Practical Applications for AI in Military Operations

Practical Applications for AI in Military Operations

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Adam Stone

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence, but actual no-kidding military applications can be hard to identify. 

“If you have a data problem, or if you can make a problem into a data problem, it’s probably a good fit for AI,” says Angela Sheffield, an internationally recognized expert in nuclear nonproliferation and applications of AI for national security. 

Sheffield has been cited for “transforming” the National Nuclear Security Agency’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation with innovative AI research and development. There, as Senior Program Manager for AI and Data Science, Sheffield developed next-generation tools for detecting early indicators of illicit nuclear weapons development. 

Now Sheffield has a new role as director of AI programs at SAIC, a leading systems integrator and solutions provider for federal and defense applications. A former Air Force intelligence officer, she sees numerous opportunities to bring AI to a host of defense requirements and says getting started is often the hardest part, because it means getting past all the reasons not to move forward. 

“We will forever have legacy systems,” Sheffield says. “We will always have fragmented and siloed data repositories. Those aren’t things that we can wish away.” 

But they also don’t need to be barriers to automation. Whether one is tackling a complex problem like Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control, major initiatives to modernize weapon systems, or efforts to automate Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination (TCPED), mundane tasks that involve routine work can be automated to to reduce the human cognitive load. 

“There are a lot of other applications ripe for opportunity, for modernization and innovation and AI,” Sheffield said. And it doesn’t have to be the hard, super complex use cases: Business operations and other routine operational tasks “are really great opportunities for us to leverage AI. Automation can free up our Airmen and our other service members and civilians … to tackle the challenges DOD faces today.”

In some ways, that is beginning to happen. Enterprise IT is gaining a foothold with AI-driven capabilities integrated into email and other collaboration activities. 

“We’re beginning to expect that as the part of the services that we get from our enterprise IT,” Sheffield said. AI can also support efficiencies, she added, in business operations and mission execution “to fulfill requirements in computing, in managing disparate data sources.” 

This is where an integrator can be especially valuable. “SAIC is part of bringing those solutions to the Air Force and the rest of the joint force, with concepts like data layers that interconnect stove-piped or fragmented data systems,” she said. 

Once data can be shared across systems, everyone benefits: “You can get a single-site picture or a single understanding of all of your resources captured in those different repositories,” she said, enabling AI-supported process automation, enhanced analytics, and informed, accelerated decision-making.

Users will not necessarily buy into automation easily, she said. Trust must be earned—and built—over time to ensure users gain confidence in intelligent systems. They need to see that the software works, Sheffield said, and “to understand how it is working, if it’s performing within the intended envelope.” And they need to be confident that the AI is not generating erroneous “hallucinations,” she said. 

AI must be a primary driver for enabling CJADC2 because without it the data sets are too large, the problems too demanding, to maintain an information advantage at the speed of modern warfare. CJADC2 demands real-time sharing of data across service, national, and digital boundaries. 

That means overcoming legacy IT roadblocks and information systems that can’t talk to each other. Interoperable databases and AI-driven automation are part of the solution. “CJADC2 will happen as a result of that modernization in a way that’s even more powerful than what we’re beginning to see in pilot demonstrations,” Sheffield predicts.

For example, Indo-Pacific Command’s Joint Fires Network, a Battle Management System delivers real-time actionable threat data to joint, partner, and allied forces. SAIC is involved in that pilot, and Sheffield foresees more AI-driven implementations like it, “where we’re closing kill chains faster and achieving those successes.”

Disparate systems and technologies, often purpose-built with proprietary technology, must be integrated to make them work. “That’s where an integrator like SAIC can help,” she said.

As a federal program manager, she recalled, “I often relied on my contractors or performers to provide that visibility — lessons learned from one agency to another,” she said. Commercial partners “helped me have that visibility of what’s happening across the interagency.”

That’s exactly the value Sheffield says she brings to her work at SAIC. “Looking across our multi-mission portfolio and bringing the best solutions for DOD’s missions is something they can rely on us to do,” she said.

At This Air Force Depot, Advanced Manufacturing Is Cutting Edge No Longer

At This Air Force Depot, Advanced Manufacturing Is Cutting Edge No Longer

Oct. 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla.—Air Force leaders and industry officials have long extolled the benefits of additive manufacturing, promising a future where maintainers use 3D printing technology to manufacture replacement parts faster than they can be shipped across the world. 

Now, a small group of engineers, technicians, and machinists here are moving that additive manufacturing technology out of the future and into the present. 

It’s “not because we’re just saying, ‘Hey, this has potential in the future,’” Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center technical director Eric Bartlow told Air & Space Forces Magazine during an August visit. “We grow with our customer need in that area. And so is it bleeding edge? We’ve been doing 3D-printing since the ’70s. I think the rest of the world is kind of catching up, and you’ll continue to see that scale.” 

