CSAF Shows Off New Images of the B-21; Raider Begins Engine Runs

CSAF Shows Off New Images of the B-21; Raider Begins Engine Runs

Sept. 12, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and contractor Northrop Grumman both unveiled new imagery of the secretive B-21 Raider, the first glimpse of the stealthy bomber in months.

Two Air Force images, released during Brown’s keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference and dated July 31, showcase the bomber at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., facility. Notably, one shows the B-21 outdoors, a rare sighting of the aircraft outside the hangar.

Separately, Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere announced Sept. 12 that the B-21 has begun engine runs as part of its ground testing program. Northrop Grumman subsequently confirmed the news and released another picture of the aircraft.

The most prominent new feature shown in the new images is an air data probe mounted on the front of the aircraft below the nose; a test item which will not be a feature of operational aircraft. The probe is angled downwards, suggesting the airplane may fly with a slight pitch-up attitude.

The B-21 Raider is designed with an open systems architecture, enabling rapid insertion of mature technologies and allowing the aircraft to be effective as threats evolve. The B-21 first flight is anticipated to take place in calendar year 2023. U.S. Air Force photo

The images also emphasize how narrow the air intakes on the aircraft are—a marked contrast to the Air Force’s other stealth bomber, the B-2 Spirit—as well as the B-21’s simpler landing gear doors. The photos also appear to show the B-21’s flight control surfaces for the first time, seemingly three per side of the flying wing aircraft, and they seem larger than those on the B-2.

The outdoor image of the B-2 also reveals a serrated indentation on the top of the airframe behind the cockpit. The feature may be part of the air refueling receptacle system, which is in a similar position on the on the B-2.

The side windows of the B-21 seem smaller, wider and lower than was suggested in earlier artist’s concepts. A dark band sloping up onto the fuselage from the tail could be an extension of an infrared suppression system similar to that on the B-2, which uses space shuttle-tile-like materials to trap and disperse heat.

Air data sensors like those on the B-2 are prominent on the front of the aircraft in the hangar image. Black bands prominent beneath the windscreen could be air data sensors, a de-icing feature, or both.

Using ground crew in the hangar photo as a gauge, the aircraft appears to have a wingspan of approximately 135-155 feet, versus 172 feet for the B-2.

The B-21 Raider continues to progress in ground testing with the commencement of engine runs at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Palmdale, Calif. Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman

The Air Force rolled out the B-21, its first new bomber in more than three decades, in December 2022 at Northrop’s plant in Palmdale. The flashy ceremony, attended by Pentagon dignitaries, industry officials, and media, showcased some new features on what Northrop is dubbing the world’s first “sixth-generation” aircraft but also kept the general public at a distance from the secretive plane, whose full capabilities are still classified. 

Then in March, the service released two more images of the B-21. Since then, however, there has been no sight of the bomber emerging from the hangar, either for ground or flight tests. 

Northrop did announce in July that the bomber accomplished its first “power on” test in recent months, moving it another step closer to a first flight that is still scheduled to take place before the end of 2023.

No firm timeline has been set for that first flight, and in its most recent release, Northrop emphasized that it would be a “a data driven event.”

In his speech, Brown highlighted the B-21 as “a perfect example of successful design implementation, of operators and acquisition professionals working together to deliver capability to the warfighter. Just as importantly, developing the maintenance processes to ensure aircraft availability.” 

“Air Force Global Strike Command has Airmen working to do that right now,” Brown added. “Airmen like Staff Sgt. Ashley Ross, ensuring the capability we need is supportable and maintainable Day One.” 

Air Force officials have said the B-21 incorporates advancements in low-observance maintenance, typically an involved and difficult process, making the aircraft easier to repair and maintain. 

