DOD Press Chief, Fighter PEO, and 21 More Selected for 2-Star General

DOD Press Chief, Fighter PEO, and 21 More Selected for 2-Star General

March 22, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Nearly two dozen Air Force brigadier generals have been selected for a second star, the Department of Defense announced March 22—including Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder and Brig. Gen. Dale R. White, who oversees Air Force acquisition of fighters and advanced aircraft. The selections must be confirmed by the Senate to become official. 

Ryder follows in the footsteps of the last—and only other—uniformed Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, who pinned on his second star shortly after taking on the job in late 2013. 

Kirby later returned to the Pentagon as a civilian, and it was Ryder who succeeded him in August 2022. Ryder previously served as the Air Force’s director of public affairs. His predecessor in that role, Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas, also a public affairs officer, also earned a second star, but it is rare for PAOs to attain two-star status. 

White, the program executive officer and director of fighters and advanced aircraft for Air Force Materiel Command, played a key role in developing the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, which will include a sixth-generation fighter, and Collaborative Combat Aircraft, autonomous drones that will team with manned fighters. 

Other notable selections include Brig. Gen. Paul D. Moga, commandant of Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Brig. Gen. Michael T. Rawls, commander of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center—both men are slated to receive their second star. 

  • Brig. Gen. Curtis R. Bass, vice commander of the U.S. Warfare Center, Air Combat Command, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. 
  • Brig. Gen. Kenyon K. Bell, director of logistics and engineering, Headquarters Air Force Global Strike Command, Barksdale Air Force Base, La. 
  • Brig. Gen. Charles D. Bolton, chief of the Global Operations Center, Headquarters U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. 
  • Brig. Gen. Larry R. Broadwell Jr., deputy director of operations, Operations Team-5, National Joint Operations and Intelligence Center, J-3, Joint Staff, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 
  • Brig. Gen. Scott A. Cain, director of Air, Space and Cyberspace Operations, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.   
  • Brig. Gen. Sean M. Choquette, vice commander of the 12th Air Force, Air Combat Command, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.  
  • Brig. Gen. Roy W. Collins, director of security forces, Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics, Engineering and Force Protection, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 
  • Brig. Gen. John R. Edwards, director of strategic capabilities policy for the National Security Council, Washington, D.C.   
  • Brig. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, director of plans, programs, and analyses, Headquarters U.S. Air Forces Europe—Air Forces Africa, Ramstein Air Base, Germany.   
  • Brig. Gen. Justin R. Hoffman, director of strategic plans, programs, and requirements, Headquarters Air Force Special Operations Command, Hurlburt Field, Fla.  
  • Brig. Gen. Stacy J. Huser, principal assistant deputy administrator for military application, National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Energy, Washington, D.C. 
  • Brig. Gen. Matteo G. Martemucci, director of intelligence, J2, U.S. Cyber Command, Fort George G. Meade, Md. 
  • Brig. Gen. David A. Mineau, vice commander of the 15th Air Force, Air Combat Command, Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. 
  • Brig. Gen. Paul D. Moga, commandants of Cadets, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo. 
  • Brig. Gen. Ty W. Neuman, director of concepts and strategy, Deputy Chief of Staff, Strategy, Integration, and Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 
  • Brig. Gen. Christopher J. Niemi, director of strategic plans, requirements, and programs, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. 
  • Brig. Gen. Brandon D. Parker, chief of staff for Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. 
  • Brig. Gen. Michael T. Rawls, commander of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. 
  • Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, press secretary, Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 
  • Brig. Gen. David G. Shoemaker, deputy director of operations, J-3, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii.  
  • Brig. Gen. Rebecca J. Sonkiss, commander of the 618th Air Operations Center, Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. 
  • Brig. Gen. Claude K. Tudor Jr., commanding general of the Special Operations Joint Task Force—Levant, U.S. Special Operations Command, Xiphos, Jordan. 
  • Brig. Gen. Dale R. White, program executive officer and director of fighters and advanced aircraft, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. 
More B-21s Would Help America Field a Two-War Military, New Mitchell Paper Says

More B-21s Would Help America Field a Two-War Military, New Mitchell Paper Says

March 21, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The future U.S. bomber force could provide a way for the Pentagon to simultaneously deter conflict with peer adversaries in two geographically disparate theaters, said Mark Gunzinger, the director of future concepts and capability assessments at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, during a March 21 event. But doing so will require expanding the procurement of the B-21 and extending the life of the strategic bombers already in the Air Force’s inventory, he added.

“At the very least our bomber force should be sized for two theater conflicts because it will be the lead force, the foundation of any campaign to defeat a Chinese or Russian invasion, and we’re behind the curve already,” Gunzinger said in a virtual event.

