Push to Expand 5G Coverage Would Cost USAF At Least $2 Billion, Brown Says

May 4, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The sale to commercial entities of the 3.3-3.45 gigahertz portion of the electromagnetic spectrum—called the S-band—would cost the Department of the Air Force well upwards of $2 billion, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.

Telecommunications companies seeking to grow their 5G business, and some members of Congress, are urging the Federal Communications Commission to auction off access to the S-band, after a bill to permit it died in the last session of Congress. Similar auctions for other parts of the spectrum have generated billions of dollars for the government in recent year.

Military leaders continue to balk, however, saying the loss of that part of the spectrum would severely compromise their operations.

“There’s a number of weapon systems that operate within that band,” Brown told the SASC on May 2. “I’ll just give you one example: our C-130 station keeping [equipment].

“If that band was actually moved and we had to redesign, it will cost roughly about $2 billion, just for that one platform. And we have a number of platforms that operate within … the S-band, so it’s critical that we understand the impact” of its loss to commercial use, Brown said.

The C-130 system Brown referred to is the AN/APN-243, which allows the aircraft to fly in formation in blackout conditions. The system provides highly accurate altitude and course information, as well as proximity warnings to prevent the aircraft from colliding in the absence of visual cues. It allows up to 36 aircraft to fly in tight formation in zero visibility.

There would be still other system redesigns required if the Air Force lost access to the S-band, Brown added, though he did not specify them.

Saltzman, asked to add the Space Force perspective, said “that particular band is a radar band that allows us to look into deep space.”

In particular, the Space Force is developing a radar in that band to enhance its space domain awareness, Saltzman said.

“If we were not able to use that piece of spectrum, not only would we lose the time that we’ve already invested—[and] as much as several hundred million dollars that we’ve already put into development—but it would also mean that we have to use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which isn’t as capable in determining and discriminating capabilities in deep space,” he explained.

Brown and Saltzman are not the only military leaders to offer warnings about a potential S-band sale. Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, told lawmakers in March that “multiple platforms” that he relies on would be significantly harmed by the change.

These include “maritime homeland defense systems, airborne early warning platforms [and] ground-based early warning platforms that enable me to provide threat warning, attack assessment and defend from potentially airborne [threats],” VanHerck said.

The Navy’s Aegis air defense radar system uses the S-Band, and assistant secretary of defense for space policy John Plumb, told House lawmakers in March that redesigning Aegis would cost in excess of $120 billion. The Aegis is considered to be one of the only threat detection and tracking radars capable of spotting hypersonic missiles.

In a March 16 report, the Congressional Research Service agreed that allowing commercial access to S-Band would impose big costs on the military services.

“While an auction of the segment for commercial use could drive wireless expansion and generate significant revenues,” the CRS said, “technical experts assert that reallocation of the band from federal to nonfederal use would require complex and high-cost modifications to DOD systems and would affect DOD operations.”

A bill passed in the House last year, the “Spectrum Innovation Act,” would have allowed telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon to buy S-band access at auction. A corresponding Senate bill never passed, and the bill wasn’t included in the fiscal 2023 federal appropriations bill.

Wilsbach Nominated to Be the New Boss at Air Combat Command

May 4, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach has been nominated to take over as the head of Air Combat Command, USAF’s largest major command by Active-Duty personnel, Air & Space Forces Magazine confirmed May 4.

Wilsbach’s nomination reached the Senate on May 2. An Air Force official confirmed the nomination is to lead ACC. Wilsbach will be replaced at PACAF by Lt. Gen. Kevin B. Schneider, who was nominated to take the post April 24. Schneider had been the director of the Air Force staff.

Since taking command of PACAF in July 2020, Wilsbach has overseen the command’s continued pivot toward Agile Combat Employment, including the deployment of fifth-generation fighters to Tinian and the Philippines for the first time. PACAF has also frequently deployed fighters and bombers as of late to fly alongside Japanese and South Korean aircraft in response to North Korean missile tests.

