How to Protect Your Air Base From Hurricanes, Part 2: 165 Miles Per Hour or Bust

Aug. 10, 2023 | By David Roza

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series on how Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., is working to protect itself from future hurricanes. This installment covers Tyndall’s efforts to make facilities withstand future storms. Part 1, about the base’s nature-based coastal resilience projects, can be found here.

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla.—Five years after Hurricane Michael flattened Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., the facility is being rebuilt as a model ‘Installation of the Future,’ complete with new buildings, new F-35A Lightning II fighter jets, and new technology to make the base safer, stronger, and more efficient than before.

Looming over the rebuild, however, is the threat of more hurricanes and severe weather. Just last year, another Category 5 storm in Hurricane Ian swept through Florida, though it mostly spared Tyndall, and scientists predict more tropical cyclones will reach very intense levels in the years to come.

In response, Tyndall is aiming to build its facilities back stronger to withstand even more punishment from future storms.

“It was an exceptional event,” Col. Robert Bartlow Jr., chief of the Tyndall-based Air Force Civil Engineer Center Natural Disaster Recovery Division, said about Hurricane Michael. “But as we’re rebuilding the base, we’re not treating this as an exceptional event. We’re treating this as the new normal.”

Wind Resistance

After Michael, Air Force engineers raised the bar for building standards at Tyndall, matching what they saw in Florida’s Miami-Dade County. Each new building is built to survive 165 mile-per-hour winds. And they’re adapting those standards to match the Air Force’s special needs.

“A lot of what’s down in Miami is commercial properties ,” said William Heiney, senior resident engineer for the Tyndall office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the day-to-day awarding of contracts and site management on the base. “We’re going to have some unique building elements. … If they don’t have an existing system that we can use, then [the building element] is designed, engineered, and stamped by a structural engineer to meet those requirements.”

To meet the 165 mph standard, some foundations must be sunk 30 to 40 feet deep. Precast structures are common, as is an increased volume of rebar in concrete walls and screws or other fasteners to secure roof materials. The key is to keep wind from peeling doors open, shattering windows, or any other means of penetrating a facility and causing an explosive imbalance in air pressure.

“It’s not ‘wind blows and things just fall over,’” said Bartlow. “If your building envelope is compromised, those high-velocity winds cause rapid pressure changes inside that facility and it will start to come apart.”

All Dry on the Flightline

To keep the flightline flood-free, Tyndall is building a massive underground concrete tunnel, seven feet high and 12 feet wide in some sections, stretching across the area known as Zone 1, where the F-35 hangars will be located. Called a box culvert, the tunnel will funnel stormwater away from the flightline and back towards the ocean. Buildings on the base will also be situated above flood levels and sea level rise.

“Next time we get a massive flood, we’re not going to be dealing with water in the buildings,” Heiney said.

Tyndall is not the only base being fortified to weather future storms. The Natural Disaster Recovery Division also oversees the rebuild of Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., where many operational facilities were damaged by a flood in 2019. Planners there aim to enlarge and strengthen nearby levees and raise the buildings above flood elevation to prevent future damage.

The Natural Disaster Recovery Division also has a mobile component which was recently dispatched to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to provide an initial assessment of facility conditions after Super Typhoon Mawar, a Category 4 hurricane, struck in late May.

“Bases that are vulnerable to storms are typically pretty good at initial recovery and getting their mission back up and running,” Bartlow said. “What they are not equipped to do is start answer questions regarding the long-term plan. Congress typically wants to know very quickly how much it’s going to cost, because they’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot.”

The recovery team helps provide an initial assessment so that lawmakers can work on finding resources to fund reconstruction efforts. Bartlow anticipates the team will have more work in the future.

“Tyndall and Offutt are not the last time we’ll have a problem at an Air Force installation associated with a natural disaster,” he said.

These programs align with the Air Force’s Climate Campaign Plan, where the first priority is maintaining air and space dominance in the face of climate risks, and the first objective to achieve that is to modernize infrastructure and facilities.

The Tyndall rebuild is not expected to finish until 2027, and some of the nature-based coastal resilience projects may take longer to come to fruition. But once complete, the aim is to ensure Mother Nature will not be able to take U.S. airpower offline for long.

“These things have happened at other installations, but I think this comprehensive approach that we’re taking is fairly unique to Tyndall, and it’s something that we think we can potentially export to other installations across the Air Force,” Bartlow said.

Part 1 on Tyndall Air Force Base’s efforts to defend against future hurricanes and severe weather is available here.

