AFCENT Unveils a New Patch to Recognize Partners as Part of ‘Transformed’ Command

Aug. 17, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Air Forces Central has unveiled a colorful new patch to acknowledge the significant role U.S. allies and partners play in military operations in the Middle East.

Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the commander of Air Forces Central, said the move is an overdue recognition that coalition partners are an integral part of AFCENT.

“We’ve got a group of people that have been working together on various missions for 30 years, and we don’t actually have something that we can all say is our patch, where we’re working together,” Grynkewich told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “And so that’s what we’ve tried to create.”

Military patches can carry significance, whether it is showing pride in serving with a specific unit or showcasing joint commands.

This one is largely green, a color long associated with Islam, with a burst of yellow representing the sun and desert and a blue star, the historical Air Force symbol.

For AFCENT, the process of getting a new patch approved in a bureaucratic organization like the U.S. military was surprisingly easy. The command went to Air Force’s heraldry department, which is responsible for patches and the processes, and encountered only a few hurdles.

Grynkewich said the design was centered around being “historically significant and culturally appropriate.”

As the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East has shrunk in recent years, building partnerships has become an increasing important element of CENTCOM’s strategy. That has put a premium on getting Arab members of the coalition to work together and encourage military cooperation with Israel, which in 2021 was shifted from the U.S. European Command area of responsibly to CENTCOM’s.

Airmen in the Middle East already carry a number of hats. Officially, AFCENT is the 9th Air Force, tracing its lineage back to a World War II unit that fought in Europe and North Africa as part to the Army Air Forces. Members of the command have worn both Air Forces Central and Ninth Air Force patches.

AFCENT’s new patch, in contrast, recognizes the 18 countries that all work together in the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, whose personnel can wear the patch.

“As we’ve transformed this command to focus on the long term, and on campaigning, in addition to being able to run day-to-day combat operations, we’re really trying to expand that coalition presence across the entire headquarters,” Grynkewich said. “The intent would be it was something that any of the coalition partners including the U.S. could wear on their uniforms.”

There are practical limitations: there is only so much space on a someone’s arm. AFCENT hopes to eventually create one patch to represent the 9th Air Force, Air Forces Central, and coalition partners.

“As you think about how you integrate those partners better into all of your different processes and into what your activities are in the region, it just becomes kind of a natural evolution that our minds all shifted to, oh boy, you know, we’ve actually got something here that’s pretty powerful,” Grynkewich said.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, 9th Air Force (AFCENT) commander and Combined Forces Air Component Commander (CFACC) for U.S. Central Command, center-left, poses for a photo with senior national representatives from coalition and partner nations during the unveiling of the new coalition and combined forces central emblem August 16, 2023, at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel Brosam

Space Force Deactivates One Space Surveillance Satellite, Sets Plans for Two More

Aug. 17, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force declared “mission complete” for one of its space surveillance satellites and took it off operational status last month, ahead of another satellite joining the constellation next year.

The Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program provides the Space Force with the ability to track and characterize objects in geosynchronous orbit. The first two satellites launched in 2014 and were accepted into service in 2015, and the second of those, GSSAP Space Vehicle 2, is no longer operational after it was transferred from Space Operations Command to Space Systems Command.

According to an August release from SpOC, the satellite was past its designed service life and was deactivated to “make way for new more advanced technology in the space domain.”

There are now five active GSSAP satellites left—after the initial two, two more launched in 2016 and become operational in 2017, followed by two more in January 2022 that reached IOC by April of that year.

Two more are still to come. The SpOC release noted that they will launch in 2024 and 2027.

GSSAP satellites operate in near-geosynchronous orbit, roughly 22,300 miles above earth, and have the ability to maneuver, allowing them to observe more and more closely in an orbit where most satellites remain locked in place relative to the earth below.

That maneuverability comes at a price, though. Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, noted in a July event with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that operators have to think “in terms of months and years of where they’ve going to maneuver these GSSAP satellites” given the limited store of fuel onboard.

The way the Space Force has planned and fielded its satellites up to this point, once a space vehicle is out of fuel, it’s done—there is no way to refuel in space.

“The way we’ve been doing space operations since the dawn of the space age, we’ve been doing it wrong,” Shaw said, arguing there could be a “fundamental doctrinal shift” toward more “dynamic space operations.”

“We can’t have those constraints in the future. And so we’re trying to articulate a requirement to the Space Force that we need to be able to have sustained space maneuver for those platforms,” Shaw added.

Specifically, Shaw cited a goal of 2028 for having sustained space maneuver. Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson has also endorsed the idea of the branch using commercial capabilities to “service” satellites in orbit. In April 2022, Space Systems Command revealed plans for an experiment for refueling small satellites in geostationary orbit. And in September, SSC held an industry day to see what the commercial sector is working on for assured access to space, including on-orbit servicing, maneuver, and debris removal.

