AFSOC Put 15 CV-22 Ospreys in Storage to Increase Mission Readiness for Rest of Fleet

May 24, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Special Operations Command has been rotating its CV-22 aircraft into “flyable storage” status at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., as it works to upgrade components in the movable nacelles, the engine housings and transmission lines that give the aircraft its unique tiltrotor capabilities.

The work began in 2022 and will continue into 2026.

The previously unreported program is part of a larger effort to improve mission availability for the Osprey, but it won’t be clear until late 2025 if the changes are making enough of a difference to restore the full fleet to operational squadrons.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) raised the topic of CV-22 readiness during the House Armed Services Committee’s markup of the 2025 National Defense Authorization bill.

“The committee is aware of the force structure proposals for the fleet of CV-22 Osprey aircraft that are being considered by the Department of the Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command,” Jackson wrote in language adopted by the committee. Today, he said, 15 of the 51 CV-22 Osprey aircraft in the Air Force inventory “are in flyable storage with the intent of returning to an operational squadron no earlier than fiscal year 2026.”

An AFSOC spokeswoman confirmed that the aircraft were in storage in response to a query from Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Flyable storage means the aircraft can be put back in the inventory if needed, but spreads the available operations and maintenance funds across fewer aircraft, enabling higher availability rates. The Air Force applied a similar strategy in recent years to the B-1B bomber fleet, retiring some of the bombers so it could focus sustainment funding on fewer aircraft.

“Air Force Special Operations Command placed 15 CV-22s in Flyable Storage at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., in FY22 to better support modification lines for a number of aircraft improvements, most notably the Nacelle Improvement program designed to simplify maintenance actions and raise the fleet’s aircraft availability rate,” the spokeswoman said.

AFSOC’S Nacelle Improvement Program began in September 2021, with the Air Force contracting Osprey maker Bell Textron to do the work. In 2022, then-Lt. Col. Jonathan Ball said in a video that “60 percent of the maintenance occurs in the nacelles. So what this allows us to do is really address and improve on those reliability and sustainment issues that we’ve seen and learned from over the last decade, but still have the same amazing capability moving forward.”

About half the CV-22 fleet has received the upgrade so far.

Safety issues have haunted the Osprey since early in its development. But advocates say the data does not support its reputation for safety incidents. The program has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years after a series of fatal crashes and two periods when AFSOC paused flight operations while investigating concerns related to the aircraft’s clutch system, in particular.

In November, a CV-22 crashed off the coast of Japan, killing all eight Airmen on board. Investigators blamed the crash on an unspecified material failure. A military-wide V-22 grounding that was lifted in March, but the aircraft’s operations are still limited.

“We are gaining better fidelity on the effectiveness of the nacelle improvements on fleet readiness,” the AFSOC spokeswoman said. “We believe we will have sufficient data by late 2025 to inform a decision whether to return the flyable storage aircraft to operational squadrons.”

Jackson’s amendment to the House version of the Authorization bill says Congress is “aware of and very concerned by recent proposals to move multiple CV-22 Osprey aircraft to a long-term preservation site.”

Asked if the Air Force has pending proposals or plans to change the Osprey’s force structure, the AFSOC spokeswoman responded: “There have been no further decisions on the CV-22 fleet status since those program changes in FY22.”

However, an April force structure report issued by the Pentagon indicates the Air Force is seeking to retire two CV-22s in 2025. However, the report notes that “two CV-22s will be delivered immediately prior to two divesting.” The report shows no other planned CV-22 retirements through 2029.

As part of the reporting language Jackson introduced into the NDAA, the Secretary of the Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command commander would have to provide a briefing to lawmakers by December 2024 including:

A detailed force structure and preservation plan for the CV-22

A review of any manpower shortfalls over the last three years

The impact of the Nacelle Improvement program

Investments needed for “safety, reliability, survivability, and capability”

Analysis of “any recent changes to the maintenance protocols over the last three years” for the CV-22

Any funding that has been diverted away from the CV-22

Elsewhere in the House Armed Services Committee version of the NDAA, lawmakers authorized an extra $125 million for procuring V-22 safety enhancements. The additional funds still must be approved by the Senate and by appropriators in both chambers.