The challenge the U.S. faces is outlined in the current National Defense Strategy, which states that the U.S. must be able to prevail in a conflict and “deter opportunistic aggression elsewhere.” Even with a defense budget of over $800 billion, there is a limit on what a stretched military could do to deter parallel conflicts with China and Russia.

But Gunzinger maintains that the strategic bomber is well suited for that mission if deployed in sufficient numbers. Doing that, he said, will require some major adjustments. 

With much fanfare, the U.S. is slated to start fielding a new stealth bomber soon: B-21 Raider. Those aircraft will eventually replace the approximately 45 B-1s and about 20 B-2s in the U.S. arsenal. The B-52 fleet, which currently numbers around 75 aircraft, would remain in the inventory after it is re-engined and undergoes other modernization programs. Its main role would be to fire stand-off munitions.

But Gunzinger cautions that the Air Force’s plan to retire B-1s and B-2s would be imprudent, especially as B-52s must be taken out of service to be upgraded.

“The near-term outlook for increasing the size of the U.S. bomber force is not good—in fact, it could become even smaller before B-21 production increases the number of tails on the ramp,” Gunzinger wrote in a recent paper.

An alternative approach, Gunzinger said, would be to keep older bombers flying while rapidly increasing B-21 production.

However, the B-1 has been flown hard during its service life and has a poor mission-capable rate of around 40 percent. Only around half of B-2s are available for missions at a given time, and the fleet has been on a safety stand-down since late 2022.

Burdensome, costly, and time-consuming maintenance, along with the personnel required to do that work, is the main reason the Air Force wants to retire the B-1 and B-2. In 2018, the Air Force said keeping the B-1 and B-2 around after the B-21 came online was “neither fiscally realistic nor desirable.” However, the service has said the B-52 should be kept in the air because of its large and flexible size payload.

The U.S. has committed to buying at least 100 B-21s. Gunzinger argues the number should more than double to 225. There is hardly a conflict imaginable where bombers would not play a role, especially in a high-end campaign, he noted. And implementing his plan would produce a force in which a greater portion of the U.S. bomber force would be stealthy aircraft as well.

“The future bomber force must be sized to deter and decisively respond to Chinese aggression, a second threat in another theater, and deter nuclear attacks—simultaneously,” he wrote.

Appearing during the event with Gunzinger, Maj. Gen. Jason R. Armagost, director of strategic plans, programs, and requirements for Air Force Global Strike Command, did not speak to the higher B-21 figure. However, Armagost noted that the Air Force needs a nuanced approach to determining what its fleet should look like going forward.

“It’s easy from a budget perspective to talk about one war, two war because we know the numbers, but when we’re talking about competition that drives an intensity into the force, that drives a requirement into the force that is on the spectrum actually of deterrence because the intent of competition is to demonstrate and show that it is not worth coming at us right now,” said Armagost. “That competition level of force requirement almost doesn’t get captured when you look at the binary requirements of war or peace, and so I think that’s also part of the conversation that has to happen.”

As the U.S. military gears up toward the Pacific, it still has an array of commitments, such as bolstering NATO against potential Russian threats, defending South Korea against an aggressive North Korea, and conducting raids against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria. Having a capable bomber force that could respond to multiple crises could allow other services to focus on where they are most effective.

“The Army’s big fight is in Europe and the Navy’s is in the Pacific and they should size accordingly,” Gunzinger said. “We also shouldn’t assume another aggressor wouldn’t take advantage of our engagement in a major flight in the Pacific to make a move that we can’t deter and defeat because we size our military for one war. And that’s why we should size our bomber force for two conflicts, not just one.”

Supply Chain, Long Lead Times, Bureaucracy Challenge Nuclear Sustainment

Supply Chain, Long Lead Times, Bureaucracy Challenge Nuclear Sustainment

March 21, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force’s nuclear forces continue to struggle with supply chain problems, both those lingering from the pandemic and the inevitable challenges of operating equipment that’s decades old, Global Strike Command’s director of logistics and engineering said March 21.

Additive manufacturing could be the solution, noted Brig. Gen. Kenyon K. Bell, but bureaucracy has to be swept aside to make it work.

Speaking in a webinar presented by Defense One, Bell said “long lead times” in getting parts is his number one issue in maintaining USAF’s nuclear forces, which in the case of systems like the B-52 and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, go back decades.

The same issues that affected the nation in getting consumer goods during the height of the COVID pandemic—backlogs in shipping, shortages of materials—affected military sustainment, but to a greater degree, Bell said.

Exacerbating the problem now is getting resupply of parts and gear for platforms out of production for decades, he noted.

When there were 750 B-52s in service, an industrial base to supply parts and equipment wasn’t an issue, Bell said, because there were plenty of vendors who would compete for that business. But with only 76 Stratofortresses left, it’s hard to interest companies in making the investment needed to be a supplier.

