Watch, Read: Secretary Kendall on ‘One Team, One Fight’

March 14, 2023

Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall delivered a keynote address titled “One Team, One Fight” covering progress on his Operational Imperatives at the AFA Warfare Symposium, March 7, 2023. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall:

Good morning. I don’t think I’m ever going to overcome that West Point thing, am I?

Now it’s a pleasure to be with you. This is my fourth AFA conference. Fourth as your Secretary of the Air Force. I want to thank Orville Wright, Bernie and the AFA team for giving us this opportunity to meet here in Colorado. I was just here skiing, so it’s good to be back, even though I’m not skiing. It looks like we have a great program planned. Before I begin my remarks, I want to extend condolences to our Italian colleagues. They lost two pilots in a collision near Rome over the night sometime, and I want to extend our condolences on behalf of the Secretary of Defense and on behalf of the entire department of the Air Force. This is a reminder of the risks that we all take in the profession of being Airmen. So please extend your condolences if you have the opportunity and reach out to our partners as they seek peace and healing.

I also want to mention, before I start the presentation that was given yesterday afternoon, I’m old enough to remember very well the Vietnam War. Yesterday we heard from three American heroes, Colonel Charles de Bellevue, Colonel Lee Willis and Colonel Jean Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Jean Smith. If you missed their stories yesterday and you missed their messages, I’m sure AFA is going to put this up online. Give you a chance to look at it. Please see it. These are tremendous stories about people who epitomize what it means to be an American Airman and what you need to have to be successful in a fight with a serious competitor. They’re amazing stories. This is considered a war fighter’s symposium, so I’m going to be talking about our war fighting capability and capacity and how I see it changing over the next several years. You’re also going to hear from General Brown and General Saltzman who will also address the need for change in their presentations.

Salty will speak about a theory of success for the Space Force, particularly the need for competitive endurance. CQ has been emphasizing the need for accelerating change and being integrated with our allies by design. We are united in our commitment to modernizing the Air and Space Forces and achieving the transformation we must have to be competitive with our pacing challenge. China, China, China. First, I want to compliment my partners on the department of the Air Force Senior Leadership team and thank them for their parts and all that we have accomplished together to date. First General Raymond and now General Saltzman continue to provide the Space Force with visionary leadership as we were to create the entirely new set of space and counter space systems we need to be successful. General Brown is an exceptional leader with broad strategic perspectives and a thoughtful measured approach to any problem set. I would hate to lose such a great partner, but there is a chance someone who out ranks me considerably might see those same attributes in CQ.

At any event, Salty, CQ and I will soon begin our round of posture hearings to explain and defend the FY24 budget submission. I hope I’m not jinxing anything when I say that I’m looking forward to the opportunity. We have a good story to tell, and today I’ll give you a little preview of that story. The fourth member of the DAF Senior Leadership Team, Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones, has stepped down from her duties as undersecretary and will be moving on to new challenges, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Financial Management, Kristin Jones, will perform the duties of the undersecretary, pending the nomination and confirmation of Gina’s successor. Kristin would be with us, but she’s busy preparing to roll out our ’24 budget. Gina has been a fantastic advocate for the DAF as we have worked to secure the resources we need to be successful in our missions.

Salty, CQ and I will have a much easier time in our posture hearings and the Department of the Air Force has a much better resource path to the future in large part due to Gina’s advocacy, both inside and outside the Pentagon. Gina’s been the Department of the Air Force representative with the two service chiefs, vice chiefs, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense’s Management Action group where all major program and budget issues are debated. Gina’s also been a strong and effective advocate for fostering greater diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Air and Space Forces. A recent People Magazine article highlighted two B-1 pilots, both majors, both weapon school graduates, both married, in this case to each other, but only one of whom is pregnant. Now do, in large part to policies that Gina championed, both can now maintain their career momentum. Please join me in a round of applause for Gina and for this fantastic team.

My priority as a secretary remain those of Secretary Austin, mission, people and teams. The guidance we have on the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy are the basis for everything we do. My particular focus, as you all know well by now, is responding to the People’s Liberation Army’s Military Modernization program, a program aimed directly at acquiring the ability to defeat power projection by the United States and its allies. The PLA has been working for decades to acquire the ability to prevent and, if needed, to defeat U.S. intervention in the region. The ruling CCP has regional and global ambitions, and the possibility of aggression in the Western Pacific is real, particularly against Taiwan. But war is not inevitable and there is no reason to believe it is imminent. In fact, there is no specific timeframe in which conflict can be predicted to occur. The Department of the Air Force’s mission is to help prevent a conflict with China, or any potential adversary from occurring at any time, but if deterrence fails and war does occur, we must be ready at all times.

Semper supra, always above, and airpower anytime, anywhere. Our service mottoes and mission statements say it all. Today I’ll be talking about three relevant timeframes. It’s called the first, the current timeframe, where we have comparatively little and ability to affect change in the composition of the department, but in which we must keep our existing forces ready and able to deter or meet any threat. The second is the midterm timeframe, in which we can feel greater quantities of systems and capabilities already well into development or in production. Finally, there is a longer term timeframe beyond the current five-year program in which we can feel totally new transformational capabilities, but only if we start down the road to those capabilities now. In our posture statement and hearings last year, we told the Congress that hard choices lay ahead. We were right. We also told the Congress that the Department of the Air Force was using a list of seven operational imperatives to focus our work on defining and acquiring the Air Force and Space Force we need to meet our pacing challenge.

The operational imperative work has had a major impact on our FY24 budget. We’re still a few days away from submitting the budget, so I can’t be very specific, but I can give you a general sense of what we’ve been able to include. The hard choices have come as we balance funding the current force and our investments in the war fighting capabilities of the mid and longer terms. We are maintaining our current force at adequate levels to meet the threats that they face. Importantly, we are taking steps to support and improve the quality of life for our most important resource, our people. Still, we have no choice but to prioritize the Air and Space Forces we must have to remain dominant in the future. The operational risk posed by our facing challenge are increasing over time. Emphasizing the current force at the expense of the force of the future is a road to operational failure.