The B-21 Raider will be the backbone of the bomber fleet and will incrementally replace the B-1 and B-2 bombers as sufficient numbers of B-21s are available. The state-of-the-art bomber will provide survivable, long-range, penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and protect the United States, allies, and partners. The B-21 first flight is anticipated to take place in calendar year 2023. U.S. Air Force photo

In his own keynote speech Sept. 11, Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Duke Z. Richardson also highlighted the work of maintainers on the B-21.

“Transitioning from developing, acquiring, and testing to maintenance, our Air Force Sustainment Center steps in to provide essential logistic support,” Richardson said, before introducing a video of maintainers sharing their “real-world, wrench-turning stories.”

“We have been involved with the program since pre-source selection,” said Lauren Hazen, squadron director of the 556th Software Maintenance Group. “We actually had multiple technical experts working with the Rapid Capabilities Office to be part of that process, to really talk about lessons learned we’ve had on previous programs and to help develop plans to make sure we had a good process for the future.”

Space Force Service Component for Europe and Africa Coming in December

Space Force Service Component for Europe and Africa Coming in December

Sept. 12, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force will establish a service component for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command in early December, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman announced in a keynote address Sept. 12—and more may be on the way. 

The new component will “help integrate, collaborate, and cooperate with our joint teammates, partners, and allies in the region,” Saltzman said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. 

U.S. Space Forces Europe-Africa will be the fourth USSF service component for a regional combatant command, joining: 

  • Space Forces Indo-Pacific, which supports U.S. Indo-Pacific Command 
  • Space Forces Korea, which supports U.S. Forces Korea 
  • Space Forces Central, which supports U.S. Central Command 

In a briefing with reporters after his speech, Saltzman confirmed that the component would mirror and rely upon U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, which also serves as the service component for both EUCOM and AFRICOM. 

“In the case of Europe, we’re just taking advantage of the fact that USAFE is also the Africa Command support,” Saltzman said. “So because it’s all done from the same location, it’s easy for us to leverage that same construct and really get a two-for-one, to some degree. We will have some people assigned as well to Stuttgart [Germany], where the AFRICOM headquarters is, because proximity matters. And so the service component will kind of have some people spread around to make sure we give all of the attention that both European Command and Africa Command need.” 

Plans for a European component have been in the works since the Space Force first announced it would be establishing components for combatant commands outside of U.S. Space Command. The timing, however, was unclear for months. Saltzman credited the delay between Space Forces Indo-Pacific—established in November 2022—and the new European component to their locations. 

“When you have to work with host nations, there’s an extra few steps. And so because we stood up Indo-Pacific in Hawaii, we didn’t have to talk to host nations. Central Command was in Tampa, didn’t have to do it. Korea was the closest. We have such a long-standing relationship and a clear Status of Forces Agreement, it wasn’t hard,” said Saltzman. “But with NATO, you got to go through a lot of different countries and the plan is to stand this up in Germany, so we have to talk to the Germans. So just going through all those normal coordination processes just took a little bit longer.” 

Once Space Forces Europe-Africa stands up, five of the 11 combatant commands—EUCOM, AFRICOM, INDOPACOM, CENTCOM, and SPACECOM—will have Space Force components. If and when the remaining six will get their own is still being decided, Saltzman said. 

Lt. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, the deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, suggested in April that U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. Special Operations Command are prime candidates, given their close ties with space, and Saltzman said Burt is still leading that planning process. 

“It will be a balancing act between the responsibilities that those combatant commands have with regards to space … and then the resources I have to put into it,” Saltzman said. “In other words, I don’t want to establish a service component if I can’t resource it effectively. And what these components require is pretty senior people that understand the business. It’s a small number of people, so they have to be really good, they have to have broad understanding. These aren’t brand new, entry-level kinds of people. So there’s a balance between finding the right people to make sure we can support it and finding the right scope of responsibility in the combatant commands, but we’re doing that planning right now.” 

The balance of need and resources extends even to the existing components—right now. Saltzman said the plan is for the Europe-Africa component to have an O-6 commander, the same as Space Forces Central. Space Forces Indo-Pacific is the only one—outside of Space Operations Command, which acts as the component for U.S. Space Command—to have a general officer at its head. 