Across more than 8 million square feet of industrial floor and office space, more than 9,000 personnel work at the OC-ALC, where welding and wrench-turning are still the norm. But an increasing number of programs—collectively dubbed an “innovation ecosystem”—are now applying these techniques to breathe new life into aging aircraft.  

“We use the term ‘tired iron’ a lot out here,” said Clay Jordan, chief engineer for a program called PROACT. “We have some really old ‘tired iron’ that we are trying to bring back to life.” 

Coming into Its Own 

Brig. Gen. Brian R. Moore, commander of the OC-ALC, says this shift is the result of years of work. 

“Mr. Bartlow and the team have been thinking about digital transformation and what that means for an industrial complex, probably before I came over in 2018 and 2019,” Moore said. “But really you can see the manifestation of it in the last six years.”  

Case in point: The Reverse Engineering and Critical Tooling (REACT) program, which started several years ago to produce parts that aren’t commercially available anymore. REACT started small but now comprises a team of 50 that has become the Air Force Center of Excellence for advanced manufacturing. 

REACT offices display examples of that transformation: Scanners that map and model the shapes of products ranging from small parts to entire aircraft; digital design tools used to process and refine scans; and more than a dozen additive production systems, high-end 3D printers that can “print” using materials ranging from resin to cobalt chrome.

Paul Greenway, with the 76th Commodities Maintenance Group’s R.E.A.C.T Cell, made and provided the CAD drawings for the mechanics to cut and form the keel beam.

The B-1 bomber is among REACT’s greatest success stories. A plastic panel in the crew compartment might have taken five years to replace using conventional contracting processes; REACT reverse- engineered the panel produced test products, and now produces replacements for the entire fleet, said flight chief Kyle Taylor. Now REACT is now producing other parts for the BONE cockpit, replacing honeycomb composite materials that degraded over time. 

“They’ve leaned forward a lot with additive,” Taylor said of the B-1 program office. “And because of that, they’ve kind of pulled the whole Air Force along with them. Others [system program offices] come over here and they see all these B-1 panels that we’re printing, and they say, ‘Oh, we have little switches and knobs and things, and we haven’t really implemented additive as much as B-1 has.’ So because B-1 has kind of led the way, other weapon systems can get the benefits of the testing they’ve done, and the approval processes they’ve gone through.” 

The results are stark: 12,000 parts in back orders. 

REACT’s bank of polymer 3D printers are “just churning out parts consistently,” said Taylor, operating at a continuous, dull whine. 

Said Moore: “Every jet that comes to Tinker for depot maintenance is getting around 200 polymer parts put on it.” 

Going Upscale 

Additive repair is another area of emphasis: PROACT, the Process, Repair, Operations, and Critical Tooling program, employs 40 specialists for engine repair. 

“We’ve been doing additive for repair for decades now, through things like thermal spray and weld repairs, where you build up material on wear surfaces,” said Blake Grimwood, the engineering section chief for PROACT. “We’re just using the newer technologies that people think of as additive manufacturing, as opposed to the legacy ones.” 

One new technology is directed energy deposition, in which a laser melts a metal or metal powder and deposits the material onto a surface for precise welding, and cold spray, in which metal powder is applied without heat.  

“We’re able to look at the problem and say, ‘this is the wear condition we’re seeing, these are the types of repairs we do for this wear condition. OK, what’s the right approach?’ And if we can’t figure out a right approach, then that gives us an opportunity to say, ‘Let’s go find a new technology to solve this,’” he said. 

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. — Blake Grimwood, the Process, Repair, Operations and Critical Tooling section chief at the Oklahoma City Air Logistic Complex, briefs members of the Leadership Moore program on PROACT’s capabilities during their tour of Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, Jan. 11. Leadership Moore is a program organized by the Moore Chamber of Commerce that offers opportunities for leaders from the business, government, and not-for-profit sectors to discover the inner workings of their community and challenges facing the region. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Carter Denton)

The goal, he added, is not just to find the most advanced possible tech, but rather the most sustainable and useful over time. 

“Just because we develop a new repair doesn’t mean we don’t have the old repair as well, if that’s needed for capacity,” he noted. “But a lot of these repairs are faster and more consistent, so we can fit more into a timeframe if needed.” PROACT also has a team of tool designers who create tooling needed to facilitate each particular repair. 

REACT is also expanding into metal 3D printing and is even casting its own parts—a necessity in an era when commercial sourcing for small volumes of unique products is prohibitive or even impossible.

“Right now, we can pour 120 pounds of aluminum. So what we can do is take our knowledge in reverse engineering and modeling, you can bring us a part, we reverse engineer the whole thing,” Taylor said. “We’ll come up with three or four different designs that we think will work, print all of them, pour all the hot metal into them and see which one came out best. We can work with the materials lab here on base. We can give them parts. They can chop up all the parts and say, this one has the lowest porosity, this is your best pour. And then we can just 3D print however many molds we need.” 