How a Combat Camera Airman Trained Ukrainians to Save Lives—and His Hopes to Save Even More

Aug. 17, 2023 | By David Roza

Barely a week after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Air Force Master Sgt. Gregory Brook led the first non-government U.S. surgical team on the ground into the Eastern European country.

Out of an old Soviet gymnasium in an undisclosed location, the team from the nonprofit Global Surgical and Medical Support Group (GSMSG) taught tactical combat casualty care to local civilians. About 50 Ukrainians showed up the first day, then 150 the next, and it kept growing.

“It was packed to the gills, so we started running multiple classes a day,” Brook told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “I think as of [July 24] we’ve trained about 60,000 Ukrainians directly.”

A reservist with the 4th Combat Camera Squadron, Brook went to Ukraine in his civilian role as operational deployment director for GSMSG. He still receives messages from Ukrainians who used the skills taught by him and his team to treat those injured in the conflict.

“We’re a year and a half into this war and people are still carrying that forward and training other people,” he said. “It became this kind of exponential thing that continues to pay dividends in terms of saving lives.”

GSMSG team members conduct tactical combat casualty care training for a group of Ukranian civilians and health care providers at an undisclosed location in March 2022. Photo courtesy Master Sgt. Greg Brook

Ukraine is just the latest in a long line of conflict zones where Brook has worked, both in his civilian role with GSMSG and as a Combat Camera Airman. He embedded with Army Special Forces teams conducting counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan; helped refugees in Syria; set up medical clinics in Guyana; and covered humanitarian aid efforts in east Africa. When the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan kicked into high gear in August 2021, he ditched a vacation in Spain so he could help organize flights for evacuees with GSMSG.

“In two days I went from being on vacation in Barcelona to being in Afghanistan … again,” said Brook, who witnessed service members, veterans, and civilian volunteers go above and beyond to help strangers in need during the evacuation.

“Everybody was doing everything they could to help everybody else out,” he said.

Life before ‘Service before self’

Growing up the son of eastern European immigrants in a poor neighborhood in Boston, Brook had low grades, a hot temper, and no plan for life. He joined the Air Force in 2006 partly for steady employment, health care, and other benefits.

“Where I’m at now in my life, I really wish I could say I was motivated by patriotism and these ideals of service, but that would be a lie,” he said.

Brook went from carrying cases of beer as a Boston bartender to carrying F-22 fighter jet parts as an avionics maintainer. More importantly, he worked alongside Airmen who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan and lost friends there.

“In that period of time, terms like duty, honor, and the Air Force core values stopped being nebulous ideological concepts,” he said. “They became things I saw in people who lived these values. They exemplified them, and I want to be that kind of person.”

combat camera — A U.S. Air Force pararescueman, assigned to the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, performs patient transfer of a simulated casualty from a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook to medical staff from Craig Joint Theater Hospital during a personnel recovery exercise at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Feb. 27, 2018. U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook

Brook grew up snapping pictures around Boston, so when he found out he could take photos for the Air Force in the public affairs career field, he leaped at the chance. He then honed his skills to apply for Combat Camera: combat-ready public affairs Airmen who must be skilled with both rifles and cameras. In 2014, he was accepted.

“It has been far and away the most amazing job I’ve ever had,” he said.

Work towards a solution

Throughout his travels in the Air Force, Brook said he regularly saw service members and civilians go above and beyond to help the local populations—a security forces Airman trying to get school supplies for children living in a refugee camp in northern Syria, or pararescuemen volunteering to set up medical clinics in east Africa.

“That’s something you’ll see any time you’re deployed: people look for ways to help the local populations out … which I think speaks to the quality of American service members generally,” Brook said.

It was during a deployment in Syria that Brook first heard about GSMSG, a group of health care providers, many of whom are current or former service members, who deploy to conflict zones and humanitarian disasters to treat patients and train local providers. Brook got involved and worked with the group in Guyana, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

Even beyond that aid, Brook is now working with British service members and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to develop a training program for troops to identify symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Mental health is a personal topic for Brook, who has a box in his desk drawer filled with 30 metal bracelets, each commemorating a friend lost to combat or suicide.

“There are a lot of people who should be alive that are not for any number of psychological reasons,” Brook said. “I think that the faster we can figure out what’s causing this, the faster we can work towards a solution and pressing it.”

Figuring that out means understanding both the science of mental health and the policies that shape its treatment in both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Brook is currently studying neuroscience and behavior at Columbia University’s School of General Studies, and after he graduates, he said he may study law or medicine.

“I’m interested in ‘What’s the way in which I’m going to be able to have the most impact on this,’” he said. “The goal is to end the veteran suicide epidemic, and my education is in furtherance of that goal.”