First Ukrainian Pilots Graduate US F-16 Training

May 23, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The first batch of Ukrainian pilots have graduated from U.S. F-16 training, U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Multiple Ukrainian pilots have graduated from their F-16 training course at the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing in Tucson, Ariz., Arizona National Guard spokesperson Capt. Erin Hannigan said May 23. The 162nd Wing is the U.S. Air Force’s training unit for foreign F-16 pilots.

Hannigan declined to say how many pilots graduated or when they did so, citing operational security. But some Ukrainian pilots are still undergoing training in the U.S., American officials said.

The Ukrainian pilots who graduated F-16 training in Arizona will conduct additional training overseas, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Charlie Dietz told Air & Space Forces Magazine May 24.

“A small number of pilots have finished their U.S.-based training and moved forward to the next portion of training outside the United States,” Dietz said. “Additional Ukrainian pilots continue to train in Arizona. While I cannot confirm specific details regarding the training schedules and locations of individual pilots, I can assure you that we continue to work closely with our Ukrainian partners to enhance their operational readiness and interoperability within NATO standards.”

POLITICO first reported the graduation of the Ukrainian pilots.

Pilots arrived in Tucson in multiple tranches. At first, four Ukrainian pilots were undergoing training at the 162nd, which began in late October of last year. In late January, four more Ukrainian pilots arrived. The National Guard said it was planning to train a total of 12 Ukrainian F-16 pilots by the end of fiscal 2024.

The pilot training was expected to be completed between this month and August, Hannigan previously said. That is a longer timeframe than the Pentagon and the Air National Guard initially suggested in the fall when the first pilots began training in October.

“We’re thinking more long-term, so some of the requirements on them has shifted, and so that has necessitated a little bit longer [timeframe],” director of the Air National Guard Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh said at the AFA Warfare Symposium in February.

Airpower has become more prominent in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in recent weeks, with Russians using fixed-wing aircraft to support their latest offensive.

“Russians are using 300 planes on the territory of Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters on May 20. “We need at least 120, 130 planes to resist in the sky,” he added, referring to F-16s.

Last year, the U.S. and western European nations began parallel programs to train pilots and maintainers. These programs are being coordinated by an air force capability coalition of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States lead. Some European countries are also training Ukrainian pilots who will eventually fly F-16s.

“Everyone is scared of escalation,” Zelenskyy told Reuters. “Everyone has gotten used to the fact that Ukrainians are dying—that’s not escalation for people.”

Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium have pledged to provide Ukraine with F-16s, a move that requires the Biden administration’s approval, which the administration has pledged to do, as the jets are U.S.-made weapons.

Maintenance plans for the jets are murky, and it is unclear when Ukraine will be able to employ them, though U.S. officials previously said it would be before the end of 2024.

Some U.S lawmakers have questions about whether the training program is adequate.

“Last year, the Biden Administration approved the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to replace Ukraine’s aging and declining fleet of MiG-29s, Su-24s, and Su-25s,” said a recent letter signed by Rep. Michael Turner, the Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee; Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the panel; and other lawmakers.

“While this was an encouraging step, there remains a critical need for a substantial number of trained pilots to operate these aircraft as the F-16 fighter jets become available to Ukraine,” they wrote in the letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. “According to the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. is on track to graduate only 12 pilots from F-16 training by the end of 2024. Graduating 12 Ukrainian pilots is simply insufficient. Ukraine is at war and slots for Ukraine must be prioritized over other foreign countries.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on May 24 with additional details.

USAF Aid Airdrops to Gaza to Continue Even as US Pier Opens

May 23, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

U.S. aid airdrops into Gaza will continue for the foreseeable future even as food aid is delivered to the famished enclave through a new military maritime route, a senior U.S. general said May 23.

“It is our intent to continue with humanitarian airdrops,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters. “As we’ve done in the past, our focus would be on north Gaza going forward.”

On May 17, the U.S. began delivering aid through a makeshift pier off the coast of northern Gaza with a causeway connecting it to the shore. That approach, which is dubbed JLOTS, for Joint Logistics Over the Shore, has involved some 1,000 U.S. Soldiers and Sailors with security provided by the Israel Defense Forces.

