William Tell—USAF’s Ultimate Fighter Contest—is Back, After 19 Years

July 31, 2023 | By David Roza

The best air and ground crews from across the Air Force fighter enterprise will compete at the Air Dominance Center in Savannah, Ga., in September at the 2023 William Tell Air-to-Air Weapons Meet, the first fighter competition of its kind in nearly two decades.

“If you’re into football, this is the Super Bowl, if you’re into baseball, this is the World Series, and if you’re into golf, this is the Masters Tournament,” said Lt. Col. Stephen Thomas, commander of the the Air Dominance Center, in a July 27 press release. “The airspace we have here on our coast is a national treasure and will allow the competing pilots the ability to operate to their absolute full potential to show who is truly the best of the best.”

About 800 Airmen are expected to participate, Air Combat Command told Air & Space Forces Magazine, representing nine squadrons from the Active, Guard, and Reserve components. Among them will be:

Air Combat Command:

F-15E Strike Eagles from the 4th Fighter Wing, Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., and 366th Fighter Wing, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho

F-22 Raptors from the 1st Fighter Wing, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

F-35 Lightning IIs from the 388th Fighter Wing, Hill AFB, Utah

Command and Control from the 552 Air Control Wing, Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.

Pacific Air Forces:

F-22 Raptors from the 3rd Wing, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and the 154th Fighter Wing, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, HI

Command and Control from the 3rd Wing, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and the 18th Wing, Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan

Air National Guard:

F-15 C/D Eagles from the 104th Fighter Wing, Barnes Air National Guard Base, Mass.

F-35 Lightning IIs from the 158th Fighter Wing, Burlington ANGB, Vt.

Aircrews will test each other’s offensive and defensive skills against simulated enemy aircraft. Ground crews will compete in loading weapons, maintaining aircraft, and intelligence operations. Fans and observers can track the action by following scoreboard announcements posted each evening on social media, the release said.

“We want our community to be excited about this upcoming event and include them as much as possible,” said Thomas. “Although this event will not be open to the public, there will be plenty of jet sighting opportunities in the local area as well as photo and video coverage of the event published for public viewing.”

f-22 — An F-22 Raptor assigned to the 325th Fighter Wing, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida takes off from the Air Dominance Center for an air combat exercise at Sentry Savannah on May 10, 2022. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Erica Webster)

While individual and team awards are on the line, planners said the most important objective is to practice controlling the skies for future conflict.

“Air Superiority is not [an] American birth right—it’s a constant fight,” said Maj. Kyle Brown, the competition director, in an April release. “William Tell 2023 is about resurrecting our heritage, sending us your champions, and competing.”

From 1954 to 1996, William Tell was a biennial competition, but budget cuts in the wake of the Cold War ended the practice in the 1990s. With the exception of a 2004 revival to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first contest, William Tell was finished—until now. USAF’s renewed focus on China as a peer adversary fighting in highly contested airspace is the inspiration for bringing William Tell back to life.

“As we participate in the long-awaited return of the William Tell competition, we reiterate our steadfast dedication to maintaining control of the skies in support of our Joint Force and multi-national partners,” Gen. Mark Kelly, head of Air Combat Command, said in April.

If history is any guide, this promises to be an intense competition. The 2004 meet came down to the wire before a Pacific Air Forces team from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, pulled ahead on the very last flight. PACAF’s Capt. Pete Fesler, an F-15 pilot, took home the Top Gun title after earning the highest individual scores in the meet.

“We never expected a team to walk away with it, and nobody did walk away with it,” said Lt. Col. Ed Nagler, the 2004 competition director, in a release at the time. “It was incredibly close from the beginning to the end.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of the story reported that the 354th Fighter Wing from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska is participating in William Tell. It no longer plans on participating.

Microscopic Contaminants Pose ‘Low Risk’ to F-35 Engines, JPO Says

July 28, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Contaminated powdered nickel used to manufacture some Pratt & Whitney commercial engines—and prompting an accelerated pace of inspections—may also have made its way into F135 fighter engines, but the risk is considered low and the F-35 enterprise has “already taken significant steps to mitigate the risk,” the Joint Program Office told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

RTX, parent company of Pratt & Whitney, said in an earnings call this week that powdered nickel used to make parts for some of its commercial engines—notably the PW1100 that powers many Airbus A320neo airliners—was contaminated with other material in batches dating from 2015 to 2020. The “microscopic” contaminant could cause parts made with the material to fail. Officials called it a “rare” problem.

Company officials did not say at the time whether the material was used in the manufacture of other Pratt products, such as fighter engines, but said it would accelerate, at its own expense, the rate of inspections of commercial engines using parts known to have been made with the material. Many of these are high-pressure turbine discs. The issue was described by officials as a “quality escape.”