Earlier this year, Brook was tapped to receive a Tillman Scholarship. Named after Pat Tillman, the professional football player-turned Army Ranger who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, the scholarship is awarded to spouses, veterans, and service members who want to make the world a better place.

“The reason I wanted to become a Tillman scholar was primarily because of that network, that amazing group of people who are interested in solving so many problems,” he said.

It all goes back to what inspired Brook to stay in the military in the first place.

“From my perspective,” he said, “the point of military service is how you can help other people.”

Tech Sgt. Gregory Brook, 1st Combat Camera Sq., Air Force Public Affairs Agency, U.S. Air Force, Joint Base Charleston, S.C. sits in the back seat of an F-16 Fighting Falcon D-Model flown by the 55th fighter squadron, 20th fighter wing, Shaw AFB, S.C while performing duties as an aerial combat photojournalist for training and tactics validation. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook)

A U.S. Air Force F-16C Fighting Falcon conducts refueling operations with a KC-135 Stratotanker, assigned to the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron Detatchment 1, over Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, March 11, 2018. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook)

A U.S. Air Force pararescueman, assigned to the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, communicates with a U.S. Army Task Force Brawler CH-47F Chinook during a training exercise at an undisclosed location in the the mountains of Afghanistan, March 14, 2018. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook)

A U.S. Air Force Guardian Angel Team, consisting of pararescuemen, combat rescue officers and survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists, assigned to the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, conduct a high altitude, low opening military free fall jump working with a C-130J Super Hercules flown by the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, March 23, 2018. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook)

A U.S. Army Task Force Brawler CH-47F Chinook flight engineer sits on the ramp while conducting a training exercise with a Guardian Angel team assigned to the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, March 26, 2018. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook)

U.S. Special Forces and Afghan Special security forces work and train together in eastern Afghanistan, winter 2019- 2020. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook)

A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron on the ramp at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Jan. 29, 2018. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt Gregory Brook)

STRATCOM Boss Touts Value of Bomber Task Forces: ‘Everyone Likes a Bomber in Their Region’

Aug. 16, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

OMAHA, Neb.—The U.S. Air Force’s Bomber Task Forces have become an increasingly important way of reassuring allies who depend on the American nuclear umbrella, as well as a major tool for power projection, the head of America’s strategic forces said Aug. 16.

“It seems as though everyone likes to have a bomber in their region,” Air Force Gen. Anthony J. Cotton told reporters at U.S. Strategic Command’s annual deterrence symposium. “It shows our resolve in showing that extended deterrence is alive and well when it comes to the United States.”

China’s growing nuclear arsenal, North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear program, and Russia’s nuclear modernization program have worried the U.S.’s non-nuclear allies who depend on Washington for their protection.

The U.S. has relied in part on diplomacy to try to assuage those fears. In April, for example, South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol concluded an accord with President Joe Biden that reaffirmed that the U.S. is prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend South Korea. In return, Seoul restated its commitment not to develop its own nuclear arsenal.

But Bomber Task Force deployments, which can last weeks or even months, use just a few aircraft to provide a tangible reminder of America’s security commitments.

B-2s from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., recently embarked on their first overseas mission since a roughly six-month safety pause that ended earlier this summer, deploying to Iceland and already flying over the Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, B-1s deployed to Europe this summer, flying from the Baltics to the Balkans and firing a JASSM long-range cruise missile on a range in the Middle East.

The B-52s, which are over 60 years old, operated out of Indonesia for the first time in June, and are currently deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

“It shows that while we’re going to have legacy systems, the readiness of those legacy systems is alive and well,” Cotton said.

Last month, the U.S. had B-1s and B-52s in the Indo-Pacific at the same time on different Bomber Task Force missions.

“In terms of our allies and partners, let’s not forget, it’s not just about the nuclear umbrella, the extended deterrence umbrella, it’s about the conventional capability that this nation wields,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. John Nichols, the director of operations for STRATCOM. “I define it as showing up at a time and place of our choosing, when we want to, how we want to, in good coordination with our allies, and in the geographic combatant commands to maximize the effect.”

Bomber Task Forces, which began in 2018, have replaced permanently deployed bombers overseas and have been held up by Pentagon officials as a way to operate with more flexibility while being less predictable.

“The number of bombers that we’ve had actively out on Bomber Task Force missions across the globe is extraordinary—over a dozen at one point in time, almost every geographic combatant commander was being affected,” Nichols said.

“It shows the strategic reach that we have,” Cotton added.

Gen. Anthony Cotton, head of U.S. Strategic Command. Air Force photo by Trey Ward

MQ-9 Pilots Learn To Take Off and Land Via Satellite in ACE Push

Aug. 16, 2023 | By David Roza

MQ-9 drone student operators are now trained to land and take off via satellite, dramatically shrinking the footprint of personnel and equipment needed for Reaper operations.