USAF Needs More Money to Stop Drone Swarms

Aug. 10, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

DAYTON, Ohio—While the Pentagon continues to experiment with technologies that could disable or destroy swarms of small drones, the Air Force’s lead on counter-drone acquisition said more funding is needed to counter the threat—and to turn promising efforts into programs of record.

The counter-small unmanned aerial systems mission, or C-sUAS, is one that Steven Wert, program executive officer for the digital directorate, has been tracking for several years now.

The Pentagon started ramping up spending on counter-drone weaponry around fiscal 2018, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the effort. Around the same time, experts began warning that small, relatively cheap armed drones could bombard bases and wreak outsized havoc—making them attractive to a whole range of adversaries from China and Russia to Iran and even non-state actors, such as violent extremist groups.

“In response to urgent operational need, we fielded gear at many of our most critical bases,” Wert said at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference July 31. “But we never got developmental funding to modernize that gear, which is now five or six years old, probably seven- or eight-year-old technology.” Nor did the Air Force fully “explore different phenomenologies in the counter-UAS space.”

Meanwhile, the threat of small drones has only grown, highlighted by their use in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s subsequent response.

“I have repeatedly said I’m concerned about the lack of funding there given the increasing number of incursions that we see around the world,” Wert said. “That situation has not really changed. [Today] it is at the point where labs are developing different capabilities, but we don’t have the ability to catch those into a production program.”

For the Air Force, the Tactical High-power Operational Responder, or THOR—a short-range directed energy weapon developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory—is the most high-profile example this kind of capability. THOR uses microwaves to interfere with drones’ electronics, dropping them from the sky. First unveiled in 2019, the system has had a long path to development. Earlier this year THOR successfully disabled a swarm of drones, the first test on such a scale.

AFRL said it was developing a follow-on system in 2021, calling it “Mjolnir” for the hammer wielded by the Norse god Thor. In 2022, the lab selected Leidos to build the system, saying it would employ the same technology as THOR “but will add important advances in capability, reliability, and manufacturing readiness.” AFRL said it hoped to have a prototype by 2023, but has offered no updates since.

Meanwhile, other technologies have been explored—AFRL tested both microwave and laser weapons in overseas demonstrations but has offered few details on their effectiveness.

The Army is also developing solutions. The Pentagon established an Army-led Joint C-sUAS office in 2020, and it has since held four demonstrations, most recently in July. It has worked on both directed energy and kinetic weapons to take on single-drone attacks as well as swarms.

The joint C-sUAS office issued a request for white papers on Aug. 4, seeking “potential materiel solutions that have promising technologies or approaches” for detecting, tracking, identifying, and/or defeating small drone swarms. The most promising responses will be selected for further analysis, the request said, and some may be invited to participate in the office’s next demonstration, planned for June 2024.

In a separate request for information, the joint office said the demonstration will consist of “no less than 20 but up to 50 individual aircraft (Group 1 and Group 2) at one time and no less than six Group 3 aircraft at one time.” Group 1 and 2 aircraft refer to drones that weigh 55 pounds or less and normally only fly a few thousand feet above the ground. Group 3 includes drones that weigh less than 1,320 pounds and fly no higher than 18,000 feet.

The joint office’s request for white papers notes that after the demonstration, some companies may be selected for a prototyping program and even follow-on production without competition.

USAF, Northrop Test New Tech That Lets the B-2 Update Mission Parameters ‘In Seconds’

Aug. 9, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Northrop Grumman and the Air Force successfully demonstrated a new mission update system for the B-2 bomber in a two-day event at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., last month. The system receives new mission parameters and feeds them directly into the B-2’s computers without the need for the pilots to manually input the data.

The Integrated Airborne Mission Transfer (IAMT) demonstration started July 18 after B-2 No. 1086, the Spirit of Kitty Hawk, was fitted with Northrop’s Multi-Mission Domain (MMD) open-mission architecture, meant to make adding new mission capabilities easier.

Essentially, MMD “separates the mission systems of the B-2 from the flight/safety critical systems,” allowing the insertion of new capabilities “without extensive testing,” a Northrop spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “This will speed up the delivery of new capabilities to the warfighter keeping the B-2 relevant for years to come,” she added.

For the demonstration, MMD integrated with the B-2’s Adaptable Communications Suite (ACS). The aircrew would receive incoming transmissions from a ground station, “which loaded the mission directly through MMD interfaces to the B-2 Disk Drive Unit,” according to a Northrop Grumman press release.

With the way the rest of the B-2 fleet is configured, aircrews has to manually transfer mission updates from the ACS. In contrast, the new technology “will allow direct transfer to the disk drive unit in seconds,” the Northrop spokesperson said.