The problem was discovered and corrected in new items two years ago, and Pratt has been monitoring those parts made with the contaminated material since, during regularly-scheduled inspections. New testing has indicated inspections are needed sooner, company officials said.

Asked if the contaminated metal powder constitutes a problem for the F135 engine used on the F-35 fighter, a JPO spokesperson said its propulsion management office “has been aware of the powdered nickel contaminants issue since 2021 and have already taken significant steps to mitigate the risk. The suspect contaminants have been identified and were removed from the forging process in September 2021.” The JPO did not identify the steps it has taken.

Pratt’s assessment of the risk “was reviewed by the JPO and we concur with the preliminary assessment that the fleet is at low risk on the JSF Hazard Risk Criteria at this time,” the program office said. It expects “minimal maintenance impact to the fleet” and said it will work with Pratt “to ensure all safety protocols and mitigation plans are properly utilized.”

Neither the JPO nor Pratt identified specific parts on the F135 engine that may have the contaminated material.

In its own statement to Air & Space Forces Magazine, Pratt & Whitney said through a spokesperson that “we’ve had zero F135 maintenance issues related to powdered nickel contaminants. Our military customers are aware that we monitor for it, and they are fully aligned with our mature safety protocols and mitigation plans, which we will continue to update as required.”

RTX chairman and CEO Greg Hayes told financial reporters the inspections will inconvenience commercial operators and the company will compensate them for taking some of their aircraft out of service unexpectedly.

An inspection regime “focused on the high pressure turbine discs” of the PW1100 “is already in place and Pratt is developing plans to optimize shop … capacity within its network to complete these inspections as quickly and efficiently as possible,” he said.

“Current production of powdered metal parts is not impacted and Pratt will continue to deliver both new engines and new spare parts across all product lines,” he added.

“We’re on top of it, we’ve got this,” he said. “It’s going to be expensive. We’re going to make the airlines whole as a result of the disruption.”

But, he added, “it’s not an existential threat. …It is a problem [like] we have every day, and we’ll solve it.”

Company officials said the powder is manufactured in one of Pratt’s New York facilities, processed in a company forge in Georgia, and then made into parts such as turbine discs. They said that over 3,000 inspections of PW1100 parts have been made already, and about 1,200 more need to be made on commercial engines. The number of suspect parts found to be in need of replacement is “less than one percent,” Hayes said.

What’s at Stake for Air Force as Senate and House Work Out Final 2024 Defense Bill

July 28, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Senate overwhelmingly passed its version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act late July 27 in a bipartisan 86-11 vote. But the House version of the bill was passed largely on party lines, and the two chambers must resolve their differences before the annual defense policy bill can reach the President’s desk.

House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) will be the primary drivers on the House side, while Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) will do the same for the Senate. Party leadership will also play a role in who gets to participate. The conference committee must work out the differences and present a bill that can pass, identically, in both chambers.

Committee members will have their work cut out for them. The House and Senate bills differ on dozens of issues, from whether or not to appoint an inspector general to oversee military aid to Ukraine to whether or not the nation needs a Space National Guard. They also differ on a number of hot-button social issues included in the House bill, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion education; a prohibition on the military paying for travel to receive reproductive and abortion services not available at certain duty stations; and medical care for transgender service members. The abortion issue was the most divisive, leading to almost every House Democrat voting against the bill, which passed only narrowly as a result.

Time is short. Lawmakers leave for the August recess this weekend and won’t return until September. Staffers will start the conference process in their absence, but with fewer than 20 working days in September, they are unlikely to pass a reconciled bill before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Divestments and Procurement

Differences that must be resolved of particular concern to the Air Force begin with airframes. The House took a more prescriptive approach to its bill, aiming to limit the Air Force’s authority to retire older aircraft and to direct the service to assign some new aircraft to the Air National Guard. In each case, the House and conferees will have to choose whether to include or exclude provisions such as:

B-1 Lancer: The House bill would extend a prohibition on modifying “the designed operational capability statement for any B–1 bomber aircraft squadron … in a manner that would reduce the capabilities of such a squadron” until the B-21 Raider is fielded. If adopted in the final bill, no B-1s could be retired for at least the next four years.

F-16 Fighting Falcon: The House bill bars the Air Force from retiring any F-16s until it submits a report to Congress detailing how many F-16s it wants to divest in the next five years, the impact of those retirements on mission and budget, and the actions USAF plans to mitigate those impacts.

F-15EX: The House bill includes advance procurement funds for F-15EX fighters, which it wants assigned to the Air National Guard. The Senate provides funds for F-15EX, but not advance procurement funding for future years, as the House does. It is silent on where the planes should be assigned.

Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve fighter squadrons: The House bill bars the Air Force from ending flying mission of any fighter squadron in the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve unless it offers a plan to recapitalize those missions, even by means of transferring existing aircraft in the interim, if necessary. The Senate version does not address this matter at all.

Tanker aircraft: Several House provisions related to retiring KC-135 Stratotankers are in the House bill, which would block tanker retirements in 2024 and require the Air Force to publish a recapitalization plan with “more realistic timelines” than its still-unclear plans for a future Next-Generation Air refueling System, or NGAS. Meanwhile, the House would also bar the Air Force from buying more than the 179 KC-46 Pegasus tankers already planned, an apparent objection to Air Force officials saying it might be wise to forego competition on a “bridge tanker” in favor of simply buying more KC-46s. Another provision requires the Air Force to certify that the Remote Vision System 2.0 operates as intended before it can be installed on any KC-46s.

RQ-4 Global Hawk: The Senate bill would prohibit the Air Force from retiring any RQ-4 Global Hawks until fiscal 2029, while the House was silent on the matter.

T-1 trainers. The Senate would bar retirements until the Air Force certifies that it has fully implemented Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5.

U-28 Draco. The Senate bill bars retiring these aircraft until the Pentagon certifies that it is providing U.S. Special Operations Command with an equal or better intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability

F-15 fighters. The Senate wants to stall F-15C/D/E retirements until the Air Force reports back with details on the remaining service life, upgrades, and modifications done for the aircraft it wants to retire.

Both bills reduce the number of A-10 “Warthogs” the Air Force is required to keep, allowing the service to proceed with 42 planned divestments. And neither lifts a prohibition included a year ago to prevent the Air Force from retiring older Block 20 versions of the F-22 Raptor, ignoring USAF requests to shut down those planes.

Pay and Allowances

Both bills authorize the same 5.2 percent pay raise for troops, the largest year-over-year increase since 2002. They also agree on changing the way the basic allowance for housing (BAH) is calculated for junior enlisted members with dependents.

But the House and Senate disagree on several other pay and allowance changes:

Inflation. The House bill would authorize the Secretary of Defense to award “inflation bonuses” to junior enlisted troops throughout 2024, based on the rate of inflation. It also would change the formula for calculating who is eligible for the Basic Needs Allowance; by not including BAH, the House measure would greatly increase the number of families eligible for the extra pay. The Senate, however, sought to address inflation by changing the way cost-of-living allowances are calculated and paid, and by lowering the standard for what constitutes a “high-cost” area in the continental United States. The Senate bill would also reduce the size and frequency of COLA cuts for members outside the Continental U.S.

Housing costs. The House bill would authorize a trial program to outsource BAH rate calculations to a third party, applying artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to determine how much members should receive.

Basic Pay for junior troops. The Senate bill, addressing both inflation and recruiting, would authorize a study to determine whether “the current basic pay table adequately compensates junior enlisted personnel in pay grades E-1 through E-4.”

Compensating those in remote assignments: The House bill seeks a feasibility study of incentive pay for Airmen assigned to Creech Air Force Base, Nev. The Senate bill does not address Creech, but it would authorize the Air Force to pattern a program based on one the Army already has: The Remote and Austere Condition Assignment Incentive Pay program, which grants extra pay to service members in Alaska.

F-35 Crashed Due to Computer Glitch Caused by Turbulence: Accident Report

July 28, 2023 | By David Roza

In just 10 seconds, a normal training mission became a nearly fatal accident when an F-35 fighter jet crashed while landing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, on Oct. 19, 2022. An investigation published July 27 found the crash was caused by a glitch in the aircraft software system which occurred after the pilot, who survived with minor injuries after ejecting from the stricken jet, flew too close into the turbulence left by the wake of the F-35 ahead of him.

According to the investigation, the mishap aircraft was one of a formation of four F-35s returning from a training event over the Utah Test and Training Range that evening. Due to a local windspeed of five knots, the base control tower had declared that “wake turbulence procedures were in effect,” which means aircraft coming in to land had to trail at least 9,000 feet behind the aircraft in front of them, rather than the usual 3,000 feet.

The investigation added that encountering wake turbulence is very common in aviation and usually harmless, but not during the landing phase, where unexpected rolling motions can be disastrous so close to the ground. Investigators said the pilots in the formation should have known wake turbulence procedures were in effect because the control tower noted windspeed of five knots over the runway.