Three U.S. troops have been injured in noncombat incidents at sea since JLOTS has been in place. One service member is in critical condition, a U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Hamas, which controlled Gaza, attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 civilians and taking some 250 hostages, prompting a fierce Israeli military retaliation. The destruction has killed more than 30,000 people, some of them combatants, and has left Gazans in desperate need of food, water and medicine. Three-fourths of Gazans have been displaced during the conflict, according to the United Nations.

Since U.S. policy is not to deploy troops in Gaza, the maritime channel involves a complex series of interactions. Aid from foreign governments and international aid agencies is sent to Cyprus, where it is screened and loaded onto ships that deliver it to the causeway. From there, the aid is moved on trucks to a marshaling area on the coast before it is delivered to distribution points.

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), U.S. Navy Sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, and Israel Defense Forces emplace the Trident Pier on the Gaza coast, May 16, 2024. The temporary pier, part of the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore capability.

It has not always worked as planned. Some of the trucks have been overwhelmed by hungry Gazans over the past few days, which has happened with parallel efforts to deliver assistance through land crossings.

“Some of this assistance is reaching warehouses, some of this is being distributed immediately to those in need, but all this requires constant maneuvering and these variables that come and go,” said Daniel Dieckhaus, director of U.S. Agency for International Development’s Levant Response Management Team. “The maritime corridor is a component of an overall approach to ensuring adequate assistance, as well as providing another option for humanitarian organizations to use as they make their operational decisions.”

While the maritime corridor is boosting aid to northern Gaza, problems have arisen in the southern part of the strip.

Earlier this month, Israeli troops seized control over the border crossing with Egypt near Rafah. That operation was part of a broader Israeli campaign against Hamas fighters in that southern Gazan city. Efforts to reopen the crossing, which is used to send fuel and goods, have been stymied by differences between Egypt and Israel. That has hampered efforts to get assistance to the more than 800,000 civilians who have fled Rafah.

The U.S. is currently talking to Egypt and Israel to get the Rafah crossing reopened and the aid flowing again. But Dieckhaus said that less aid has been delivered by land to Gaza in May than during the previous month.

The last U.S. airdrops occurred on May 9, but Cooper said they would be continued. According to U.S. Central Command, the U.S. has delivered approximately 1,220 tons of humanitarian assistance via C-17 and C-130 airdrops, which began March 2. Jordan and other countries also do their own airdrops.

“There’s a very sophisticated coordination process that we lead,” Cooper said. “Jordan has played a very central role in this, along with all the partners who we do a planning effort to coordinate where the drops will be so that we can deconflict in time and space. That certainly will continue going forward.”

One question is whether new drop zones might be picked to cover areas not reached by JLOTS-delivered aid. The U.S. has often used a drop site close to where JLOTS is now placed. Cooper did not say where future drop zones might be but said that extensive planning is involved in selecting them.

JLOTS has delivered 820 metric tons of aid to the shore. Of that assistance, 506 metric tons had been delivered to hungry civilians through the United Nations as of May 22, Cooper said.

The U.S. hopes to feed up to 500,000 people per month via the maritime corridor, Dieckhaus said.

“I think what we would primarily like to focus on is impacts over inputs,” Dieckhaus said.

DOD-contracted drivers transport humanitarian aid from the World Food Program to the Trident Pier before entering the beach in Gaza, May 18, 2024. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Riley Anfinson

House Panel Adds More New Test F-35s to NDAA

May 23, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The number of new F-35s dedicated to developmental testing would rise under the version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act passed by the House Armed Services Committee on May 22, yet another by lawmakers to put the spurs to the lagging program.

In the 2024 version of the bill, Congress adopted a provision to fund six F-35s to refresh the aging test fleet. For the 2025 bill, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) offered an amendment to raise that number to nine, and his proposal was approved by the HASC in a quick voice vote.

Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, F-35 program executive officer, told Air & Space Forces Magazine last fall that the program’s test fleet is tired, suffers from decreasing availability, and needs to be augmented with nine new airplanes configured with test gear. The combined test force has been supplemented with operationally-configured airplanes for some time, but they are not the optimal solution, Schmidt said.

A heavy campaign of F-35 testing is already underway and the load will increase as the Pentagon tries to complete testing of the Tech Refresh 3 hardware and software package. Once that’s complete, more than 80 improvements comprising the F-35 Block 4 upgrade will require test and evaluation, not including power and thermal testing pertaining to its F135 engine.