We are continuing to divest older and less capable or relevant platforms as we increase midterm capability and capacity. Requiring aircraft in production, we will be acquiring aircraft in production at higher rates than previously planned. In general, our previously… Let me say that again. We will be acquiring aircraft currently in production at higher rates than previously planned. In general, our previously initiated programs are continuing as intended. For the longer term, and as a result of our work on the DAF operational imperatives, we will be requesting close to 20 new or significantly enhanced efforts. I’ll try to give you a sense of what that entails without providing any budgetary specifics. In his remarks, General Brown will cover the status of each of the Air Force’s five core functions and talk about the six fights the Air Force must win. As he will discuss, the six fights are typically coupled to the modernization program defined by the operational imperatives are tightly coupled.

General Saltzman will discuss the needs for Space Force and the requirement to deliver that ready total force. He’ll focus on the concept of competitive endurance, also directly supported by the operational imperatives. I’ll focus on our integrated modernization program to address the pacing challenge in our areas of highest risk. Since last year’s budget submission, we’ve come a long way in defining the needed space order of battle. As Salty will discuss, the still very young Space Force must undergo a transformation unparalleled by any other military service at any time in history. We have to acquire the resilient systems needed to support the joint force during a conflict. We have to create the operational capacity to deny adversary support they increasingly obtained from space. Critically, we have to protect the joint force from targeting by our potential adversaries. The President’s FY24 budget will address all of these goals.

The program we initiated to create a new missile warning and tracking architecture that addresses the full spectrum of missile threats, including hypersonics, will continue and accelerate, while we concurrently provide risk mitigation with current technology in the near term and the midterm. The Space Development Agency is now fully integrated into the Space Force and moving forward with the fielding of early versions of the space transport layer and Space Development Agency’s contribution to the missile warning architecture. While some programs are classified, I can assure you that the FY24 budget includes funding that addresses each of the Space Force’s requirements. Since the last major AFA Symposium, we have moved forward with our efforts to define and fund the next generation of integrated command control and battle management. I’ve been using a metaphor to help people understand the evolution of this effort. A few years ago, we envisioned a beautiful C3 battle management palace called JADC squared. In this beautiful palace, information could move effortlessly from any room to any other room, and perfect operational decisions would result.

That was an attractive, even compelling, vision, but the hard work of designing or costing the palace had not been accomplished. Pretty soon, there were a lot of people in our community talking about how they were building bricks that would fit perfectly into this beautiful palace. Still, we lacked a sense of what bricks we actually needed, or how they would come together to create the palace. And finally, we needed a more precise and realistic definition of what we were going to build. We needed a single technical leader working closely with the air and space operational communities to define that goal technically and ensure our acquisition efforts were aligned in progressing in concert with operational concepts for C3 battle management. Hence, the creation of the new department of the Air Force, PEO for integrated C3 battle management.

Our new PEO for integrated C3 battle management has organized this team and is moving forward, but to make progress, they’ll need the resources we will be requesting in FY24. The DAF senior leadership team recently conducted its first quarterly review of this effort. It’s off to a good start. We envision major efforts to develop the next generation of air operations planning and management, and we also envision a parallel program to create the first generation of space battle management for a possible conflict with a peer competitor who has fueled a full suite of counterspace capabilities. General Brown will talk about how our next generation of air battle management capabilities will have to plan and control the six fights. General Saltzman will talk about the operational concepts, training and equipment needed for effective space battle management in pursuit of space superiority. The DAF PEO for integrated C3 battle management is ruthlessly focused on solving these operational challenges in partnership with the advanced battle management system cross-functional team, a combined team of Air and Space Force operational experts.

Critically, we are working closely with joint and OSD stakeholders, and the intelligence community, integrating all these capabilities into a single effective and resilient kill web that also supports joint and international partners, and this is a major undertaking, but we must succeed. There is no choice. Timely targeting of moving assets, maritime, air and ground, is a prerequisite for the employment of the weapons that can defeat acts of aggression. Over the past year, we have worked closely with the intelligence community to define and budget for a moving target center system designed, built for the real-time dynamic war fighting mission, while still providing seamless support to intelligent functions.

The Space Force continues to develop additional tactical space-based sensing systems to enable expansion to additional classes of targets. We have designs and plans for the software and communications that will be needed to connect all of these centers together with additional Air Force and joint weapons delivery platforms. Details are classified, but with support from Congress, we should be able to move forward with the resilient suite of airborne and space-based centers and the associated processing and data distribution needed to perform these functions. We’re deeply appreciative of the cooperation we’ve had for the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial and Intelligence Agency as we work to define the needed integrated multi-roll systems.

The DAF is moving forward with a family of systems for the next generation of air dominance, that will include both the NGAD platform and the introduction of uncured collaborative aircraft to provide affordable mass and dramatically increased cost-effectiveness. We will be requesting the resources needed to move these programs forward, along with associated risk reduction activities that will allow us to explore operational, organizational and support concepts, as well as reduced technical risk. General Brown and I have recently given our planners a nominal quantity of collaborative combat aircraft to assume for planning purposes. That planning assumption is 1000 CCAs. This figure was derived from an assumed two CCAs per 200 NGAD platforms, an additional two for each of 300 F 35s, for a total of a thousand. This isn’t an inventory objective, but a planning assumption to use for analysis of things such as basing, organizational structures, training and range requirements, and sustainment concepts.

The CCAs will complement and enhance the performance of our crude fighter force structure. They will not impact planned crude fighter inventory. One way to think of CCAs is as remotely controlled versions of the charting pods, electronic warfare pods, or weapons now carried under the wings of our crude aircraft. CCAs will dramatically improve the performance of our crude aircraft and significantly reduce the risk to our pilots. As we considered current midterm and longer term investment options, one operational area that we realized could be improved relatively quickly was the resilience of our forward deployed air assets. We can move forward with hardening our forward bases and with a support structure needed for agile combat employment, without having to wait for development program. With timely investments, we could substantially improve our forward tactical air resiliency. This effort has strong synergy with our integrated deterrent strategy in both the Western Pacific and in Europe.

We are hopeful that with the Congress’s support, we can make meaningful current and midterm improvements in this area. The B-21, which we rolled out just a few months ago, will be the centerpiece of our global strike family of systems. The B-21 is projected to begin flight tests later this calendar year. Our goal is to get into production as quickly as possible with acceptable concurrency risk associated with overlapping some testing with production. With the Congress support, we intend to pursue other capabilities, some defined as a result of the operational imperative work, that will enhance both the survivability and effectiveness of the B-21. We’ve also made good progress at defining and addressing the need to ensure that all the systems and facilities we depend upon to go to war will function as desired under duress. Under the seventh operational imperative, and through concurrent management initiative efforts, we define the resources needed to buy down information technology, technical debt, that have been accumulating for years.