“IAMT is the first of many possible combat applications that can be hosted on the B-2 via MMD which will rapidly integrate new software capabilities onto the B-2 in the coming years,” she added.

The system not only allow aircrews to focus on executing the mission at hand, it also eliminates the chance of potential errors that might be introduced by manually updating mission parameters, Northrop officials noted.

All told, the demonstration included 50 machine-to-machine mission updates. Senior officials from the B-2 System Program Office, Global Strike Command, and the 509th Bomb Wing observed.

Nikki Kodama, Northrop’s B-2 program manager, said the company is showing that the bomber can “communicate and operate in Advanced Battle Management Systems (ABMS) and the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) environment, keeping B-2 ahead of evolving threats.”

The integration of the software will “further enhance the connectivity and survivability in highly contested environments as part of our ongoing modernization effort,” she added.

The demo is part of the B-2 Collaborative Combat Communication (B2C3) Spiral 1 program, which is intended to enhance the B-2’s digital communications capabilities. The spokesperson said the plan is to outfit the entire 20-aircraft B-2 force with the MMD, with the modifications to be done at Whiteman. The company did not specify a timetable for the mods.

Air Force officials have said recently they do not have a firm retirement date for the B-2, instead emphasizing that it will fly until the new B-21 Raider is ready. The bomber only recently returned to the skies in May, after a roughly six-month safety pause following a mishap in December. In July, the bomber made its first appearance in a major exercise since the pause, flying in Alaska. This most recent technology demonstration was not part of any larger exercise.

USAF Now Ready to Accept T-7s, Will Start Flight Tests in ‘Coming Weeks’

Aug. 9, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

DAYTON, Ohio—The Air Force will officially take ownership of its first production-representative T-7A trainer jet “in the coming weeks” and quickly move into flight testing from contractor Boeing’s St. Louis facility, a service official said last week.

After that, the first two Red Hawks will transfer out to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in the “September-ish” timeframe to continue testing, T-7 division chief Col. Kirt Cassell told reporters at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference July 31.

In April, Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter announced that the T-7 won’t achieve initial operational capability until early 2027—three years past its original 2024 goal. Then the Government Accountability Office said in May that the Air Force-Boeing relationship was “tenuous,” and predicted Boeing might not even meet the revised 2027 timeline.

Cassell said the Air Force and Boeing have since reset their relationship. “There have been leadership changes,” he said. “At the PEO level and at my level within Boeing, they reorganized kind of wholesale. … And so there was a lot of changeover, which actually just gave us a whole new fresh set of eyes. I have a new deputy that came on the program. So we got a new fresh set of eyes and we really just reinvigorated our relationship.”

In May and June, the first production-representative T-7 started undergoing taxi tests, then took its first official flight with an Air Force pilot.

Behind the scenes, Cassell said, the Air Force and Boeing have been working together to ensure flight testing can start as soon as the first jet, dubbed T-2 or ATP-2, is officially transferred to the Air Force.

“The team, collectively Boeing and the Air Force, have been working overtime,” Cassell said. “Like I’m not kidding, working overtime, late nights, to get through acceptance. We should be accepting that aircraft here in the coming weeks. Once that’s completed, we’ve done a whole lot of work to get ready for flight tests. We’ve completed the appropriate test readiness reviews, those are done. We’ve completed the appropriate test planning requirements.”

Shortly after ATP-2 is accepted by the Air Force, the service hopes to take ownership of a second aircraft, called T-1 or ATP-1. The two airframes will test different factors—flight sciences and loads, respectively, Cassell said.

“There’s little to nothing standing in our way to getting this jet, ATP-2, up and running,” Cassell said. “We’ll start flight tests at St. Louis. And then in or around the September-ish timeframe is when we’ll transition APT-2 and then, following up on that, APT-1 out to Edwards for continued flight testing.”

Getting the T-7 back on track and avoiding any more delays will likely be crucial for satisfying lawmakers who have expressed concerns about the program. Hailed at its unveiling as proving how digital engineering and design are breakthrough technologies for accelerating product to market, the first production-representative aircraft went from drawing board to first flight in 36 months.

Digital design is “completely transforming how we’re doing systems engineering,” Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, head of Air Force Materiel Command, said in 2022. Boeing and Saab officials predicted it would “revolutionize” how aircraft are designed and built.

Then came the delays. In 2021, the Air Force said the T-7 suffered from “aircraft wing rock” at high angles of attack, making it unstable in the roll axis. Issues arose with the jet’s flight control software, and then came questions about the trainer’s ejection seat system—which had been required to accommodate a wider range of body sizes. USAF and Boeing sparred over the test data and how to interpret it.