“I’m hopeful that with our key threats, we’ll be able to eventually get general officers,” Saltzman said. “We don’t have very many to go around. So this is more about resourcing and placing them right.” 

Regardless, the benefits of the regional components is clear, Saltzman said, citing the example of a recent exercise in the Indo-Pacific. 

“Having a service component out there before the exercise that’s immediately working with the other operational components, the land component, the air component, etc., to say: ‘What are you going to need from space capabilities?’” Saltzman said. “Documenting those requirements in their battle rhythm, on their time zone. And being able to follow up, ‘Hey, I didn’t really understand this? Can you clarify? Or is this good enough?’ That detailed integration is much harder to do when you’re thousands of miles separate.” 

From there, the service components can interact with U.S. Space Command and Space Operations Command and communicate what they need “with the same vocabulary, the same understanding of the missions, same understanding of the people and the capabilities, and it’s a much tighter integration,” Saltzman said. 

Exercises are just one benefit—Saltzman said planning, security cooperation, and training allies and partners are all easier with components. 

Saltzman Reveals New Space Units That Put Operations and Sustainment Under One Roof

Saltzman Reveals New Space Units That Put Operations and Sustainment Under One Roof

Sept. 12, 2023 | By David Roza

The Space Force is launching two prototype “Integrated Mission Deltas,” a new type of unit meant to bridge the gaps among operations, engineering, and capability development specialists, hoping to deliver maintenance and upgrades to important systems much faster than before.

“In my mind, performance should be optimized around our missions rather than the functions that support them,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman in his keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space, and Cyber Conference on Sept. 12. “In other words, we cannot afford to split a mission area’s critical activities across organizational seams.”

Today, operators in the space, cyber, and intelligence fields fall under Space Operations Command (SpOC), while engineers and program managers fall under Space Systems Command (SSC). That separation can slow the rate at which operators provide feedback to developers and vice versa in order to maintain and improve systems. 

“[I]t is essential that all elements of readiness—the people, the training, the equipment, and the sustainment—fall into the same organizational structure and that we create unity of command around those elements at the lowest possible level,” Saltzman said.

With the integrated mission delta, those career fields are brought together under a colonel-level composite command team where the commander will represent operations and the deputy commander will represent sustainment, or vice versa.

“The goal there is you have in your command team all the expertise you need to generate those ready forces,” an anonymous Space Force official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

space delta 3
Guardians and Airmen from Space Delta 3 – Space Electromagnetic Warfare, stand in formation for the DEL 3 change of command ceremony June 29, 2023, at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. U.S. Space Force photo by Airman 1st Class Cody Friend

The two integrated mission deltas will cover electronic warfare (EW) and position, navigation, and timing (PNT). The EW integrated mission delta will not be a new unit. Instead, the EW sustainment offices that currently reside in SSC will be realigned to Space Delta 3, the current operational EW Space Delta overseen by SpOC.

The PNT integrated mission delta will be different. Those operators currently share Space Delta 8 with satellite communications operators, but under the new system, PNT operators will have their own delta, a new delta number, and will work alongside PNT sustainers. A Space Force spokesperson emphasized that no relocations or mission changes will occur as a result of the new layout.

“This concept will be thoroughly evaluated and refined before it is considered for implementation across the force,” Maj. Tanya Downsworth told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “This initial effort will not involve the physical relocation of personnel and it will not change the core missions of SpOC or SSC; they will remain responsible for balancing Space Force activities and investments across mission sets, including those led by prototype IMDs.”

The model the integration mission deltas are based on had great success in the launch arena under SSC, where operators and developers expanded the launch windows for new systems.

“Instead of having a three-hour hold for weather, you would have only a one-hour hold for weather, under the safety guidelines, because the operators are able to work with the people who own the tool and get it upgraded to account for operational needs,” the anonymous official said.

