Two Selected CCA Contractors May Not Get Equal Share of Work, USAF Official Says

Two Selected CCA Contractors May Not Get Equal Share of Work, USAF Official Says

July 29, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force wants to carry two contractors into the production phase of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, but there’s no fixed limit or minimum of work that they can win, the service’s Program Executive Officer for fighters and advanced aircraft told reporters July 29.

Brig. Gen. Jason Voorheis, speaking with the press at Air Force Life Cycle Industry Days in Dayton, Ohio, acknowledged that in the past, the Air Force has awarded leader-follower production arrangements on engines when the service wanted to ensure competition and preserve the industrial base. But there’s no fixed amount of work that either Anduril or General Atomics, the two main competitors for CCA Increment 1, can win, he said. Nor will they necessarily build on the same timeline.

“It is likely that we will carry both of those vendors through to production,” Voorheis said of the two companies, which were chosen for Increment 1 in April.  

“There’s a lot of flexibility in the contracting mechanism to vary when those awards happen,” if one is “more advanced than the other in terms of schedule and the quantities. So those are some variables and dials we have,” he said.

“Our intent is to create a sustained competitive model that allows optionality to pick the most effective system and to surge over time,” Voorheis said. The choice of how many of each will be based on the “operational environment,” and production numbers goal should not be viewed as “an equal share.”

He added that “we’re not going into it with any notion of equals, an equal split or a specific 60/40 split,” he said.  “It will be wholly dependent on the features” offered by the two vendors, and then “the capacity that the department, our joint partners, or international partners, need.”

Voorheis said there’s been “some confusion” about when the CCA contracts will be awarded. The Air Force hasn’t announced when it will award a production contract for CCA Increment 2 , but will award a production contract for Increment 1 in 2026, PEO office officials said.

He also emphasized that the fiscal year 2026 awards will be competitive, and potentially include other contractors that were not selected for Increment 1.

“So not only can those two [Anduril and General Atomics] compete, but the other vendors that were part of the design work earlier on have an ability to compete as well for Increment 1 production.”

Japan to Start Making AMRAAMs and Export PAC-3 Missiles

Japan to Start Making AMRAAMs and Export PAC-3 Missiles

July 29, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Japan will lend its industrial prowess to help produce shore up munitions supplies, under an agreement with the United States to co-produce Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and Patriot PAC-3 missiles, the two countries announced July 28.

The agreement comes as the U.S. also agreed to restructure its command and control relationship with Japan amid rising concern about China. The U.S. will reconstitute U.S. Forces Japan as a joint force headquarters under U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, to coordinate security activities in and around Japan in accordance with the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.

“I am … proud of our work together to support Japan’s counterstrike capability,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said in Tokyo on July 28. “We’ll bolster defense industrial cooperation, including missile coproduction, and we’ll increase our bilateral presence in the southwest islands. “

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Japanese Defense Minister Kihara Minoru pose at the Japanese Ministry of Defense in Tokyo, July 29. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spent the weekend at the U.S.-Japan Foreign and Defense Ministerial Meeting in Tokyo. In a joint statement, the two nations called missile co-production “mutually beneficial” for expanding and diversifying supply, as Washington seeks to balance its requirements with export demand for Ukraine and other allies.

“These efforts will improve our ability to deter and manage coercive and destabilizing behavior,” Austin said.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will manufacture the missiles under license to the U.S. weapons maker Lockheed Martin. Japan is already producing Patriot PAC-3s, but making AMRAAMs will be a new venture.

AMRAAM is an advanced radar-guided, fire-and-forget air-to-air missile carried by F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-22, and F-35 fighters. Japan has had AMRAAMs in its arsenal dating back to the 1990s, and as recently as last December signed a $224 million deal to acquire 120 AIM-120C AMRAAMs. Under the new agreement, Japan will be licensed to produce AMRAAMs itself. It remains uncertain whether Japan-made AMRAAMs will be solely for domestic use or might be available for export.

Japan first acquired Patriot missile interceptors nearly two decades ago. The PAC-3 is crucial to the Japan Self-Defense Force’s missile defense strategy.

In December, Tokyo changed its defense export regulations to allow domestically produced PAC-3 missiles to be exported to the U.S. By the end of this year, the two nations’ joint platform, Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition, and Sustainment (DICAS), will provide additional details on timelines, procurement needs, and funding strategies for the weapon co-production.