However, neither the mishap pilot nor one of the other pilots were aware wake turbulence procedures were in effect, and the mishap pilot planned to land with the usual minimum 3,000 feet of separation, though the actual distance in this event was around 3,600 feet.

f-35 — This illustration in the Air Force investigation shows the arrangement of the formation of F-35s using the callsign ‘Legs’ shortly before the Oct. 19, 2022 crash. ‘Legs 03’ was the mishap aircraft.

With landing gear down on final approach, the mishap pilot felt some rumbling due to the wake turbulence of the F-35 ahead of him. He flew through the disturbed air for about three seconds, which threw off the jet’s air data system (ADS).

The ADS is made up of sensors that collect information from outside the aircraft so that the aircraft computers can calculate the minute control adjustments needed to keep flying. In this case, the disturbed air made the ADS occasionally stop listening to data coming in from sensors on the right side of the aircraft, and stop listening to data from the left side altogether.

Each time the ADS switched between those primary sensors and backup sources for gauging flight conditions, the further its assessments drifted from actual flight conditions. The poor assessments led to the ADS calculating incorrect flight adjustments, and the pilot found the system disregarded his own attempts to get the jet back under control.

The jet “looked like a totally normal F-35 before obviously going out of control,” one F-35 test pilot who saw the mishap from the ground told investigators. “When the oscillations were happening, I did see really large flight control surface movements, stabs, trailing edge flaps, rudders all seem to be moving pretty rapidly like, probably at their rate limits, and huge deflections.”

Air Force jets are often equipped with computers that make minor control adjustments mid-flight, and they usually work without issue. Investigators noted there have been over 600,000 F-35 flight hours “with no known similar incidents of wake turbulence impacting the ADS.”

But on this flight, the F-35 put itself in a position with “virtually no chance of recovering,” the test pilot said. The mishap pilot lit his afterburner to try to regain control, but was unable due to the low altitude and airspeed. With just 200 feet between him and the ground, the pilot ejected and landed safely just outside the airfield fence line. The bulk of the F-35 crashed within airfield boundaries, though parts of the cockpit, canopy, and ejection seat landed just outside the fence. The entire mishap, from the initial rumbling to ejection, took about 10 seconds.

f-35 — This image from an Air Force investigation shows the position of the mishap F-35 right before the pilot ejected. The stricken jet was in a position that one test pilot called virtually unrecoverable.

Afterwards, when investigators recreated the events of the crash in a simulator, they found that “each attempt at replicating the mishap sequence resulted in the simulator departing controlled flight.”

In the end, Col. Kevin Lord, president of the accident investigation board, determined the cause of the mishap was the F-35 departing controlled flight due to ADS errors, but the pilot trailing too close to the preceding F-35 was a significant contributing factor.

The F-35 was completely destroyed in the incident, and the Air Force Accident Investigation Board valued the loss at $166.3 million, well above the average cost of an F-35. Air Force policy instructs investigators to determine costs by combining the flyaway cost of an aircraft, non-DOD property damage, and environmental clean-up costs.

“The calculation is based on the cost of the aircraft and any modifications made to the aircraft itself, the payload it was carrying and other factors,” an Air Combat Command spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Specific details regarding the financial breakdown are not releasable due to operational security.”

This was the seventh crash of the Lockheed Martin-made F-35. It was preceded by crashes of two USAF F-35As, two Marine Corps F-35Bs, one U.S. Navy F-35C, one Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-35A, and one Royal Air Force F-35B. Later that December, a Marine Corps F-35B was damaged when its landing gear malfunctioned, causing the nose to the touch the ground. The pilot was unharmed.

Travis Gets Its First New KC-46 as Tanker Deliveries Resume

July 28, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Travis Air Force Base, Calif., became the sixth main operating base for the KC-46 on July 28, receiving its first Pegasus tanker—also the first accepted by the Air Force from Boeing since March, when a fuel tank problem halted deliveries.

A ceremony commemorating the event at the base also marked the 80th anniversary of the founding of Travis; the 75th anniversary of the 60th Air Mobility Wing; and the 100th anniversary of aerial refueling. Travis is trading its KC-10 Extender tanker/cargo aircraft for the Pegasus.

Boeing, in its second-quarter earnings call earlier this week, said it had resumed deliveries of the KC-46, which had been on hold since March due to a quality process problem with Boeing subcontractor Triumph Aerostructures. The center fuel tank interiors had not been properly cleaned and primed, causing concern that paint could flake off and contaminate the aircraft’s fuel system. Boeing CEO David Calhoun said the company has “completed the rework” necessary to fix the problem. Affected aircraft were deemed safe to fly during the corrective process with close monitoring of their fuel filters.

Boeing needs to deliver 15 KC-46s this year under its contract with the Air Force, but the Travis aircraft is only the second in 2023. The company has not said whether it expects to deliver all the required aircraft by the end of December.