Previously, Reapers have been flown by operators in faraway ground control stations but launched and recovered by Airmen closer to the runway. Now, the autopilot function known as the Automatic Takeoff and Landing capability (ATLC) can perform those tasks on its own, though it still requires a human crew to ensure safety of flight, Denise Ottaviano, a spokesperson for the 49th Wing at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Students at the 49th Wing, the formal training unit for the MQ-9, demonstrated their skills from July 14 to July 24 at ACE Grand Warrior, an exercise where they landed two Reapers at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D. It was the first time the wing performed an entire mission under complete satellite communication control.

“The crews launching … are new to the launch and recovery realm,” Capt. Isabelle Perry, director of operations for the 29th Attack Squadron, said in a recent press release about ACE Grand Warrior. “This is important because they’re very young aviators in this field, flying in unfamiliar airspace, with a brand new mission set and they’re killing it.”

mq-9 reaper — A MQ-9 Reaper flies over Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, Aug. 13, 2020. U.S Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christine Groening

The exercise marks the latest development for ATLC, which the Air Force Reaper community has pursued since at least 2021, when the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron proved the drone could take off and land without local ground control. In 2022, Airmen took the capability further by hopscotching a Reaper from Hawaii to Guam to Palau as part of the exercise Valiant Shield 2022.

The key advantage of ATLC is its smaller footprint. Past Reaper operations required sending about 55 maintainers with ground control stations, ground data terminals, and other equipment. Exercises like Valiant Shield and ACE Grand Warrior proved it can now be done with just 10 Airmen and a pallet and a half of gear, small enough to fit aboard a CV-22 Osprey or C-130 Hercules.

“There’s this monumental change in mindset, that I don’t need to pack all this stuff up and go,” Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, commander of the 556th TES, told Air & Space Forces Magazine last year. “I can go places just with a very small piece of maintenance equipment and less amount of people.”

The same mindset applied at ACE Grand Warrior, where just 10 maintainers from the 9th and 29th Aircraft Maintenance Units traveled to Grand Forks to sustain the visiting Reapers. The bite-sized deployment lines up with the Air Force’s push towards Agile Combat Employment (ACE), the operating concept in which Airmen and aircraft disperse from a central base to smaller, more austere locations in order to complicate an adversary’s targeting.

One tenet of ACE is Multi-Capable Airmen, where Airmen pick up skills outside their usual job specialty in order to reduce their footprint and promote redundancy if their unit takes casualties in a future fight.

At ACE Grand Warrior, Ottaviano explained, two of the avionics technicians who traveled to North Dakota were trained on satellite communications launch and recovery operations, engine runs, maintenance tasks, and pre- and post- flight inspections, which are typically performed by crew chiefs. The Airmen also used towing tractors and aerospace ground equipment already available at Grand Forks to further reduce their logistics tail.

“We just need a small box of tools, a plane or two, and a little box that helps us control the plane,” Staff Sgt. Ramon Chanhafen, an MQ-9 crew chief who traveled to North Dakota, said in a video about the exercise.

About 56 MQ-9 students took part in ACE Grand Warrior, where they ran the gamut of Reaper mission and training syllabus sets, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; close air support; air interdiction; strike coordination and reconnaissance; basic surface engagement; kill-chain operations; and basic airmanship.

Today, all MQ-9 operators being trained at the 49th Wing are certified to conduct ATLC in a simulator, Ottaviano said. When graduates arrive at operational squadrons, they likely take part in “top-off” training to be certified on ATLC in live flight.

“Our future plans are to certify all students to conduct ATLC as an actual flight,” she said.

As the Air Force Reaper enterprise picks up ATLC, it should make coordinating future training exercises much easier. Unmanned flights through national airspace has “historically been tedious to coordinate with all the appropriate agencies,” Ottaviano explained. ATLC streamlines the process by removing the launch and land crew, along with the requirement for C-band or Line of Sight operations, since ATLC focuses on only satellite communications.

“This by itself frees up additional manpower and helps to narrow the focus on one type of communication frequency, thereby making the MQ-9 more agile and more flexible to conduct worldwide operations at a moment’s notice,” she said.

Air Force Picks Startup to Build Blended-Wing Body Prototype for Flight Testing by 2027

Aug. 16, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force has picked aerospace startup JetZero to build a prototype Blended-Wing Body (BWB) aircraft for testing and demonstrating new technologies, the service announced Aug. 16. The aircraft is to be assembled by 2026 and flight testing will begin in 2027.

“This is a prototype/demonstration project,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said at an event announcing the decision hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association. “It is intended to accelerate the next generation of the large aircraft the Air Force needs in the future. … There’s a real potential in this technology to help increase fuel efficiency significantly. That’s going to lead to improvements in not just the efficiency and capability of our force, but also in our impact on the climate.”