Schmidt has told Congress in budget testimony that Block 4 is being “reimagined,” and some elements of it planned to be fielded this decade will slip to the 2030s.

Under Wittman’s amendment, all the new test aircraft would be funded in Lot 18, which, along with Lot 19, has been under negotiation almost two years. In last year’s bill, the six airplanes would have come out of Lot 19. While the 2024 NDAA specified two of each variant as test jets, the new law would give the Pentagon flexibility to decide the mix.

The Joint Program Office has long contended that it has inadequate resources to support a high tempo of F-35 testing. Exasperated with the delays—which have resulted in more than 70 F-35s completed but not delivered because the Tech Refresh 3 upgrade built into them hasn’t finished testing—the HASC slashed F-35 purchases by up to 20 jets for fiscal 2025 and is redirecting the money to set up and staff a software laboratory and a flying system integration laboratory, among other test capacity enhancements.

“We are compelled to address the ongoing Joint Strike Fighter production challenge,” Wittman said in a statement attending the markup, noting comments by former head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Philip S. Davidson that China would be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. “With over 100 JSF aircraft projected to stack up on the ramp waiting the needed TR-3/Block 4 upgrades and further challenges with getting the right capabilities in time to address the Davidson window, it is essential that we right-size our nation’s largest defense acquisition program.”

Wittman said the new provision puts the U.S. “in a good position that allows us to address the more egregious concerns identified” by the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, “a software independent review team, and the Government Accountability Office.” The adjustments to the F-35 program “will put the JSF program on the right path. We are not interested in placing blame for the program’s challenges; we are committed to delivering solutions.”

The GAO, in an F-35 report published last week, said it may take a year to go through the normal process of accepting and delivering the completed but parked jets. The JPO has said it has gotten approval from the F-35 user community to start accepting jets with less than the TR-3 hardware and software upgrade—a so-called “truncated” version of the upgrade—as soon as the software shows adequate stability in test. The JPO has not been able, however, to offer the metrics of what would constitute “stable” or when that status is expected to be achieved.

Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet said in the company’s last earnings call April 23 that the not-quite TR-3 upgrade, which he called a “combat training-capable” version, will likely be ready to go in the third quarter. He said it will allow F-35 users to start training with the TR-3 capabilities before they’re actually resident on the airplane.

The GAO—which issued its report before the FY 2025 markup—warned that the six new test F-35s already in flow won’t be delivered and configured for use until 2029.

Former CMSAF Wright on Roger Fortson, What Air Force Leaders Can Do Next

May 23, 2024 | By David Roza

As a leadership consultant, retired Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright helps many leaders in and out of uniform hone their craft. When Senior Airman Roger Fortson was killed by a sheriff’s deputy in Florida earlier this month, several Air Force leaders sought his insight on how to handle it.

“They might be wondering if whatever they did was enough, and what would they do differently?” Wright told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Wright is no stranger to such situations. When George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis in 2020 during Wright’s final year as CMSAF, the Airman made headlines by sharing his thoughts about it on Facebook.

“Who am I? I am a Black man who happens to be the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force,” he wrote at the time. “What happens all too often in this country to Black men who are subjected to police brutality that ends in death … could happen to me.”

The post also included a warning that became reality earlier this month.

“This, my friends, is my greatest fear, not that I will be killed by a white police officer … but that I will wake up to a report that one of our Black Airmen has died at the hands of a white police officer,” he wrote.

Fortson was killed May 3 by an Okaloosa County Sherriff’s deputy who fired at him while responding to a reported disturbance call at an apartment complex at Fort Walton Beach, Fla. The deputy shot the 23-year-old Fortson six times as the Airman opened his apartment door while holding his legally-owned handgun at his side, pointing downwards. At a May 16 press conference, a lawyer for Fortson’s family, Ben Crump, said the deputy had been called to the wrong apartment.

“This is what I always feared,” Wright wrote on Facebook on May 9. “Praying for his family.”

When Airmen reached out to him for guidance, Wright heard echoes from 2020.

“The theme is the same: ‘I’m not quite sure what to do,’ ‘I’m not quite sure how to feel.’ And people are unsure how to channel their anger,” he said.

Fortson’s death cuts even closer to home for many Airmen.