“It’s a different business proposition,” he said, adding that AFGSC has to get “creative” without the luxury of simply retiring old systems like Minuteman in anticipation of the new Sentinel missile, because the old nuclear systems must be fully functional right up until the second of the handover to the new equipment.

One answer is to work with Air Force Materiel Command—and particularly with the Rapid Sustainment Office—to find other systems that need similar or common parts and making a bulk buy, which can attract industrial interest.

“If I only need three or four of an item … that might not be lucrative enough” to justify a business making a bid,” Bell said. “Remember … it is still a profit-driven business.” But with an order of “10 or 25, now someone is willing to come to the table and meet my national security need. So we have to figure out, creatively,” how to meet the government’s requirements while still having it “make sense for business return on investment, for the company to bring tooling and people to bear.”

But tooling up to make a new part requires lead times “not in days, but in years,” Bell said and the need is urgent.

In some cases, the need can even arise when a part that has never broken before finally snaps. AFGSC can do assessments, prescribe systems, figure out the technology and finalize designs. But at the end of the day, “we’ve never ordered this” before, Bell said. “Now what do you do?”

Moreover, “you’re not going to be able to wait. Sometimes you can cannibalize … another aircraft.” But in cases when that’s not possible, the service must “look at the technology that we have available to us.”

In such situations, additive manufacturing—or 3-D printing—shows great promise, Bell said, but it’s not as simple as just printing new parts.

“Additive manufacturing, 3-D printing, reverse engineering—all of those technologies are going to be key and critical to maintaining legacy or aged weapons systems,” he said.

“But there are lots of critical certifications that are required … what I have frequently talked to our team and our enterprise about, is, let’s not hide behind nuclear certification as a roadblock, but let’s work with and through the nuclear certification process to utilize some of these new technologies. Yes, it will be challenging, but it does not make it impossible to do,” he said.

The aerospace industry has only recently begun to move from 3-D printed parts that have similar strength and performance to original components in structural roles—think brackets and stiffeners—to those that can be used in “flight critical” functions, such as within engines. Nuclear certifications are that much more demanding, with zero tolerance for failure.

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. “has been very vocal” about breaking down bureaucracy, Bell said. “He’s been frustrated with the bureaucracy … so we have a significant advocate to make sure that we can get to where we need to be and get there fast.”

But the industrial base “doesn’t know whether or not we can make good on our promise that we’re going to go and buy this particular part, because we don’t know if we’ll have a budget to fund it,” Bell said. Particularly on legacy weapon systems, “it makes it even more challenging.” This problem “certainly hamstrings us quite a bit when it comes to” clearing bureaucracy, he noted.

What’s more, the issue is not going to go away, Bell said, noting that the B-52 will be in the inventory “through 2050 and beyond.”

Purses, Parkas, and Patches—Air Force Uniform Board Unveils New Changes, But No Beards

Purses, Parkas, and Patches—Air Force Uniform Board Unveils New Changes, But No Beards

March 21, 2023 | By David Roza

The Air Force Uniform Board unveiled changes to Air Force and Space Force dress and appearance regulations March 21, including updates to cold weather gear, purses and handbags, and “heritage-like” morale patches.

One area of appearance regulations that went unchanged was facial hair policy. Over the past several years, there has been a steady stream of calls from Airmen on social media to allow beards without a special waiver. As part of a statement on facial hair policy, an Air Force spokesperson said the branch coordinates with the other services.

“We are a part of a joint force that represents our nation and also considers the policies and procedures of our sister-services,” the spokesperson said.

On the same day the uniform changes were announced, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass released a memo saying that facial hair policy, and the stigma that many shaving waiver holders report facing, is on her mind. Earlier this month, the military’s top enlisted service member, Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ramón Colón-López, was criticized by some on social media for dismissing the push for lifting the beard ban as an attempt “to look cute.”

“With each change we make to expand opportunity to serve and reduce artificial barriers, I am keenly aware the authorization of beards across the Total Force is at the forefront for many,” Bass wrote in her memo. “I am writing you to make it clear that as we continue to look at this and other issues, we can and must act now to remove any stigma, or personal bias, toward those Airmen authorized to maintain facial hair, either for medical or religious reasons.”