This May, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall suggested digital engineering had been “over-hyped” as a way to cut development time and cost, cautioning that there are no shortcuts to real-world testing.

Boeing and the Air Force now say the T-7’s issues have largely been corrected. But lawmakers are skeptical. A provision in the House version of the National Defense Authorization bill would require the Air Force to assess the “risks associated with the overlap of development, testing, and production phases of the program and risks related to contractor management.” Whether that provision survives the House-Senate conference to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill remains to be seen.

How to Protect Your Air Base From Hurricanes, Part 1: Let Nature Help

Aug. 9, 2023 | By David Roza

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series on how Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., is working to protect itself from future hurricanes. This installment covers Tyndall’s nature-based coastal resilience projects, while Part 2 covers the base’s efforts to make facilities withstand future storms.

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla.—Hurricane Michael tore through this base nearly five years ago, devastating hangars and aircraft and prompting some to ask if Tyndall Air Force Base should be given up for good. Instead, Air Force and Florida leaders rallied to the idea that they could build a model “Installation of the Future” complete with new buildings, new F-35A Lightning II fighter jets, and new technology to make the base safer, stronger, and more efficient than before.

The big question is: How can the base protect itself from future hurricanes? Part of Tyndall’s answer is a range of nature-based coastal resilience projects, including sand dunes, oyster reefs, and pine forests. The sand dunes in particular take the brunt of ocean waves during a hurricane.

Piled atop 18 miles of barrier islands surrounding Tyndall, they form the base’s “first line of defense for storms,” Melanie Kaeser, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Hurricane Michael swept over dunes and wiped out much of the vegetation on the barrier islands, disrupting the habitat and opening the way for further damage in the future. Kaeser’s team is restoring those barrier islands, planting grasses and shrubs and planning to learn which prove best at trapping sand. Kaeser said the dunes are already recovering without intervention, but her team’s work is to “speed that process up.”

“If you don’t build it back up, you’re going to keep pushing back that first line of defense,” she explained. “That’s what took the brunt of the storm surge, so without these barrier islands, that storm surge would have gone right on to the installation.”

Kaeser’s team is also restoring thousands of acres of pine forests around the base to help block severe winds. Planting longleaf pines, which can resist wind, insects, and disease better than the slash pines that were there before, should prove effective over time. The team has planted 6.5 million fast-growing seedlings in the past three years and aims to plant another million within the next year.

Elsewhere on Tyndall, scientists are experimenting with biodegradable concrete and cement as a foundation for seagrass and oysters, a technology called Reefense. Once at home here, the goal is for oysters to build and repair wave-blocking reefs on their own, according to Rutgers University, which received $12.6 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to pursue the technology.

Living shorelines—a combination of plants, rock, and sand designed to attract marine life; oyster reef breakwaters; and expanded salt marshes are other ways Tyndall officials hope to dissipate waves and reduce flooding, according to installation documents and The Nature Conservancy, which is helping develop Tyndall’s natural defenses. Base planners hope to scale up the projects that succeed to create an integrated defense against storm surge and erosion.

“The focus of everything is slowing down that wave attenuation as it comes on shore, whether it’s natural waves, tidal surges, or hurricane-related events,” said Garey Payne, acquisition program manager with the Air Force’s Natural Disaster Recovery Division. “You have this overlapping field of effect that eventually makes the installation more robust to the effects of climate change, sea level rise, and natural erosive processes.”

Many of these techniques are not entirely new or unique to Tyndall. A few hundred miles down the Florida Gulf Coast, MacDill Air Force Base has been working on oyster reef shoreline stabilization since at least 2004. But what’s new at Tyndall is a funding mechanism to facilitate such projects. In the wake of the hurricane damage, Congress expanded the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) program in 2019, allowing the military to use federal funding for installation resilience projects, even if those projects are outside a base’s land or water boundaries.

That means Tyndall can use federal funding to experiment with oyster breakwaters in Florida state waters beyond the base’s shoreline. That funding can help attract state and local government or conservation agencies to work with the Air Force on such projects.

“Prior to REPI funds being available for this kind of work, it took community partnerships, it took convincing the county or state or whoever to spend their money to do a living shoreline,” Payne said. “Now we’re bringing the money to them [and saying] ‘We need you to do the legwork because it’s in state waters, but we are going to give you the money to do it.’”

Such funding mechanisms could prove useful as the Air Force writ large seeks to fortify its installations against the effects of climate change and extreme weather.