The integrated mission deltas are part of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s push to reoptimize the Department for an era of great power competition.

“Both of these deltas integrate operations and sustainment, creating unity of command for all aspects of readiness and enhance our abilities to continue to provide world-class space effects in the face of a determined adversary,” Saltzman said.

There may be administrative challenges ahead. One challenge is that maintenance and acquisition sometimes bleed together in the space domain. The anonymous official stressed that the integrated mission deltas will not touch acquisition, which falls under SSC.

“There are people who do GPS maintenance activities 60 percent of the time, and the other 40 percent of the time they’re working on the next generation of GPS satellites,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest thing that we have to learn: ‘how do we divide the maintenance activities that are done in SSC from the capability, development, acquisition, and next-gen programs.’”

Another possible hurdle is the fact that integrated mission deltas are a fundamentally different model in a military organized by career fields. Though the new model could enhance readiness and increase the command opportunities for Guardians who are not space operators, it could also have growing pains.

“There are no perfect organizational structures,” Saltzman said. “The structuring of people to do their jobs will always create seams. The key is to arrange the organization to maximize performance around what matters most and minimize the negative integration effects that seams naturally create.”

The integrated mission deltas make up ‘Force Generation,’ one of four steps the Space Force is taking to prepare for great power competition. The other three are:

  • Force Design: Designing the service to be prepared for threats, such as by better integrating commercial space capabilities, fueled by a pending study from the Space Warfighter Analysis Center on architectures needed for success.
  • Force Development: Investing in exercises, war games, training, and education, such as through the Intermediate and Senior Level Education program hosted by Johns Hopkins University, to foster critical thinking in the service.
  • Force Employment: Normalizing how the Space Force presents forces by standing up service components to the regional combatant commands. Such components already exist in the Indo-Pacific, Korea, and Central Commands, with new ones coming to Europe and Africa.
Air Force ‘Very Opposed’ to Lawmakers’ Proposed Cost Limits for CCAs

Air Force ‘Very Opposed’ to Lawmakers’ Proposed Cost Limits for CCAs

Sept. 12, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The House of Representatives has proposed cost limits on Collaborative Combat Aircraft as part of its 2024 defense policy bill—but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall expressed puzzlement at the numbers Sept. 11 and indicated the service is not pursuing the kinds of systems Congress is talking about.

“We’re very opposed to those targets,” Kendall told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference in National Harbor, Md. “I don’t know where those categories come from, but they’re not what we’re doing.”

In its version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, the House approved a provision setting cost limits of:

  • $3 million each for an “expendable” CCA, defined as an aircraft designed not to be used more than once
  • $10 million for an “attritable” CCA, defined as an aircraft intended to be used more than once but whose occasional loss in combat would be deemed acceptable
  • $25 million for an “exquisite” model, defined as one meant to be reused and whose loss would be deemed not acceptable.

The Senate did not include such a provision in its version of the NDAA, and the idea has not been hashed out in conference yet.

Instead of the three classifications offered by the House, Kendall indicated that “we’ve got two increments planned” but did not elaborate on what they were. He has not set any cost boundaries for CCAs beyond the goal of buying them at “a fraction of [the cost of] an F-35,” which in the last contract with Lockheed Martin was about $80 million per aircraft.

Competition

Kendall said the Air Force plans “an open competition” for CCAs—unmanned, autonomous aircraft that will pair with manned platforms—that will be affected by an ongoing effectiveness analysis and “maturity of the technology.”

An Air Force official said the service doesn’t want to limit the program, which is “in its early stages.”

“What we’re trying to get industry to do is to mature technology and be creative, and then demonstrate to us what kind of capabilities they can provide, and [show] why it’s cost-effective. And that’s how we’re going to be selecting which ones we carry to the next phase of competition,” Kendall explained.

Kendall said the Air Force has not yet settled on an acquisition strategy for CCAs, other than to note that the service has budgeted some $5.8 billion across the the next five years to pursue the effort, which he has described as producing more than 2,000 airframes.

