B-1s Deploy to Europe for NATO Deterrence, Immediately Met by Russian Fighter

B-1s Deploy to Europe for NATO Deterrence, Immediately Met by Russian Fighter

May 23, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Four U.S. Air Force bombers are deploying to Europe as part of a reassurance mission for America’s NATO allies. It did not take long for Russia to take note. 

Two B-1B Lancers “were operating in international airspace in the Baltic Sea region alongside NATO allies and partners during their theater arrival” when the U.S. bombers had an “unplanned interaction with foreign fighter aircraft,” a spokesperson for U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said an Su-27 Flanker was dispatched to monitor the American bombers. A spokesperson for U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said the B-1s “were interacted with safely and professionally by Russian aircraft.”

The two B-1s landed at RAF Fairford, U.K., where they will be joined by two more B-1s on May 25 to fill out the rest of the Bomber Task Force mission, designed to support “NATO deterrence initiatives,” according to a USAFE press release issued May 23.

A B-1B Lancer from the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron arrives at RAF Fairford, United Kingdom, May 23, 2023 for Bomber Task Force Europe 23-3. U.S. Air Force photo

“Two of the Texas-based supersonic bombers from Dyess Air Force Base’s 7th Bomb Wing entered the theater today by first integrating with allies and partners conducting NATO’s Air Policing and Air Shielding missions throughout the Baltic Sea region,” USAFE added. “The Baltic Sea serves as a critical economic corridor, and consistent coalition surveillance of the international air and maritime space preserves safe and secure passage for all.”

Air Policing and Air Shielding are NATO efforts to bolster the alliance’s eastern flank to prevent further Russian aggression in Europe as Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine continues.

“The highly agile aircraft’s 12-hour mission from North America to Europe demonstrates the U.S. Air Force’s rapid ability to deploy anywhere, anytime, and provide lethal precision and global strike options U.S. and allied commanders,” USAFE said in its release.

EUCOM and USAFE representatives said they did not immediately have further details to add about the encounter with the Russian aircraft.

Armed Russian fighters have been less kind towards American aircraft over Syria in recent months. Russian planes have gotten within 500 feet of U.S. planes at times in what U.S. officials have said are potentially dangerous interactions. Two Su-27s harassed an America MQ-9 Reaper over the Black Sea in March. One of the Russian fighters clipped the drone’s propeller and forced the American military to intentionally crash the aircraft due to the damage, according to the Pentagon.

But Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, as well as the EUCOM and USAFE officials, said the most recent incident involving Russian and American aircraft was not alarming.

“This is a long-planned exercise in Europe,” Ryder said, adding Bomber Task Force missions led by Air Force Global Strike Command “fly regularly around the world.”

GAO Faults DOD for Lax Oversight of F-35 Spare Parts

GAO Faults DOD for Lax Oversight of F-35 Spare Parts

May 23, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon lacks oversight of potentially millions of spare parts for the F-35, a new Government Accountability Office report states—meaning the F-35 Joint Program Office has not been able to review losses worth tens of millions of dollars in recent years. 

“DOD’s lack of accountability over the F-35 global spares pool affects its ability to resolve the material weakness related to the F-35 program,” the report concluded. 

The report marks yet another problem for the fighter jet’s sustainment enterprise, which continues to concern Pentagon officials, lawmakers, and acquisition experts over the F-35’s high operating costs, its balking Autonomic Information Logistics System, and a chronic shortages of some spare parts. 

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said this week that it was a “serious mistake” to allow Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor, to own the technical baseline of the aircraft, thus controlling the program’s life cycle and creating “a perpetual monopoly” on sustainment, modifications, and upgrades. 

Now GAO’s report faults the Defense Department for ceding to Lockheed oversight for spare parts at subcontractor facilities. “The F-35 Joint Program Office does not track or enter these spare parts into an accountable property system of record that would enable it to capture and store real-time changes to property records,” the report states. “Currently, the prime contractors maintain this information.” 

Uniquely, the F-35’s global spares pool does not belong to the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and foreign partner. Instead, the F-35 partners buy access to the spares pool. At issue for GAO is whether the spare parts at non-prime contractor facilities are considered government-furnished property (GFP), which ensures the parts are entered into a Pentagon system that allows it to have oversight and information about the costs, locations, and quantities of spare parts in the global spares pool. 