“We cannot launch or recover aircraft on a flooded runway, nor can we operate from installations devastated by hurricanes and wildfires,” Dr. Ravi I. Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations, and the environment, wrote in a Climate Campaign Plan unveiled in July. “Our bases are our power projection platforms and as those bases are increasingly impacted by the effects of climate change, adapting to these challenges will be critical to meet our national security obligation.”

At Tyndall, that mentality has become the norm.

“We’re not going to treat a category five storm as an exceptional event,” said Col. Robert Bartlow Jr., head of the Tyndall-based Air Force Civil Engineer Center Natural Disaster Recovery Division. “That’s the new standard.”

Part 2 on Tyndall Air Force Base’s efforts to defend against future hurricanes and severe weather is available here.

As Hold on General Nominations Persists, 100-Plus USAF and USSF Officers Remain Frozen

Aug. 8, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

With the retirement of Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville on Aug. 4, two positions on the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not have a Senate-confirmed replacement, and more than 300 general and flag officer nominations remain in limbo while Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) continues to protest the Department of Defense’s reproductive health policies with a legislative hold.

As of Aug. 8, Tuberville’s hold on unanimous consent confirmation for general and flag officers is affecting 301 nominations pending before the Senate. More than a third of those affected officers are from the Air Force and Space Force.

According to Pentagon data, 73 pending nominations are from the Air Force, 25 for the Air Force Reserve, and eight for the Space Force—106 total. The Department of Air Force says nearly two dozen are for three-and-four star positions.

Some generals actually have two separate nominations pending. Brig. Gen. Dale R. White has been nominated to move up two ranks, and Air Force Maj. Gen. Shawn Bratton has been nominated for a third star and to become deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements, meaning he must transfer from two-star Airman to two-star Guardian, then be promoted.

At the moment, however, they’re stuck waiting, and with the Senate out of session until September, a resolution is still weeks away at best.

In the meantime, most officials have to stay in place. For example, Air Force major commands, such as Air Combat Command and Pacific Air Forces, are in limbo. Gen. Kenneth D. Wilsbach, the current head of PACAF, has been nominated to head ACC. But he cannot replace Gen. Mark D. Kelly until confirmed, forcing Kelly to stay on at ACC for now, without a clear timeframe on when the situation might be resolved.

“Largely speaking, if it's a Senate-confirmed position for example, three-to-four star, there would be a lot of situations where you would hold in place until you're confirmed, unless there's permission to act in an acting capacity,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters Aug. 7.

In high-profile positions on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, though, leaders are term-limited, leading to situations like McConville’s retirement without a confirmed successor.

McConville’s deputy, Gen. Randy A. George, has been nominated to succeed him but is now serving in an acting role. The Marine Corps is currently being led by assistant commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith on an acting basis—Smith has also been nominated to take over the top job but is still awaiting confirmation to replace now retired Gen. David H. Berger.

In the hallway of the Pentagon housing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McConville's portrait was recently removed, joining the blank space vacated by Berger. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael M. Gilday will retire later this month, leaving the Navy without a Senate-confirmed boss.

Portraits of members of Joint Chiefs of Staff pictured at the Pentagon, Aug. 7, 2023. Photo by Chris Gordon/Air & Space Forces Magazine

“Unfortunately, today, for the first time in the history of the Department of Defense, two of our services will be operating without Senate-confirmed leadership, and 301 nominations for our general and flag officers are being held up," Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said Aug. 4 said McConville’s relinquishment of command ceremony. “Let me be clear: In our dangerous world, the security of the United States demands orderly and prompt transitions of our confirmed military leaders.”

At the end of September, Gen. Mark A. Milley’s term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs will be up. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has been nominated to replace Milley but must be approved by then. If he is not, then Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher W. Grady will step in on an acting basis.

Tuberville first placed a hold on all flag and general officer nominees in March, attempting to pressure the Pentagon into reversing its policy providing paid leave and travel funds for troops requiring reproductive services, including abortions, who are based in states where those services are not available.

Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) could bring up nominations for individual roll call votes in the Senate. But Democrats seem unwilling to take that step for now, arguing voting one-by-one would cost too much floor time.

“There is no world in which we can use floor time for these nominations,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told reporters Aug. 8. “It’s logistically impossible to do these nominations through regular order.”

But while most military nominations are usually confirmed via unanimous consent, some of the most critical positions, such as service chiefs or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have received roll call votes in the past. Brown was confirmed to his current role in an uncontroversial, 98-0 roll call vote in 2020.