The Air Force is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the Department of Defense, which is itself the largest consumer in the federal government.

Though not specifically aimed at the service’s Next Generation Air-refueling System (NGAS) effort, the BWB prototype will likely have relevant lessons and use for that program. Specifically, it will play a role in shaping Air Mobility Command’s upcoming Analysis of Alternatives (AOA) for the future tanker program, said Maj. Gen. Albert G. Miller, AMC’s director of strategy, plans, requirements, and programs.

The program is also aimed at bolstering the defense industrial base and “maintaining our edge over China. And there is a lot of commercial interest in this technology,” Kendall said.

Ravi I. Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations, and the environment—and under whose office the BWB aircraft will be managed—said it offers promise for the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment model, with high potential for extending range in the Indo-Pacific theater, an ability to operate off short airfields, and a high payload relative to fuel consumed.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced the selection of JetZero to build a prototype Blended-Wing Body (BWB) aircraft at an Air and Space Warfighters In Action event hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association at their headquarters in Arlington, Va., on August 16, 2023. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Chaudhary told Air & Space Forces Magazine a goal of the program is to achieve 30 percent fuel savings over a comparably-sized tube-and-wing transport, although JetZero’s website suggests the improvement will be as high as 50 percent.

Officials didn’t specify a designation for the aircraft; Chaudhary speculated it will be something like “XBW-1,” but it will not be a traditional “X-plane,” even though NASA is a principal government partner on the program.

Northrop Grumman is one of Jet Zero’s corporate partners on the project, and the aircraft will be fabricated by Northrop’s subsidiary, Scaled Composites, at its Mojave, Calif., facilities.

JetZero co-founder Tom O’Leary said in an interview that the funding for the project amounts to $40 million from the Air Force in fiscal 2024, and that private investors are putting up a matching mount. That will hold through the next five fiscal years, during which the Air Force plans to put up $230 million in funding. O’Leary would not disclose how much private investment is going into the jet in total, but said there has been strong interest from airlines.

In an artist’s concept and desk model shown at the announcement, the prototype aircraft was shown wearing Air Mobility Command markings. Flight testing planned so far will follow traditional lines, exploring the aircraft’s envelope and characteristics like flutter, and follow-on testing may include some operational-like experiments, Miller said. However, the aircraft will not have a rear-opening cargo door, and in fact, no “apertures” for cargo loading are so far included in the design, O’Leary said.

The two engines, which will be mounted on the top rear of the fuselage, will be Geared Turbo Fans (GTF) built by Pratt & Whitney, but O’Leary declined to specify which variant has been selected.

The Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit put out a solicitation to industry for the BWB aircraft in July 2022, and the Air Force provided more details in its Climate Action Plan in October. The Air Force Operational Energy Office is taking the lead on the project because of its potential to drastically reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

“The effort aims to mature BWB technology and demonstrate its capabilities, giving the Department and commercial industry more options for future air platforms,” the Air Force said in a press release.

The aircraft’s “increased efficiency will enable extended range, more loiter time, and increased payload delivery efficiencies; capabilities that are vital to mitigating logistics risks,” the Air Force said.

The BWB concept is not new—the Air Force has experimented with large-scale flying wing aircraft since the Northrop YB-35 in 1946, and Boeing and NASA conducted a demonstration program as recently as 2007-2013 with the subscale X-48 demonstrator. The B-2 Spirit and B-21 Raider bombers are also examples of flying wings.

Asked why it has taken so long for the BWB to be taken seriously by the Air Force and become a prototype program, O’Leary said it was “the cost of fuel,” which has given the program “a sense of urgency,” as well as the effects of global warming, which “can no longer be ignored,” he said.

The BWB is also maturing now because of “more recent technology advancements in structural design, materials technology, manufacturing, and other areas have made large-scale production achievable,” the Air Force said in a press release.

Specifically, the BWB concept is applicable to aircraft types—theater lift and air refueling—that collectively account for 60 percent of the Air Force’s annual fuel consumption, the service said. JetZero unveiled its concept for a BWB tanker, dubbed Z-5, this spring and claims that its design has the potential to reduce fuel burn by 50 percent over conventional aircraft. The company also said it will compete for NGAS.

“Today’s announcement marks another game-changing milestone for the Air Force in our efforts to maintain the advantage of airpower effectiveness against any future competitors,” said Chaudhary.

The technology is expected to have significant application to commercial industry as well, potentially offering benefits to passenger and air freight companies by increasing interior space while decreasing fuel costs.

O’Leary said a commercial variant will “almost certainly” have folding wings, the better to operate from modern airports, but the prototype is not required to have them.

The top-mounted engines are expected to both reduce obstacles around the aircraft at ground level and deflect noise up and away from it, allowing a potential commercial variant to operate on routes now closed to airliners because of noise. That effect will also have the effect of reducing the aircraft’s detectability in a military setting, Chaudhary said.