Hurdles 

REACT and PROACT leaders say excitement over additive manufacturing does not make it the right solution for every need. “We have an additive expert … and I joke that about half of his job is saying no to additive parts,” Taylor said. “Sometimes it’s going to take you longer, it’s going to be more expensive. Additive is just another tool in your toolbox,” not the answer for every problem. 

Bureaucratic hurdles are another issue. Approval processes and procedures haven’t all caught up to new manufacturing methods. “Airworthiness certification right now is definitely a challenge the whole Air Force is seeing,” said Taylor. “Leadership knows that’s a barrier we have.” 

Standardizing new “inspection criteria on those metal parts, think about them in terms of risk and safety factors” is still a work in process. The Air Force, Moore said, needs “to be able to close that gap and bring the future faster.”  

In some cases, new repair technology not only meets an existing specification, Taylor said, but it can also be a better solution for the long-term integrity of the part. “For instance, if I could weld repair something in the past with the gold gas tungsten arc welding, I can also do the [directed energy deposition] repair, but now I’m putting less heat, I’m not warping parts.” 

Each new advance opens up new possibilities, experts say. Just having the tools in place opens the aperture on future applications.

“We’ve got the stuff,” Barlow said. “More importantly, we’ve got the people. We have the intellectual capability to do anything. If a human can think it through, we can do it.” 

New Boss Succeeds Van Ovost at TRANSCOM, Vowing ‘Nothing Will Distract Us’

New Boss Succeeds Van Ovost at TRANSCOM, Vowing ‘Nothing Will Distract Us’

Oct. 4, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM. 

Speaking at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III noted that since Van Ovost took command in late 2021, TRANSCOM: 

  • Delivered more than $21 billion in military aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia 
  • Rushed military aid to Israel in the wake of Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attack 
  • Dropped thousands of pounds of aid into Gaza in one of the largest humanitarian airdrops since the Berlin Airlift 

“We’ve asked a lot of you over the past three and a half years, and you have delivered, and you’ve made history,” Austin said. 

That string of heightened operations came just months after Operation Allies Refuge, the largest non-combatant evacuation operation airlift in U.S. history, which rescued more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan as the U.S. military withdrew in 2021. Van Ovost helped oversee that operation in her previous job as head of Air Mobility Command before taking the TRANSCOM post that October.

Beyond combat operations, TRANSCOM under Van Ovost started to implement a new global household goods contract for managing the thousands of moves service members make every year. 

All the while, the command worked to prepare for great power competition with the likes of China—Austin noted the importance of exercises such as last summer’s Mobility Guardian, which involved thousands of Airmen and dozens of aircraft surging into the Indo-Pacific. 

That balancing act between readiness today and future preparation was difficult, Van Ovost noted, but one her team took head on. 

“You delivered on readiness, buying down risk today while providing the trusted assessments necessary to advocate for accelerated recapitalization and modernization of critical fleets, addressing manpower shortages, and reorganizing teams to address the strategic environment,” she said. 

U.S. Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, outgoing commander, U.S. Transportation Command, delivers a speech during the USTRANSCOM change of command ceremony on Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Oct. 4, 2024. DoD photo by Iain Page

Indeed, the demands facing TRANSCOM are only growing and will make the command’s job all the more important in the years ahead, Van Ovost predicted. 

“Just a few days ago, we celebrated the 37th birthday of TRANSCOM, a command that was born out of necessity, that was built to deploy U.S. forces,” she said. “Over time, our mandate has expanded to project, maneuver, and sustain the joint force at a time and place of our nation’s choosing. If we were a necessity before, we are indispensable now.” 

Reed, who ascends to the job after a stint as deputy commander of Air Mobility Command, has experience flying most types in the mobility fleet—including time as a C-141 pilot like Van Ovost. And like Van Ovost, he emphasized to the service members of TRANSCOM that he aims to both modernize and stay ready for any contingency. 

“Nothing will distract us from delivering, be it humanitarian aid or combat power. Make no mistake, the work we must do now to deter growing threats is serious and demands a sense of urgency,” Reed said. “Nevertheless, we will never shy away from the contested environment in any domain. Instead, we will do our part to strengthen the joint force to fight and to get to the fight and remain in the fight, to carry the day.” 

Reed continues a long tradition of Air Force generals leading TRANSCOM—Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons, who led the command from 2018 to 2021, was the only non-Airman to take the helm so far. 

U.S. Air Force Gen. Randall Reed, commander, U.S. Transportation Command, delivers a speech during the USTRANSCOM change of command ceremony on Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Oct. 4, 2024. DoD photo by Iain Page
Two New Tactically Responsive Space Missions to Demo Maneuver in Orbit

Two New Tactically Responsive Space Missions to Demo Maneuver in Orbit

Oct. 4, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Space Force’s “Victus” series, aimed at showing the service can respond to new developments in orbit on tactically relevant timelines, gained steam Oct. 4 with the announcement of two new missions in 2026.