Maj. Gen. Corey J. Martin, commander of 18th Air Force, said at the welcoming ceremony that the KC-46 goes beyond the KC-10 in that, while it can do air refueling, cargo, and aeromedical evacuation missions, it has “the brains [for] far more.”

“It’s the connections, it’s the sensors, it’s the survivability,” Martin said. The Pegasus has “the tactical situational awareness systems. It has the radios that will link this mobility aircraft to bombers, fighters, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; to space, to special operations. It has systems that will detect and avoid radar-guided surface-to-air threats. It has systems that will detect and defeat infrared guided surface-to-air threats; all while maneuvering our Joint force closer to contested airspace than any KC aircraft has done in the past.”

Besides the primary missions of air refueling, cargo movement, and aeromedical evacuation, the Air Force plans to fit its KC-46s with communications and connectivity gear to make them a kind of airborne internet provider in the battlespace, as part of the service’s evolving Air Battle Management System. These changes were included in recent contracts for the KC-46 Block 1 upgrade.

The aircraft delivered to Travis is the 70th KC-46 to become operational for the Air Force, against a total order of 179 aircraft due to be delivered by 2028. The Air Force said the Pegasus has flown more than 16,000 sorties and delivered more than 150 million pounds of fuel, despite being at least a year away from the planned declaration of initial operational capability.

All 59 KC-10s in the Air Force are set to retire by September 2024 or sooner. The last East-Coast KC-10s retired from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey in June. Travis was picked to get the KC-46 in a 2017 Air Force decision; the base is slated to receive 27 of the new tankers.

In preparation for the Pegasus’ arrival at Travis, the Air Force built a $137 million, 174,300-square-foot, three-bay hangar; the largest among several new-build or renovation projects at the facility worth a collective $188 million. Construction was paused in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, and the first KC-46 arrival was postponed from January 2023 as a result.

The KC-46 recently participated in the recent Mobility Guardian 23 exercise, as well as the Juniper Oak exercise with Israel. Air Force tankers have also been making flyovers of ceremonies and sporting events all summer to commemorate the centennial of aerial refueling.

The first aerial refueling took place on June 27, 1923, over Rockwell Field, San Diego, Calif., when two Army Air Service pilots passed fuel from their Boeing-built de Havilland DH-4B to another, using simple gravity flow. Using this technique the same group of pilots set a flying endurance record of 37 hours a few weeks later. Air refueling in the coming years was largely used to support endurance records—notably, Maj. Carl Spaatz and the Question Mark set a record of 150 hours and 40 minutes in 1937—but it was not until Spaatz became the first Chief of Staff of the Air Force that aerial refueling was pursued with serious operational purpose. Spaatz directed the conversion of some B-29s to tanker configuration in 1948, and the first air refueling units stood up in 1949.

In Emotional Speech, Brown Commemorates 75th Anniversary of Military Desegregation

July 28, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

When he was head of Pacific Air Forces in 2020, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. recorded an emotional video following the killing of George Floyd that recounted how he, as a Black man, had to prove that he was as capable as some of his white counterparts.

Three years later, Brown is the first Black service chief as Air Force Chief of Staff and has been nominated by President Joe Biden to become the second-ever Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“None of us decide to grow up to be something we’ve never seen before,” Brown said July 28 at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

He was speaking at the Truman Library Institute’s Civil Rights Symposium, which was held to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces by President Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9981, signed on July 26, 1948.

Truman’s executive order mandated “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.”

Now, some 44 percent of the nation’s Active-Duty, all-volunteer force are Americans of color, according to the Pentagon.

In a heartfelt address to the symposium and in other recent appearances, Brown recalled the many Black pioneers who proved, despite discrimination, that they had the ability and willingness to serve a nation that did not treat them equally.

“You must reflect on how far we’ve come as a nation,” Brown said. “Maj. Gen. James Hamlet, an infantry officer in the segregated mighty Second Infantry Division in World War II and an army aviator in Vietnam, said in his retirement ceremony, ‘When I entered the army, a Black man was not allowed to lead a squad to the latrine. We have come a long way.’ We’ve come a long way indeed.”

Two days earlier, Brown took note of the most famous example in Air Force: the Tuskegee Airmen, the air and ground crew who served in the Black flying units in the Army Air Forces, the predecessor to the independent U.S. Air Force, during World War II.