Addressing this need will take some time, but we can’t make progress without the additional resources we will request in the budget submission. While the work on the seven operational imperatives has identified a number of solutions to our operational problems, it has also exposed additional needs. In some cases, this has led to continuing work on the original seven imperatives, but it has also spurred the creation of efforts to address three cross-cutting operational enablers, mobility, electronic warfare and munitions. Work in these areas is relatively recent and is generally focused on the FY25 budget. I would like to mention one situation in which this work has already led to a significant change in our plans, and that is mobility. One characteristic of the dynamic pacing challenge we face is the continuous increase in engagement ranges against our assets. In particular, our mobility fleet can no longer operate forward with relative impunity.

The air threat is becoming much more severe with increasing range. Our particular concern is the survivability of our tankers, which will have to be far enough forward to refuel fighters that operate within a few hundred miles of the threat. Our preliminary assessment is that this will mandate a more survivable tanker, one that is not a derivative of a commercial aircraft. As a result, we have begun the effort to define the concept for this new capability which will be competitively procured. One possibility is a blended wing body design. There are many others. We intend to conduct an analysis of alternatives for this new capability, which may be a single platform or a family of systems. We have named this effort the Next Generation Aerial Refueling System, or NGAS. Catchy acronym there. We intend to move quickly, while continuing the current KC-135 recapitalization program, potentially with additional upgraded KC-46 aircraft until NGAS enters production. The business case supporting KC-135 recapitalization will complete in the first half of this year, supported by our final market research.

CQ and Salty and other speakers here will have much more to say about some of these topics and about other aspects of the Department of the Air Force Enterprise. Before I close, I do want to touch on one subject that is absorbing a lot of our attention and that is recruiting. Recruiting is a direct contributor to taking care of people and building strong teams, both key elements of course, of Secretary Austin’s and my priorities. We are currently projecting about a 10 percent shortfall this year in the Active Air Force and more in the Guard and Reserve. We are swimming upstream against a reduced propensity to serve nationally across the board and a limited percentage of qualified candidates. We need this community to help spread the word to America’s youth. They are great opportunities in the U.S. military, especially in the Air Force and Space Force. In all components, Active, Guard, and Reserve.

As evidence of that fact, retention numbers look very good. We’re keeping the people that we get, but we need to get more people. People coming into the Air Force are staying with us, so please reach out to your communities and help us counter negative perceptions of our military service and share our positive and accurate messages. This year we celebrate three important anniversaries, the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the military, the 75th anniversary of the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, and the 50th anniversary of the All Volunteer Force. Today and always, I’m deeply proud to be a part of a team that empowers and supports all of its people, embraces cutting edge technology, and performs missions that will determine whether our future is bright and free or not. All the technology and money in the world cannot replace the dedicated professionals that make up our total force. Our people will remain our greatest advantage.

My remarks today have been largely about time. I started each posture hearing last year with a quote from General MacArthur to the effect that military failure could almost always be summarized in just two words. Too late. Time is an asset, this was mentioned yesterday, that can never be recovered or replaced. As our pacing challenge continues to modernize creatively and aggressively, we can’t afford to seed the advantage of time. We have done a great deal of work over the past year to analyze and solve our operational problems and to define the programs needed to address them. As we submit our FY24 budget in the next few days, we are grateful for the support of the Secretary of Defense and the President. We are also grateful to the Congress for the support we received in FY23, especially in allowing nearly all requested divestitures of legacy systems and in completing authorizing and appropriations prior to the end of the calendar year.

It says something that getting it before by the end of the calendar year, vis a vis the end of the fiscal year, is regardless of success, but that’s the life. That’s the reality we live with. Our most sacred obligation is to provide our fighting men and women, in our case, Airmen and Guardians, with the tools they need to defend the nation. It will soon fall to the new Congress to enact both an authorization and appropriations bill on time. The DAF Senior Leadership team is ready and eager to work with the Congress. The many new efforts I have described, and that we have spent over a year analyzing and planning, cannot begin without congressional approval. My greatest fear today is a delay, or even worse, a failure, to provide the Department of the Air Force and Department of Defense with timely authorization and appropriations. That would be a gift to China. It is a gift that we cannot afford. One team, one fight. Thank you.

Bernie Skoch:

Mr. Secretary, I think the thousands of people you see here before you and thousands more who are viewing this event online can see that unquestionably we’re led by a brilliant visionary leader. We thank you for that and we thank you for your support of the year and Space Force Association. It’s my honor to present to you our new coin, which reflects our commitment not only to supporting and advocating on behalf of the Air Force, but every bit is committed to the Space Force. Thank you, sir.

Russian Fighter Collides with American MQ-9 Over Black Sea; Drone Lost

March 14, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

A Russian fighter collided with an American drone over the Black Sea on March 14, damaging the drone and causing it to crash, according to U.S. European Command.

The U.S. military said the incident occurred in international airspace following “an unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper at 7:03 a.m. Central European Time. The U.S. routinely operates surveillance drones over the Black Sea including near Russian-occupied Crimea.

Two Russia Su-27s, NATO reporting name Flanker, dumped fuel on and flew in front of the drone “several times” before one of them eventually struck the MQ-9’s propeller, which is mounted at the rear, according to the U.S. military.

“Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,” U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, the commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe-Air Forces Africa, said in a statement. “In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”

Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said the Russian fighter “ran into” the MQ-9. The Russian aircraft was likely damaged but was able to land, Ryder said. The U.S. was forced to intentionally crash the drone. Ryder declined to provide details on the MQ-9’s payload, including whether or not it was armed.

“They collided with the aircraft, damaging the propeller, and essentially putting it in a situation where it was unflyable and uncontrollable, so we brought it down,” Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon.

EUCOM added in a statement that the collision “demonstrates a lack of competence” on behalf of the Russians.

National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby told reporters President Joe Biden had been briefed on the incident. Kirby said Russian intercepts of U.S. planes and drones are not uncommon, but it is “the first time that an intercept resulted in the splashing of one of our drones.”

“I want to stress that that this MQ-9 was operating in international airspace over international waters and posed a threat to nobody,” Kirby said. Ryder added the MQ-9 was “well clear of any territory in Ukraine.”

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. was summoning the Russian ambassador to the department “convey our strong objections.”

In February 2022, Russian Su-35 fighters got within five feet of a Navy P-8 surveillance plane over the Mediterranean Sea after crossing into its flight path.

