also still evolving, with clues anticipated to be announced at the conference.

Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. Slife has described the operational effect of this shift as reversing a years-long trend of prioritizing efficiency and instead prioritizing mission-effectiveness. AFFORGEN is intended to “articulate capacity, risk, and readiness to the joint force,” Slife has told Air & Space Forces Magazine, while future deployable units are intended to package together capabilities and train together, so units are ready to operate as a team the instant they are called to action.

Both issues were raised in the Heritage Foundation report, the Air Force section of which was led by senior research fellow John Venable, a retired colonel and 25-year Air Force veteran.

AFFORGEN establishes a two-year cycle for deployable units with four six-month phases, including time to “reset” and train. But Venable argued that the Air Force has not invested enough in flying time to properly train aircrew for the kind of combat they would face in a near-peer fight.

“The last time fighter pilots received an average of 150 hours of flying time and more than two sorties a week for an entire year was in 2015,” Venable wrote. The Air Force’s historic standard used to be 200 hours per year and three sorties per week.

The service’s flying hours budget has not increased in proportion with the rest of the budget, and the total number of hours has actually dipped in recent years. If Airmen do not receive enough opportunities to prepare and train, AFFORGEN “represents little more than an attempt to change the dialogue surrounding what are perhaps the lowest levels of readiness in Air Force history,” Venable wrote.

Aircraft material readiness is also in decline, Venable argued, noting low mission-capable rates for the F-22 and B-1, in particular—further limiting the time aircrew can fly in them to develop critical skills.

The Air Force needs three Active-Duty squadrons to send two forward, Venable wrote. That’s why “up until the end of the Cold War, the Air Force was organized using a three-squadron wing to handle the associated load.”

But as the Air Force consolidated and centralized forces into fewer squadrons per wing, and as deployments morphed into force packages of aircraft and personnel, that construct has broken down.

“We deployed wings to Desert Storm,” Slife said in September at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference. “We no longer deploy wings … we deploy bespoke collections of UTCs that have never trained together before they get to where the action is. That has been an efficient way to operate. It largely works in a relatively uncontested environment where you have large main fixed operating bases that are going to be free from attack. That’s not the world we’re living in anymore.”

Even now, the Air Force is struggling to meet its manning requirements and needs to pull pilots and personnel from across units, Venable argued. In the event of an emerging crisis with a near-peer competitor, the Air Force would need to surge and sustain a high tempo of operations.

Venable argues that’s left the Air Force all but broken. “There is not a fighter squadron in the Air Force that holds the readiness levels, competence, and confidence levels that it would need to square off against a peer competitor, and readiness is continuing to spiral downward,” Venable declared.

The National Security Space Launch program successfully launches the Falcon Heavy USSF-52 mission on December 28, 2023, from the Eastern Range. Photo by DeAnna Murano/Space Launch Delta 45

Space Force Rising

Heritage was less critical of the Space Force, upgrading its score from “weak” to “marginal,” the middle grade on its 1-to-5 scale.

Venable cited across-the-board improvements in USSF capacity, capability, and readiness. “The trend lines for capability and capacity are improving rapidly, and this could bode well for the service in 2024 and beyond,” he noted.

The Space Force is capable of meeting global and strategic-level requirements for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT); for communications; and for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). It still has work to do, however, in meeting tactical and operational requirements, Venable said.

Such requirements are the focus of efforts such as the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which will deploy hundreds of satellites in low-Earth orbit to provide missile warning and tracking and serve as the backbone of Joint-All Domain Command and Control. Full fielding is still several years away, though.

Edwards Celebrates 50th Anniversary of F-16’s First Flight With Special Tail Flashes

Jan. 24, 2024 | By David Roza

Edwards Air Force Base, where the Air Force’s iconic F-16 multirole fighter jet took its accidental first flight in 1974, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the event with two commemorative tail flashes: one for the prototype YF-16 and one for the 416th Flight Test Squadron, which has performed flight testing on the jet for decades.

“These custom flashes represent the 50 year legacy of both the F-16 and the 416th FLTS team who ensure the Viper remains a dominant presence for decades to come,” the California base wrote in a Jan. 22 Facebook post.

The prototype General Dynamics YF-16 completed its first official flight over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Feb. 2, 1974. (Courtesy photo via U.S. Air Force)

Designed as a low-cost, lightweight fighter that could outmaneuver its rivals, what eventually became known as the F-16 took its first flight by accident on Jan. 20, 1974.

“During high-speed taxi tests the aircraft became unstable—so much that its wingtips were hitting off the runway and throwing off sparks,” Air & Space Forces Magazine wrote in 2004. “General Dynamics test pilot Phil Oestricher decided that the safest thing to do was take to the air. He did one circuit and then landed.”

The test jet, known as the YF-16, was the first aircraft with a fly-by-wire control system, where electrical wires replace the usual cables in relaying a pilot’s commands to the aircraft. The system had some kinks to work out, and the extremely sensitive controls were one of the factors that contributed to the taxi test instability. After a tune-up, the jet made its first formal flight on Feb. 2, 1974, but an investigation commended Oestricher for saving the prototype, according to the Edwards Facebook post.