Victus Surgo and Victus Salo, as the new missions are called, will offer new wrinkles to the “Tactically Responsive Space” (TacRS) effort by testing a new system for maneuvering in orbit and aiming not just at low-Earth orbit but geosynchronous orbit as well.

Both missions will be focused on space domain awareness.

Space Systems Command announced it inked a $34.5 million contract with Impulse Space, a startup founded by one of the first employees of SpaceX, for the two missions.

Each mission will send a spacecraft using Impulse’s ‘Mira’ Orbital Maneuver Vehicle (OMV), a propulsion system that provides swift “last-mile delivery” to carry payloads into space. After being launched into space, the OMV helps adjust or reposition the payload. The vehicle is designed to carry the payload up through LEO, MEO, GEO, or even to cislunar space.

“We are continuing to push the boundary to prove out how to quickly deliver on the warfighters’ urgent needs,” Col. Bryon McClain, SSC’s program executive officer for Space Domain Awareness and Combat Power, said in a release.

Team Vandenberg successfully launched a space vehicle for the United States Space Force into low Earth orbit aboard Firefly’s Alpha vehicle from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-2, Sept. 14, 2023, at 7:28 p.m. PDT. U.S. Space Force photo by A1C Kadielle Shaw

Victus Surgo includes a commercial off-the-shelf optical payload—often referring to a type of imaging system—carried by the OMV. Additionally, the mission will see Impulse’s first use of its ‘Helios’ technology.

The imaging system will initially be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO)—a pathway to reach GEO. Once in GTO, the Helios will separate from the rocket and provide additional propulsion to help maneuver the spacecraft all the way up to GEO. The Helios vehicle can lift more than 5 tons of payload from LEO to GEO in less than a day, according to the company’s description.

Once in GEO, the OMV will help the optical payload readjust to its final position. The Defense Innovation Unit is co-sponsoring this mission and will add its own payload or equipment to the Helios system.

Victus Salo, on the other hand, will be launched into LEO on one of SpaceX’s rideshare rockets. It will carry a government-provided payload developed by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. SSC did not immediately provide any further information on the payload’s type or capabilities.

“Victus Surgo and Victus Salo will offer more responsive solutions to address urgent on-orbit needs,” said Lt. Col. Kahoa Miller, SSC’s materiel leader for Space Safari.

The projected launch timeframe for Surgo is “late summer/early fall of 2026,” while Salo is scheduled tentatively for the fall timeframe of 2026, an SSC spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The spokesperson added that the exact launch dates are “still being coordinated and finalized.” The project is set to be completed by no later than December 2026.

The Victus series is part of the service’s broader “Tactically Responsive Space” (TacRS) initiative, aimed at drastically reducing the time it takes to launch payloads and improve readiness in response to potential threats.

“The commercial space industry is delivering products we need to provide highly capable options for future TacRS operations,” added Miller.

Last September, the Space Force set records with Victus Nox, deploying a satellite in LEO just 27 hours after receiving launch orders. Next up is an effort Victus Haze, a dual effort that Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman wants to go even faster than Victus Nox. Budget documents have also suggested another mission, Victus Sol, after that.

Victus Surgo marks the first TacRS mission deployed into GTO, with the final destination intended for GEO, the spokesperson added.

“The collaboration with Impulse, MIT LL, and many others further enables our ability to rapidly integrate, deploy, and operate on tactically relevant timelines,” added McClain about the two newly announced Victus missions.

Impulse Space was founded in 2021 by Tom Mueller, a former SpaceX engineer known for his work on propulsion systems. Early this year, the company welcomed retired Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, former Chief of Space Operations to its board of directors.

Leidos Says New ‘Black Arrow’ Small Cruise Missile Is Ready for Flight Test

Leidos Says New ‘Black Arrow’ Small Cruise Missile Is Ready for Flight Test

Oct. 3, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Leidos is readying its Small Cruise Missile—nicknamed “Black Arrow”–for guided flight tests out the back of an Air Force Special Operations Command AC-130 this fall, the company announced. The missile is being developed for multi-service use.

The flight testing follows successful captive carry and separation tests which were accomplished in December, 2023, Leidos said. Those tests “confirmed digital twin predictions of safe separation, benign store dynamics, and trajectory characteristics,” a company spokesperson said. The system has been integrated with the Naval Surface Weapon Center Battle Management System. Flight testing has demonstrated its operational flight software, navigation and “flight safety functionality.”

Leidos initiated the Small Cruise Missile design in 2021, building off its experience with the GBU-69 Small Glide Munition—which equips the AC-130–and X-61 Gremlins program with the Defense Advanced Projects Agency. The Gremlins program launched an air vehicle from a C-130 and also recovered it in midair.