Prior to his time at PACAF, Wilsbach was deputy commander of U.S. Forces Korea and commander of Alaskan Command under U.S. Northern Command. He has commanded at the squadron, group, and wing levels, and is a command pilot with experience in the F-15C, F-16, and F-22, having flown 71 combat missions in operations Northern Watch, Southern Watch and Enduring Freedom.

If confirmed, Wilsbach will oversee several key initiatives at ACC—the continued transition of more and more units to the F-35, testing and eventual delivery of the F-15EX to operational units, potential retirements for the A-10 and F-22, and rapid development and incorporation of Collaborative Combat Aircraft into the fleet.

Given his experience in the Pacific, Wilsbach offers a depth of knowledge on China, which Pentagon and Air Force leaders continue to emphasize as the “pacing challenge” for the U.S.

If confirmed, Wilsbach will succeed Gen. Mark D. Kelly, who has led ACC and its more than 87,000 Airmen and 1,100 aircraft since August 2020.

But before Wilsbach can take over an aircraft inventory that ranges from F-35s to E-3 Sentrys to the U-2 Dragon Lady, he must first overcome the hold on flag and general officer nominations imposed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who is using that power to protest the administration’s policy to allow the military to cover the cost of travel for female service members seeking abortions. DOD officials say the policy is necessary to enable equal treatment of troops under the law, and Democratic lawmakers have criticized Tuberville for hurting readiness and delaying leadership moves.

How USAF Is Tackling Pilot Retention: More Money, More Stability

May 4, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

As the Air Force battles a persistent pilot shortage made worse by aging training aircraft, the service has started approaching its current pilots earlier in their careers to offer retention incentives, hoping to convince them to stay in the military longer, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said May 2.

At the same time, the Air Force is set to launch a new program in the coming months that will offer bonuses and guaranteed assignment locations to selected pilots and rated officers.

In his written testimony for the Senate Armed Services Committee’s readiness subpanel, Allvin noted that the Air Force had a net loss of about 250 pilots in fiscal 2022 and ended the year 1,900 pilots short of its goal of 21,000. Commercial industry has been hiring at high rates coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects continued demand through the rest of the decade.

Allvin was pressed by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) about why Air Force pilots choose to leave the service, especially those who do so after completing their initial 10-year commitment.

Citing an aircrew survey that was completed in March, Allvin named three main reasons aviators leave:

Lack of a stable home life

Money

Duties that take away from flying—“Pilots like to fly,” Allvin noted.

USAF is trying to limit the frequency of deployments now that rotations to the Middle East have diminished, and is working to be more flexibility in where pilots are stationed, Allvin said.

“One of the advantages of technology is it allows us to be more interactive with the individuals in the assignment process,” he explained. “Before, the needs of the Air Force would shape your career. Now we have a talent marketplace where they can go out and at least provide some more input, have a little more agency in their future assignments.”

The Air Force’s main compensation lever is aviation bonuses, which paid out $15,000 to $35,000 annually, depending on skillset and contract length, under the fiscal 2022 bonus program. The updated rates could be out within a month, an Air Force spokesperson said.

The problem, Allvin said, is that pilots need to be incentivized to stay well before they reach the end of their 10-year commitments. For many, the bonuses come too late to change plans already years in the making.

“What we have done now is offered these incentives to them three years before the commitment is done,” Allvin explained. “Now, obviously, we’re asking for a longer commitment, but at that time, it’s helping them cement their future, see where their families are and have that predictability.”

Whether the earlier bonuses will make mid-career pilot retention easier is not yet clear. “We just started this,” Allvin said—but the service is optimistic that offering more stability will improve retention.

Other initiatives are also in the works. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) highlighted a section in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act directing the Air Force to establish a demonstration program to offer bonuses worth up to $50,000 annually and/or guaranteed future assignment locations to sweeten the pot.