Joint Force Headquarters

The U.S. and Japan also revealed plans for what Austin called “the most significant change to U.S. Forces Japan since its creation.” Establishing U.S. Forces Japan as a Joint Force Headquarters aligned with Japan’s new Joint Operations Command aims to enhance combined operations between the two military arms.

The U.S. will also step up its military presence on Japan’s southwest islands, those closest to Taiwan and the South China Sea. The Pentagon previously announced plans to base 36 F-15EX aircraft at Kadena Air Base, replacing a patchwork of combat jets that has deployed there since older F-15C/D models were retired. The U.S. will also add 48 F-35As at Misawa Air Base, replacing aging F-16s.

“We’re also strengthening our defense cooperation with other allies and partners in the region, including Australia, India, the Republic of Korea, and the Philippines,” Austin said. Departing Japan on Sunday, Austin and Blinken next headed to Manila for the fourth U.S.-Philippines 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue.

Small Drones Force New Thinking on Air Superiority, Slife Says

Small Drones Force New Thinking on Air Superiority, Slife Says

July 29, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. Air Force needs to rethink how small, low-cost drones could change the definition of air superiority, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. Slife said on July 29.

Small drones have become a defining feature of the Russia-Ukraine war, with both sides fielding drones and cheap quadcopters for strikes and reconnaissance. In Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, small drones—along with rockets and missiles—are regularly used to harass U.S. and allied forces, in some cases injuring and even killing American troops. In January, an Iranian-aligned militia killed three U.S. troops in Jordan with a drone at Tower 22, a remote U.S. base that lacked its own robust defenses.

“We used to make the claim that since 1953 no American has been killed by air attack,” Slife said. “We can’t make that claim anymore. It calls into question, ‘What does air superiority actually look like?’ [Does] it look like 30,000 feet over the Yalu River in 1953 or does it look like below 3,000 feet with quadcopters with a hand grenade slung to the bottom of them? I think the answer is: It’s all of the above.”

Drones are hard to detect, flying low and presenting a minimal radar cross-section. They also can be used en masse by more sophisticated adversaries, posing serious dilemmas for the Air Force and America’s allies. And they force the U.S. and allies to counter them with high-priced weapons, imposing disproportionate costs.

counter-UAS
Airman 1st Class Bryston Peterson, counter-small unmanned aerial systems controller with the 379th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, watches hovering unmanned aerial systems from the C-UAS program under the 379th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron during an exercise in partnership with the explosive ordnance disposal team from the 379th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, Dec. 11, 2020. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Brigette Waltermire.

To counter drones in the Middle East, the U.S. has used F-22, F-15, and F-16 fighters, along with costly missiles. U.S. and allied forces neutralized Iran’s attack on Israel in April, eliminating 99 percent of its missiles and drones, but in other cases, attacks have proven successful. Since October 2023, dozens of American service members have been injured and three killed in more than 170 drone, rocket, and missile attacks throughout the region.

In addition to Iran-backed rebel groups in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon, Iran has also backed the Houthis, a Yemeni militant group that is using the same sort of weapons to attack shipping in the Red Sea and, earlier in July, to attack Tel Aviv, Israel, with a weapon that flew more than 1,000 miles before striking a building and killing a civilian.

“Now, clearly, you’re not going to be sending F-22s out to find a DJI quadcopter with hand grenades underneath them,” Slife said. “And so we have to think about a broader definition of what air superiority actually looks like and how we achieve it.”

Slife said the U.S. can learn to use small drones as an extension to its more conventional airpower. The general likened today’s experiments with drones to the lessons learned during the Spanish Civil War and other conflicts just before World War II.

“You could see the contours of World War II starting to take shape prior to the full-scale outbreak of World War II,” he said. “I hope there’s not a World War III, but if there is, I wonder to what extent the lessons are starting to take shape in places like Israel today, Ukraine, and so forth. So we’re keenly interested in what we can what we can pick up from that.”

The Air Force has pioneered the use of high-end drones, beginning with the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, and a variety of other unmanned aerial systems. Still higher-end autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which would operate alongside manned fighter jets, are now under development, and MQ-9 Reaper operators can now control multiple drones at once.

Speaking later in the day during an event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Undersecretary of the Air Force Melissa Dalton said there is a way of “thinking that I think is increasingly taking hold across the Department of Defense and certainly the Department of Air Force” of what she termed “cost-effective mass” to augment expensive platforms.