“They live in apartments, they drive around, they have encounters with policemen, they own firearms,” said Wright, who, like Fortson also lived off-base as a Senior Airman, since on-base dormitories are often limited to the most junior Airmen. “There are just so many similarities that I think cause people to feel like ‘man, this could easily have been me.’”

‘A Huge Message’

In 2020, Floyd’s death helped spark larger discussions about racial disparities in the Air Force, starting with Wright and then-Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein. Four years later, the retired CMSAF said he gets the sense that more unit-level Air Force leaders shared their thoughts about Fortson’s death and engaged with Airmen about it sooner, including Fortson’s commander, Col. Patrick Dierig; the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Tony D. Bauernfeind; the top enlisted leader for the 8th Air Force, Chief Master Sgt. Ronnie J. Woods; and current Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David A. Flosi.

“I have heard some positives from people saying ‘my leadership is creating space for us to talk and to express our feelings and they’ve been listening,’” Wright said. “And then I’ve also heard kind of the same things I was hearing in 2020: ‘nobody’s saying anything.’”

Events such as Fortson’s death can be tricky to handle for Air Force leaders, most of whom are White. According to 2022 data, the percentage of Air Force colonels, brigadier generals, major generals, lieutenant generals, and generals who are White are 83 percent, 86 percent, 93 percent, 91 percent, and 80 percent, respectively. Those kinds of proportions can limit even the most well-intentioned Airman’s perspective.

“If you’ve never been the only person that looks like you or is of the same gender as you, you don’t know how it feels,” Wright said. “If I’m the only Black person in the unit, I’m not walking around angry all the time. I’m not walking around complaining all the time. I know, in order for my survival, basically, I have to assimilate and I have to pretend like everything is OK. Even if it’s not.”

Two obstacles often make bridging that gap difficult for leaders, Wright noted. The first is not knowing what to say or fear of saying the wrong thing, while the second is a fear of political pushback. As an example, Wright cited Air Force Col. Benjamin Jonsson. Jonsson’s promotion to brigadier general has been delayed 18 months and could stretch into 2025 because of a legislative hold placed by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.). Schmitt has said the hold is in opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives—Jonsson penned an op-ed addressing racial injustice in 2020.

“That was a huge message to some extent, directly, and to some extent, indirectly, that, ‘hey, if you speak too loudly about this type of stuff, this is what could potentially happen to you and your career,’” Wright said. “It might cause some leaders to say, ‘I’m not quite sure if I want to get involved in this discussion.’”

The discussion is even more delicate considering that Air Force leaders can do little to change wider societal issues like race relations and police brutality. But that does not mean they are powerless, Wright said.

“On this particular issue, young African American males being killed by police officers, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily that the Air Force can or has a responsibility to do,” he said. “However, the Air Force does have a responsibility to continue to create justice and fairness within its own structure when it comes to African American males.”

For example, the Air Force found in its 2020 review of racial disparities that young Black enlisted Airmen and Guardians are almost twice as likely as their White peers to be apprehended by Security Forces and involuntarily discharged based on misconduct. Black Airmen are also underrepresented in operational fields, which promote faster and could contribute to there being fewer high-ranking Black officers.

The federally-funded RAND Corporation also wrote in April that Black male junior enlisted Airmen are 86 percent more likely to be issued an Article 15 or referred to a court-martial than White Airmen. Though the exact causes of those disparities are still unknown, RAND wrote that “having a diverse group of individuals make discipline decisions might mitigate disparities and increase trust in the process,” rather than a lone decision maker.

RAND also called for countermeasures to reduce individual biases that “go beyond traditional training,” with an emphasis “on making changes to the system such that the impacts of individual biases are mitigated.”

Leaning In

Those biases come into sharper focus after an event like Fortson’s death, which gives leaders and Airmen a chance to start a conversation, Wright said. The former CMSAF encouraged leaders to “lean into the issue” and listen to Airmen, even if they may not have all the answers. But listening alone is not enough, Wright said, recalling a recent discussion with a group of Air Force senior leaders who held listening sessions with their Airmen.