Though Allvin offered no details, an Air Force spokeswoman told Air & Space Forces Magazine plans are being finalized and the new program should be ready to roll out this summer.

Additionally, an aircrew task force is working on “establishing holistic Total Force retention goals, integrated data-sharing, increased use of advanced analytical tools, consolidation of enterprise lines of effort, and continuous improvement to sustain a healthy crew force,” the spokeswoman said.

First-Term Airmen Can Retrain More Easily Under New Policy Aimed at Retention

May 4, 2023 | By David Roza

The Air Force wants to make it easier for Airmen in their first term of enlistment to retrain into another career field, under a new policy that lifts some of the hoops that were previously involved in the process.

Starting June 1, first-term Airmen can retrain into any Air Force Specialty Code they qualify for that is under 90 percent manned prior to separation, even if the AFSC they currently belong to is below 90 percent manned, according to a press release published April 28.

Airmen who decide to pursue another career field will no longer have to undergo a First-Term Airman Retaining Selection Board, which should make for a more streamlined “first in, first out” process, the release explained. However, Airmen must still be within their retaining window and meet the relevant medical and Air Force Enlisted Classification Directory standards, Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery score, and physical fitness standards.

The first phase of the first-term Airmen retraining quotas will be open to all such airmen entering their retraining window during fiscal year 2024. The policy will be reassessed a year from now, on June 1, 2024, unless it is rescinded earlier, the press release said.

“Providing these opportunities for our Airmen helps us keep talent on the bench,” Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne Bass said in the press release. “While this particular change impacts first-term Airmen, expect to see more initiatives like this as we evolve our policies and talent management to focus on the force of the future and building the Air Force our nation needs.”

The new policy comes as the Air Force struggles to hit its recruitment goals. The service expects a 10 percent shortfall this year in the Active Air Force and a greater gap in the Guard and Reserve. Officials say some of the challenges include a low unemployment rate and a declining propensity to serve. On the flip side, the Air Force generally enjoys strong retention levels.

“Retention numbers look very good,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in March. “We’re keeping the people that we get, but we need to get more people.”

King Aerospace Makes It Happen for Our Military

May 4, 2023

When our nation’s military branches or government agencies need to perform an important mission on our country’s behalf, the team at King Aerospace is ready to serve.

“No one is happy when their aircraft isn’t available,” says King Aerospace’s Chairman and Founder Jerry King. “Regardless of the mission, be it military or commercial, it is our job to make that mission happen.”

Services proudly provided by KAI include maintaining special air mission C-32 (Boeing 757) and C-40 (Boeing 737) jets; supporting C-12 Huron (Beechcraft King Air), C-130 and C-144 (Airbus Military CN-235) turboprops on a variety of missions around the globe; and servicing the fleet of Boeing 737-400s operated by the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration.

King Aerospace keeps this USCG HC-144 aircraft in top condition. King Aerospace Photo

Smaller, but Capable

Driven by a commitment to “God, Country and Family,” King Aerospace’s distinctive, no-excuses, servant leadership-driven culture complements the proud tradition of our nation’s armed forces and exemplifies professionalism, service and duty to every customer.

“Clients tell us they prefer to work with smaller, family companies, because of their unique ability to respond quickly to their needs and concerns,” says Sally O’Connor, deputy program manager and King Aerospace Inc.’s official “King Kulture Curator.”

This smaller company size does not limit the breadth of services or resources available. KAI is able to leverage its relationships with all major contractors, equipment vendors and suppliers, developed over more than 30 years, to deliver the services clients need.

King Aerospace is also well-positioned to serve, with facilities at Biggs Army Airfield, El Paso, TX; Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, NM; Camp Humphreys, South Korea; and logistics outposts around the globe ready to respond on any day, at any hour. The company’s global support teams can quickly mobilize to establish 24/7 logistics and aircraft service sites on very short notice, even in harsh, remote and hostile environments.