Only one of the F-35’s two prime contractors—the report does not specify whether that is Lockheed Martin, responsible for the aircraft, or Pratt & Whitney, which makes the engines—considers such parts government-furnished, so they are not entered into the Pentagon’s system. According to the report, the contractor and agencies within the Defense Department have been debating the point since 2015. 

Exactly how many parts are at issue is likewise unclear. GAO report noted that the F-35 Joint Program Office still does not have a full accounting of the cost, total quantity, and locations of spare parts in the global spares pool. 

GAO investigators assert that one of the two primes saw more than 1 million parts lost, damaged, or destroyed, a loss of at least $85 million. The report said the F-35 JPO had adjudicated responsibility and liability for just 60,000 of those parts, or less than 2 percent. What’s more, GAO said the program office was entirely dependent on the contractors to report accurately, with no back up means to verify losses. 

“For example, losses that have not been reported to the F-35 JPO include 34 actuator doors and 14 batteries with total costs of over $3.2 million and $2.1 million, respectively, that were lost in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2019,” the report noted. 

GAO also faulted the program office for failing to stay current on excess, obsolete, or unserviceable spares. Some 19,000 such parts were still awaiting instructions as of last October, according to the report. 

GAO offered four recommendations to address its concerns. It said the Pentagon should: 

  • Take steps to ensure that all spare parts are categorized appropriately and accountable to the government 
  • Review existing policies for asset accountability and clarify when parts are considered government-furnished property 
  • Develop a process for contractors to report losses on spare parts not considered GFP until the government can agree on a contract amendment to make those parts GFP 
  • Develop procedures to provide timely instructions for excess, obsolete, or unserviceable parts 

The Pentagon agreed with all four the recommendations, the report noted. 

Kendall: Digital Engineering Was ‘Over-Hyped,’ But Can Save 20 Percent on Time and Cost

Kendall: Digital Engineering Was ‘Over-Hyped,’ But Can Save 20 Percent on Time and Cost

May 23, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Digital engineering can save about 20 percent in time and money over the approaches of just a few years ago, but its benefits have been exaggerated and it is not a revolutionary method that will radically cut development time and cost, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 22.

“It was over-hyped,” Kendall told reporters at a Defense Writers Group meeting.

Instead, Kendall said while digital engineering works best with technologies that are already well understood, it requires at least as much real-world testing when it is applied to all-new things.

Kendall’s remarks offer a note of caution after defense and Air Force officials alike have hailed the practice of designing new systems entirely in the digital realm as a revolutionary change in how the Pentagon will do business.

While the benefits of digital engineering are inarguable, Kendall said—such as allowing industry and government design specialists to see “exactly the state of a design or a program” at the same time—there are limits.

“I’ve tried to get reasonable data on how much” digital engineering saves in cost and schedule, he said. “My best feel for that is, it’s on the order of 20 percent, as a ballpark number.”

While that figure is significant, it’s not on the order of ten times or more, Kendall noted.

“With the capacity of modern computing capabilities, data storage, and communications to handle large amounts of data, we’ve been able to integrate our models,” Kendall said. “So, models that worked independently and had to be correlated—somewhat manually—can now talk to each other. And so you get a fully-integrated digital design, whereas before you would have had to do different parts of the design separately.”

This approach is paying dividends with the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, he said.

“The program office for NGAD is living in the same design space, if you will, as the NGAD bidders,” he said. “They have direct access into the database that’s being used for the design.” Visiting the program office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Kendall said he saw “a government engineer, who was very capable, working directly with one of the two contractors—he was on one of the teams—and interfacing with them on the design.”

Such an arrangement decreases back-and-forth and reduces misunderstanding, Kendall said. But the Air Force has to be careful not to let those efficiencies go to waste.

“One of the things that’s been true in engineering forever is that if you give an engineer more time, he’ll just do more design iterations because no engineer is ever completely happy with what he’s designed,” Kendall noted.

“So there’s a risk that we’ll just take advantage of the efficiency … to do more, right? What we need to do is get to where we’re comfortable with it, and then go forward with the next stage of development.”

Industry, he said, is motivated to get designs into production, so digital engineering “hopefully … will help us get into production more efficiently, more effectively.”