“This incident follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with U.S. and Allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea,” EUCOM said.

The MQ-9 crash also follows increasingly aggressive behavior by Chinese fighters when intercepting American surveillance planes over the South China Sea. U.S. officials insist they will not be deterred by harassment of their aircraft.

“U.S. and allied aircraft will continue to operate in international airspace and we call on the Russians to conduct themselves professionally and safely,” Hecker said.

Air Force Skips AETP Engines for F-35, Presses on with NGAP

March 14, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

After a year’s deliberation, the Air Force has decided not to develop Adaptive Engine Technology Program (AETP) powerplants for its F-35s, deeming the cost too high in light of other demands.

Instead, the service will go with a suite of upgrades for the existing F135 engine and press ahead with the Next Generation Advanced Propulsion project meant to power its next fighter, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a March 10 budget briefing.

“We needed something that was affordable and that would support all variants” of the F-35, Kendall said.

The upgrades to the F135, deemed the “Engine Core Upgrade” by contractor Pratt & Whitney, will deliver improvements to the engine necessary to meet the demand for additional power and cooling on advanced Block 4 versions of the F-35. Those specific Block 4 requirements have not been made public.

GE Aerospace and Pratt both developed competing powerplants under the $4 billion-plus AETP program—GE the XA100 and Pratt the XA101. The two engines achieved improvements of 30 percent in fuel efficiency and at least 10 percent in thrust compared to the stock F135.

However, both powerplants used a bypass air system to achieve the gains, increasing their diameter. While the new engines would fit comfortably in the F-35A used by the Air Force, they would be more challenging to adapt to the Navy’s F-35C and very difficult to fit to the Marine Corps’ F-35Bs, which use a unique short takeoff/vertical landing system with swiveling exhaust nozzles and a shaft connected to a vertical lift fan behind the cockpit.

While GE insisted the AETP could be made to work with the F-35B, Pratt said it could not. And while GE claimed that the new engine would ultimately provide savings of up to $10 billion due to fuel savings and less maintenance, Pratt argued its analysis found the development and integration of the AETP engines with the F-35, along with changes to the worldwide F-35 engine sustainment system, would cost $40 billion over the life of the program.

“We’re pleased to see the President’s Budget includes funding for the Engine Core Upgrade,” a Pratt spokesperson said. “All F-35 variants need fully-enabled Block 4 capabilities as soon as possible, and with this funding, we can deliver upgraded engines starting in 2028.”

The ECU “saves billions, which ensures a record quantity of F-35s can be procured,” the spokesperson added. “It also ensures funding will be available to develop 6th generation propulsion for the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance Platform.”

GE Aerospace was—predictably—unhappy with the choice, saying through its spokesman that “this budget fails to consider rising geopolitical tensions and the need for revolutionary capabilities that only the XA100 engine can provide by 2028.”

“Nearly 50 bipartisan members of Congress wrote in support of advanced engine programs like ours because they recognize these needs, in addition to the role competition can play in reducing past cost overruns,” the spokesman added. “The XA100 engine is ready to power U.S. warfighters today and in the future.”

The company also claimed the $4 billion invested in AETP technology thus far “risks being wasted if the program is ended so close to completion.” Congress, the company said, will ultimately decide whether the AETP is funded or not—the legislature previously directed preliminary work to take place ensuring that F-35 engines could be upgraded with AETP technology by 2028.

GE also said it is continuing to test and develop the XA100 “while pursuing funding support for 2024.”

The engine maker derided the ECU as “an incremental upgrade to the current F135 engines” that would “still cost billions, without providing the same capability improvements as the XA100. Other so-called savings you might see are cost avoidance numbers disguising an increased baseline cost.”

However, given that within the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, partners have to “pay to be different,” the Air Force would likely have born the entire cost of a new engine—leading to the decision to not proceed with AETP.

“This was based on the fact that the requirements were … applicable only to the Air Force,” and not “spread across the entire fleet of joint F-35s,” said Kristyn E. Jones, assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management and acting service undersecretary.

“We’ve decided to move forward with the Engine Core Upgrade. We have $254 million in this year’s budget for that particular effort,” she added.

However, Jones said the money spent on AETP won’t go completely to waste.

“We do plan to leverage a lot of the capabilities that were part of the AETP prototype for efficiency, thrust … [and] thermal management, so it was not necessarily” a futile effort, she said.

“Those capabilities will be leveraged as we look at the next engines” under the NGAP program, which the Air Force seeks to fund at $595 million in fiscal 2024, up from $224 million enacted in the fiscal 2023 defense budget.

“We’ll be building on all the lessons learned” from AETP, Jones said, but she couldn’t offer a timeline of when test articles will be ready for that program.

The NGAP is intended to produce engines for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, the crewed centerpiece of a family of systems that is intended to provide air superiority in the 2030s. It isn’t clear how the NGAD development will proceed if its engines are being designed concurrently.

Deliveries of F-35s and F135 engines resumed recently after a two-month hiatus following an F-35B crash in December 2022. Pratt said it identified a “harmonic resonance” problem with the engine that only manifested after 600,000 hours of engine run time. The fleet has been directed to perform a retrofit in the field to correct the issue.

Air Force vs. Army vs. Navy: How the ’24 Budgets Stack Up

March 13, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The Biden administration is requesting $185.1 billion for the Air Force in 2024, slightly less than its $185.5 billion proposal for the Army, and well behind the $202.5 billion requested for the Navy.

But the Air Force, Space Force, and Navy are gaining investment while Army and Marine Corps spending would remain essentially flat—if the Pentagon gets its way.

The Space Force, the smallest service, would receive the smallest total at $30 billion, but the biggest increase at 15 percent. The Marine Corps would receive $53.2 billion.

After two decades of wars in the Middle East, the Department of Defense has shifted its focus largely toward the Pacific and China. And instead of large armor purchases, its growing investments are for long-range precision weapons.

“The focus here is making our military more capable, not making it larger,” DOD comptroller Michael J. McCord told reporters at the Pentagon.

2024 Budgets by Service

Service	Funding in Billions
Navy	$202.5
Army	$185.5
Air Force	$185.1
Marine Corps	$53.2
Space Force	$30.0

Source: Pentagon budget documents

Air Force leaders continue to press to retire old platforms now in order to buy new newer systems and weapons. Munitions make up a major portion of investment for all the services: The Pentagon’s planned budget for missiles and munitions is $30.6 billion, more than its ask for the entire Space Force budget.