“We understand the urgency of the mission,” O’Conner continues, “and you will never hear someone at King Aerospace say they can’t or won’t do all they can to fulfill that duty to the client.”

Jerry Dunmire, a former Boeing senior executive director for the U.S. presidential aircraft fleet who now serves as an advisor to KAI, believes the commitment to “do what we’ll say we’ll do” sets King Aerospace apart from others in the industry.

“Clients tell us that it’s very difficult in today’s marketplace to find someone who is going to deliver the aircraft on-time, on-budget and squawk-free,” he adds. “We earn their trust every day and in everything we do.”

Constant communication is key to making that happen, as is the empowerment of King Aerospace leaders and workers to respond to client needs directly. When a client requests a change or modification, or a situation arises that requires prompt attention, facility managers may respond immediately without elevating the matter up the chain, adding undue bureaucracy and comprising valued time.

“And, if a mistake is made, they want the company to take ownership and make it right,” Dunmire continues. “Clients tell us that is not necessarily a common approach at other companies, but it’s simply the way we do business at King Aerospace.”

“When we encounter an issue, we inform the client and present available options to best suit their needs,” adds Steve Sawyer, general manager of operations. “We want every person who takes delivery of their aircraft to say their overall experience with King Aerospace was great from start to finish, because we kept them in the loop.”

King Aerospace maintains locations and services around the globe. King Aerospace photo.

Earning Their Wings

These attitudes come not just from the example set by Jerry King and other company executives. Most importantly, it is also displayed by each and every employee who proudly wears their set of King Aerospace wings – an honor not easily earned.

“Every new hire must demonstrate their understanding of our history, our culture and our commitment to servant leadership,” O’Connor explains. “And they must then embrace, nurture and cultivate that culture in their peers.”

That mindset is important to meeting and surpassing expectations for all clients, but especially so in service to our nation, where urgency defines the mission. Company technicians routinely deal with a variety of unique maintenance challenges that come with supporting special-mission aircraft around the globe.

The ability to leverage the vast institutional knowledge across a variety of platforms at King Aerospace is invaluable to restoring those aircraft to service.

“We go the extra distance to earn the trust and respect of all our clients,” says Sawyer, a retired U.S. Navy master chief. “Each one knows they can expect the highest level of quality and that they will receive their aircraft the way they want it.”

“Communication is key to ensuring a great experience,” he concludes. “No surprises, no questions. That level of transparency is critical not only to our success, but our client’s – and our country’s – success as well.”

Learn more about King Aerospace’s military support.

New Report: Air Force Needs to Invest in a Faster, More Resilient Kill Chain

May 3, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

China has structured its military to defeat the U.S. “kill chain”—the sequence of steps needed to spot and destroy particular targets—and the Air Force must now ensure its process is agile and resilient, largely by investing in new platforms and networks, an expert from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies argues in a new paper.

“Kill chain” is the shorthand term for the “find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess” (F2T2EA) process necessary to achieve desired battlefield effects. Since the 1991 Gulf War, China has been studying the Air Force’s effective use of the kill chain and working at ways to block or disable it, said Heather Penney, senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute and author of the new study.

China has developed “a warfighting strategy designed to counter our strengths and the way we do war,” Penney said in a May 3 discussion with reporters. Meanwhile, the U.S. has become accustomed to applying the kill chain either as an unchallenged superpower or fighting a counterinsurgency campaign against opponents who lack the technical capabilities to disrupt that process.

“What we’ve done for the past 30 years, and how the Air Force is equipped now, is not what we need for the future,” Penney said, warning that the service’s long-term kill chain advantage “is at risk.”

The Air Force uses a variety of sensors—terrestrial, airborne and space-based—as well as strike platforms, information networks, and even individual weapons to gather battlespace information. China has developed means to either jam networks or sensors, defeat weapons in the end stage of attack, and generally break the kill chain “at every step,” Penney said.