“Their progress is what made it possible for me to stand here today,” Brown said at Joint Base Andrews, Md., when he accepted a PT-17 Stearman biplane, used as a trainer by Tuskegee Airmen, to be exhibited at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., center left, and Tuskegee Airmen stand in front of the PT-17 Stearman during the Tuskegee Airmen PT-17 Stearman Aircraft Exchange ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, Md., July 26, 2023. Generations of Tuskegee Airmen attended the exchange ceremony. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Tyrone Thomas

The Pentagon has spent much of this week reflecting on the diversity of America’s armed forces. On the evening of July 27, Biden addressed the Truman Civil Rights Symposium where he recognized high-profile pioneers, including the Buffalo Soldiers and Tuskegee Airmen, and less well-known individuals.

“The list goes on, including rank-and-file cooks, custodians, secretaries, mailmen—too often overlooked and forgotten, but made it work,” Biden said during his address, which Brown attended.

In 2021, a year after Brown became the Air Force Chief of Staff, Lloyd J. Austin III became the first Black Defense Secretary. If Brown is confirmed as Chairman, the top two U.S. military officials will both be African Americans for the first time.

“For far too much of our nation’s history, service members of color who fought to defend our country were forced to serve in segregated units,” Austin said in a July 26 statement. “Black troops were denied the very rights that they fought to defend. Despite this bitter heritage, segregated units demonstrated their skill and mettle in war after war.”

Brown offered some more personal reflections.

“I’m very humbled when I’m out and about,” Brown said July 28. “It happened even to me last night, at last night’s event, when people approached me and told me that I’m an inspiration. And what goes through my mind is, ‘Really? I’m just C.Q. Brown Jr. I’m an ordinary American who has been provided extraordinary opportunities. Opportunities provided by Executive Order 9981.’”

Brown said that he hoped such a career would eventually be less remarkable.

“I hope that one day, progress will mean there will be no more firsts to be celebrated; that we are all left celebrating each other’s achievements as fellow Americans,” Brown said.

New Air Force Detachment Supports RC-135 Recon Jets in Alaska

July 28, 2023 | By David Roza

The Air Force’s 55th Operations Group is standing up a detachment at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. to help launch and recover jets from the RC-135 family of intelligence and reconnaissance platforms as they conduct operations and exercises over the Indo-Pacific.

The detachment is small: less than 10 Airmen and a few contractors, according to a July 25 press release. Ryan Hansen, a spokesperson for the 55th Wing, told Air & Space Forces Magazine there are still a final few steps before the detachment is fully stood-up, but it already has some operational capabilities. By providing aircraft maintenance and systems support for RC-135s, the unit could play a key role as the U.S. military works to enhance its awareness and response times over the vast area.

“Over the past few years we have seen an increase in operations over the Indo-Pacific region,” Hansen said. “This has come as a result of the Pacific pivot and our nation’s continued commitment to our allies in the region.”

Each of the 30 or so aircraft in the RC-135 family of jets performs a unique kind of intelligence-gathering. RC-135V/W Rivet Joints act as mobile listening posts: collecting, analyzing, and disseminating real-time electronic and signals intelligence. RC-135S Cobra Ball jets track and analyze ballistic missile activity; RC-135U Combat Sent aircraft locate, identify, and analyze radar signals; while WC-135R/W Constant Phoenix jets collect samples of the atmosphere to detect nuclear weapons testing. The detachment in Alaska will initially support Rivet Joint operations but over time will support other RC-135 or WC-135 jets as needed.

There are no plans to expand the Alaska detachment or station any of the RC-135s or WC-135s in Alaska on a more permanent basis, Hansen said. The key advantage of Detachment 1 is speed: allowing the 55th Operations Group to respond faster in the Pacific as requirements increase.

“All of our platforms are constantly tasked for worldwide operations,” Col. Derek Rachel, commander of the 55th Operations Group, said in the press release. “Having this location always available and ready will enable us to respond quicker than ever before.”

Detachment 1 is not the 55th’s only geographically-separated unit (GSU). Hansen pointed out that the group has maintained two GSUs at Kadena Air Base, Japan, in the form of the 82nd Reconnaissance Squadron and 390th Intelligence Squadron.

“We’ve relied on that location for some operational taskings while also utilizing Alaska for shorter [temporary duty] missions, etc.,” he said.

Indeed, the 55th Wing also has GSUs at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona; Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England; and Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Greece.

As the only wing in the Air Force operating the RC-135 and WC-135 family of aircraft, “we are constantly tasked by combatant commanders around the globe, so these locations enable us to do so quickly when called upon,” Hansen said. “We plan to use the new detachment much the same way as we have these long-standing locations.

This is not the first time RC-135 Airmen have operated out of Alaska. The jets, many of which were first built in the early 1960s, often flew from Alaska or were temporarily deployed there during the Cold War, the service’s release noted.

A Chinese J-11 intercepts a U.S. Air Force RC-135 over the South China Sea, Dec. 21, 2022. Screenshot of DOD video.