In a 2012 interview with Lockheed Martin, the pilot said he had always intended “to put a little bit of daylight under the wheels, maybe a foot or two, fly it about a thousand feet down the runway, and land it, and in the meantime checking out the lateral or the roll response sensitivity.”

Over the next five decades, the F-16 has gone on to fly in the air forces of about two dozen countries, with more than 4,600 produced and about 900 serving in the U.S. Air Force today. The jet and its crews have accomplished countless missions, including airshows with the Air Force Thunderbirds, the service’s premier aerial demonstration team.

The F-16 can “satisfy an objective in the Middle East and a week later, fly [combat air patrol] over a point on the U.S., and do a homeland defense sortie,” Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom said in 2022. “It’s pretty amazing. And do that at half … [the] operating cost of any other air platform we have out there.”

The 412th Test Wing unveiled two F-16s assigned to the 416th Flight Test Squadron adorned with special tail flashes to celebrate the Fighting Falcon’s 50 years of service. (U.S. Air Force)

Despite its age, the F-16 remains relevant with modernized radar, electronic warfare upgrades, and cockpit displays. The 416th Flight Test Squadron, also known as the Skulls, plays a large role, having tested out various weapons systems and specialized equipment for the Viper since 1989.

“Working as a flight test engineer here at the 416th is really special because you get to see how a 1970s platform has been upgraded to be a relevant and capable, modern 21st-century fighter,” said Carlos Pierskalla in a video Edwards posted on Facebook.

Though the squadron’s current emblem features an eagle, the new tail flash features a skeleton firing a bow and arrow in a callback to the old emblem created for the 416th Bombardment Squadron, which fought across North Africa and Europe in World War II. The Skulls have more F-16 testing to do in the future, as the Air Force plans to keep flying the jet for another two decades.

“As combat has changed over the years and as test and avionics have changed, the F-16 has continued to adapt,” Capt. Wesley Kilmain, a pilot with the 416th FLTS, said in the video. “We’re always finding new things and new ways to use the jet, to keep it up with where the Air Force is headed.”

F-35 Deliveries On Hold Until Summer, But JPO May Accept Jets Without Proven TR-3

Jan. 23, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin doesn’t expect to resume F-35 fighter deliveries until late this summer, but the Pentagon’s Joint Program Office and F-35 partners are considering accepting jets before then, without the fully validated “Tech Refresh 3” software.

During a Jan. 23 earnings call, Lockheed president, chairman and chief executive officer Jim Taiclet said the company is still targeting the second quarter of 2024 for the TR-3 software to finish testing and be accepted.

“However, we now believe that the third quarter may be a more likely scenario for a TR-3 software acceptance,” he said.

Lockheed is likely to deliver between 75 and 110 F-35s in 2024, versus a planned 156, Taiclet said. However, he said he does not see a need to ease back on production, despite the building backlog of completed jets.

Since July, Lockheed has been building TR-3-configured jets at its Fort Worth, Texas plant. But the TR-3 suite—processors and software on which the F-35 Block 4 upgrade rests—is still being tested, a year after it was expected to be cleared.

Because the software is not yet accepted, Lockheed has been storing aircraft that have been completed. Absent the payments on those jets, Lockheed’s F-35 revenues declined $400 million in 2023, although the company made up for that with stronger revenues from its Skunk Works advanced products unit and F-16 sales.

“We delivered 18 F-35 aircraft in the Technology Refresh Two, or TR-2, configuration in the fourth quarter, bringing the 2023 total [delivered] to 98 jets,” Taiclet said. He did not specify how many TR-3 jets are being stored, but industry sources said the figure is above 60 airplanes. For operational security reasons, the JPO said it will not reveal where the jets are being stored.

Both U.S. services and foreign customers are anxious to get the aircraft, however, and the delay is disrupting plans to modernize various fighter fleets around the world.

A JPO spokesperson said that while the program office is “focused on delivering capable aircraft to the warfighters,” it is exploring a “truncation plan to accept aircraft ahead of full validation” of TR-3 capabilities.

“Any aircraft involved and delivered as part of the truncation plan will provide valuable capability to the warfighters while TR-3 completes final verification and validation,” the spokesperson said. No timeline was offered about when aircraft with waivers could be delivered.

More than 90 percent of TR-3 functionality is under flight test, Taiclet said, “and we are further advancing the software integration to include additional aircraft and mission subsystems.”

Neither the JPO nor Lockheed could immediately say whether Taiclet’s projection of deliveries resuming in the third quarter is based on the assumption that those aircraft will be delivered before full testing and validation is completed.

Either way, “the resulting aircraft delivery range for 2024 [of] between 75 and 110 … requires the TR-3 hardware suppliers to keep pace with production demands, both this year and in the future, Taiclet said.

Although TR-3 is taking longer than anticipated to get through flight test and software validation, Lockheed is “taking the time and attention to get this technology insertion right the first time, because it will be absolutely worth it,” Taiclet said.