Tuberville’s hold has drawn the ire of some fellow Republicans, though Tuberville has been unmoved by pressure to change his position.

“Maybe Republicans were hopeful that leading up to the August break he would relent,” Murphy said of Tuberville. "He didn’t, and we now have to adjust our strategy.”

A spokesperson for Schumer did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

How things will play out when the Senate returns is unclear. Tuberville last spoke to Austin on July 18, their third phone call on the topic according to the Pentagon, but the short conversation did not help break the impasse. Pentagon officials say they continue to attempt to engage with Tuberville’s office. But Tuberville has so far indicated he does not intend to back down.

“I remain strongly opposed to this immoral policy, and believe its development and implementation run afoul of legal authority granted to the executive branch,” Tuberville wrote in a letter to Austin on July 28, reiterating that his hold remains in effect.

"The hold simply requires military nominations and promotions to be processed through regular order rather than being approved by unanimous consent in large batches,” Tuberville’s office said in a statement at the time.

Air Force General Teases New Details on CCAs Coming at AFA Conference in September

Aug. 8, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

DAYTON, Ohio—The Air Force will announce key new details about its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program at AFA’s Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in September, including future force design, acquisition strategy, and cooperation with the Navy, according to a top service official.

Brig. Gen. (Lt. Gen. select) Dale White, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, teased the announcement while speaking with reporters July 31 at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference.

Both the Air Force and Navy are pursuing programs to develop autonomous drones that will pair with manned aircraft, and the two services have reportedly held discussions about how to collaborate. Asked how the Air Force and Navy plan to orchestrate the handoff of targets between such aircraft, White suggested “there will be a larger discussion” of CCAs—touching on how that fleet will integrate with the Navy and USAF’s current tactical air inventory—at the ASC 2023 conference, which takes place Sept. 11-13.

“I’ll just give you a little teaser [that] there’s four specific areas that we’re focused on,” White said. “And those four specific areas will define how we pick out this path” toward a CCA capability.

White did not elaborate on the four focus areas but seemed to suggest they will at least partially involve how CCAs will tie into the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) system.

The Air Force is “maturing our force design” for CCAs in accord with joint force design, White added, “and the Navy is doing the same.”

While the two services may have some differing views on how CCAs should be employed, “you’re starting to see that integration coming together better, because technology becomes that bond; that glue that bonds us together,” White said. “And so while we may have different requirements on the fringe, by and large, the tacair, or air dominance mission is the same regardless of what uniform you wear.”

He added that “the requirements of the end state may be a little different on the fringe. But the capability and technologies are the same.”

White also said the Air Force has had consistent collaboration with the Navy on CCAs, and the two branches are taking “that teaming approach, knowing what the other is doing, making sure we’re protecting interoperability” in the joint fight. That collaboration has also been key to ensuring the services don’t waste time or resources duplicating efforts.

From operators to the highest levels of the Pentagon, the Air Force and Navy have been “working consistently towards similar outcomes,” White added.

“We have to be in lockstep,” he said of the ability to share data and targets, adding “We’re finding architectures and standards become the foundation of interoperability. … So we’ll lay out more specific detail on that” at the ASC conference.

Air Force leaders have said they will seek at least 1,000 of the autonomous CCAs to augment the manned fighter fleet, with a ratio of at least two drones per fighter and as many as five. The Navy, for its part, has said it is working toward a carrier air wing that will be more than 60 percent uncrewed aircraft by the early 2030s.

The next step in the CCA plan is focused on force design, White said.

White also said the Air Force has to “break the mold” of how requirements are written and answered in developing new aircraft, echoing comments of Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. at the LCID conference. Specifically, Brown suggested the service should move away from “specific, detailed requirements” and toward a system where new capabilities are constantly introduced, on an operationally-relevant timetable.

In the case of CCAs, White said both Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and service acquisition executive Andrew Hunter “have both alluded to that iterative nature” of the program, “that is defined by both technology as well as the operator.”

“Let me be clear: we are on a journey,” White said. “And so on that journey we will learn and we will continue to iterate. And as we go through constant refinement, and we go through testing … that will greatly inform where we’re going. And when you think about the agility we’ve invested in the acquisition strategy, we’re going to be able to leverage that moreso than previously.”

Promotions for New Staff Sergeants: Fewest in 27 Years

Aug. 8, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Just 9,000 senior airmen were selected for promotion to staff sergeant this year, a 17.4 percent selection rate—numbers unseen since the years following the Cold War.