“I asked, ‘OK, well, what did you learn?’ And they were pretty quiet,” he said. “There is, I think, a responsibility to allow people to express themselves and listen, but there should be some takeaways: what are you hearing from people that you didn’t already know, that you didn’t realize? Or, what are you hearing that makes you think, ‘OK, based on this feedback that I’m getting from these Airmen, here’s something that we can do differently in our organization.’”

Airmen can also feel empowered to start the conversation. Wright encouraged Airmen to talk with their leadership if they are slow to act.

“Say, ‘hey, here’s the deal, here’s how people in the organization are feeling, and we’d love to have a forum to be able to discuss,'” he said. “You may not be looking for any particular answer, but it doesn’t make sense for us all to walk around and pretend like nothing happened.”

Some troops are already on it: in the weeks since Fortson’s death, Airmen around the world worked together on social media to organize remembrances and tributes for him, many of which took place this week. Those events and conversations can continue into the future.

“Lean on your family, your friends, your colleagues,” Wright said, “and also people who might be able to help you decide, ‘OK, here’s something that we could do in our local area to make this situation better.'”

Lawmakers Move to Bulk Up Oversight of Sentinel ICBM, But Reject Attempts to Curb Program

May 23, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Lawmakers are taking several steps toward increased oversight of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program after the Air Force announced earlier this year that it was suffering critical cost and schedule overruns—but there is little appetite to cancel or curb the program.

The cost sparked a Nunn-McCurdy review of the program, which pauses work and requires certification from the Secretary of Defense to continue. While that process likely won’t wrap up until July, several provisions in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act approved by the House Armed Services Committee on May 22 look beyond that toward managing the program if and when it is approved to move forward.

HASC chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) led the charge in his markup of the bill, including a section that would require the head of U.S. Strategic Command to submit regular reports to Congress on the “long-term plan for strategic nuclear forces during vehicle transition.”

Those reports would have to include plans for the years 2028-2036, covering:

“A baseline strategy for maintaining a minimum of 1,550 nuclear warheads” across the nuclear triad, including ICBMs.

Operational considerations “including, as necessary, the identification of areas in which greater risk is being accepted.”

Contingency plans if there is a “reduced strategic delivery system availability due to programmatic delays, aging, or other such factors.”

The last requirement is an apparent nod to the schedule delays both Sentinel and the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine have faced. Sentinel in particular has a “no-fail” initial operational capability deadline of September 2030 set by STRATCOM that it is close to breaching. Full operational capability is not slated until 2036.

The first required report would be due one year after the NDAA is enacted.

Elsewhere in the NDAA, the committee wants to require the Pentagon to provide it with a briefing and documentation from its Nunn-McCurdy review within one month of the Defense Secretary’s final decision. As part of that briefing, lawmakers want a “description of the alternative systems and capabilities considered, including road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, life extending one or more wings of the Minuteman III and deploying a mixed fleet of Sentinel and life-extended Minuteman III ICBMs for a period of time.”

On top of that, the committee is asking the Government Accountability Office to review the Pentagon’s Nunn-McCurdy review, to ensure “compliance with both letter and intent” of the law.

Artist’s concept of the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM.

Air Force leaders have repeatedly said they are committed to continuing Sentinel despite the increased costs.

“Sentinel will be funded,” Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said in January. 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 [is] not going to change. It is funded now. And that’s also not going to change.”

“The primacy of the mission, I think, says a lot,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in February, adding that Sentinel is “essential.”

Just two weeks ago, Pentagon acquisition boss William LaPlante reaffirmed that the DOD is committed to fielding an ICBM leg of the nuclear triad, though he did not guarantee that Sentinel would be certified.

Should Sentinel be certified to continue, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) introduced an NDAA amendment—approved by the committee—that would require LaPlante to ensure that before the program reaches acquisition Milestone B, “the contract structure for the program allows for maximum Federal Government oversight.” That would include government control of design review entrance and exit criteria, the ability to certify completion of all subsystems and the “total system architecture,” and opportunities for competition throughout the lifecycle of the program.

Moulton’s amendment also requires LaPlante’s office to submit a report detailing how he will meet those requirements within 90 days of the program being certified to continue—if it is certified.

While the committee approved those oversight moves, it rejected amendments from Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) to curb the program. Garamendi, a longtime critic of Sentinel, tried to pause all funding for the program and the W87-1 warhead that will go on the missile, repeal a deadline for increased production of plutonium pits to go in those warheads, and delete a requirement for the U.S. to maintain 400 ICBMs. All three amendments were voted down by solid margins.