But he scoffed at the notion that digital engineering can drastically reduce the amount of testing required of new systems.

“Back in the F-35 [design] days I remember industry coming in and saying, ‘we’re so good at engineering now, we don’t need to do testing anymore,’” Kendall said. “That’s not true. And it’s particularly not true when you push the envelope outside of things you’ve done before, where … you don’t have as much confidence in your models.”

When designing a system that represents “a small incremental improvement,” the Air Force and its contractors can be confident that its digital model is accurate, Kendall said.

“But when you’re doing something that’s going to be radically different than prior programs, you’ve got to get into testing to validate … your design efforts,” he noted.

A prime example of that is the T-7 Advanced Trainer, being developed by Boeing. After being digitally designed and flying just three years after its conception, the aircraft is now two years behind schedule in reaching Initial Operational Capability, due largely to the ejection/escape system not performing as expected, particularly with pilot manikins at the low end of the range of physiques the jet must accommodate. Boeing has also faulted supply chain and workforce issues as contributing to the delay.  

“You see this all the time,” Kendall said. “Hypersonics are a good example: If you haven’t done it before, you’re going to have to go and actually do it.”

Perhaps the biggest test of digital engineering thus far might be Northrop Grumman’s B-21 bomber, a project generally regarded as having had few major hiccups in development. Kendal said he is being “cautious” in his remarks about the program, though, for a simple reason: “We haven’t flown yet.”

Famously quoted as saying the F-35 was an example of “acquisition malpractice,” Kendall said the main issue with that program “was the too-early start of production, and we had a lot of design changes we had to make after we started production.” He doesn’t want to repeat that with the B-21.

“There’s a balance, there,” he said. “There’ll be some concurrency between both B-21 and NGAD, between development and production, but you want to do that in a rational way that doesn’t take excessive risk.”

USAF General to Lead NSA and CYBERCOM: First Time Ever

USAF General to Lead NSA and CYBERCOM: First Time Ever

May 23, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and Chris Gordon

Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, will be nominated to lead CYBERCOM and the National Security Agency, Air Force and defense officials confirmed May 23. 

The nomination, which has not yet been officially announced, was first reported by Politico. If confirmed by the Senate, Haugh will be the first Airman ever to lead CYBERCOM, which was established in 2010, five years after then-Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden left office as director of the NSA. Hayden went on to become Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and then Director of the CIA. 

Haugh has been the deputy at CYBERCOM since last summer and would succeed Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, who is retiring. He was commander of the 16th Air Force, also known as Air Forces Cyber, before that.  

Haugh has commanded at the squadron, group, wing levels as well, and had a stint as director of intelligence at CYBERCOM. 

As the 16th Air Force’s first commander after its reactivation, Haugh was tasked by Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly with leading ACC’s shift in culture from a focus on short-term combat to one of long-term competition. In that role, he built a new command responsible for cyber, spectrum, and information warfare, areas in the so-called “gray zone” of conflict. It oversees wings with missions ranging from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to cyberspace and weather.  

As chief of CYBERCOM and the NSA, Haugh will lead some 27,000 people, the vast majority employed at the nation’s foremost signals intelligence agency. He will be the chief officer responsible for countering cyber warfare threats from Russia, China, North Korea, and others. Nakasone, At a March hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he warned that Russia remains a “very capable adversary” in cyberspace, and that the hugely popular social media app TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, could be a means of data collection for the Chinese government and enable potential influence operations. 

Congress is considering whether it will reauthorize programs under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set to expire at the end of the year. The programs play a key role in NSA operations, and Nakasone has urged lawmakers to renew it. 

Some in Congress have also questioned whether the time has come to assign separate commanders to lead NSA and CYBERCOM, which have been be dual-hatted since CYBERCOM was launched 13 years ago. Others have wondered if the time has come to establish a separate military branch for cyber operations, as the U.S. did with the Space Force in 2019. 

Nakasone said in written testimony for the March hearing that a recent study from high-level defense and intelligence officials concluded there are “substantial benefits that present compelling evidence for retaining the existing structure.” 