The Air Force Personnel Center disclosed statistics for the E-5 cycle Aug. 8, and plans to release the list of selectees on Aug. 10 at 9 a.m. Eastern. It will be the smallest list since 1992, and represent the lowest selection rate since 1997.

It’s also the second consecutive tough promotion cycle for E-5. Last year, just 9,706 Airmen were promoted from a pool of 45,991, for a 21.1 percent rate. At the time, it was the lowest rate since 1997.

The numbers tell the story of strong retention amidst a recruiting crisis. When more Airmen stay, competition for promotion intensifies and opportunities for promotion are squeezed. Promotions to technical sergeant were also low this year: The Air Force announced earlier this summer that just 14.5 percent of eligible staff sergeants were selected for promotion to technical sergeant, also the lowest rate since 1996.

Slow promotion rates are likely to persist. Air Force officials said last year they anticipated lower-than-usual promotion rates lasting several years. Officials believe too many Airmen were promoted in the past with insufficient experience to be effective senior noncommissioned officers, and that a course correction was needed.

“The majority of the experience decline was attributable to the Air Force trying to achieve an enlisted force structure with too many higher grades,” Col. James Barger, Air Force Manpower Analysis Agency commander, said in a statement at the time. “We also found that experience levels would continue to decline unless the Air Force lays in more junior Airmen allocations and fewer E5-E7 allocations.”

The goal: Reach a healthier grade distribution by 2025.

Meanwhile, promotions to senior NCO grades are improving. Rates for master sergeant and senior master sergeant ticked up this year.

The promotion slowdown for NCO grades is the most drastic in a generation. Not since the end of the Cold War, when the military forces shed 700,000 troops in less than a decade, have promotions been so slow, according to RAND.

Air Force Staff Sergeant Promotion Statistics

YEAR	SELECTED	ELIGIBLE	PROMOTION RATE
2023	9,000	51,717	17.40
2022	9,706	45,991	21.10
2021	15,660	44,663	35.06
2020	13,864	33,341	41.58
2019	14,235	29,179	48.79
2018	15,669	30,651	51.12
2017	14,181	32,006	44.31
2016	16,506	39,064	42.25
2015	13,269	39,260	33.8
2014	9,403	36,739	25.59
2013	11,212	34,078	32.9
2012	13,448	33,060	40.68
2011	11,337	26,549	42.7
2010	13,518	28,510	47.41
2009	15,223	30,574	49.79
2008	12,209	28,098	43.45
2007	15,130	36,608	41.33
2006	13,298	37,071	35.87
2005	14,614	36,405	40.14
2004	13,625	33,306	40.91
2003	13,651	27,416	49.79
2002	19,448	30,880	62.98
2001	20,793	32,170	64.63
2000	19,605	38,654	50.72
1999	16,053	44,109	36.39
1998	11,033	48,719	22.65
1997	9,854	52,820	18.66
1996	9,541	57,523	16.59

Data from Air Force Personnel Center

USAF Plan: Keep B-1 Credible Through New Pylons, Stress Testing, and More

Aug. 7, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has no set date in mind for retiring the B-1 Lancer, but it does has a multi-pronged approach for keeping the famed bomber credible until the B-21 comes online, focused on:

Parts obsolescence

Wear and tear

Capability for new weapons

Brig. Gen. William Rogers, program executive officer for bombers at AFLCMC, told reporters at the Life Cycle Industry Days conference July 31 the Air Force has dropped its 2018 bomber plan that called for the B-1 and B-2 to retire in the early 2030s, and instead will keep those aircraft viable until the stealthy B-21 is ready to replace them.

The new plan is called a “Bomber Capability Roadmap” and directs investment to combating “obsolescence and diminishing manufacturing sources, which is a key concern of ours on those aging platforms,” Rogers said.

“It’s a common problem across the entire Air Force fleet as aircraft get older,” he noted.

For the B-1 in particular, Rogers said his focus is on making sure the fleet remains capable of sustaining operations and giving military and civilian leaders options, allowing the swing-wing jets to “retire gracefully.”

“How do we ensure the structural aspects of the aircraft … and then, also, what are those key capabilities?” Rogers asked.

One such capability may be using the B-1 as a platform for testing hypersonic weapons. Boeing has offered the Air Force a modular pylon system that could enable the B-1 to do just that, potentially reducing the test load on the B-52, which is entering an intense period of testing new radars, communications, navigation, and engines.

“At this point, we’re really working to first prove the engineering and development work to see if it’s really a viable capability for the B-1,” Rogers said. “We’ve been working with Boeing, [which] has an [independent research and development] pylon that we call the Load Adaptable Modular (LAM) pylon.”