“We’re pretty wide open in terms of possibilities right now,” he said. “We do want to maintain competition as long as we possibly can. I think there’s a lot of value in that.”

Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s acquisition executive, did tell reporters that “continuous competition is the core of our acquisition approach for CCA.”

He also said CCAs will “leverage … the Advanced Mission Systems government reference architecture developed through the [Next Generation Air Dominance] program.” That architecture “gives us a lot of a lot of opportunity to kind of mix and match” capabilities on a single CCA airframe, which is “the idea of a modular open systems architecture approach.”

Hunter said being able to “integrate capabilities rapidly from a wide variety of sources and then upgrade them, [and] iterate them over time” is another key part of the CCA acquisition approach.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall delivers a keynote address at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference on September 11, 2023, at National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

B-21 Back on the Table

Kendall’s original take on his “seven operational imperatives” included building CCA-like aircraft to accompany the B-21 bomber on long-range strike missions. He later withdrew the idea, though, saying it had proved “cost ineffective” in analysis.

However, he left the door open to the idea of CCAs operating jointly with B-21s.

“When we started the operational imperatives, we thought initially that we might find a good cost effectiveness case for dedicated, uncrewed combat aircraft that would accompany the B-21. That didn’t turn out to be the case, as we got into the analysis,” he said, but there may be a viable concept in which “basically, the B-21 picks up CCAs as it gets closer to the operating area.”

CCAs offer “a lot of really interesting tactical possibilities,” Kendall added, and while the planned family of systems that will support the B-21 is classified, Kendall said it includes “things that could be carried by, or possibly accompany, the B-21,” such as munitions and “other things that can be used for defensive purposes, for example.”

Asked to name a mission that might be well suited for a CCA supporting the B-21, Kendall ventured, “defensive capability” for the bomber or providing it with “better situational awareness,” but he cautioned he was speculating.

Much is still uncertain regarding CCAs—Kendall said the service still has not yet settled on how many drones would accompany a crewed aircraft

He has previously speculated that each F-35, for example, could be partnered with up to five CCAs, but “that’s still unknown,” he said.

“We would like to have at least two,” he added. “More is better; you get more cost effectiveness if you can do more, but you’ve got to have technology that can allow the crewed aircraft to control that number, and do it effectively.

Excitement in Congress

Air Force officials have reported that lawmakers and staff on Capitol Hill are extremely enthused about CCAs as offering a grand solution to the Air Force’s capacity, cost, and mass problems.

“I’m grateful for the support,” Kendall said. “I’m glad that people are excited. … I’m excited about it. I think it’s a good concept. It’s very cost-effective. And the reaction we’ve gotten from industry and others who’ve looked at it is very positive.”

But there is still much work left to be done, he warned, and the Air Force is still “doing efforts to experiment with operational units to try to get a sense of how our CCAs would fit into an operational unit,” he noted, “and we’re doing some things to mature the technology; particularly for autonomy.”

As far as being the Air Force’s silver bullet problem solver, Kendall said the CCA concept “doesn’t get us out of the woods entirely on long-term affordability, for example, but it’s going to be a much more cost effective” approach than attempting to build mass with crewed aircraft.

The “Replicator” program outlined recently by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, which would build large numbers of “attritable” air, land, sea and space vehicles, is “a completely separate thing” from CCAs, Kendall said. He has previously described CCAs as modular and re-usable vehicles that will be integrated with crewed fighter squadrons, and perform functions like those now carried out by pods on fighters: target designation, electronic warfare, sensing, and as carriers of additional munitions.

“We have some candidates in the Air Force” for Replicators, Kendall said, and when he presented those ideas to Hicks, “some of those she looks on very positively, but we haven’t resolved all that yet,” Kendall said.

But the Air Force is all in on CCAs, Kendall said.