“For the Department of the Air Force, in particular historically, we have focused on building on a discrete set of exquisite platforms, with an emphasis on quality, less on quantity. But quantity can have a quality of its own when you’re thinking about how to be able to penetrate through, or to be able to disrupt, the type of contested environments we may find ourselves in,” she said.

Slife added artificial intelligence and machine learning are also opening new possibilities for existing drones and future weapons.

“With advances in networking technology, advances in automation, the emergence of AI as a warfighting capability that we need to bring to bear” is changing the Air Force’s central way of thinking, Slife said. “What we’re finding is that one-pilot, one-cockpit, one-datalink, one-airplane architecture doesn’t have to define the way we operate these things. The idea is one operator, many platforms with higher degrees of automation.”

Slife: Shorter Training Pipelines Help Shore Up Pilot Shortage

Slife: Shorter Training Pipelines Help Shore Up Pilot Shortage

July 29, 2024 | By David Roza

Recent changes to the training pipeline for helicopter, tanker, transport, and other pilots are helping the Air Force close the gap on a persistent pilot shortage, the service’s number two said.

“We are making gains, but boy it is complicated,” Gen. James C. Slife said July 29 in an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Amid aircraft maintenance issues, delays in new trainer procurement, and fierce competition with commercial airlines, the Air Force is short about 2,000 pilots, leaving too few to fill both its cockpits and staff slots. The roots of the shortage trace back to end of the Cold War, when the U.S. closed many of its air bases in pursuit of efficiency, Slife said.

“There is a plant capacity to our pilot training enterprise,” he explained. “When you build a very efficient system, you oftentimes lose the ability to deal with turbulence in the environment.”

The general pointed to a severe thunderstorm at Vance Air Force Base, Okla. last year that grounded nearly all of the T-6 trainer aircraft there. The instructor pilots and maintainers made a full recovery and even got ahead of schedule within a month, but it took a herculean effort. Even before the thunderstorm, hundreds of future pilots were stuck working for public affairs or other odd jobs while waiting for cockpit seats to open up. 

“You don’t have any slack in the system,” Slife said. “So the Air Force has under-produced by about 200 pilots a year for 10 years and lo and behold … you end up about 2,000 pilots short.”

Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies hosted Aerospace Nation with Gen. James C. Slife, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, on July 29, 2024, at the Air & Space Forces Association headquarters in Arlington, Va. The event was moderated by Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula (USAF, Ret.), Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Fixing that shortage won’t happen overnight, Slife said. Instead, incremental improvements will be required over time. But he is seeing progress in areas such as helicopter pilot training.

From 1993 to 2020, Air Force helicopter pilot hopefuls flew the T-6 fixed-wing aircraft for six months before moving to Fort Novosel, Ala. for rotary wing training. But starting in 2020, students went straight to Novosel as part of the Helicopter Training Next program, opening up “well over 100 seats a year for people that are going to fixed-wing pilot operations,” Slife said.

Meanwhile, Air Education and Training Command (AETC), which oversees pilot training, is sending some pilots straight from T-6 training into formal training units where they learn to fly tankers, transports, some intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance [ISR] aircraft and some special operations platforms.

Usually, pilots hoping to fly those airframes fly the T-1 training jet before moving on to their specific platform, but the aging T-1 fleet is due to retire in fiscal year 2026, and its replacement, the T-7 Red Hawk, is years behind schedule. 

“Do we really think they’re good enough to go straight to an FTU?” Slife asked about pilots skipping the T-1. “AETC has recently done small group tryouts and determined that there’s really no statistical difference” between those who skip the T-1 and those who do not.

“So AETC is really at the cutting edge of making our pilot training as effective as possible, given the plant capacity that we have available to train pilots in,” the general added.

The command is also looking to remove “bottlenecks” from the pipeline, such as T-6 availability, Slife said. The next step is to apply that same thinking to the T-38 training jet used to prepare fighter and bomber crews for their airframes. Slife did not share specifics, but he hinted that when the T-7—with its glass cockpit, modular systems architecture, and maintainer-friendly design—eventually arrives, it “is going to allow us to fundamentally shift our pilot training model.”