The company signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Special Operations Command and AFSOC in 2022 to develop the SCM, intended as a “low-cost, service-common, mission-adaptable ‘delivery platform,’ designed to facilitate future spiral upgrades for both kinetic and non-kinetic missions,” the company said.

“The SCM is envisioned as service-common ‘bus’ capable of being launched from a ramp, via a pallet or conventional means,” a Leidos spokesperson said. Its modular architecture allows the adaptability to kinetic and non-kinetic applications.

The Defense Innovation Unit published a request for one-way uninhabited aerial systems earlier this week; a program seemingly targeted at vehicles that will be capable of multiple missions with different payloads. The Leidos spokesperson said “low cost” will be defined by “the quantities and subsystems” of the final product.

The experience with “rapidly fielding” the GBU-69 and demonstrating Gremlins, “as well as our focus on agility and innovation, have led to achieving important milestones with our Small Cruise Missile offering,” according to Mark Miller, Leidos senior vice president for missile and aviation solutions.

“We have…made significant investments to integrate on, and test off, the AC-130J, preparing us to proceed with further activities once the CRADA is complete.”

The company said it’s using model-based systems engineering, additive manufacturing techniques and artificial intelligence “to support the timely and cost-effective development of the SCM, which aims to provide adaptability and utility for the warfighter.

The weapon’s “modular airframe and open system architecture…accommodates distributed manufacturing for individual subsystems, which can then be rapidly assembled and tested separately before final assembly,” the company said in a press release. The approach was used on the SGM, “which has delivered over 4,000 units to date.”

Leidos’ “open architecture SCM solution is intended to integrate the best subsystem solutions, regardless of the source,” Miller said. “We believe that recognizing that subsystems and payloads will evolve with different use cases is critical, and that innovation will come from outside typical prime contractors and venture capital companies entering the market with vertically integrated solutions,” he said. This was likely a reference to Anduril Industries, which recently announced an initiative to build low-cost cruise missiles for the armed forces that can be produced “at scale” and with few tools and requiring only brief training of workers.

The Air Force has been experimenting with a number of munitions for launch from cargo aircraft, notably the Rapid Dragon tests that dropped palletized AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Missiles from the ramp area of C-130s and C-17s.

AFSOC has also explored launching several kinds of missiles that from AC-130s, either from wing stations or the cargo bay, specifically for the Special Operations mission.

Air Mobility Command sponsored a number of these initiatives with the idea of complicating an adversary’s targeting problem, requiring an opponent to treat cargo aircraft as potential shooters. But critics have said the Air Force would need all its airlift aircraft for transport in the event of a major conflict.   

Herk For Life: Test Pilot Hits 10,000 Flight Hours in the C-130

Herk For Life: Test Pilot Hits 10,000 Flight Hours in the C-130

Oct. 3, 2024 | By David Roza

If there were a permanent residency requirement for the C-130, Gary Hogg has hit it multiple times over. The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and current test pilot at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. recently eclipsed 10,000 flight hours flying the transport plane, equivalent to about 416 days spread across a 41-year career.

“It’s a milestone in a career I never knew was possible, but I am so thankful I had the chance to live it,” the 65-year-old said in a recent press release from Eglin’s 96th Test Wing. “When I stop to think about the last 40-plus years, I know I have truly been blessed.”

It all started on Nov. 23, 1983, when the Air Force Academy graduate and Kentucky native first took off from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., during qualification training on the C-130 Hercules, affectionately known as the “Herk.” Hogg originally wanted to fly the RF-4 reconnaissance fighter or the A-10 attack jet, but working with a crew on the C-130 won him over.

“It was more than adventure,” he said in the release. “I knew the C-130 was the right decision for me. I loved the concept of flying with a crew and the way everyone worked together to get the mission done.”

c-130 pilot
Gary Hogg, Air Force Materiel Command, inspects his C-130H prior to a historic flight Sept. 24, 2024 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. (U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Jr.)

After training, it was on to a tour in Europe. Then, starting in 1988, he flew special operations missions aboard the C-130E and MC-130E Combat Talon variants. Like its newer MC-130J cousins today, the MC-130E was equipped with aerial refueling pods to fill up special operations and search and rescue helicopters. 

Those pods came in handy during a particularly difficult mission in 1993, where Hogg flew an MC-130E supporting 14 MH-53 Pave Low helicopters en route to Haiti. When heavy thunderstorms separated a helicopter from the formation, Hogg and his crew found it and gave the Pave Low enough fuel to make it to Haiti, but it left the MC-130E so low that they had to divert to Key West, Fla.

Nothing was easy that day; storms had taken out power across the island, making it difficult to land the $75 million aircraft. Well below emergency fuel levels, Hogg’s first two landing attempts were unsuccessful, but on the third he finally made it, which was fortunate since he did not have enough gas for a fourth.