“The more we learn about the idea of the CCA and how it can fit into our operational context, the more interesting and appealing it becomes. That’s one of the reasons [for] … the excitement about it. There’s reason to be excited about it. It offers a lot of really interesting tactical possibilities,” Kendall said.

Space Superiority May Come Only in Blips, Industry Exec Warns

Space Superiority May Come Only in Blips, Industry Exec Warns

Sept. 11, 2023 | By David Roza

A space industry executive warned that the U.S military may have only brief moments of near-complete control of the space domain, so it must be ready to act as a team to exploit those moments to the fullest.

“The thinking that we can attain and maintain space superiority is really fraught with hubris,” Amy Hopkins, vice president and general manager of national security space for Peraton, said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 11.

“The complex evolving nature of the battlespace requires us to acknowledge that there’s a temporal aspect to this,” Hopkins explained. “We are only going to really have episodic instances of space superiority. Therefore I think the question should be: ‘Are we prepared and trained to maximize the effects when we have that? And do we know what to do when we don’t?’”

Hopkins shared her thoughts during a panel on space order of battle, one of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives. The challenge of that imperative is to protect space capabilities, protect military space services, and defeat adversary space capabilities. Defeating adversary capabilities may help achieve space superiority, which a 2020 joint and a 2021 Air Force doctrine publication defined as “the degree of control in space by one force over another that permits the conduct of operations at a given time and place without effective interference from opposing forces.”

The idea of space superiority is similar to that of air superiority, but the Air Force publication cautioned that the state of desired control “may not always be achievable, particularly against a peer or near-peer adversary.” Part of the challenge is that “place” does not refer to controlling physical space, but instead to specific terrestrial areas impacted by space operations. 

“The ability to achieve space superiority or supremacy is impacted by the laws of physics, international law, and existing policy,” the publication explained. For example, it may not be in America’s interest to fully deny space capabilities to adversaries, when denying them may cause collateral effects to friendly forces or third-party users.

On top of political concerns, China boasts “the most rapidly developing counterspace capabilities of any nation,” retired Col. Charles S. Galbreath, senior resident fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute, wrote in a June research paper. Those capabilities include ground-launch kinetic missiles, ground-based electronic warfare tools, and satellites that can attack U.S. assets in orbit.

This illustration created for the Space-Based Weapons section of the “Competing in Space” unclassified report depicts space-based anti-satellite systems that target other space systems. National Air and Space Intelligence Center illustration by Justin Weisbarth.

To defend against those attacks, Galbreath called for the Space Force and industry to work together to quickly develop defensive and offensive capabilities. He also called for more Space Force funding from Congress; clear guidance and counterspace force design; better Space Force situational awareness; telemetry, tracking, and control of satellites; and test and training infrastructure.

The rest of the joint and coalition forces must also be ready to exploit the opportunity if space superiority is achieved, Hopkins said.

“Can we execute a joint and coalition air, sea, land, subsurface beating with such magnitude during that window that we can achieve the maximum effects and really no adversary can then stay ahead of what we have prevented forward?” asked Hopkins, who called on the Space Force to train and exercise “to this idea of the temporal aspect of space superiority—when we have it and when we will not have it.”

In the meantime, the Space Force is working hard to make its own capabilities more difficult to deny. By building larger constellations of satellites, the service hopes to create networks that can withstand losses and make destroying individual spacecraft not worth the cost. The Space Force is also working to make its ground and launch systems more resilient to cyberattack.

Hopkins and her co-panelists also called for making commercial capabilities a key part of the wider space security posture, in line with what other space industry executives have said in the past.

“We have to train how we’re going to fight [and] we all know we’re going to leverage commercial capabilities … everything from rapid launch” to satellite communications and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Hopkins said. “The more you can incorporate commercial partners into the training and the exercises, the better-positioned we will be for the fight that is yet to come.”