As for whether the BWB will be stealthy, Chaudhary demurred, saying “we’ll see.” Observability will be among the characteristics measured in test.

The BWB project will be a collaboration of the Department of the Air Force, NASA, the Defense Innovation Unit, and the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital.

Department of the Air Force Gets a New CIO

Aug. 16, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Department of the Air Force has a new Chief Information Officer, responsible for leading the department’s wide-ranging information technology efforts.

Venice Goodwine started the CIO job this week, an Air Force official confirmed, succeeding Lauren Knausenberger, who departed in June after more than two years in the position. Winston Beauchamp, deputy CIO, served as the acting CIO in the interim.

As CIO, Goodwine will oversee a portfolio worth $17 billion with more than 20,000 cyber operations and support personnel. And she’ll be tasked with spearheading everything from improvements to the Department’s much-maligned IT networks to connectivity for the ambitious DAF Battle Network plan to connect sensors and shooters around the globe.

Prior to taking the CIO job, Goodwine served as director of enterprise information technology under Knausenberger. Air Force IT has been undergoing a transition in recent years, with plans to outsource basic IT tasks across the entire enterprise to a contractor—dubbed “Enterprise IT as a Service” or EITaaS.

Service officials have claimed EITaaS will save money and provide faster connectivity, while freeing up cyber and information-focused Airmen from day-to-day IT tasks to focus on warfighting missions.

Slow networks across the department have long been a source of frustration for Airmen and Guardians, and Knausenberger herself acknowledged the issue in 2022, saying the department must “make big, bold capital investments in IT to drive the tech and process modernization we need to compete.”

Both Knausenberger and Space Force Chief Information and Technology Officer Lisa Costa have also noted the problem of “tech debt”—the department’s IT is so outdated that trying to fix it all would be expensive, to say nothing of upgrading it.

Yet upgraded IT will likely be pivotal to Air Force initiatives like the DAF Battle Network and Advanced Battle Management System, which will require massive amounts of computing and network power to sort through data and connect kill chains around the globe.

On top of that, Knausenberger spoke about the need for artificial intelligence to make sense of all that data—heightening the need for computing power and connectivity. Data and artificial intelligence is one of the directorates under the CIO.

“You have to have connectivity,” she said in November 2022. “You have to have ‘compute’ [computing power] wherever you need it. And networks—you have to be able to get data from anywhere to anywhere. You have to have software that makes it easy for a warfighter to interpret that picture and to make a decision.”

Now it will be up to Goodwine to help realize such a vision. At the same time, she’ll lead the DAF cybersecurity efforts. Most prominently, department leaders hope to implement “zero trust”—an approach that requires all users in and outside a network to be continuously authenticated and authorized to access systems—by 2027. In February, the department released a “road map” for reaching zero trust, which it updated in July.

Goodwine is a retired Airman herself, joining the service in 1986 as a signals intelligence analyst before moving to the Air Force Reserve and receiving her commission in 2003. She retired in 2022.

Rolls-Royce: Delivering for the Air Force Every Day

Aug. 16, 2023

It’s no secret that Rolls-Royce North America has been a trusted partner for the U.S. Air Force going back decades – even before the service was established in 1947.

From the company’s factories in Indianapolis, originally the Allison Engine plants, thousands of engines have been designed, developed and delivered to keep the Air Force flying. Today, the company is moving rapidly toward Critical Design Review for the Air Force’s B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP), which will help extend the life of the venerable BUFF by another 30 years.

Rolls-Royce has many other programs in operation or development that will benefit the nation’s airmen and women. We caught up with Ray Davis, senior vice president, business development, to learn more about what Rolls-Royce is up to. Davis, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, is based in the company’s U.S. headquarters near Washington, D.C.

Can you give us an update on where the company is with the B-52 re-engining program?

“We were humbled and gratified that the Air Force selected the Rolls-Royce F130 engine and put their confidence in us to update this venerable aircraft. We focused closely on digital engineering in the design and risk-management areas. That helped speed the process along, lowered cost and reduced risk. We continue to see those benefits now. The first two F130 engines have been delivered and they’ve been very successful in tests in their new twin-pod configuration at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. We’ll be finishing up that testing soon, and next up is Critical Design Review. We are making great progress toward that. We are working closely with the Air Force and Boeing to ensure we help make this program a great success and our team is laser focused on delivery.”

What other Air Force platforms are you involved in right now?