Hogg went on to fly in Air Force Special Operations Command’s standards and evaluation division, then do flight testing at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. He flew most of the military’s C-130 variants before arriving at Eglin as a lieutenant colonel in 2004, where he retired but kept working the same job as a civilian test pilot.

In the 20 years since then, flying the C-130 is still a treat for Hogg, who is now the standardization and evaluation command chief pilot at Air Force Materiel Command’s Detachment 1.

“Each model and variant can execute so many different missions, it is impossible to get bored with doing the same thing all the time,” he said.

That’s good for Hogg’s younger colleagues at Det. 1 and the 417th Flight Test Squadron who get to learn from his four decades behind the yoke.

“He’s absolutely a source of continuity here,” said Det. 1 commander Col. Brian Taylor. “He has experience flying every Air Force C-130 variant, and our unit leverages that experience and his relationships with the operational units, to oversee the diverse mission sets of the C-130 operations.”

Hogg crossed the 10,000 hour mark on Sept 24 in an MC-130H during a routine avionics modernization test mission. After landing, his 11-year-old grandson, Anthony Lindstrom, helped marshal him to a parking spot where Hogg’s friends and family congratulated him.

“The thought that keeps coming to me is how much I enjoy the team that it takes to fly a C-130,” he said. “A smooth-running team is just pure joy in the air.”

A 96th Test Wing maintainer helps 11-year-old Anthony Lindstrom marshal in his grandfather and pilot, Gary Hogg, after a successful flight Sept. 24, 2024 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. (U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Jr.)

The Focus Is Fighting Tonight For New Air Mobility Boss

The Focus Is Fighting Tonight For New Air Mobility Boss

Oct. 3, 2024 | By David Roza

A few months after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Capt. John D. Lamontagne was a C-17 pilot at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., where he and his fellow Moose drivers started flying with night vision goggles to prepare for blacked-out landings in the Middle East in the new Global War on Terror.

“At the time, night vision goggles were a mission set for our most experienced crew members,” Lamontagne, now a four-star general and the new head of Air Mobility Command told Air & Space Forces Magazine 23 years later. “9/11 basically drove the whole team at Charleston, and then I’d say probably across Air Mobility Command, to be qualified on NVGs … it didn’t turn night into day, but it was very much a key enabler to do what we needed to do at a lower level of risk.”

So when Lamontagne’s squadron commander asked if he’d be interested in flying a special operations team to Kandahar in the early months of the war, Lamontagne said he was ready to go. But since he was working directly for the wing commander at the time, he had to get the colonel’s permission first.

“The wing commander did not let me get out from behind that desk,” he said. It was a letdown, but the point remains: the young pilot was ready to fly a new mission for a new war the nation was fighting. Likewise, Lamontagne wants the 107,000 Airmen and 1,100 aircraft now under his command at AMC to be ready for the next conflict, even if it breaks out today.

“The crews can only operate with what they have, the forces can only operate with what they have,” he said. “As far as flying, fighting, winning tonight, we can only do it with what we have tonight.”

lamontagne
Gen. John D. Lamontagne accepts the Air Mobility Command guidon from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin during the AMC Change of Command ceremony on Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, Sept. 9, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Shelby Rapert)

The fight in question is a potential conflict against near-peer rivals such as China and Russia. Officials say it will require new technology, new tactics, and a new mindset about what it means to deploy. On top of that, AMC must also meet an insatiable demand for airlift and aerial refueling as the U.S. military responds to conflict and natural disasters around the world. 

To make things even more complicated, Lamontagne will also have to navigate a new place for AMC as the Air Force pursues a sweeping reorganization to prepare for near-peer conflict. In the reorg, some major commands will become institutional commands, responsible for organizing, training, and equipping forces, while others will be service component commands, responsible for presenting forces to joint combatant commands. 

AMC is one of those service component commands, charged with presenting forces to U.S. Transportation Command, while the new Integrated Capabilities Command will oversee force modernization efforts for the entire service, including AMC.

It’s a lot of change, but the months after 9/11 saw a lot of change, too.

“The commanders laid out the vision for what we needed to be able to do, identified the risk they were willing to accept, gave the team some pretty wide swim lanes to go do it, and we went and did it,” he recalled. “It was a very empowering atmosphere which allowed the good ideas to bubble up from the bottom up, in accordance with their vision.”

Lessons Learned

Before moving back to Scott Air Force Base, Ill., for the AMC job, Lamontagne’s old post was in Germany, where he spent the past three years as chief of staff for U.S. European Command and then as deputy commander for U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa. 

It was a busy time to be in Europe; about eight months after Lamontagne became chief of staff, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, raising tensions across the continent and prompting a wave of Air Force-borne supplies and equipment for Ukrainian troops that continues to this day. 