Haugh’s nomination may take some time to get through the Senate, meanwhile. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has placed a hold on all general officer promotions to protest a Biden administration policy that reimburses troops who must travel out-of-state to obtain a legal abortion. Tuberville says the policy violates the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions. Opponents say Tuberville should drop the hold and take the matter up as part of the annual defense authorization process.

The standoff is now holding up 200 nominations, and others are already in the works. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported Nakasone’s planned departure in the “coming months” on May 10. If Haugh is not confirmed by the Senate before then, he may take over as acting commander of CYBERCOM. However, the NSA’s deputy director is a civilian, George Barnes. 

VIDEO: B-2 Flies for the First Time in Months After Safety Pause

VIDEO: B-2 Flies for the First Time in Months After Safety Pause

May 22, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The B-2 is back in the air. 

Air Force Global Strike Command shared video of the B-2 Spirit taking off and landing from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., on May 22—the stealth bomber’s first flight since December.  

Air & Space Forces Magazine first reported the end of the safety pause on May 18. Air Force Global Strike Command imposed a “safety pause” following a Dec. 10 accident while investigators drilled down on potential safety issues affecting the entire fleet.  

The 36-second video shows the aircraft taxiing and taking off, interspersed with shots of the air and ground crew before, and shows the aircraft landing very briefly. B-2 crews drilled regularly in simulators during the pause and also took reps in trainer aircraft to practice takeoffs and landings, the most challenging aspects of flying the bomber.

AFGSC did not reply to queries sent early May 22. 

In text accompanying the video, the command emphasized that even during the safety pause, the Air Force’s small fleet of B-2s remained available to fly missions critical to national security—vital given the aircraft’s role as the nation’s only stealth nuclear-capable bomber in service. 

The video also noted that B-2 aircrew and maintainers stayed ready during the safety pause. Pilots spent time in the advanced simulators at Whiteman and increased repetitions in T-38 trainers, while maintainers ensured the stealth low-observable coating, which is critical for the B-2’s nuclear mission, was well taken care of. 

Still, the return to flying operations is being handled carefully, 8th Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

“I want them to come back in a disciplined, deliberate manner,” Gebara said. “But we will do full operational missions. So you’re not going to see one loop around and land kind of sorties. It’ll be a normal sortie. I actually am not concerned at all about the mission aspects of the force.” 

The Air Force has declined to reveal the exact cause of the mishap that initially sparked the safety pause. The accident occurred after a successful emergency landing, and a fire was reported on the aircraft.  

The service has also declined to detail what actions were taken to lift the safety pause, or give the status of the aircraft involved in the mishap. 

Get Ready for Sky Warden: First Delivery Set for October

Get Ready for Sky Warden: First Delivery Set for October

May 22, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Special Operations Command will start accepting delivery in October of Sky Warden, the modified crop-duster that won its Armed Overwatch competition last year. Already in low-rate production, SOCOM is expecting 26 aircraft as part of low-rate initial production.

Those aircraft will go through operational testing and a full-rate production decision will follow as soon as March 2025, a SOCOM spokesman told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The low-rate production decision was first reported by FlightGlobal. 

All told, SOCOM plans to acquire 75 Sky Warden aircraft to fly surveillance, close air support, and precision strike missions in austere but permissive environments, such as counter-insurgency operations in Africa or the Middle East. SOCOM and Air Force Special Operations Command officials have said they currently rely on a variety of different aircraft to perform those functions separately and want one platform to “collapse the stack.” 

Sky Warden, selected by SOCOM in August 2022, was developed in collaboration by L3Harris and Air Tractor. Based on the AT-802 aircraft, which is used for agriculture and firefighting, it is rugged, with chunky tires built for primitive airfields and a NASCAR-style roll cage to protect the two-man crew. 

Designed to be modular, capable of swapping out different sensors, communications equipment, and combat payloads as needed, Sky Warden has “the largest payload capacity of any single turbine engine aircraft,” L3 Harris claims. 

“You can outfit the aircraft with a robust suite of sensors that will exceed what is available with most dedicated ISR platforms today,” said then AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife in 2022, now deputy Air Force chief of staff for operations. “Or you can outfit the platform with a robust suite of precision munitions. It really depends on the mission. Clearly, the Armed Overwatch platform is not a panacea for every tactical situation that a ground force might find themselves in. But for what we envision the enduring counter-[violent extremist organization] mission looking like, we think it’s a prudent investment.”   