B-52 Traverses Middle East as US Troops in Iraq and Syria Are Attacked

B-52 Traverses Middle East as US Troops in Iraq and Syria Are Attacked

July 27, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Europe across the Middle East on July 25, making a 32-hour flight as U.S. troops came under attack in Iraq and Syria on July 25 and July 26, U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The bomber took off from Romania, where it was deployed on a brief Bomber Task Force mission, traveled east over the Mediterranean Sea, then crossed into the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations. Flying over Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, it reached the Persian Gulf, then turned back, headed for the Atlantic Ocean, according to open-source flight tracking data reviewed by Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The aircraft, tail 60-0054, then returned home to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on July 26.

The B-52 mission showcased ”extensive options … for fielding combat-ready forces to protect and defend the region from adversary aggression,” Air Forces Central (AFCENT) said in a July 27 press release. The mission was focused on practicing maritime firepower support, AFCENT said.

The mission also included flying with USAF A-10s from Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., and KC-135 Stratoankers from both Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., and McConnell Air Force Base, Kan., AFCENT said. The B-52 did not land while in CENTCOM, but did rendezvous and fly with Qatari F-15QAs, a U.S. official said.

“These missions amplify the U.S.’s ability to integrate with coalition forces and regional partners while demonstrating the strategic bomber fleet’s ability to operate anywhere with decisive impacts,” the official said.

It seems, however, that not everything went according do plan. A frequent poster on the X social media platform published apparent radio transmissions from the B-52 as it flew home solo to the United States, in which the crew stated “the second aircraft had a mechanical problem and did not take off.”

The U.S. Embassy in Doha originally said two B-52s would fly over Qatar.

“During the Bomber Task Force mission in the Middle East, the strategic bomber integrated with U.S. Marine Corps Central Command and other regional partners during the Maritime Fire Support Symposium,” AFCENT’s release said. “The addition of a long-range strategic bomber to the exercise provided the opportunity for Coalition Marine and Naval experts to employ a practical application of airpower to defend forward fighting positions.”

All B-52s deployed to Romania for the Bomber Task Force have now returned home, U.S. Air Forces in Europe said July 28.

The U.S. has sought to deter Iran and the groups it supports, including the Houthis, militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and Lebanese Hezbollah from broadening the conflict in the Middle East.

The B-52 mission flew over Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, and has intervened in the civil war between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government of Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Iran are rivals. The U.S. continues to pursue an elusive deal to fully normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a deal that Iran fears. The Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel halted that progress.

“CENTCOM must rely on our partners in the region to solve the region’s complex challenges,” CENTCOM commander Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla said in a July 24 statement after a trip to the region.

The U.S. has continued almost daily strikes in Yemen against Houthi missile and drone targets. The group, which controls much of Yemen, has massively disrupted commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and Bab el-Mandab strait between them with its attacks. Together, the waterways are a vital commercial shipping lane, as vessels use the Suez Canal to transit between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, avoiding lengthy trips around Africa.

The Houthis, however, have not stopped. The group ramped up their actions by attacking Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 19—covering more than 1,000 miles with a drone that killed one person and prompted retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida in Yemen. The Wall Street Journal reported that Kurilla, in a highly unusual step, sent a letter to Pentagon leadership urging a more robust, whole-of-government response to the Houthis.

Russia, meanwhile, is apparently considering supplying the Houthis with anti-ship missiles for its continued harassing attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington the past week for talks with American officials, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as the U.S. presses for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war. Over 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.

Iran-backed militias continue to keep up the pressure across the region. In the most direct threat to U.S. forces since October, Iranian-aligned militias have targeted U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. In all, they have mounted over 170 attacks, and three U.S. soldiers were killed earlier this year.

On July 25, the day the bomber flight was taking place, two rockets were fired at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, two U.S. defense officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine. That followed two days of talks over the future of U.S. troops in the country.

Some 2,500 U.S. troops are in Iraq and around 900 are in Syria.

Meeting in Washington July 22-23, Iraqi and U.S. officials discussed how to end the official military campaign against the Islamic State and transition to “a bilateral security relationship,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in a briefing to reporters.

On July 26, two rockets were fired at Mission Support Site Euphrates in Syria, a U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. No injuries or damage was reported, the officials said, and it is not clear which groups carried out the attacks.

“We have work left to do,” Austin said during his press conference. “And we’re going to stay focused on that work.”

JBSA-Randolph Bids Farewell to T-1 Jayhawk and Prepares for T-7

JBSA-Randolph Bids Farewell to T-1 Jayhawk and Prepares for T-7

July 26, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The last remaining T-1 Jayhawk at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, took its final flight to the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., earlier this month.