In response, the Air Force needs to increase the number of nodes in its kill chain, Penney wrote, while also broadening the scope of its kill chain enterprise to work over a much larger regional scale. The process must be executed with greater speed—to reduce the time in which an adversary can interfere—and it must be survivable—meaning it must keep its integrity and effectiveness even when some of the nodes are lost or blocked.

The Pentagon’s sweeping plan to connect sensors and shooters across the globe is Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), and the Air Force is pursuing several ideas to contribute to that plan. But it doesn’t yet “know how to do it” for the whole force, Penney said.

At the same time, the service’s fifth- and planned sixth-generation platforms, such as the F-22, F-35, B-21 and Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) system, “can independently close kill chains” for targets they’re assigned to, while providing critical up-to-the-minute battlespace information for the rest of the force. They can do this because of their high stealth/survivability, exquisite sensing and communications capabilities, and speed, Penney said.

Consequently, Penney argues, the Air Force should invest heavily in these platforms until a mid-term future, when JADC2 matures and creates a reliable, resilient, and loss-tolerant network that less-sophisticated platforms and weapons can use to prosecute targets almost as well.

“This is ‘back to basics,” said Mark Gunzinger, the Mitchell Institute’s director of future aerospace concepts and capability assessments. Assuring the kill chain works is the “fundamental” step in building the Air Force’s future force structure, he said.

Penney offered both near-term and long-term recommendations for how the Air Force can preserve and enhance its kill chain superiority.

In the near-to-mid-term, the Air Force should:

Accelerate procurement of the F-35 and B-21 and keep its F-22s and B-2s in the force, as these “consolidated kill nodes” can do most of the F2T2EA sequence on their own and there is a value in a quantity. “Numbers count,” Penney said. “A B-21 can’t be in more than one place at a time.”

Aggressively invest in modernizing and improving the range and stealth of the fifth-generation F-35 and F-22 as a bridge to the sixth-gen NGAD. This will improve the survivability of the kill chain as well as its reach.

Develop smaller but more advanced weapons in large numbers. This will increase the number of targets each highly-survivable platform can kill per sortie, and the weapons can also generate more battlespace information. Increasing the targets per sortie “can have a major, potentially decisive impact on the timing and outcome of a campaign,” she said. Gunzinger noted that recent U.S. strategy has been to prevent a “fait accompli” by an adversary, so speed of a campaign is crucial. Penney also noted that current weapons designed for the permissive environments of the last 30 years are “increasingly vulnerable to China’s advanced air and missile defenses.”

Map out and connect the right sensors, platforms, and weapons in the kill chain. Penney noted that “not all sensors and shooters need to be connected,” and too much information being moved to the wrong places can tax bandwidth and decision-making speed. Fixing the inability of F-22s, F-35s and other fifth-gen platforms to share data with other kinds of aircraft will help, as “off-boarding information” will increase “the number of off-board kill chains they can support.”

Develop advanced networks and invest in connectivity across the force.

In the mid-to-long term, the Air Force should:

Develop automated tools to help air battle managers swiftly “identify, validate, evaluate, and construct” kill chains. Penney pushed for retaining and growing the cadre of human air battle managers, though, as they can choose to make “non-intuitive” decisions that will carry the day. Relying wholly on artificial intelligence to prioritize targets could make the Air Force predictable once the algorithm is understood by the adversary, she said.

Accelerate the development and fielding of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the uncrewed drones USAF has announced it will build to complement crewed platforms by carrying more weapons and multiplying the sensors in the battlespace. This will accelerate the speed of a campaign, expand the number of targets killed per sortie, and create “affordable mass.”

Develop and launch a space-based sensing and data transport layer. Deployed in low-Earth orbit, a large number of sensing and communications satellites “will be essential to winning kill chain competitions.” This proliferated system “can dramatically boost the scale, scope, speed and survivability” of air-based kill chains, Penney said.