While the House Armed Services Committee has passed its version of the NDAA, the bill must still pass through the full House and then be reconciled with the Senate version.

As representatives were marking up their bill, the Senate Armed Forces strategic forces subcommittee held a hearing to discuss nuclear weapons in the 2025 budget, and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) also seemed to indicate he favored more oversight but continued work on Sentinel.

“Do we have the structure and the people in charge that are necessary to make sure we can get beyond [the Nunn-McCurdy breach] and get that project moving forward?” King asked Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere.

Bussiere cited the creation of a new ICBM modernization directorate, led by Brig. Gen. Colin J. Connor, but said further work determining the authorities Connor needs has been delayed by the Nunn-McCurdy review.

Melissa Dalton Confirmed as New Air Force Undersecretary

May 23, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Senate confirmed Melissa Dalton to be the 28th undersecretary of the Air Force, the department’s No. 2 civilian job, on May 23.

Dalton’s confirmation comes eight months after she was first nominated to succeed Gina Ortiz Jones, who held the job from July 2021-March 2023. Department comptroller Krysten E. Jones performed the duties of undersecretary for more than 14 months—the longest tenure of any interim Air Force undersecretary in recent memory.

Dalton has served as the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs since March 2022. In that role, she has advised the Secretary of Defense on key issues like homeland defense, the Arctic, and defense policy for North, Central, and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

Recently, she has been performing the duties of the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. She also had a stint as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities and previously served in the Obama and Bush administrations. She began her national security career as an intelligence analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

As undersecretary, Dalton will be the principal deputy for Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and help shepherd the department through its ongoing “re-optimization” for Great Power Competition, which includes sweeping organizational changes across the Air Force and Space Force.

Dalton’s nomination faced intense scrutiny from Republican lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee during her confirmation hearing Jan. 23, who questioned her on the sale of unused construction materials for a border wall on the southern border, the transit of the continental U.S. by a high-altitude Chinese spy balloon in early 2023, and her relative lack of Air Force experience.

At that hearing, Dalton did pledge to prioritize nuclear modernization, leveraging her experience working on the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review—that could be particularly crucial as the Air Force works on a review of its Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program that has experienced critical cost and schedule overruns and is at risk of being cancelled.

The committee voted 14-10 to advance her nomination in March. She was confirmed in the Senate by a 56-39 vote, the first time an Air Force undersecretary has not been confirmed by voice vote since at least 2000.

Dalton is the seventh woman confirmed to the job.

What the Air Force’s New B-21 Photos Show About the Raider

May 22, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Editor’s Note: This story was updated May 23 with an additional photo.

Just over six months after the B-21 Raider made its first flight in November 2023, the Air Force has released three images of the bomber going through testing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. A day later, manufacturer Northrop Grumman released another in-flight image. They are the only images of flight testing released so far.

The two Air Force in-flight images are in left profile; one showing the bomber taking off and one in flight at altitude, with the landing gear retracted. The third is a head-on shot of the bomber inside a hangar at Edwards. The Northrop photo shows the aircraft in the air in right profile.

Metadata from the photos indicates they were taken Jan. 17, May 22, and April 4, respectively, confirming that the B-21 has made at least two flights since its first on Nov. 10, 2023.

The Air Force declined to say how many total flights the aircraft has made, nor will it provide any kind of timetable of the anticipated test flight program.

Together, the three images offer only slightly more information about the aircraft than could be gleaned from unofficial photos taken of the first flight and circulated on the internet.

The takeoff image shows a very narrow, 2-D exhaust embedded in the jet’s tail. The broad, narrow exhaust is distinct from that on the B-2, the B-21’s elder stablemate, which had a more boxy, sugar-scoop exhaust. The B-21 exhaust suggests more attention to fanning out the aircraft’s heat to reduce its infrared signature, as well as keep its profile slim to defeat radar.

A lack of blackening around the exhaust could simply be an indication that the aircraft hasn’t flown very often, but it could also indicate that exhaust heat is somehow cooled inside the aircraft before being discharged as thrust. On the F-117 and B-2, this was accomplished with the use of panels very like Space Shuttle thermal tiles, which capture heat and only slowly release it.