With the complete phase-out of the aging trainers at the 99th Flying Training Squadron, the unit is now first in line to receive the advanced T-7 trainer in the years ahead.

“It was an honor to be a part of the final Red Tail T-1 flight,” said Lt. Col. Dominique Haig, 99th Flying Training Squadron commander, who piloted the flight with Lt. Cols. Megan Pasierb and Christopher Puccia of the 39th Flying Training Squadron.

The 99th FTS, the sole unit to have operated the Jayhawks at the Texas base, had their T-1 aircraft tails painted red, in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, famously known as the “Red Tails.” Since the 1990s, the T-1s have been used to train pilots for cargo and tanker aircraft like the C-17 and KC-135, as well as to support navigator training for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and international services.

“They’ve been a workhorse for the past 31 years, preparing the instructor pilots and combat systems operators for the Mobility Air Force, Air Force Special Operations Command, and Air Combat Command,” added Haig.

The Air Force has been pushing to retire its T-1 fleet, but Congress has previously barred the service from phasing out an additional 52 T-1s in fiscal 2024 until “full, fleet-wide implementation” of the new Undergraduate Pilot Training curriculum was in place. In April, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall sent letters to lawmakers certifying the completion of the new UPT program. The service now expects to divest the entire Jayhawk fleet by fiscal 2026, with 22 T-1s scheduled to retire during FY25. The majority of this number will be from the 12th Flying Training Wing.

“The 12th FTW continues to fly the T-1A for Combat System Operator training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., until their aircraft are divested in FY 2025,” Sean Worrell, spokesperson for the 12th Flying Training Wing, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

t-7a red hawk
Air Education and Training Command’s new T-7A trainer will be critical to preparing new pilots for the operational training that follows at Air Combat Command. Boeing photo.

The service is currently in the process of acquiring the T-7 Red Hawk, originally designed to take over from the T-38 Talon as the go-to trainer for fighter and bomber pilots. According to the 2025 budget request, the Air Force is proposing to purchase seven T-7s in 2025, with a total buy of 346. Worrell explained the T-7s will also be used to train cargo and tanker pilots.

“The T-7A Red Hawk beddown is currently projected for [fiscal 2026], and the 99th Flying Training Squadron is set to be the first unit in the Air Force to receive the aircraft,” said Worrell.

The squadron has already received its initial group of T-7 instructors and “is building the training syllabus for when the aircraft arrives at JBSA-Randolph in [2026],” according to Worrell. The unit is renovating buildings across the base to support the new program.

“While we are closing one chapter in Air Force pilot training, we are gearing up for the next,” said Haig. “It’s a heavy lift to stand up a new Mission Design Series.”

Until the T-7 training program is up and running at Randolph, the unit will continue to train student pilots using both the T-6 Texan and simulators. Worrell noted that this unique program takes four months to prepare a pilot for flying airlift aircraft or tankers—the same duration as training with the T-1 aircraft.

“Modern simulators are sufficient in allowing the Air Force to provide multiple practice repetitions for students in a cost-effective manner, and introducing scenarios to students that would be impractical or unsafe to practice in an actual aircraft,” added Worrell.

The Air Force has said it wants to use the money that would be spent on extending the aging T-1’s service life and operating it to advancing its simulators, which will also allow the service to rely more on contract instructors rather than uniformed pilots, thus saving more rated slots for the operational force.

Secretary of Air Force Stands Up New Integrated Capabilities Office

Secretary of Air Force Stands Up New Integrated Capabilities Office

July 26, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Department of the Air Force officially established the new Integrated Capabilities Office last week, completing one of the first of two dozen moves announced in February to “re-optimize” the Air and Space Forces for Great Power Competition with China. 

Special assistant to the Secretary Tim Grayson heads the new office, which a department spokeswoman said will be resourced for a staff of 10 by the end of this calendar year. 

Still to come are other new organizations announced in February: the new Integrated Capabilities Command and Space Futures Command, which Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin has said will stand up by the end of 2024, and Space Futures Command, which Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant, head of Space Systems Command, has said could stand up as soon as this summer.

The Integrated Capabilities Office officially opened on July 19, according to a July 26 announcement, which said the office will focus on fulfilling Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s seven Operational Imperatives. These key requirements laid out in March 2022 focused Kendall’s objective to rapidly “deliver meaningful operational capability to the warfighter.”  