Because Sky Warden is based on an existing system, L3Harris has claimed it can be delivered in less than 12 months. An October 2023 delivery date would be slightly out of that timeframe, as the aircraft are modified for military use. An L3Harris spokesperson referred comment to SOCOM. 

Plans for the aircraft to reach initial operational capability and full operational capability remain on track though, with the Special Operations Command spokesman saying IOC is scheduled for September 2025 and FOC is set for September 2029. Both dates are on the tail end of previously-stated timelines for fiscal 2025 and 2029. 

The Air Force has said it plans to base its formal training unit for Sky Warden at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Okla., replacing the MC-12W Liberty and its schoolhouse there. The service said it intends to place 28 aircraft and about 80 personnel as part of the unit, with an official stand-up in the second quarter of 2024. 

New House Bill Aims to Keep 25 ANG Fighter Squadrons. Here’s Why USAF Is Wary

New House Bill Aims to Keep 25 ANG Fighter Squadrons. Here’s Why USAF Is Wary

May 22, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

A new bill in Congress aims to increase the Air Force fighter inventory by setting a minimum number of Air National Guard fighter squadrons and aircraft. But the Air Force worries the measure is too prescriptive and would favor the Guard over Active-Duty units.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a retired Air Force brigadier general, is spearheading the proposed “Fighter Force Preservation and Recapitalization Act,” which would require:

  • A minimum of 25 fighter squadrons in the Air National Guard, each with at least 18 aircraft  
  • Development of a plan to modernize and recapitalize the entire ANG fleet on a one-for-one basis by the end of fiscal 2034 
  • Establishment of a plan to field Next Generation Air Dominance fighters in the ANG 

Bacon and a bipartisan group of cosponsors including Reps. John James (R-Mich.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) introduced the bill last week. The issue is parochial for some—Guard A-10 squadrons at Warfield Air National Guard Base, Md., and Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., are slated to stand down in 2025 and 2027. But for Bacon, a former ISR pilot whose home district includes no fighter squadrons, the issue is all about readiness.

“I’m a 30-year Air Force guy, but I’m not a fighter guy, we don’t have fighters in Nebraska,” Bacon told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an interview. “So this is nothing parochial. It’s strictly love of the Air Force and love of our nation’s military.” 

The Air Force is retiring both ANG A-10 and F-15C/D squadrons, moves the Air Force has said are necessary to fund intensive modernization across the force. Lawmakers have opposed those plans in the past but more recently have given in to Air Force arguments that divesting aging aircraft not suited to advanced threats is essential to modernizing the overall force. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall indicated recently he is optimistic that plans included in the fiscal 2024 Air Force budget submission will be approved, clearing the way for further divestments.

But the planned net loss of some 400 fighters over the next five years is too risky, Bacon said. 

“As we’re bringing fighters in, I understand you’ve got to take fighters out,” he said. “But they’re doing over two to one. For every new one we’re bringing in, they’re taking out two. So I just think the capacity is going to get too small to deal with China, plus Europe, and presence in other areas. I don’t mind disinvesting. I don’t mind disinvesting out of the A-10. But to do it at a two-to-one rate doesn’t make sense to me.” 

A senior Air Force official said he understands Bacon’s concerns, but countered that the proposed legislation only makes the service’s job harder.  

“What they’re trying to do is start a conversation about [recapitalization] of the fighter fleet in the Air Force,” the official said. “They think it’s getting too small, and I don’t know that we would disagree. The challenge is the physics of fighter procurement right now.” 

The Air Force is competing with the Navy, Marine Corps, and a host of allies to acquire new F-35s, and the list of customers is growing. From 2024-2028, the official said, the Air Force can’t buy more than 48 F-35s per year because there isn’t capacity to build any more airplanes. Current plans call for buying 24 F-15EXs for the next three years, then ending production at 104. Another 40 could be had over the following two years but aren’t currently in the service’s five-year plan.

The Air Force official cited two other problems with Bacon’s bill: First, its focus on a minimum fighter fleet for the Guard, but not the Active Duty force, could mean giving new aircraft to the Guard at the expense of frontline forces; and second, that requirement stretches out a decade, while Congress only funds the Air Force year to year.  