An auxiliary air inlet can be seen, opened above the engines to provide them with more air as the jet rotates its nose up. This is necessary because of the top-mounted main air intakes, which would receive reduced air at high angle of attack. A similar, but more scalloped feature is present on the B-2.

Behind the cockpit is the heraldry of Air Force Materiel Command, the 412th Test Wing, and Global Strike Command. The “fuselage” serial number of the aircraft (0001) is visible, but it lacks the typical year of acquisition.

A long patch, in a different, darker color than the rest of the aircraft, is visible on the upper surface, roughly where the engine hot section should be. It’s adorned with a forward-pointing arrow and two apparent diamond-shaped vents are next to it. The forward part of the patch is sawtooth-shaped, a common practice in stealth aircraft where there is a surface discontinuity.

Pop-up navigation lights are visible on the outer wing, likely only used for operations in ATC-controlled airspace and clearly retractable to make the aircraft more stealthy.

Along with the images, an accompanying release from 412th Test Wing at Edwards reiterated comments made by Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter earlier this month that the B-21’s test flight program “is proceeding well.”

“It is doing what flight test programs are designed to do, which is helping us learn about the unique characteristics of this platform, but in a very, very effective way,” Hunter told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 8.

Hunter also said the B-21’s design is “more digital than not.”

The release also stated that the B-21 will “incrementally replace the B-1 and B-2 bombers” now operated by the Air Force. The service recently told Air and Space Forces Magazine the B-21 will not necessarily replace the B-1 and B-2 on a one-for-one basis as the new bombers become available, but Global Strike Command has said it does not expect to have the money and manpower to field four different types of bombers at the same time. The plan is to neck down to a fleet of just B-21s and B-52Js after the B-1s and B-2s retire.

The Raider was described by the Air Force as a “long-range, highly-survivable, penetrating strike stealth bomber” which will “play a major role supporting national security objectives and assuring U.S. allies and partners across the globe.” It is “expected to enter service in the mid-2020s with a production goal of a minimum of 100 aircraft.”

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said recently that the pace at which new technology is becoming available could mean the service moves on to a more advanced design, and that 100 aircraft may be the final fleet size for the B-21.

Northrop received a low-rate initial production contract for the B-21 in December, following first flight. The company has said it will not make any money on the first five lots of the B-21, mainly because of inflation and escalated labor costs.

The Air Force noted in its release that the initial flight test aircraft are being manufactured on the same tooling and with the same personnel as will be used for production of operationally-configured Raiders. The test aircraft are also intended to have test apparatus removed and be configured as operational aircraft after the flight test effort concludes.

Air Force Releases First Official Photos of B-21 in Flight

May 22, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s Note: This story was updated May 23 with an additional photo.

The Air Force released new photos of the B-21 Raider on May 22, offering the first official images of the bomber since it made its first flight last year.

A day later, B-21 manufacturer Northrop Grumman released a new photo of its own.

The images, which show the bomber taking off, in the air, and in a hangar at Edwards Air Force Base, are rare glimpses of the highly secretive aircraft. Outside of its official unveiling in December 2022, the Air Force has released just a handful of photos.

The service did not even release any imagery of the bomber’s first flight at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., facility on Nov. 10, 2023, or when the aircraft started test flights out of Edwards a few months later. Instead, local aircraft spotters and photographers have captured most publicly released photos of the Raider.

According to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, the photo of the B-21 taking off is from January, while the photos of it in flight and in a hangar are from early April.

In an accompanying release, the 412th Test Wing at Edwards reiterated comments made by Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter earlier this month that the B-21’s test flight program “is proceeding well.”

Hunter also said “there are some key points still to come this year” in testing.

The exact number of test flights the B-21 has completed is not publicly known.

The B-21 is a developmental, penetrating strike bomber planned to deliver both conventional and nuclear munitions. Its wingspan is projected to be about 140 feet; smaller than the B-2’s 172-foot wingspan. The service plans to acquire at least 100 B-21s to replace its 45 B-1s and 20 B-2s over the next decade.

The Air Force previously said that B-21 test aircraft will be “usable assets” as soon as they are airworthy, and that the test aircraft will be converted to operational configuration after developmental and operational testing is complete.