“Historically, Rolls-Royce powered iconic World War II aircraft like the P-51, P-38, P-39, and P-40, piston engines that were produced in our factories in Indianapolis. That’s where, beginning in the 1950s, we developed the T56 gas turbine engine for the C-130 transport. And we’ve been continually advancing gas-turbine technology ever since. Nowadays, we produce the AE 2100D3 engine for the current generation of C-130J aircraft. We provide our MissionCare service contract for those engines and are really overachieving in making sure they are ready to go whenever the next mission is. We are meeting or exceeding all contract parameters for that aftermarket service. We also produce the AE 1107C engines for CV-22 aircraft, and AE 3007H engines for the Global Hawk fleet.”

Where are these engines produced?

“All these engines are assembled and tested in our newly modernized facilities in Indianapolis. Rolls-Royce has invested $1 Billion into our Indianapolis facilities in recent years, in new technology, advanced manufacturing and test capabilities. This has transformed our facilities into the most modern and efficient among all locations that Rolls-Royce operates around the world. It means we are set up to deliver efficiently for the Air Force and other customers. But we really couldn’t do that without our dedicated American workforce. Our employees in Indianapolis take great personal pride in producing all those engines for the Air Force and making sure they are top-notch in quality and efficiency. You can see this dedication any time you walk through our factories. I should also note that our AE engine family, which powers C-130J, CV-22 and Global Hawk, has surpassed 86 million engine flight hours across all military and civil fleets combined. It’s proven to be incredibly reliable in all operations.”

What about future programs that the company is working on – space, hypersonics, or other cutting-edge technology?

“We have our own advanced technology unit, also based in Indianapolis, which is known as LibertyWorks. They design all types of high-tech projects. We have a growing Space development effort focused on micro nuclear systems to provide long-term power and propulsion solutions for civil and national security Space applications. Also on the nuclear side is our work on Project Pele, in which we are providing a reliable power conversion system that will be paired with a BWXT microreactor. That project will provide localized, safe nuclear power solutions for the Department of Defense and we are really proud to be a part of it.

“Hypersonics, or high-Mach, technology has also been a big area of emphasis within LibertyWorks and we currently have three different DoD contracts in progress on reusable high-Mach engines. We are also a founding industry partner of the new hypersonics test facility being developed at Purdue University in Indiana. We have partnered with Purdue on many, many advanced technology programs over the years and the university is a great pipeline for engineering talent as well. We are also having a lot of discussions around the Autonomous Collaborative Platforms project, and can see great opportunities there to support next-gen unmanned systems. Rolls-Royce is already powering multiple unmanned systems including Global Hawk and several Navy platforms, and we look forward to bringing that advanced technology to the Air Force for its ACS portfolio as it is developed.”

Speaking of future programs, how is Rolls-Royce supporting STEM efforts to prepare the scientists and technologists of tomorrow who will create the future of propulsion and aerospace?

“We are so proud to be the 2023 recipient of the AFA Chairman’s Award for supporting Aerospace Education and STEM programs. STEM is a huge focus for Rolls-Royce and we engage regularly with universities such as Purdue to fund research on campus for current students to work on. We also hire many engineering interns and new graduates every year. But even before students reach university age, we support STEM teachers nationwide as Platinum sponsor of the AFA’s Aerospace Education program, and as exclusive sponsor of the AFA National Teacher of the Year. We have funded these programs for many years and it is always a thrill to meet the outstanding and inspiring teachers who have been recognized and supported by AFA through these programs. It’s not only Rolls-Royce and other aerospace companies which will benefit from this – STEM efforts in schools which educate and inspire today’s students will benefit the Air Force down the road as well. We are really proud to be partnering with AFA on these efforts.”

Brig. Gen. Ray Davis, U.S. Army (retired), is Senior Vice President, Business Development, for Rolls-Royce Defense, based in Reston, VA.

How Do These 60-Year-Old USAF Jets Age So Gracefully?

Aug. 15, 2023 | By David Roza

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb.—They were manufactured in the early 1960s and are deployed almost constantly around the world. But the Air Force’s fleet of RC-135 intelligence and reconnaissance aircraft enjoy some of the highest mission capable rates in U.S. military aviation.

“We’re flying this fleet very hard, we’re currently at about 108 percent above where we think we should be,” in terms of operational load, Col. Kyle Clement, commander of Offutt’s 55th Maintenance Group, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“Not only are the metrics looking good, but the jets are cooperating; we’re able to fly more than we think,” he added.

With 28 total airframes total, the fleet has several variants—17 RC-135V/W Rivet Joints act as mobile listening posts, collecting real-time electronic and signals intelligence; three RC-135S Cobra Balls study ballistic missile activity; two RC-135U Combat Sent aircraft locate, identify, and analyze radar signals; three WC-135R/W Constant Phoenix jets collect samples of the atmosphere to detect nuclear weapons testing; and three TC-135Ws serve as training aircraft.

How the Air Force manages to keep them all flying at extremely high rates is a combination of extensive maintenance and modernization.