“The Integrated Capabilities Office will directly support the Department of the Air Force senior leadership team as we develop our integrated modernization plans for the Air Force and Space Force,” Kendall said in the announcement. “China, our pacing challenge, is modernizing its military with the intent to defeat U.S. power projection capabilities. We will not let that happen.”

The office will also play a key role in sorting out priorities for developing capabilities and setting requirements—it will work closely with acquisition officials, the Air Force’s new Integrated Capabilities Command, and the new Space Futures Command to figure out synergies between the services and the different programs they are pursuing, then present recommendations to senior leadership. 

The new office will examine “capabilities across our services, not in stovepipes,” said then-Acting Undersecretary Kristyn E. Jones in February. “This organization will help us to prioritize our investments and will be responsible for working with us to determine the next iteration of Operational Imperatives.” 

Working closely with “Integrated Development Campaign Teams” staffed by personnel from Integrated Capabilities Command, Space Futures Command, Air Force Materiel Command’s new Integrated Development Office, and Space Force acquisition organizations, the office will oversee the department’s most important modernization initiatives. 

“The campaign teams will work imperative problem sets and provide data-driven solutions and recommendations,” the release stated. “The ICO will incorporate these results into prioritized recommendations for modernization and will collaborate with other organizations to integrate these priorities, along with other portfolios, into the budgeting process.” 

Among a host of new organizations being formed to oversee the re-optimization effort, the ICO will provide Secretariat-level oversight and analysis. Kendall acknowledged in February that this will lead to conflict as different offices and organizations present competing visions. advocate for their view. 

“That’s intentional,” Kendall said in February. “That’s how you identify the biggest issues and bring them directly up to the top leadership for resolution.” 

Doing so should fuel “highly collaborative and unfiltered recommendations,” the Air Force release said. 

Space Force Offers Up to $180,000 for Select Guardians to Reenlist

Space Force Offers Up to $180,000 for Select Guardians to Reenlist

July 26, 2024 | By David Roza

The Space Force is offering up to $180,000 for Guardians in certain career fields to reenlist, an $80,000 increase over previous years. The move is part of a wider Department of the Air Force effort to make reenlisting easier and offer more incentives to do so.

The seven Space Force specialty codes on the Fiscal Year 2024 Selective Retention Bonus list are the same as the 2023 list. While the Department of the Air Force did not publicly release the career fields, a list leaked to social media, and a department spokesperson confirmed its veracity. The career fields include:

  • cyber defense
  • cyber network operations
  • cyber radio frequency operations
  • cyber systems operations
  • all source analyst
  • cryptologic analyst
  • space systems operations

The size of the bonus depends on each Guardian’s time of service. Those with 17 months to six years of continuous active service are generally eligible for higher bonuses than those with more time in service. A Guardian’s time in service determines his or her “zone,” each of which is assigned a selective retention bonus multiplier, a number between 1 and 7.

To calculate their selective retention bonuses, Guardians multiply one month’s base pay by the number of years they are re-enlisting for by their zone multiplier, according to Air Force regulations. This year, both the Air Force and Space Force raised their maximum bonus from $100,000 to $180,000, with a career cap of $360,000. The bonuses are taxable outside of certain exceptions such as reenlisting in a combat zone. Guardians can receive the bonus either in partial payments or as a lump sum. 

Cyber defense operations appear to be eligible for the highest bonuses in 2024, with their zone multipliers being generally higher than those of the other career fields.

“The SRB program serves as a retention tool, targeting experienced enlisted personnel in critical career fields, particularly those with lower manning or retention rates,” the Space Force explained in a July 22 press release. “Additionally, specialties involving extensive initial skills training and stringent qualification requirements are considered.”

Most Guardians stay in uniform past their first enlistment: Space Force data shows the average retention rate across the enlisted and officer corps above 90 percent in 2022 and 2023. But the competition with the private sector for high-demand skills such as cybersecurity is fierce, which in part drives the rising retention bonuses.

To make the process easier, the Air Force updated its regulations to allow Airmen and Guardians to reenlist up to 12 months before their term of service expires, which gives them more time to decide to reenlist, widens the pool of eligible Guardians, and maximizes the amount of money their receive, the Space Force explained.

The branch also extended its service cap from 72 months (six years), to 96 months (eight years), which the Space Force says will help Guardians receive larger bonuses and allow more flexibility in their reenlistment contract.