Accelerate the development of NGAD “as an advanced multifunction node for highly contested battlespaces,” and procure the system quickly and in high numbers. The NGAD will “boost all elements of kill chain superiority,” Penney said, warning that too often, the Air Force invested heavily in developing leap-ahead technologies, only to buy the resulting system—like the F-22—in anemic quantities.

Penney said that adapting the U.S. kill chain to defeat China won’t be “easy or cheap,” but that USAF needs to be provided more resources for these capabilities that will enable the entire joint force. After 30 years of receiving a smaller share of the defense budget than the other services, the Air Force can’t be expected to develop these new capabilities out of hide, she said. Increasing F-35 production without more funds would have a “ripple effect” on the service, hurting fight-tonight readiness as well as the sinews of readiness such as depots and military construction.

“The past is littered with failed efforts and lost time on DOD programs that were descoped or even abandoned entirely due to a desire to reduce defense spending,” Penney said.

This has devastated the current force structure, which is “too small and too old” to meet the demands of the National Defense Strategy. Losing a war to a near-peer would “have devastating long-term consequences” for the U.S., its allies and partners, Penney said.

Warthogs, Reaper, and MC-130 Land and Take Off from Wyoming Highway in Agility Exercise

May 3, 2023 | By David Roza

As an MC-130J pilot, Air Force Capt. Katheryn Richardson is trained to land on dirt strips in the middle of nowhere, but even she thought it was unusual to land on an asphalt highway in Wyoming.

“We all had a moment where we were looking at the highway and thought about how unnatural it felt to be landing on a highway,” Richardson said in a recent press release about the experience of putting a 132-foot wingspan aircraft down at 140 miles per hour on Highway 287 during a recent training exercise.

Richardson’s unit, the 15th Special Operation Squadron out of Hurlburt Field, Fla., was one of several Air Force units to join the Army’s 160th Special Operation Aviation Regiment in Exercise Agile Chariot, a multiday mission earlier this month where Airmen and Soldiers worked together to secure a stretch of Highways 287 and 789 and launch missions from them in order to rehearse operating from austere environments with minimal supporting infrastructure.

“The MC-130J is the most versatile platform in the Air Force,” 15th SOS commander Lt. Col. Adam Schmidt said in a statement. “This is what we do. And having the capability to land on a highway or a road can absolutely present some unique challenges to our adversaries. We can take the concepts from this exercise and apply them to any road, and in the most austere environments.”

Combat controllers from the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Special Tactics Squadron parachute jumped from the MC-130J and secured the highway landing zone for the incoming aircraft. The exercise saw Airmen from the 1st Special Operations Wing stand up a forward area refueling point (FARP) to quickly refuel a pair of A-10 Warthogs from the Michigan Air National Guard’s 127th Wing and an MQ-9 Reaper assigned to the Florida-based 919th Special Operations Wing.

Speed was a key objective for both the FARP and Integrated Combat Turnarounds, where Airmen work to recover and relaunch an aircraft as quickly as possible.

Two MH-6M Little Bird helicopters from the Army’s 160th SOAR caught a ride to the exercise aboard the MC-130J. When the Air Force transport landed, the crew unloaded the helicopters, which then took off to perform a simulated search and rescue mission.

This is not the first time Airmen have landed on military aircraft on American highways. A-10 Warthogs from the 127th Wing practiced landing on Michigan state highways in 2021 and 2022 alongside other aircraft such as the U-28A and C-145A. Air Force C-130s have landed on Wyoming highways as far back as 2021. The highway landings are part of an Air Force-wide push towards a concept called Agile Combat Employment, where the branch works disperses aircraft to operate from remote or austere locations, presenting more and harder targets for an adversary.

“Our adversaries … are going to attack our bases with quite an aggressive manner in that it’s a critical vulnerability,” Lt. Gen. Tony D. Bauernfeind, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, said in March. “We have to have these forces that can power project from locations and be able to shoot and scoot.”

Airmen on the ground in Wyoming literally put that rubber to the road.