New Air Force Recruiting Boss Calls on Every Member to Be a Recruiter

New Air Force Recruiting Boss Calls on Every Member to Be a Recruiter

Sept. 11, 2023 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Amid military-wide recruiting struggles and bleak long-term trends, the Air Force is set to miss its annual recruiting goal for the Active-Duty component by around 10 percent when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30, with slightly worse numbers for the Guard and Reserve, officials said Sept. 11.

Seeking to close the gap, the Air Force Recruiting Service is looking outside its traditional workforce of recruiters to retired members and everyday Airmen and Guardians, AFRS boss Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein and others said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference.

The Challenges

The Air Force first started projecting a 10 percent recruiting shortfall in March, and the service subsequently implemented changes to relax restrictions on tattoos, naturalization, and body mass index, part of a broader effort to “make sure we’re not unintentionally placing barriers [in front of] Americans who might want to join our formation,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Yet there are broader cultural issues that make talent acquisition difficult, Amrhein said. Fewer youth today have parents with military connections, and results a generational gap in military knowledge and experience passed down within families:

  • Nine out of 10 American adults cannot name all five branches of the military nowadays
  • Only 23 percent of American youth are eligible for enlistment in the military, and less than half of the pool express interest in joining
  • Among the approximately 20 million Americans aged 17 to 21, only about 370,000 meet the eligibility criteria, possess the academic qualifications, and show interest in pursuing a career in the Air or Space Force.

“In 1995, about 40 percent of parents were either serving or had served in the military,” Amrhein said. “But in the last couple of years, it’s been only around 13 percent inside households.”

Amrhein also noted a recent study on parents’ and grandparents’ support for their children or grandchildren joining the military. According to the study, around 50 percent of grandparents and fathers favored the idea, while only about 36 percent of mothers said they would support their children joining the service.

“That’s where we come in. People aren’t recommending the service as much as they used to for various reasons,” said Chief Master Sgt. Rebecca A. C. Arbona, Command Chief Master Sergeant of AFRS.

Another factor exacerbating the gap between the military and the community is the shortage of recruitment distribution due to the increasing cost of talent acquisition. As an example, Amrhein pointed out that there are only four Air Force recruiters in the state of Montana.

The Solution

To address these issues, Amrhein said AFRS has introduced E-recruiters—retired Air Force recruiters who stay engaged with the community through virtual platforms. They effectively cover regions that regular recruiters cannot reach.

Amrhein also noted the partnership with AFA and AFA’s recruiting task force and their role in expanding recruitment, adding that he’d like to have a document outlining tactics, techniques, and procedures that he can distribute to chapters nationwide

More broadly, Amrhein urged Air Force and Space Force personnel to share their personal journeys. He emphasized the importance of Active-Duty and retired service members, along with their families, telling their stories to inspire the next generation.

 “What was your ‘why’? Why did you join the Air Force, and what do you do every day?” he asked. “It’s important. Tell your story. You are an influencer just as much as you are a recruiter, for every Airman and Guardian.”

To illustrate the diverse motivations behind Airmen’s decisions to join the service, four members from the audience took the stage. Tech. Sgt. Cam Kelsh said his decision to enlist was deeply influenced by the shock of witnessing the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the news alongside his mother when he was only in sixth grade. It was at that moment, he said, he realized that his homeland was not invulnerable.

Senior Airman Kristina Schneider said she had a lifelong desire to be part of the Air Force. However, she initially believed it was an impossible dream due to starting her family at a young age. As her children grew older, she mustered the courage to ask them if they were comfortable with her pursuing her dreams. To her surprise, they encouraged her to go for it, and she was able to join the Air Force before reaching the age limit for enlistment.

Amrhein stressed how these unique, individual experiences of all members of Air Force and Space Force could have an impact on the community. And he encouraged everyone to take a more active role in staying connected and sharing information, while highlighting the crucial role of social media, especially to engage with Generation Z.

Amrhein assumed command of AFRS on June 2, acknowledging that he was taking over “in a challenging time.”