The Defense Department’s shift to the Pacific is perhaps most evident in the Army’s budget. Two years ago, the Army budget stood at $180 billion, compared to the Department of the Air Force at $221.4 billion and the Department of the Navy at $221.2 billion. For 2024, the Army is requesting $185.3 billion while the Department of the Air Force and the Department of the Navy are seeking $259 billion and $256 billion respectively, or more than $30 billion in growth over two years for each.

The Department of the Air Force figure is inflated, however, by $44.2 billion in pass-through spending that is destined not for the Air Force or Space Force but for other agencies. In reality, the Air Force and Space Force share just $215.1 billion of the $259.3 billion DAF budget, and Air Force funds would actually be less than those invested in the Army.

The Air Force budget has lagged behind the Army and Navy for the last 31 years.

“Our greatest measure of success, and the one we use around here most often, is to make sure the [Chinese] leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of aggression and concludes that today is not the day,” deputy secretary of defense Kathleen Hicks told reporters.

Lessons from Vietnam: ‘It’s All of Us Together’

March 13, 2023 | By Patrick Reardon

The AFA Warfare Symposium kicked off March 6 with three storied heroes of the Vietnam War. This is the final in a three-part series on their talks. Read the first talk by Lt. Col. Gene Smith and the second talk by Col. Lee Ellis.

AURORA, Colo.—The 555th “Triple Nickel” Tactical Fighter Squadron out of Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base scored 39 MiG kills during the Vietnam War—and six of those kills were credited to one pilot.

Retired Col. Charles “Chuck” DeBellevue flew nearly 100 combat missions in 1972, becoming the war’s highest-scoring ACE. Today, more than 50 years later, he recalls the experience with equal precision.

“Hanoi was 285 miles from Udorn as the crow flies,” DeBellevue told a packed crowd of several thousand at the 2023 AFA Warfare Symposium. “Every time we went into Hanoi, you had to have enough gas left to fly almost 300 miles. That sets your thinking about how you’re gonna fight … you had to have the right mindset.”

To DeBellevue and his Triple Nickel squadron mates, “the right mindset” required discipline, integrity, and training, not just from yourself, but from everyone. The mission demanded teamwork.

“Your word is your bond. If you tell somebody you’re gonna do something, do it. If you can’t do it, tell them, because otherwise somebody may die,” DeBellevue said. “[Flying] is a team sport. It’s not just you. It’s all of us together that make the force what it is.”

DeBellevue (R) poses with Staff Sgt. Reggie Taylor (C) at Udorn Royal Thai AFB, Thailand in 1972. Courtesy photo.

The squadron worked together so efficiently, DeBellevue said, that communicating between the F-4 Phantoms felt telepathic. But the teamwork was just as close, and just as critical on the ground. DeBellevue reflected on the innovative contributions of enlisted men like Tech. Sgt. Dan Ames and the weapons load crew. who eliminated the need to fire two missiles to get one kill. And he praised his crew chief and friend Staff Sgt. Reggie Taylor who “could do amazing things” to maximize performance.

“On the D-model F-4, the engines were screwdriver controlled. He had the screwdriver,” DeBellevue said. “You could not catch that airplane.”

DeBellevue retired in 1998 after 30 years of service, the last American ACE on Active duty. Since then, he has remained a strong advocate for airpower as an active member of the Air & Space Forces Association’s Central Oklahoma Gerrity Chapter, and he regularly meets with ROTC cadets, pilot training classes, veteran groups, and professional military organizations to share stories, insights, and lessons on teamwork as a force multiplier.

“The next war we fight, it’ll be you people prosecuting the war,” he told the Airmen and Guardians in Aurora. “It’s attitude. It’s love of country. Love of family. Love of God. Knowing that you’re the very best at what you do, and freedom is in your hands. I appreciate everything you’re doing: You’re wearing the cloth of this country. That means an awful lot.”

Pentagon Leaders: 2024 Budget is ‘First and Foremost’ About Procurement

March 13, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

At $886 billion, the Pentagon’s 2024 budget request is “first and foremost … a procurement budget,” declared Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks March 13, as the budget was unveiled. The spending plan marks a shift from the Biden administration’s first two budget requests, which prioritized research and development over new weapons.

But investing in new weapons requires the cooperation of Congress, and administration officials argued strenuously for lawmakers to pass spending legislation before the next fiscal year starts Oct. 1. Extra money in the final spending plan is less valuable than on-time passage of the bill, they said.

The administration is seeking a record budget for procurement as well as research, development, testing, and evaluation, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement.

All told, DOD is seeking $170 billion for weapons acquisition in fiscal 2024, up about $24 billion—or 16.4 percent from its request a year ago. The requested RDT&E budget is also up substantially at $145 billion, a $15 billion increase, or 11.5 percent, over the 2023 request.

One major driver: munitions. The administration wants to add predictability and price stability for munitions by buying more munitions in multiyear blocks. Some $30 billion of the budget is tabbed for munitions, most for acquisition.

“The thing that is newest and biggest is probably munitions,” noted Pentagon comptroller Michael J. McCord. “This is new in the sense of the emphasis of this budget …. Ukraine has really informed and highlighted the need to up our game here.”

Billions more will pay for new F-35, F-15EX, and KC-46 aircraft, as well as funds for Navy aircraft carriers and submarines, and new vehicles for the Army and Marine Corps.

Weapons purchases make up a little over 19 percent of DOD’s 2024 budget request, the highest share so far since President Biden was elected.

“[The budget] puts its thumb on the scale in favor of game-changing capabilities that will deliver not just in the out-years, but in the near-term, too,” Hicks said.

The budget request begins a months-long process, during which lawmakers are likely to add funds for additional purchases. In the last budget cycle, for fiscal 2023, legislators increased procurement funding by $17.7 billion, to $163.7 billion.

That action took a while. Congress didn’t pass the defense spending measures until Dec. 24, after multiple continuing resolutions were needed to keep the government funded after the fiscal year ended nearly three months earlier. CRs have become routine measures to keep the government from shutting down while political leaders negotiate spending agreements—only once in the past 14 fiscal years did Congress pass a spending measure on time.