One of the lessons the general has taken away from the war is the importance of air refueling tankers, which keep the fighters flying so they can achieve air superiority. Neither side in Ukraine controls the skies, which officials say has contributed to its yearslong grind.

“There are some strong threats in both Europe and the Pacific that have been designed to take away that very asymmetric advantage that we have with rapid global mobility,” said Lamontagne, who started his career as a KC-135 tanker pilot. “It is really central for us to work air refueling … so that we can negate those defenses and continue to provide air superiority so that our forces can win.”

The other lesson he took away from Ukraine is the proliferation of small uncrewed aerial vehicles that can strike or spy on enemy targets. Airmen are not typically trained or equipped to sense and counter those threats, Lamontagne said, but they need to be going forward, both at home station and while deployed.

Beyond warfighting, Lamontagne wants to give mobility Airmen the opportunity for rewarding experiences in uniform. For his part, the general looks back fondly on his time as assistant operations officer, then operations officer, then commander of the 15th Airlift Squadron at Charleston both at home and on a combat deployment from 2007 to 2010.

“The absolute professional highlight of my career, probably until now,” he said. “Never in my wildest dreams would I think that I would be here, but I look forward to setting the conditions for others to have the same level of success or more that I was able to enjoy.

“The good old days are today, right?” he added. “Today is the good old days for the captains, the NCOs, the Airmen. So I want to set a culture that will let them thrive in their personal environment and thrive in their work environment. That is what we are aspiring to do.”

Gen. Johnny Lamontagne
Lt. Gen. John D. Lamontagne, U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa deputy commander, meets Brig. Gen. Otis C. Jones, 86th Airlift Wing commander, team at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, March 22, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Kaitlyn Oiler)

Fight Tonight

Lamontagne has two buckets for priorities: acquisitions and operational. Acquisition includes programs such as the Next Generation Aerial refueling System (NGAS) and “25 by 25,” an effort launched by his predecessor, Gen. Mike Minihan, to upgrade the fleet with secure, beyond-line-of-sight communications.

While it’s not clear when those capabilities will arrive, the general wants to take a more deliberate approach towards prioritizing which airframes get connectivity first and how Airmen employ, sustain, and train on them. He has already met with Maj. Gen. Mark Mitchum, the head of the newly-established Integrated Capabilities Command, which will coordinate the Air Force’s modernization efforts.

The conversation was “a great opportunity to say ‘hey, we’re going to send you our talent so that you can develop those interoperable systems, not just in one portfolio, but across, so that we can have one Air Force,’” Lamontagne said.

Meanwhile, the operational bucket includes the tactics and techniques that Airmen can work on today to be ready to “fight tonight,” he explained. For example, Minihan pushed AMC’s ability to “explode into theater,” meaning they can quickly get from home station in the continental United States out to the distant frontlines where they are needed most.

“There’s probably going to be a healthy amount of continuity with what Gen. Minihan had already put in place,” Lamontagne said.

The general also wants to better integrate AMC’s Illinois-based 618th Air Operations Center (AOC) with the Hawaii-based 613th AOC, which oversees Air Force operations in the Indo-Pacific, and the Germany-based 603rd AOC, which does the same for Europe and Africa.

Doing so will align AMC’s time and tempo with the commands where the next conflict may break out.

“We will certainly need to project forward, but we’re going to need to be able to sustain them on their timing and tempo, and I think there’s some work to do to strengthen that alignment and integration across our C2 formations,” he said.

At the same time, Airmen have to be ready to carry out their commander’s intent even when communications have been cut off by the enemy. It’s another skill that AMC can train on now, because conflict could break out any time, Lamontagne said.

“You can only train with what you have,” he explained. “We, the headquarters, are going to work those acquisition pieces and eventually provide that capability. But if it doesn’t deliver until tomorrow, figuratively, it doesn’t help those squadrons tonight. So we’re going to focus on tonight.”

Photos: Big, Ugly, and Orange B-52 Lands at Barksdale

Photos: Big, Ugly, and Orange B-52 Lands at Barksdale

Oct. 3, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

B-52s touch down frequently at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., but the one that landed Sept. 30 looked a little different. 

Sporting bright orange paint on the cockpit, wing tips, engine nacelles, and tail, the Stratofortress seemed dressed for an early start to hunting season in Louisiana; in fact, the special paint scheme was a nod to the B-52’s roots more than 60 years ago. 

“The orange color represents the test and evaluations conducted during the 1950s and 1960s, honoring the B-52’s history,” the 2nd Bomb Wing noted in a photo caption of the B-52 landing. 

Only three B-52A bombers were built, and two of them became test units for launching the X-15 rocket plane and other cutting-edge technologies: NB-52A 52-0003, nicknamed “The High and Mighty One,” and NB-52B 52-008, nicknamed “The Challenger.” 