Joe Stupic, head of the B-1 division under Rogers, said the service has conducted ground testing on the pylon, which snaps munitions in like “Lego.”

“If you look at the bottom of the B-1, It’s got a nice round bottom,” Stupic said. “But trying to stick a conformal pylon on it is very hard to do. So what Boeing did was created basically something that could be adapted to any station on the plane with the kit that comes with it. So it’s adaptable, to whichever station you want to mount it to. So that’s the beauty of it.”

Rogers said the program has been successful so far in that a variety of weapons have been successfully mated to the pylon. Stupic said ground tests have studied vibration testing, loads, and “box drops of some JDAMs” as well as with large and heavy shapes.

A flight test carrying “something big” like an inert AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) will be tested in the “September-October timeframe,” Stupic added.

A model of the Boeing Load Adaptable Modular Pylon for the B-1 Lancer is displayed in Oklahoma City. — A model of Boeing’s Load Adaptable Modular Pylon for the B-1 Lancer is displayed in Oklahoma City. Photo by John Tirpak/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Stupic also said AFLCMC is working around measures that were taken to render the B-1’s external hardpoints inoperative under the START treaty, so they couldn’t carry AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missiles externally.

He said there’s “still the structure where you can mount a pylon and that’s we’re doing the work around to get these pylons hanging, but there’s no more wiring, no more power, no more cruise missile control box. It was all ripped out for the START Treaty. So, a lot of work to wake it up again.”

At the moment, the Air Force is focused on using the LAM pylon for testing weapons, Rogers said. He demurred, however, when asked if it could have other uses.

”Ultimately, we’ll see where the Air Force wants to go; if they see the value or not from an operational perspective,” he noted.

Stress Test

Full-scale structural fatigue testing on a B-1 fuselage carcass and wing is also underway at Boeing’s Tukwila, Wash., facility in order to get ahead of the fleet and see if there are “potential risk areas,” Rogers said. That step that was skipped in the 1980s in the urgency to field the B-1.

Rogers could not quote how many hours the static articles have on them, but the testing has been successful, with nothing to suggest “we’ve got a hard, hard wall ahead of us that we’ve got to work around,” he said.

“Now we’re in the phase where we’re probably going to shut down for approximately the next year and really go through both the fuselage and the wing from an inspection standpoint, and documenting, looking for any of those safety problems or issues,” Rogers said.

At the moment, stress testing on the B-1 wing has progressed to the point where it has more wear and tear than the rest of the fleet, Rogers said. But still more has to be done for officials to get a better sense of the wings’ likely service life—likely another three or four years of testing.

The fuselage is further behind and will likely need five or six more years of stress tests, Rogers added.

“We’re keeping the fleet safe until the B-21 shows up,” Rogers said. “… We can keep that plane flying. It is just hard work.”

Structural issues found by the stress test—cracks, separations, etc.—are being addressed on a secondary structures repair line at the B-1 depot at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., Rogers said, which keeps more of the remaining B-1s in service and shortens depot time.

Digital Twin

The Air Force also has two B-1 carcasses that have been disassembled at the National Institute of Aviation Research at Wichita State University, Kan., for the purposes of creating digital twins.

“Pretty much all the structural parts” have been scanned twice, Stupic said, to create computer-aided design/digital twins of the B-1 that can help predict structural issues and create a baseline for upgrades.

So far, 4,000 of a planned 51,000 CAD models of the B-1’s structure have been completed, he said.

“And what my engineers intend to do is use those better CAD models for real aircraft, [and] bounce them against the drawings from the 1980s that may or may not have ever been updated,” he noted.

Drawings were rushed for production in the 1980s, he said, and “now I have a model that is good for re-procurement of part ‘X,’” that can be provided to the Defense Logistics Agency, which can then use them for parts competitions.

“Anyone can bid on the darn part because it is not something you need” to reverse-engineer 1980s drawings to build, Stupic explained. Modern processes can rapidly reproduce the needed parts and “we are hoping that will reduce our cycle times,” he said.

While the second digital twin, which looks at large structures, is not expected to yield the same level of structural fidelity models as the real-world stress test at Tukwila, “if the results from [the stress test] starts matching, maybe we don’t have to flutter that wing at Tukwila, maybe I have enough correlating data in the digital model that it’s good enough to use in scenarios like this,” Stupic said.

He added that “everything is cycle time, now. My pitch to my folks is, ‘cycle time in weapons integration and cycle time in software releases.” The B-1 is about to have its first agile software release this fall, he added. “Cycle time is a competitive advantage in this environment.”