‘If you add up the months DOD has been under a CR since 2011, it totals four years’ worth of
delays—delayed new program starts, delayed training, delayed permanent change of station
moves,” Hicks said. “That’s four years lost over the last decade-plus. To out-compete the [People’s Republic of China], we cannot have one hand tied behind our back for three, four, five, six months out of each year. And let me assure you: more money cannot buy back lost time.“

Asked if he would rather have more money delivered later in the year or a smaller budget on time, McCord echoed Hicks.

“The thing Congress can do for us and does do for us is provide resources,” McCord said. “But writing a check doesn’t solve every problem. And so the time that you lose, you cannot make up with more money. It’s just a fact. There are things that you can address with more money, but there are also things that you can’t.”

Republican leaders in Congress have already attacked the Pentagon budget request as “insufficient,” and even Democratic lawmakers have left open the possibility for change. An increase would likely put the overall topline past $900 billion—and set the stage for the first $1 trillion defense budget in the coming years.

“Do the math: the budget will hit a trillion dollars,” McCord said. “Even if it only grew three percent a year, when the numbers are what they are, it’s inevitable. And I think maybe that’s going to be a psychological, big watershed moment for most of us or some of us. But it is inevitable. And it just reflects the growth of the economy.”

Defense spending was once at 9 percent of Gross National Product; during the Reagan administration, at near the end of the Cold War, it was considered high at 6 percent. Today, defense spending is around 3 percent. So as much as is being spent, it’s a smaller portion of the overall economy.

“It’s a big number,” McCord said. “But in other contexts, you could look at it another way.”

In 2024 Budget, USAF Pushes Major New Aircraft Starts

March 13, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Among the new aircraft programs the Air Force included in its fiscal 2024 budget request are uncrewed, autonomous wingmen for its fighters, a next-generation tanker program, a fast-as-possible replacement for its aged E-3 AWACS air battle management jets, and a new airborne command post.

The service is also continuing development of the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter and adding 72 new in-production F-35s and F-15EXs. To pay for it all, USAF is looking to divest some 310 airplanes.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program is a “major new start in this budget,” with $522 million in research, development, test and evaluation funding; a tenfold increase over the previous amount. At last week’s AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo., Kendall revealed that the service is notionally pursuing 1,000 CCAs, to augment some 200 NGADs and 300 F-35s.

In a March 10 budget brief, Kendall said manned/unmanned teaming demonstrations thus far “convince us that this makes sense and [is] something we could achieve.” The CCA is intended as an autonomous flying wingman to crewed fighters, providing extra sensors, weapons, and “affordable mass” without demanding more pilots.

Production of CCAs is planned before the end of the decade, Kendall said, with initial operational capability projected to be roughly comparable to the NGAD fighter despite entering development later. The $522 million in the budget is “a pretty significant investment in the first year,” he added. The Pentagon did not provide out-year funding profiles with its March 13 budget announcement.

Kendall said he’s encouraged by self-funded work done by industry on CCAs.

“There’s been a lot of IRAD (Independent Research and Development money) spent since we started talking about this much more seriously,” he said, and the planning figure of 1,000 CCAs “I think, reinforces that,” and will encourage more industry investment, he added.

The CCA program will begin with a competition, Kendall explained, but there is no set timeline for when a winner will be determined. The CCA will also be “nominally one, but it could be more” than one type of uncrewed aircraft , Kendall said—he previously has said each manned fighter could have up to five CCAs, but at AWS said initial planning would be for two per fighter. In a separate budget briefing, acting Department of the Air Force undersecretary Kristyn E. Jones said two CCAs would be “a floor,” with more expected.

“How long we will carry multiples” of contractor designs “will depend on the affordability of that as we go forward,” Kendall said.

“This is a serious program,” Kendall added. “If you look out over our five-year [plan], it’s a multi-billion dollar program. And this is headed towards production and fielding; it’s structured to do that.” He said the “intent” is that CCAs will cost “a fraction of the cost of an F-35,” which have a unit cost of about $80 million. “We’ve got enough work behind us that we think that’s a very reasonable goal,” he said.

Andrew Hunter, Air Force acquisition executive, announced at the AWS conference that the Air Force is pursuing a Next-Generation Air refueling System (NGAS), which will get underway this year with an analysis of alternatives, which the Air Force funded with about $8 million in fiscal 2024.

The NGAS, still undefined, is expected to be a stealthy tanker able to operate and survive in contested airspace. Hunter and Kendall also said that the interim tanker buy after 179 KC-46s are delivered are also likely to be KC-46s, but only 75 of these next-increment of tankers are planned, versus the 150 originally expected. After the 179, Boeing could start delivering a somewhat upgraded KC-46 circa 2032.

Procurement

Aircraft Type	# of Airframes
B-21	Classified
E-11	1
F-15EX	24
F-35	48
KC-46	15
MH-139	7
TOTAL	At least 94

Source: Air Force budget documents

Although the Air Force only requested 43 F-35s in fiscal ’23, it is back to asking for 48 in FY’24. Together with its request for 24 F-15EXs, it reaches the goal of 72 new fighters in FY’24; a number USAF officials say is the minimum needed to keep the age of its fighter fleet from increasing to unsustainable levels. At 72 per year, the Air Force can hold its fighter fleet to an average age of about 29 years old.

The service would also buy 15 KC-46 tankers in fiscal ’24, seven MH-139 VIP/missile field support helicopters and one E-11 Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) aircraft.

One aircraft that did not get any procurement funding in the budget is the T-7 trainer, which has been delayed due to escape system issues. The Air Force has said deliveries, initially slated for 2024, will slip to 2026.

With E-3 AWACS aircraft availability rapidly declining due to parts shortages, the Air Force is moving to replace it as quickly as possible with the E-7A Wedgetail, also built by Boeing. The service asked $681 million for the E-7 in FY’24, up from $421 million a year ago. At the AWS conference, Kendall said the service looked at “accelerating” the E-7 but determined it is moving as fast as it can, with the first aircraft due to arrive for service circa 2027.

To replace its rapidly-obsolescing E-4B National Airborne Operations Center, the Air Force is asking for $889 million to develop a Survivable Airborne Operations Center, a significant bump from the $98 million it received for the effort in 2023.

The NGAD program is requested for $1.933 billion in RDT&E, up from $1.658 billion enacted for ’23. For F-35 RDT&E, the Air Force asks $1.372 billion in the new budget, in pursuit of Block 4 capabilities, up from $1.098 billion a year ago.