Recent headlines testify to the the RC-135’s continuous global presence. In December, one RC-135 Rivet Joint took evasive maneuvers to avoid colliding with a Chinese J-11 fighter jet that came within 20 feet of the reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea, according to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. A similar incident occurred over the same area in May.

As the new Alaska detachment stands up, RC-135s may return to fly over those areas.

“The new detachment will provide us more flexibility and allow us to expand our operations in response to increased intelligence requirements,” Rachel said. “We’re very excited to see this initiative come to fruition.”

Northrop Won’t Bid on Air Force’s NGAD Fighter, But CCA, F/A-XX Programs Still in Play

July 27, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Northrop Grumman won’t compete to be the prime contractor on the hyper-secret Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter program, but hasn’t ruled out a bid for the Navy’s corresponding F/A-XX or the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft programs, CEO Kathy Warden said July 27 in a second-quarter results call.

“We have notified the U.S. Air Force that we’re not planning to respond to the NGAD RFP (Request For Proposals) as the prime,” Warden said. She did not rule out being a partner or supplier to other NGAD bidders, however.

Northrop’s portfolio includes combat aircraft like the B-21 bomber; reconnaissance aircraft such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk; electronic warfare systems; radars; sensors and aircraft structures, as well as solid rocket motors and hypersonic engines, among other business lines.

Northrop had withheld comment on NGAD until the Air Force announced “their intent to issue the RFP,” Warden said. The Air Force released the NGAD RFP in May and aims to select a winning contractor in 2024.

It wasn’t clear from Warden’s comments when the company informed the Air Force it won’t bid on NGAD. Media reports have indicated that the NGAD horse race is down to two competitors, and Northrop may already have been knocked out of the competition. But the Air Force has said any qualified offeror is welcome to make a proposal on the program.

Neither Boeing nor Lockheed Martin, the other two largest aerospace contractors, have stated officially an intent to bid on NGAD, but Lockheed officials have talked extensively about what might go into NGAD and its “family of systems,” including uncrewed escort aircraft.

Warden couched Northrop’s decision as part of a strategy: “Remaining disciplined in assessing the right programs to pursue.” Those “right” programs, she said, should offer “an appropriate balance of risk and reward, for both the customer and the industrial base.”

But, Warden added, “we have other opportunities in military aircraft that we are pursuing.” Northrop backed out of the T-X advanced trainer competition in 2017, even after building a flying, full-scale prototype. After reviewing the final RFP, officials said at the time, they did not see the business case for a profitable program.

Northrop has also withdrawn from or opted not to pursue other programs, such as the second KC-X tanker competition; a Navy carrier-capable drone; and the Navy’s 1980s-era A-12 competition.

In most of those cases, the winning bidder wound up absorbing huge losses. Boeing, which ultimately won the tanker and trainer contests, has paid dearly for the privilege, losing more than $7 billion on the fixed-price KC-46 tanker program and now taking losses on the fixed-price T-7 Red Hawk Advanced Trainer, as well. The company has said it will be more careful about the risk of underbidding in the future.

Asked about the F/A-XX—the Navy’s version of NGAD—Warden said Northrop hasn’t decided if it will bid or not. If there are programs where “we’re well-positioned, and the government is appropriately balancing risk and reward … that would be a program we would pursue,” she said, declining to be more specific “until a little more information comes out.”

The Air Force and Navy are comparing notes on their respective next-generation fighters but will not join them together as with the F-35.

While Warden ruled out bidding on NGAD, she held open the possibility of bidding on the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.

“It is a separate solicitation,” she said. “We’re looking at it closely.” The CCA program is expected to yield a modular, uncrewed aircraft to carry sensors, extra munitions, perform electronic warfare, or do other missions in collaboration with crewed fighters and bombers.

Warden said Northrop is looking for new business as older programs like the F/A-18 fighter, for which Northrop builds the aft fuselage and vertical tails, wind down. The F/A-18 comprises just 1 percent of Northrop’s sales.

The Air Force is drawing down its RQ-4 fleet, but Northrop is believed to have built a successor, the RQ-180, which is highly stealthy and may have paved the way for the B-21. Warden referenced a number of classified programs in her presentation.

Warden said Northrop will continue to consider each opportunity on its own merits. Northrop doesn’t apply a “blanket” policy across the board, she said. “We think about each opportunity in terms of its risk profile,” she said. “The maturity of our designs and offerings at the time that we’re being asked to bid also weighs heavily into our thinking about that decision.”

Russian Fighter Damages a Second MQ-9 Over Syria. So What Should the US Do Now?