Every few years, each jet is sent to the depot at Greenville, Texas, known as ‘Big Safari’ for an extensive overhaul where they are almost completely disassembled, explained Joe Bucher, an airframe equipment specialist with the Air Force Engineering and Technical Services.

“They call it the dinosaur,” he said. “All you’ll see is the ribs, and the skin will be mostly off.”

The RC-135s are gutted to make way for updated systems equipped with faster software. The combination of hardware and software installed on the jet is called a baseline. The current baseline 13 is nearly all digital: the cockpits sport glass screens rather than old-fashioned gauges, and the streamlined backend system for intelligence collection has far more computing power than past baselines.

Jeremy Martin, an L3Harris mission systems technician, compared the difference between baseline 13 and 7, which he encountered when he first served as an Airman aboard the Rivet Joint in the early 2000s, to the advance in video game consoles over the same period of time.

“It’s literally going from Coleco or Atari to PS5,” he said. “The capabilities that we had at baseline 7, we couldn’t dream of where we’re at right now.”

Keeping up with the fast pace of change is a necessary part of staying ahead of competitors, Clement said.

“That’s why we do this. We have to be ahead of the innovation that China’s bringing to the table,” he said. “There is no second place here.”

The result is that the year of manufacture painted on each jet’s tail has little relation to the systems on the inside.

“Truly the only thing that’s really old on this plane is the number itself that’s on the tail, maybe the N-1 magnetic compass, and the pencil sharpener. That’s about it,” Martin said. “The rest of this stuff has all been updated, it’s a lot of cutting-edge stuff that’s on this plane.”

Fit to Fly

Even the best technology is useless without an airworthy jet, though, which is where the 55th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron comes in, spending hours fixing the control surfaces, engines, cables, lights, and other mechanical components that make RC-135s fly. Some of the jets used to serve as presidential transport, medical evacuation, or refueling platforms before joining the 55th Wing, giving each small differences and a distinct personality.

“Just last year, our brand-new WC-135s were operational KC-135s,” said Master Sgt. Josef Schueler. “They all have a life.”

Each aircraft has a complex array of subsystems that also require upkeep. For example, the advanced electronics aboard the Rivet Joints generate large amounts of heat, which is why they sport two air conditioning systems and a liquid cooling system.

“That’s a difference when you look at us versus Delta [Air Lines],” said Clement. “All they have is hydraulics, tires, the basics. We have to have all these other systems up and running.”

Rust can ground aircraft as easily as a mechanical failure, which is why Tech Sgt. Justin Boettger, the noncommissioned officer in charge of aircraft structural maintenance, spends much of his time fighting it off.

“The majority of our job here is painting and corrosion control,” he said. “With the age of these aircraft, corrosion issues do happen from time to time, and we make sure that they stop in their tracks.”

Besides rust, Boettger and his team also patch up aircraft after cracks, bird strikes, lightning strikes, or other bangs and scratches. But when a part breaks and the factory that makes it has been closed for decades, the fabrication section of the 55th Maintenance Squadron tries to make it on their own.

“Just about 10 times out of 10, we can make those parts,” said Tech Sgt. Isaac King, noncommissioned officer in charge of the fabrication section.

The shop uses various computer-guided machines to cut through steel, including one that shoots a stream of high-pressure water mixed with bits of garnet. When blueprints for the part are unavailable, the Airmen reverse-engineer it.

“Things break and wear over time,” said King. “It’s very unique to say ‘all I need is the raw material, and either a part to take measurements on, or a blueprint to draw it up with,’ and we’ve got the experience to be able to do it.”

80,000 Hours

The 55th Wing has had difficulties with maintenance in the past. A 2018 investigation by the Omaha World-Herald found hundreds of missions aborted or scrubbed due to pervasive mechanical problems. One particularly dangerous WC-135 had the nickname ‘Lucifer’s Chariot,’ though that exact subvariant of WC-135 has since been replaced with jets with larger motors and more available spare parts.

Today, however, the 55th’s RC-135 metrics are impressive: the jets average 1,007 flight hours a month, despite being contracted for 928. The average mission capable rate is 76 percent for fiscal year 2023, which is right on the Air Force standard. In March, one of the Rivet Joints, tail number 4841, even achieved black-letter status, which means an inspection found zero maintenance problems aboard the aging jet. Such an accomplishment is rare in the Air Force: Clement himself has encountered just two in his 29-year career. The metrics are all the more impressive considering the heavy demand on the fleet.

“We’re always all over the world,” Clement said. The jets “could be in the Middle East, they could be in Asia, they could be in Europe, and those are just the main operating locations.”

The entire fleet is due to receive a life-cycle extension to pull its service out to 80,000 flight hours, which should see the aircraft flying into 2050.

“It’s a very small fleet, so every aircraft makes a difference,” Clement said. “That’s why we spend so much investment in each aircraft, because each is a national asset.”