RDT&E for the new B-21 bomber declines somewhat, from $3.144 billion in 2023 to $2.984 billion in 2024, as that program begins its transition from development to production. Production funds for the Raider, from accompanying budget documents, were pegged at $1.617 billion, but quantities were not discussed, although Jones repeated previous comments that six aircraft are in various stages of production.

Elsewhere in the bomber fleet, the Air Force wants to boost B-52 modernization, with new engines and a radar upgrade. R&D increases for those efforts to $857 million requested for ’24, up some $134 million over last year.

Divestments

Aircraft Type	# of Airframes
A-10	42
A-29	3
B-1	1
C-130H	2
E-3	2
E-8	3
EC-130H	2
EC-130J	4
F-15C/D	57
F-22	32
HH-60G	37
KC-10	24
MQ-9 (Block 1)	48
RQ-4	1
T-1	52
TOTAL	310

Source: Air Force budget document

The Air Force is looking to divest 310 aircraft in fiscal 2024, according to Maj. Gen. Michael A. Greiner, deputy assistant secretary for budget and comptroller of the Air Force.

“Most of these are continuations from existing authorities” for divestiture granted to the Air Force by Congress last year, he said.

The 310 include 32 F-22 Block 20s, which Kendall noted “we asked for last year, and didn’t get.” Yet despite those planned divestments, the service is also asking for $726 million to develop capability upgrades for the fighter, versus the enacted 2023 figure of $560 million. Those upgrades are known to include an infrared search and track system, upgraded radar, the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile and other improvements to keep it relevant and credible in the air superiority role before the NGAD comes online, circa 2030.

In addition the F-22s, the Air Force also wants to retire its remaining 24 aerial refueling KC-10s; 57 F-15C/Ds fighters; 37 HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopters; 48 MQ-9 Reaper Block 1s, and 52 T-1 trainers. Greiner said the Air Force wants to reduce the E-3 Sentry AWACS inventory to 18 aircraft, which means two more will leave the inventory this year.

If all the Air Force’s divestiture requests are honored by Congress, the ’24 budget will zero out the KC-10 tanker, E-8 Joint STARS, EC-130J Commando Solo and A-29 light attack aircraft inventories.

Aircraft Delivered in 2024

Aircraft Type	# of Airframes
C-130J	2
E-11	1
F-15EX	10
F-35A	45
HH-60W	19
KC-46	20
MC-130J	12
MQ-9 (Block 5)	10
TOTAL	119

Space Force Budget Would Soar by 15 Percent in 2024

March 13, 2023 | By David Roza

The Space Force gains the largest funding increase in percentage terms under President Biden’s 2024 budget request. The $30 billion proposal for the nation’s smallest military branch includes a 15 percent increase—$3.9 billion—over the enacted 2023 budget, fueled by investments in overhead persistent infrared missile warning systems, the global positioning system enterprise, and launch vehicles for both the National Security Space Launch and Rocket System Launch Program.

“The FY 2024 request continues aggressively integrating the Space Force into the fabric of national and international security by collaborating across the Department of Defense, interagency, commercial industry, and our allies and partners,” the budget documents say. “Space is a warfighting domain critical to the Nation’s security, economic prosperity, and scientific knowledge, therefore, the FY 2024 request reflects a substantial increase in funding over previous budget requests.”

The Space Force would expand from 8,600 Guardians to 9,400. Like all military personnel, Guardians would receive a 5.2 percent pay raise, along with a 4.2 percent boost for the basic housing allowance, and a 3.4 percent increase in the basic subsistence allowance.

Much of the increase in the Space Force budget would fund new Research, Development, Test & Evaluation. The service is budgeted to spend $16.6 billion for RDT&E in 2023, and the 2024 budget would add $2.6 billion for a total $19.2 billion. Development of new resilient missile warning and tracking satellites, space technology development and prototyping, and Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared missile warning are the primary targets of that new investment.

The Space Force would also invest $4.7 billion to buy new space vehicles and terminals, ground control systems, launch services and related communications security and training products.

The main focus of all that investment is modernization to respond to growing threats to space technology. “The fast-growing array of threats that can attack American interests in, through, and from space pose a challenge that cannot be addressed through enhancements to decreasingly relevant legacy space systems designed for an uncontested domain,” the service wrote in its budget highlights.

The 2024 budget would support procuring 10 National Security Space Launch Services, which are used to send medium and heavy lift systems into orbit. Five launches under the NSSL program would deliver Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 transport capabilities, which are responsible for communications and data transmission in orbit. The 2024 budget request asks for about $980 million more than last year for buying new launch vehicles and launch range upgrades.

The fiscal 2024 budget would also start up the production of Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals Force Element terminals for the Air Force’s B-52 bomber. The FAB-T program allows commanders to communicate with B-52 crews even in contested environments.

The proposed global positioning system enterprise budget emphasize RDT&E. The GPS enterprise “provides worldwide, 24-hour a day, all-weather 3-dimensional positioning, navigation, and timing information for military and civilian users,” according to the budget documents. The fiscal 2024 budget aims to continue developing ten GPS III Follow-on satellites and support the satellite constellation’s transition from a legacy operational control system to its next generation edition. The total $1.3 billion proposal for the GPS enterprise would also support the development of Military GPS User Equipment, which is meant to help service members keep using GPS-provided positioning, navigation and timing information even “in the most contested environments,” according to the Department of Defense.

As its official song, “Semper Supra,” intones, the Space Force is “the mighty watchful eye” of the nation, and the 2024 request seeks about $5 billion for space-based missile warning. The Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Program (OPIR) and Resilient Missile Warning and Missile Tracking (MW/MT) systems are critical programs for identifying China’s most advanced missile threats even in the event of attacks on those space-based sensors.

Next-Gen OPIR will “rapidly deliver strategically survivable missile warning capabilities” to detect advanced missiles , while Resilient MW/MT is meant to ensure that the missile warning system can survive attacks by counter-space systems developed by adversaries.

The 2024 budget request also includes about $4.7 billion for satellite communications projects. The Space Force has three categories of satellite communications: strategic, for nuclear command, control and communications; protected tactical, for tactical-level communications in contested environments; and wideband and narrowband, which provide “large throughput in less contested areas,” according to the Department of Defense. The 2024 budget request would support continued SATCOM development and initiate engineering and manufacturing for a new “purpose-built high-throughput anti-jam satellite system” for protected tactical networks, according to budget documents.