“An adversary that may be able to deny use of a military base or an airfield, is going to have a nearly impossible time trying to defend every single linear mile of roads,” Air Force Lt. Col. Dave Meyer, the deputy mission commander for Exercise Agile Chariot, said in the press release. “It’s just too much territory for them to cover and that gives us access in places and areas that they can’t possibly defend.”

With F-16s Gone and New F-35s on Their Way, Alabama Guard Wing Starts Conversion

May 3, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The F-16s at Dannelly Field, Ala., are almost all gone, save for a few receiving final maintenance for their flights out. The F-35s the 187th Fighter Wing is bringing in won’t start to arrive until December.

But the next seven months will be anything but quiet for the Alabama Air National Guard’s 187th as it transitions to the fifth-generation fighter. The 187th began working on getting F-35s more than a decade ago, vice commander Col. Jay R. Spohn told Air & Space Forces Magazine. In 2017, Dannelly Field was tapped as one of two preferred Guard locations for F-35s, the other being Burlington Air National Guard Base, Vt. The 187th formally began its conversion March 1.

Yet in all that time, Spohn said, the wing kept its eyes on the present, not its future.

“The mantra from the leadership has always been, ‘We still need to do the mission in the F-16. We can’t take our eyes off of what’s really important. The F-35 is nice. We’re very fortunate that we’ve been selected for it … but our job here today is to get ready to go fight in the F-16,’” Spohn said.

That changed in the past few weeks, as the 187th conducted its final local training sorties in the F-16 on March 31, followed by a formal “farewell” ceremony April 21.

“There were people in that hangar two weeks ago saying goodbye to the F-16 that were here in this unit when the F-4s left in 1988, and they’re still in the unit today, when the F-16s are leaving,” Spohn said.

“We’re finally shifting to the mission we’ve been talking about for the last 10 years,” he added. “And it makes it a little simpler, I think, because now we don’t have to talk about two things at once. We can talk about one thing. We’re focused on one thing, one airplane. Your job is to be good at one thing, your job in the F-35.”

For pilots and maintainers, that means learning, including trips to bases already flying F-35s so they can train and get smart on their new aircraft.

The 187th has sent five pilots in recent years to train at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and Burlington to ensure the wing has seasoned Lightning II pilots when the first F-35s arrive. About 20 maintainers also went off for training. And more will soon in in the months ahead, Spohn said. Some nine pilots and 40 maintainers were off-station as he spoke.

“In December when the first three airplanes show up, we’ll have 15 pilots fully qualified in the airplane,” Spohn said. “And we’ll have 40-plus maintainers that will have several months or more time working on the F-35.”

That will still leave some pilots and maintainers who aren’t qualified—the pilots will all eventually have to spend three months with the F-35’s training units at either Eglin or Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., while the maintainers will be able to learn at Dannelly from their qualified counterparts and a field training team the Air Force will send.

But it’s not just the personnel who will work on and fly in the airplane who need several months to prepare for its arrival. The wing’s logistics and civil engineering specialists also have lots to do.

“We need to get all the F-16 stuff off base to make room for the F-35 support equipment,” Spohn said. “That’s everything from wheels and tires, screws, grease, O-rings, you name it. Everything you could think of walking through an auto parts store, there’s kind of the equivalent of that as you walk through our supply area for the F-16 and for the F-35. And it takes up a lot of room and so we need to we need to make room for that.”

New construction complicates that, because storage is in short supply right now.

“Some of it was mandatory—you have to do it to make room for the F-35,” Spohn said. “For example, the simulator requirements, you have to have a simulator facility that is able to hold four F-35 simulators. … That’s a very big, very expensive building to house all of that very expensive, very delicate equipment involved with the simulator. But the F-35 engine is quite a bit bigger than the F-16 engine. F-35 engines to a large extent don’t fit inside current engine repair facilities, so we had to modify our engine shop and things like that. We renovated the big maintenance hangar, we renovated the refueling area to hold an additional refueling truck and things like that.”