“The issue is Congress can give us a mandate, but they can only fund it in the budget year, and only if they choose to. They can’t fund it across the [Future Years Defense Plan], and so these mandates wind up [as unfunded],” the official said. 

Bacon said he would work with other members of the House Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations defense subcommittee to ensure the Air Force gets the funds it needs. He intends to propose his bill as an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization bill.  

“We have a really good relationship with the defense appropriators,” Bacon said. “The chairman of that subcommittee has a great rapport with [HASC chair] Mike Rogers and all of us. And whatever we end up deciding, I’m sure we’ll do it in tandem. So I mean, if I’m don’t get my way, if it’s a compromise, I’m sure it will be worked between Appropriations and HASC, and I have confidence that in the end we’ll get this aligned.” 

Without enough industrial capacity to build more aircraft faster, the Air Force official said, Bacon’s plan is “like three years too late: You can’t solve this with procurement now, because the procurement capacity doesn’t exist.” 

The Air Force chose to hold down F-35 purchases in recent years as it waited for improved capabilities in with the jet’s Tech Refresh 3 digital overhaul and anticipated improvements that tech makes possible in Block 4 upgrades. Congress added to those plans then, and Bacon said it could do so again now.

Bacon said he had spoken with F-35 contractor Lockheed Martin and F-15EX builder Boeing and asserted confidence they can produce more airplanes. 

The Air Force official was less sanguine, suggesting that no solution will produce more aircraft in the next five years. That means a requirement to hold the line on Guard fighter squadrons would result in painful decisions. 

“If you follow the path of this legislation, what you will do is put aircraft that are already supposed to go to [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] or to other units in the States and force them into the Guard,” the official said. 

Bacon countered that the Guard is responsible for much of the Air Force’s homeland defense mission and that his bill highlights the broader issue Congress must address: Air Force readiness. 

“The challenge here is for the Air Force,” Bacon said. “The President’s budget is too low for the Air Force. For them to produce the F-35, B-21, the ICBMs [concurrently], they feel like they’ve got to disinvest out of these older fighter platforms. And I would suggest we need to go back in and look at the Air Force budget. Because at a certain level, we’re putting our country at risk. They shouldn’t have to disinvest 400 aircraft at a time where we think China is becoming a bigger and bigger threat.” 

Kendall: F-16s Not a ‘Game-Changer’ for Ukraine But ‘Something They Need’

Kendall: F-16s Not a ‘Game-Changer’ for Ukraine But ‘Something They Need’

May 22, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 22 that Ukrainian pilots could learn to fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon in a matter of months and the aircraft will be an important element of the nation’s future defense capability.

“They’re very motivated,” Kendall told the Defense Writers Group. “Everything we’ve done with the Ukrainians, they’ve shown a capacity to learn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more motivated individuals, in terms of wanting to get into the fight and make a difference.”

Kendall and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown said last July Ukraine would eventually need Western aircraft to replace their aging Soviet-legacy planes and build an air force for the future.

But President Joe Biden’s administration later made it clear that getting F-16s to Ukraine was not a priority, largely because it would take time to train Ukrainian airmen and because it was worried providing the plane could escalate tensions with Russia.

That changed last week when Biden gave the green light to a plan by European nations to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s. It is still unclear when the planes might be provided to Ukraine, how many will be transferred, and which nations will send them.

“It’s something they need to do,” Kendall said. “It’s something that makes sense for them. It’s going to help them.”

To address White House concerns over escalation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Biden that Kyiv would not use the plane to fly over Russian territory to strike targets there.

“I have a flat assurance from Zelenskyy that they will not use it to go on and move onto Russian geographic territory, but wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine and the area, they would be able to do that,” Biden told reporters at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.

Roughly 60 Ukrainian warplanes have been downed during the conflict as of March. The F-16 would help Ukraine build back its air force with Western kit to contend with Russia’s larger and more advanced air force. As a multi-role aircraft, it could provide air support for Ukrainian troops, attack ground targets, intercept Russian cruise missiles, and fend off attacks by Russian planes.

“The F-16 is a reasonable option for them for a whole bunch of reasons,” Kendall said. “It will give Ukrainians an increment of capabilities that they don’t have right now. But it’s not going to be a dramatic game-changer, as far as I’m concerned, for their total military capabilities.”