Digital Transformation of Verification Process for Faster Aircraft Certification

March 13, 2023 | By Thierry Olbrechts

The certification of new aircraft programs is expensive. Whether it is an advanced air mobility system, a (hybrid-) electric aircraft or a military aircraft with new weapon systems, new and innovative aircraft programs are very complex. The application of new materials, additive-manufactured structures, electrical propulsion systems and an increase in onboard software requires extensive virtual and physical testing to verify whether the aircraft is safe, reliable and cost-effective to fly.

Managing verification from the start of the program, as soon as the requirements have been defined and validated, is a good practice. As the verification job is huge, especially for start-up programs, a digital verification management platform can significantly reduce the risk and related over-budget costs of aircraft certification.

Challenge – Aircraft Complexity

There’s a reason why airplanes are the safest mode of transportation: certification. For aerospace manufacturers, aircraft certification is everything. No certificate means no product to market.

In addition to already strict EASA, FAA, and other regulations, companies face additional demands for advancements, including – but not limited to – sustainability targets and the ambition to fly autonomously, which require more integrated systems driven by software and electronics.

New technologies like this are exponentially complex. They impact all aspects of product development, including design, validation, and testing. Instead of a few components and hundreds of interfaces, there are now thousands of components with tens of thousands of interfaces. More and more functions are implemented through software.

Implications – Aircraft Programs at Risk

Therefore, it’s no surprise that today, aircraft certification is more costly than design. This is a huge challenge. Many companies have great ambitions with new aircraft configurations. It is now technologically and financially feasible to build and fly prototypes and validate concepts. The big financial challenge and risks that a company faces are the costs of aircraft certification and industrialization. Indeed, Porsche Consulting estimated in 2018 that the series development and type certification of an eVTOL urban air mobility aircraft would cost between $500 million and $1 billion¹, and Archer Aviation CEO Adam Goldstein says, “the price-tag for one aircraft design to reach certification could be up to $1 billion”.²

This represents a serious risk to many companies. As an aeronautical engineer, I cannot be more delighted when I see all the initiatives taken to exploit the possibilities of new propulsion systems into radical new aircraft configurations. In that sense, the last 5 to 10 years are comparable to the 1950s, when a lot of new aircraft configurations were explored. However, I’m worried that many companies with exciting new ideas will financially fail before getting aircraft certification.

One should not forget that many of these companies have to build the elements for proof of compliance from a blank sheet. They cannot count on data from previous programs to alleviate the verification process by comparison. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage against legacy companies, which might be less innovative but have an abundance of verification data at hand.

Because of the above, new organizations tend to postpone addressing the verification and certification aspects.

Figure 1. Implications of increased program complexity and integrated systems: the current approach does not work anymore.

Opportunity – Certify During Development

Digitalization environments offer a lot of capabilities to pre-empt the aircraft certification aspects and associated risks.

Process-wise, companies should consider including the verification and certification process within the aircraft design, development production and quality process from the start of the program.

Figure 2. Building the verification and certification Digital Twin: actively manage the plan from start to finish.

Different digital platform pillars are key in this:

Figure 3. Key technologies to support aircraft programs.

It Starts with the Digital Twin

Throughout the development of aircraft, digital twin capabilities make it possible to design, engineer and optimize the aircraft and its systems. They provide engineering insight into how the aircraft is built and how it performs behaviorally. The use of a digital twin model enables manufacturers to become exponentially more accurate in all aircraft domains, covering all “engineering physics,” which define how well it operates.

Given good management and validation of the modeling assumptions, these digital twin models can be further exploited to verify the behavior of electro-mechanical systems, coupled to the software-based control functions. Indeed, once one gets confidence in how well the models represent reality, these models can be used to perform virtual testing and alleviate the burden and costs of physical testing.

The ability to author these virtual test models is dependent on having the necessary skill tools for generating the engineering analysis data.

An additional benefit of digital twin models is that they not only help with accelerating the verification based on virtual testing, but they also have an under-recognized value in preparing and de-risking the physical tests, which will be needed anyway.

Indeed, as long as innovation continues to occur in this industry, it will be necessary for companies to prove the accuracy of their modeling assumptions, methods, and processes to aircraft certification authorities and organizations.

Digital twin technology is essential when programs want to reduce the risks related to aircraft certification. However, there is a closed-loop process needed between virtual and physical testing in order to make this a viable strategy.

Digital Data and Process Backbone

The amount of engineering analysis data a digital twin generates is enormous and requires a digital data and process management backbone to control it, keep it in configuration, manage the processes and make sure all data is traceable.

This backbone is also very important for the next programs. Indeed, stored data does not only serve current programs, but also can be reused in future programs to avoid verifying aspects multiple times on different programs. This drastically reduces verification costs of future programs, whether by simply re-using data or proving digital twin modeling assumptions were right and avoids physical verification on these aspects on the next program.

Digital Thread

The generation of engineering data using digital twin technology along with excellent data management is a start, but to be truly effective, the digital platform needs to keep all data generated and managed in the context of the aircraft program, as it assures the digital continuity of engineering data with the engineering decisions taken. As part of a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach, a verification management digital thread can provide a traceable link between the requirements and the artifacts that lead to the proof of compliance of that requirement, including all its intermediate data like the eBOM, test-BOM, etc.

Solution – Verification Management

A verification management digital thread should be a vital part of the digitalization strategy of all aerospace and/or defense companies. It can help make certification an integral part of the overall product development process and enable companies to have a robust certification execution plan and incorporates all the needed certification activities within the overall program plan.

It is vital that companies embrace not only a verification management digital thread, but also a full digitalization strategy. Digitalization enables aerospace manufacturers and their supply chain partners to make better-informed decisions based on extensive data and analysis as well as full traceability. It is the only way to turn the increased level of complexity and integration inherent in new programs into a competitive advantage.

The aerospace and defense industry is going through a time of immense innovation, and I’m excited to see what the future holds as A&D companies and teams of all sizes adopt digitalization to deliver on the promise of this innovation.

References

1. The Future of Vertical Mobility, Sizing the market for passenger, inspection, and goods services until 2035, A Porsche Consulting study, 2018

2. Can UAM developers turn their electric dreams into a reality? Pilar Wolfsteller, 2022

About the Author

Thierry Olbrechts is the Director of Simcenter Aerospace Industries Solutions, Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 1996, he joined Siemens Digital Industries Software. Since 2000, Thierry has been responsible for Siemens simulation and test business development and go-to-market strategies for the aviation, space and defense industry segments.