Construction started in 2021 and won’t wrap up completely until late 2025, Spohn said. The 187th will have three years, until February 2026, to reach full operational readiness.

The Vermont ANG’s 158th Fighter Wing, the first Guard unit to get F-35s, began its conversion process in April 2019, received its first fighters in November, and was declared operational by early 2022.

“If the aircraft delivery timeline sticks to the schedule, … we will have no problems meeting the timeline and we will likely exceed it,” Spohn said.

But it’s going to be a team effort getting there. “Every single member of the 187th Fighter Wing—whether they’re guarding the gate or whether they’re driving the fuel truck or they’re working on the airplanes, they’re flying the airplanes, or making sure the airfield is good to go or maintaining the pilots’ equipment—every single one of those people is going to have to learn a new aspect of their job,” Spohn said. “It’s very complicated and I know that they’re going to do great, and that’s what I’m excited to see.”

Russian Missile Damaged MQ-9 Over Syria, US Reveals

May 3, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

A Russian surface-to-air missile came close to striking an American MQ-9 Reaper drone over Syria in November, passing and detonating within 40 feet and damaging the aircraft, according to new details disclosed by a U.S. official to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The U.S. had already revealed the launch of a Russian SA-22 Pantsir surface-to-air missile against the drone but previously did not disclose the damage or how close the missile came to downing the aircraft Nov. 27. The drone was able to return to base and land safely.

The damage resulted when the missile’s warhead exploded in close proximity to the drone, in what remains the only publicly known instance of a Russian surface-to-air missile firing at a U.S. aircraft over Syria. There have been no other similar missile firings at an MQ-9 over the country since then, according to American officials.

Other U.S. officials acknowledged to Air & Space Forces Magazine the missile came close to hitting the drone, missing by only a few dozen feet. The MQ-9 itself is 36 feet long, with a span of 66 feet.

The Pentagon referred questions about the incident to U.S. Central Command, which declined to comment on the new details.

In March, in a separate incident over the Black Sea, an American MQ-9 was struck by a Russian Su-27 when the fighter clipped the drone’s propeller on the last in a series of aggressive fly-by maneuvers. After the propeller was damaged, the Pentagon said, operators had to crash that drone in the water below because it was too damaged to continue operating safely. Prior to making contact, two Su-27s repeatedly dumped fuel on the MQ-9, as shown in declassified video from the drone’s cameras that was later released by the Defense Department.

After the November incident, U.S. military officials contacted Russia via a deconfliction line maintained by the two countries’ militaries.

The disclosure of more details about the November episode comes against the backdrop of increasingly aggressive behavior by Russian pilots in the skies over Syria, according to U.S. officials.

The U.S. still has around 900 troops in eastern Syria supporting local partners in the fight against the remnants of ISIS. Russian forces are also in the country, backing the regime of Bashar Al-Assad against rebel groups.

The U.S. and Russia have established deconfliction protocols to prevent run-ins between their aircraft. But Air Forces Central says Russian warplanes have repeatedly violated that agreement, doing so more than 80 times since March 1, including more than two dozen armed overflights of U.S. troops.

Russian aircraft have also come within 500 feet of American planes during the same period, actions U.S. officials call dangerous. One U.S. official expressed concern that Russia might be trying to “engender an international incident.”

“We’re not seeking to get into a conflict with Russia, nor are we looking to divert attention from why it is that we’re there,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said April 27, in regard to the two nations’ operations in Syria.

The U.S. also continues to face deadly resistance from Iranian-backed militants in Syria. An American contractor was killed at a base in northeastern Syria on March 23 in a rocket attack.

Two Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles launched a counterattack on bases linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps later that day. Air Forces Central conducts combat air patrols and other operations in support of Operation Inherent Resolve—the anti-ISIS campaign—including with MQ-9s. The command recently received A-10s to fulfill its minimum requirements for fighter aircraft to go with F-16s and F-15Es.