Latest Cuts at Military Times Accelerates Decline of News Source to Airmen, Guardians

Latest Cuts at Military Times Accelerates Decline of News Source to Airmen, Guardians

July 25, 2024 | By David Roza

Air Force Times, its sister Military Times publications, and Defense News—for decades among the leading publications in their sectors—have endured multiple rounds of layoffs over the years as the internet remade the media landscape. But on July 12, Sightline Media Group, which owns those publications, C4ISRNET, and, until earlier this month, Federal Times, laid off nine reporters and editors, leaving Air Force Times without its principal editor or its only reporter.

Combined with earlier layoffs in March, the cuts left Sightline Media Group with a skeleton crew of just 15 U.S.-based journalists, less than half of the 31 it started 2024 with.

Among those most recently laid off were Air Force Times Editor Rachel Cohen, Air Force Times Senior Reporter Courtney Mabeus-Brown, Military Times Managing Editor and Marine veteran James Clark, Marine Corps Times editor Andrea Scott, and Army Times Senior Reporter Davis Winkie, an Air National Guardsman. The five are some of the most experienced journalists on the military personnel beat, which enjoys far fewer outlets providing regular coverage than weapons and platforms do.

Winkie, the Air Guardsman, was laid off while on military leave. “I felt sadness for our readers, who now have nine fewer journalists covering issues that matter to them. … They are at risk of losing a key vector for accountability, for staying informed, for having a voice of their own.”

Sightline’s latest layoffs came just five weeks after its staff voted to unionize in a bid to improve their working conditions, and the Sightline Media Union immediately filed charges of illegal labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board, the independent federal agency that enforces U.S. labor law. Sightline staff said the company has a history of undervaluing its reporters and the journalism they produce.

The company, a corporate member of the Air & Space Forces Association, did not respond to requests for comment from Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Storied History

Military Times has a long history of impactful coverage. In the early 1990s, Gen. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held the papers up during a Congressional hearing about the post-Cold War drawdown, quoting page-one headlines and noting that his troops “don’t read the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times, but the Army Times, Air Force Times, and Navy Times.”

As early as the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, it sent reporters to cover troops in and supporting combat operations, including in Iraq, Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and numerous other locations.

In the 2000s, Military Times reporters broke the story of service members sickened by toxic smoke generated from overseas burn pits, highlighted the growing prescription of psychotropic drugs for military members in Iraq and Afghanistan, and campaigned for appropriate recognition of military heroes. Military Times reporters experienced combat operations first hand while embedded with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, pored over military data to track a surge in aviation mishaps, and revealed systemic flaws in the National Guard’s ongoing deployment to the border with Mexico. 

The unique approach to coverage made the Military Times papers an important news source for service members, said the moderator of the unofficial r/Army subreddit—an online forum where Soldiers anonymously discuss Army life.

“Reporters can often make connections with ‘ground truth’ that we don’t often see,” the moderator, an Army veteran, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The moderator specifically called out Winkie’s recent investigation of suicide rates by brigade type, something the Army itself did not track. The investigation found suicide rates among tank brigades were higher than in other combat units, prompting Congressional action. It resonated with service members across the military, signaling that, “Yes, you really are overworked. It’s not in your head. It is a problem,” the moderator said. “The Army doesn’t provide that feedback, but Army Times did.”

military times
Oriana Pawlyk, then an Air Force Times reporter, explained the function of a dropsonde on camera inside a 53d Weather Reconnaissance Squadron “Hurricane Hunters” C-130 Hercules during a flight June 28, 2016. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Kat Justen

Stephen Losey, the air warfare reporter for Defense News, speaking in his role as president of the newsroom union, has worked at Sightline since the early 2000s, having grown up with Air Force Times as a continuous presence in his childhood home.

In the early 2000s and 2010s, when the company belonged to Gannett, then the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, the combined newsroom employed more than 100 reporters and editors, with multiple bureaus in the United Sates and overseas, and freelancers around the world.

In those days, company leaders proudly claimed ownership of “the world’s largest military newsroom,” commanded the attention of Congress, Pentagon leaders, hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and tens of thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, who plunked down $3 and more for the weekly print edition, with a particular focus on personnel policy and regulations, topics largely ignored by mainstream media.