“The step function technological advances of TR-3 will provide our customers with the onboard digital infrastructure of data storage, data processing, and pilot user interface to provide unmatched capabilities for many years to come,” he said. These will include new air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons, “advanced sensing, jamming, and cybersecurity capabilities” and more accurate target recognition “to achieve this level of reliable capability for the long run,” he said.

It’s “essential” that F-35 production rates be maintained, Taiclet said, despite the slowdown in deliveries. He added that “we can continue at this rate,” which was set last year at a notional 156 F-35s per year.

The key to achieving program goals is “full transparency,” he said, “and realizing the reality of the situation. When you’re trying to drive this much technology into an air vehicle, you’ve got to be honest about the schedule. What can industry do? What can the test and evaluation community handle in the various militaries to accept that technology? And what’s the supply chain capacity?

“We’re being brutally honest with our services and our Joint Program Office to what we think industry can do, with us and our airplane,” said Taiclet, noting that industry includes the subcontractors who make the radar, electro-optical system, and electronic warfare suite, among other systems.

“We cannot afford to be over-optimistic in the ability to deliver these technologies as rapidly as one might like,” he added.

Taiclet also said international demand for the F-35 remain strong, with a recent follow-on order from the Republic of Korea, which will buy another 20 of the fighters. Belgium has also received the first of its aircraft, which will be one of more than 600 F-35s in service in Europe by the 2030s.

When Will Space Force Guardians Be Able to Work Part-Time?

Jan. 23, 2024 | By David Roza

The Space Force is still working out when Guardians will officially be able to work part-time under a new law that does away with “regular” and “reserve” members in favor of a combined full-time and part-time system.

Signed into law last month as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the Space Force Personnel Management Act integrates Active-Duty Guardians with Air Force Reservists who serve in space-focused career fields “into a unified service that offers both full-and part-time service options,” Space Force spokesperson Maj. Tanya Downsworth told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The service hopes the new system will help manage its force more effectively, improve quality of life and retention, and tap into skill sets that many reserve component service members develop in their civilian jobs. The law comes after a 2023 RAND report that described service members running into frustrations with finances and benefits when moving between regular and reserve work.

Those barriers are not unique to the Space Force, but removing them is one of several reforms the service is pursuing as it aims to attract and retain top talent in a competitive marketplace.

“The overarching goals of a seamless full-time and part-time workforce are to create a flexible workforce that improves linking individuals to need, creates a more modern military workforce structure, and, in doing so, better serves the desires of individual members without negatively affecting mission accomplishment,” the RAND report stated.

Under the new construct, Guardians will be either on sustained duty orders (a full-time position with subsequent full-time positions throughout their career) or not on sustained duty (serving in a part-time position). According to the NDAA, Guardians not on sustained duty would participate in at least 48 scheduled drills or training periods a year and serve on active duty for at least 14 days a year, or, alternatively, serve on active duty for training for no more than 30 days a year.

There will also be an inactive duty status, similar to the Individual Ready Reserve in other branches. However, it could be a while before the Space Force works out when the new structures take effect.

“We are still in the nascent phases of planning and implementation and do not have details at this time,” Downsworth told Air & Space Forces Magazine when asked when Guardians will be able to switch between “sustained” duty and “not on sustained duty.”

The service is working with the Air Force Reserve to develop a phased implementation of the Space Force Personnel Management Act “across the next few years,” she said. The phases are:

planning

initial transition

majority transition

final transition

Working groups began the planning phase months ago and are now starting the initial transition phase.

“We will remain as clear and transparent with the force as possible as more details become available,” Downsworth added. “All transfers from the Air Force Reserve will be voluntary.”

Though the concept is still in the initial transition phase, the pay, benefits, duty status, and retirement calculations of part-time Guardians could look the same as they do for Air Force Reservists today, Downsworth said. The same could be true for full-time Guardians who today are Active-Duty Guardians.

Guardians on Guard

A separate section of the NDAA calls for a study of space functions in the National Guard. Due March 1, the study will look into the feasibility of leaving National Guard space-focused units in place, transferring those units to the Space Force, or transferring them to a new Space National Guard.

Proponents of a Space Guard argue that Guard units performing space missions will be “orphaned” until the issue is resolved, and that the Guard’s unique state-level humanitarian and disaster relief missions are a key recruiting draw. But critics say a Space Guard would be too small to justify the extra bureaucracy and that the inherently global mission of space would make them ill-suited for local disaster response.

For its part, the Space Force “is excited for the outcome of the feasibility study as we drive toward a solution that ensures unity of command over space forces in this complex threat environment,” Downsworth said.

Downsworth said implementation of the Space Force Personnel Management Act is independent from the Guard, as SFPMA focuses on bringing together active Guardians and Air Force Reservists who perform space jobs into a unified service.

“This enhances the Space Force’s ability to fulfill our mission as a warfighting domain by eliminating bureaucracy and providing operational flexibility; creating a common culture and training environment; and offering a new model for talent management,” she said.