Collectively dubbed “motherships,” the two sported orange markings at times to better identify them as test vehicles. The Buff landing at Barksdale in September matched the pattern on “The High and Mighty One.” That airframe’s orange accents are still on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Arizona.

A B-52 mothership carries the X-15 aloft for a research flight in April 1960, leaving behind high-altitude, as Air Force Maj. Robert M. White readies for his first X-15 flight. Courtesy photo/NASA

Fittingly, the orange-accented B-52 that landed at Barksdale is assigned to the 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron, the bombers’ operational testing lead. 

A photographer identified as Redhome Aviation posted images to Facebook on Sept. 30, showing the bomber taking off from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., where B-52s get depot-level maintenance.

The Air Force is upgrading its B-52Hs with new engines, radars, and cockpit equipment over the coming years. The changes will carry a new designator, B-52J, and keep the bombers in service into the 2050s, when the airframes will approach 100 years old.  

How to Get a Continuous ATO: The Secret to Success

How to Get a Continuous ATO: The Secret to Success

Oct. 3, 2024 | By Adam Stone

Every time a government agency deploys a new piece of software, someone has to issue an Authority To Operate. It’s a sort of Good Housekeeping seal of approval for secure, reliable software. It can also be a hurdle too high to enable frequent software updates. 

It doesn’t have to be. 

In May, the Pentagon blessed a new methodology for supporting rapid software updates: The continuous ATO (cATO) requires a cultural and process change, but is ultimately a more secure and reliable alternative, according to the Continuous Authorization to Operate (cATO) Evaluation Criteria. 

Bryon Kroger, Founder and CEO of Rise8 who coined the term and pioneered the first cATO at the Air Force software factory Kessel Run, said the concept is built on the Risk Management Framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and embodied in NIST 800-53.  

A cATO ensures that “when we’re ready to release software, it’s already authorized,” Kroger said.

As Chief Operating Officer at Kessel Run, Kroger led acquisitions, development, and operations for the enterprise-scale software factory. His team proved that cATO speeds software deployments and enhances security. But translating that pioneering success more broadly is anything but instant. 

Obstacles to cATO Success

Adopting the agile processes and cultural mentality of DevSecOps, the software processes that combine development, operations, and security, are a tall order for any organization. 

cATO “involves a lot of continuous monitoring,” Kroger said, and that scares people off. Automation can ease that burden, with machines tackling much of the routine compliance work, but that too can be scary—requiring a level of trust, confidence, and commitment from all parties. 

“People hem and haw about how bad RMF is,” Kroger said. But having a framework is the first step to developing better processes. Rather than wringing one’s hands over one more set of requirements, he said, project managers should just “Go understand the system, go read the RMF—it’s a surprisingly good set of documentation.”

Once a development team fully understands the Risk Management Framework, the door is opened to a more collaborative relationship with authorizing officials because now everyone is speaking the same language. That, in turn, can fuel the shift to cATO.

Secrets to Success

All of Rise8’s processes are geared to the cATO model. After years of work there and at Kessel Run, Bryon lays out the key factors to adopting a cATO culture.

Topping the list is “controls inheritance.” With potentially hundreds of different controls at play within the development pipelines, app builders need a way to move forward consistently and efficiently as they strive for continuous authorization.

By inheriting the underlying controls, developers can streamline their processes, freeing them to focus on development and on their specific areas of concern. By adopting controls inheritance, “they’re only truly responsible for their portion” of a program, reducing the number of controls they have to worry about from as many as 400 or 500 to a fraction, Kroger said.

Next comes the assessors’ experience. Across the DoD, “we practice user-centered design with warfighters,” Kroger said. That means building products and processes that meet a specific user’s needs. If the user is pleased, the project is successful. 

Likewise, the continuous assessment and monitoring process should take the assessors into account, since “they’re the ones using [and reviewing] this process.”

The assessors “are doing one of the most important jobs in the military, which is making sure our software is secure,” he said. So the processes that define a cATO ought to be built to meet their needs.

Ultimately, the Defense Department must change the conversation around authorizations. Rather than making exceptions for cATOs, the default option should be cATO and the conventional processes should become the exception. 

In consideration of early presumptions that speedier software development would mean a higher-risk software, the truth is that when implemented with the RMF in mind, cATOs reduce risk by more rapidly fixing known problems. A vulnerability can be identified and mitigated in hours, rather than months or years, reducing risk. 

“We need to do a better job of showing how what we’re doing today is very risky,” he said of conventional updating and ATO processes. “Going slow is a risk in and of itself.”

Speed should be seen for what it is—a benefit rather than a liability. 

“When we go fast, we actually are able to reduce some risks,” he said. Security flaws get fixed faster, and the risk of under-provisioning warfighters is mitigated by more rapid software delivery. 

Highlighting those benefits and the risks of sticking with a conventional go-slow approach can change the nature of the conversation. Agile software, delivered and improved incrementally, and authorized continuously, is better for everyone.