But in recent times, Losey said, wages at the company lagged behind inflation, effectively resulting in a pay cut every year, and that promised raises earlier this year never materialized. In 2015 Gannett spun off its TV holdings, digital brands, and the company now known as Sightline under the corporate brand Tegna, which soon after sold the publications in 2016 to Regent, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm. Regent reduced staff, eliminated matching contributions to its 401(k), and accelerated a decline that began around the time of the Great Recession, following the 2008 stock market meltdown.

“None of us got into journalism to get rich,” Losey said. “We love telling stories, and helping to serve and inform the military community is a meaningful calling. But at a certain point, we have to pay our rent and grocery bills, and when we go multiple years without a raise, that gets harder and harder.”

As the staff shrunk, other media properties grew, luring away talent. Still other staff migrated to major news brands, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post (The Air & Space Forces Association, which publishes Air & Space Forces Magazine, employs three former Military Times staffers).

The editorial staff at Sightline decided to unionize on April 8 to improve the situation and protect against lay-offs.

“We love our work: telling our readers’ stories, holding policy makers accountable and upholding the values of the First Amendment,” journalists on the union organizing committee wrote on the social media platform X in April. “We want our newsroom and colleagues to succeed. This, we believe, is how we guarantee our future.”

But Sightline Media Group did not voluntarily recognize the union, forcing staffers to take a formal vote June 3, which won unanimous support. The next step is for workers to bargain with management for a contract, but before that began, nine employees were laid off.

Besides Clark, Cohen, Mabeus-Brown, Scott, and Winkie, others let go were C4ISRNET senior managing editor Cary O’Reilly, Military Times reporter Zamone Perez, Defense News Congress reporter Bryant Harris, and Defense News Managing Editor Chris Martin. That followed the layoffs of Pentagon Bureau Chief Meghann Myers, senior editor Sarah Sicard, and multimedia reporter Daniel Woolfolk in March. Others departed voluntarily, leaving the overall Sightline newsroom with just 15 of the 31 U.S.-based journalists who worked there at the start of 2024.

“This decision significantly hampers our ability to cover the news our readers depend on,” the Sightline Media Union organizing committee wrote in a July 12 statement. The union filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the company violated federal labor law by unilaterally firing unionized employees before a contract was settled. 

Jessica Ramirez, a bargaining representative with the union’s parent organization, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, said the law makes exception for employers in financial distress, but said Sightline Media Group offered insufficient evidence that this applied to the firm.

“They have to show they have a high level of economic instability, like ‘we would have to close our doors if we don’t do this,’” she explained. “In our opinion, they did not provide enough details of their financial situation to justify their decision.”

The union also filed a charge with the NLRB alleging that the layoffs were retaliatory. They cited the timing of the layoffs just a few weeks after the union election and the fact that six of the laid-off employees were part of the bargaining unit that had voted to unionize.

If the NLRB upholds the claims, it could levy damages, fines, or backpay for the laid-off employees, but NLRB reviews often take months to complete. In the meantime, the union still plans to bargain for a contract for the journalists who remain at Sightline and negotiate severance pay for those laid-off.

“These people believe strongly in their work and spent their careers supporting the military community through their journalism,” Losey said. “We want to make sure they get what they deserve.”

Journalists are shown the aeromedical evacuation demonstration during Mobility Guardian 2019 at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, Sept. 25, 2019. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Kristine M. Gruwell

A Growing Gap

Regent, Sightline’s owner, is hardly alone among cost-cutting private equity firms that own military media properties. Task & Purpose, another military news publication, suffered a wave of editorial staff departures, including this reporter, after it was acquired by North Equity LLC and its media company, Recurrent Ventures.

Such losses reduce the public’s understanding of the military at a crucial time, observers say.

Katherine Kuzminski, Deputy Director of Studies and the Director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said the civilian-military divide has grown wider in the 50 years since the transition to an all-volunteer force in 1973, but journalists who specialize in the military beat can help close that gap.

“On the one hand, fewer journalists can lead to less attention paid to quality of life-related issues for service members,” she said. “On the other hand, it can do the opposite, which is essentially build a military that lives on a pedestal not reflective of reality. Then it’s easier for civilians to be disillusioned when the military does not live up to that pedestal.”

On July 21, Losey accepted an Aerospace Media Award for best military aviation submission on behalf of Rachel Cohen, who had been laid off a week earlier. His comments, made at a gathering of international aerospace media and industry professionals, was captured on video and posted on social media.

“A newsroom is made up of people,” Losey said. “It can only thrive as long as there are people there.”