July 27, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Stepping up harassment of U.S. aircraft over northwest Syria, Russian fighter jets damaged two MQ-9s this week, U.S. officials say.

The Russian actions have sparked a broader debate over how the U.S. should carry out air operations against ISIS militants in Syria as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalate.

“I don’t see any reasonable way forward where you don’t keep flying the aircraft,” said retired Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., who commanded U.S. forces in the Middle East from 2019-2022, in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We have a clear continuing counter-ISIS mission that needs to be accomplished there.”

On July 26, two Russian fighters approached an MQ-9 and one dropped flares, striking and damaging the aircraft’s left wing in several places, according to U.S. officials.

The Russians quickly put out their version of events: Rear Admiral Oleg Gurinov, a Russian military official in Syria, accused the U.S. of provoking the encounter with a “dangerous” approach by the MQ-9, causing the Russian pilots to release flares to defend themselves. Gurinov called U.S. MQ-9s operations “provocative,” according to Interfax, a Russian news agency.

Gurinov claimed sensors aboard the planes triggered “the automatic operation of onboard defense systems and the shooting of false thermal targets.”

A U.S. official disputed the account. “The Russian storyline that the propeller-driven MQ-9 ‘dangerously passed’ Russian fighter aircraft is laughable,” the U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “If an MQ-9 can sneak up on a Russian Su-35, then they probably need another Su-35 pilot.”

Just three days prior, on July 23, a Russian Su-35 released flares, striking an MQ-9’s propeller. As with the July 26 episode, the drone returned safely to base. The Russians also blamed the U.S. for that incident, prompting Air Forces Central (AFCENT) to release a video of the incident showing how the Russian plane flew toward the drone and released flares directly in its flight path.

The incidents raise the larger question of how the U.S. will carry out air operations against ISIS without letting escalating tensions with Moscow get in the way. The two nations’ air forces have managed to deconflict operations effectively since Russian forces arrived in 2015 to support President Bashar al-Assad’s fight against insurgent forces. American forces are in Syria for a very different mission: partnering with local groups fighting against the remnants of ISIS.

To avoid inadvertent confrontations, the two sides created a deconfliction channel linking Russian and American commanders. But in recent months, the channel has increasingly become a complaint line, U.S. officials say, rather than a means of managing airspace so each side can carry out operations without interference.

One way the U.S. could ease tensions would be to reduce U.S. MQ-9 operations over northwest Syria, some observers say. But doing so would constrain both intelligence gathering and the ability to strike at ISIS leaders, providing them a refuge in that part of the country. It would also send a signal to Moscow that aggressive operations can be effective in getting the U.S. to pull back.

“We don’t want this to escalate,” McKenzie said. “But at the same time, we can’t be forced out of this space. Those drones perform a vital task for us.”

Another approach could be to have U.S. fighter aircraft accompany the MQ-9s some of the time. That could discourage the Russians from overflying U.S. forces in eastern Syria and loitering over the American outpost at Al Tanf, as a Russian reconnaissance plane did earlier this month. Right now, four U.S. fighter squadrons—F-16s, A-10, and now F-35s—are deployed to the CENTCOM area of responsibility. F-22s were sent to the region in June after American encounters with Russian forces in the air, but the Raptors have since left.

Escorting MQ-9s over northwestern Syria where Russian and Syrian regime forces are more active could present additional risks.

“You would be taking a lot of risks with manned platforms,” said McKenzie. “I used to say when I was the CENTCOM commander: ‘I’m very brave with uncrewed aircraft. I’m not real brave with crewed aircraft. I’m very conscious that I’ve got human beings on those airplanes.’”

The White House has also sought to minimize the chances of a military confrontation with Russia in and around Ukraine and in other parts of the world.

Yet another option could be to continue the MQ-9 flights while documenting the Russian provocations whenever they occur.

“We’ve dealt with provocative actions in the Middle East for a long period of time,” retired Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the commander of CENTCOM from 2016-2019, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We’ve got to demonstrate some will and some strength in these areas and make it very plain that these are not acceptable activities, and then we’ve got to expose it for what it is.”

AFCENT’s commander Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich and other defense leaders have been vocal in calling out Russian behavior, and the Pentagon has taken the unusual step—in many cases—of releasing video footage from U.S. drones and manned aircraft in an effort to counter the Russian narrative.

An NSC spokesperson said July 26 that “Russia’s close approach to, and deployment of flares over, U.S. drones during routine missions against ISIS targets violates established protocols and international norms.”

A day after the July 26 episode, however, the Pentagon has yet to make public any video of the encounter, leaving it unclear whether the Department of Defense is still committed to its policy of naming and shaming the Russians whenever they engage in provocative actions.