So far, Ukraine’s air defenses have been effective at preventing the Russians from gaining control of the skies over the country. But the British government said May 22 that Russia is trying to establish a new attack aviation group that would include Su-24s, Su-34s, and attack helicopters.

“The mix of aircraft types suggests the group will have a primary role of ground attack missions,” the British government said in an intelligence update. “Credible Russian media reports suggest that the Russian [Ministry of Defense] aims to attract highly skilled and motivated pilots by offering large pay incentives and opening recruitment to retired officers.”

Air Force Will Pick Just One NGAD Design in 2024, Kendall Says

Air Force Will Pick Just One NGAD Design in 2024, Kendall Says

May 22, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Only one company will be chosen next year as the overall designer and developer of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) crewed fighter, despite years of prototype work on different designs by several companies, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 22.

Kendall added that there will be ongoing competition to supply NGAD’s systems after an overall winner is picked—but the original NGAD concept of rolling competitions, producing a series of incrementally better platforms, is too costly, he revealed.

“We’re not going to do two NGADs. We’re only going to do one,” Kendall said at a meeting of the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C.

Kendall told Air & Space Forces Magazine the original concept of rapidly-iterated NGADs, with competitions every few years—promoted by former Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper and meant to provide steady work to contractors to preserve their industrial capability—has been abandoned.

The NGAD’s “development phase is far too expensive,” to pursue such a strategy, he told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Such an approach is “not going to work, but we are going to design for modular open systems, on a number of [onboard] technologies, and that will remain competitive,” he added.

The Air Force released a classified solicitation for NGAD engineering and manufacturing development proposals May 18, saying a winner will be selected in 2024, but few new details of the highly classified program were released beyond that.

Even the size of the fleet remains publicly uncertain—Kendall has said a “notional” buy could number about 200 aircraft, but Air Force experts have said 250 is the more likely objective, as the minimum number of aircraft necessary to cover peacetime obligations along with minimal wartime surge capability.

Regardless, Kendall also said he is less concerned about the Air Force’s force structure—the number of aircraft and systems it has—than about modernization, which he said has been neglected for too long. China has been aggressively advancing its capabilities in air superiority and air defense, and “we have not responded as quickly as we should have,” he said.

As a result, Kendall said he is “prepared to take some risk” on the service’s force structure, but not with its modernization. The Air Force can only afford to field systems “that scare China” and contribute to deterrence, he said.

NGAD is key to that plan, as reflected in its planned capabilities the Air Force laid out in the May 18 announcement, such as enhanced lethality and the abilities to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly-contested operational environments.

Kendall offered other details May 22, noting his own his history with NGAD dating back to his time undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics in the Obama administration.

“I started a program called the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, which was to get to the sixth-generation set of technologies we would need for future air dominance, and to build flying prototypes—X-planes, if you will—to bring those technologies forward,” he said.

That initiative resulted in a 2015 contract that produced experimental prototypes and verified new technologies. Those prototypes formed the basis of NGAD, Kendall said.

Since then, he added, “model-based system engineering and digitalization … moved forward a significant amount, so that we could integrate our design teams between the government and contractors much more effectively and efficiently.”

Both the contractors and government officials work in a common design environment, giving the Air Force an “intimate” knowledge of each competitor is doing, Kendall said. The service even has teams working with each company.

The Air Force won’t repeat the “serious mistake” it made with the F-35, Kendall said—allowing one company to own the technical baseline of the aircraft, thus controlling the program’s life cycle and creating “a perpetual monopoly” on sustainment and future modifications and upgrades.

“We’re not going to do that,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that the government has ownership for the intellectual property it needs. We’re going to make sure … we have modular designs and open systems so that, going forward, we can bring new suppliers in.”

Whoever is chosen “as the platform integrator … will have a much tighter degree of government control over the future of that program than we’ve had” with the F-35, he said. “We’ve learned that lesson.”

Kendall also said the Rapid Capabilities Office will not be brought in to manage the NGAD program, despite its apparent success on the B-21.

Instead, Brig. Gen. Dale White, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, and his office will oversee the effort, in addition to their management of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. Kendall said NGAD and CCA will be developed “in parallel,” but he declined to say when a contract award for the CCA program might be awarded.