The new changes to Department of the Air Force Instruction 36-2903 go into effect April 1. The request for changes had been submitted via the Guardians and Airmen Innovation Network, which allows Airmen and Guardians to submit and vote on ideas for change. They include:

  • Child Development Centers: New language in Air Force regulations will allow installation commanders to designate CDCs as a no-hat, no-salute zone. Salutes also will not be required when Airmen or Guardians are carrying children outside of CDCs.
  • Cold weather headbands: Airmen and Guardians can now wear a headband in cold weather in addition to scarves, earmuffs, a watch cap, and gloves.
  • Four badges above the service tape: The new language ups the maximum number of badges that Airmen and Guardians can wear on the front of their occupational camouflage pattern (OCP) uniforms above the U.S. Air Force or U.S. Space Force tape from two to four.
  • New headgear with flight duty uniform: Airmen authorized to wear flight duty uniforms will now be able to wear the OCP patrol cap or tactical OCP gap with those uniforms, as well as the blue flight cap they have traditionally worn.
  • Small logo on purses and handbags: Before this change, it was difficult for Airmen and Guardians to carry purses or handbags to work with them due to restrictions on showing corporate logos in uniform. Now Airmen and Guardians can carry purses and handbags to work with them, so long as the logo does not exceed one inch in diameter. There are no color or logo restrictions for Guardians holding a backpack by hand.
  • Olive drab green backpacks: Airmen and Guardians can now wear olive drab green backpacks. Before this change they could wear only black, brown, grey or dark blue backpacks.
  • Any size logo on gym bags: No more “small” logo in Air Force regulations on gym bags.
  • Certain commercial parkas are now allowed: New language expands the current regulations to allow cold weather parks to be purchased commercially. However, the Parkas must be OCP pattern or Coyote Brown and have name tapes, service tape, rank, and patches worn in the same authorized configuration.
  • Friday morale shirts with logos: On Fridays, Airmen and Guardians can now wear morale shirts with logos on both the back and the left side of the chest. However, the logo on the chest can not exceed five inches in diameter, though the one on the back can be a larger diameter. The shirt also must be coyote brown regardless of the logo.
  • “Heritage-like” morale patches: This change removes language from Air Force regulations “limiting current or past official organizational emblem or any variations for the [flight duty uniform], like the OCPs and two-piece flight duty uniform.”
Space Force Invests in System for Building and Modifying Satellites—in Orbit

Space Force Invests in System for Building and Modifying Satellites—in Orbit

March 20, 2023 | By David Roza

Building satellites is hard enough on Earth, but a group of companies just received a contract from the U.S. Space Force that could pave the way to building satellites in orbit.

Announced March 20, the goal of the $1.6 million award is to demonstrate building a standalone satellite on Earth using a module the companies hope to one day use to build new satellites or modify existing ones in orbit.

“This award opens up a unique methodology to support on-orbit flexibility, mission change in flight, high fidelity manipulation, and assembly of complex objects,” Dave Barnhart, CEO and cofounder of Arkisys Inc., one of the companies, said in a statement.

The other companies are Qediq Inc, NovaWurks, Motive Space Systems, iBoss, and a state research agency, the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). According to a statement released by Arkisys, the contractors will work together to demonstrate “the building of a standalone 3-axis stabilized satellite on the Port Module.”

Three-axis satellites use small thrusters or electronically-powered reaction wheels to maintain stability in orbit, according to NASA. The Port is a hexagonal platform built by Arkisys which the company hopes to someday launch into space and serve as a sort of seaport for satellites. Once docked with the Port, spacecraft could be repaired, upgraded, or even put together using the platform’s robot arm, the company proposes. Customers could also lease bays for research or manufacturing purposes.

“In many countries, ports act as a nexus for goods, materials, services, and business, to the point that significant percentages of a country’s GDP flows through them,” Arkisys wrote in a paper for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “’The Port’ is not just an outpost destination in orbit, but a business mechanism to unlock new sources of actions and activities in space and capitalize on existing and ‘undiscovered’ markets.”

The concept of satellite ports in orbit dovetails with the Space Force’s effort to make U.S. satellite networks more resilient. Last month, Col. Meredith Beg, the deputy director of operations for space mobility and logistics, said Space Systems Command is exploring how it could use commercial capabilities to “maneuver and service its constellation of satellites in GEO, including adjusting satellites’ inclination, changing orbital slots, refueling satellites that are low on fuel, and tugging assets to a graveyard orbit after they have used all their on-board reserves,” according to a Space Force press release.

“There’s on the order of more than 50 start-ups and various companies that are investing in these capabilities from small-scale robotic arms with little pincers to grab things to big-blow-up nets [for space debris],” Beg said. “The venture capital world is very excited about these possibilities.”

Being able to upgrade, inspect, refuel, and reorbit satellites in space makes space operations much more flexible and less expensive, wrote Air Force Capt. Joshua Garretson in a 2021 essay on satellite servicing. The need for such a capability is particularly acute because technology develops so fast that most telecom satellites are out of date by the time they reach orbit, Garretson said.

“The logistics behind it is complex and requires effort, but the rewards of increased space superiority, solar system exploration, lower costs, and [the] possibility of the largest economic market in recent history speak for themselves,” wrote Garretson.

The contract announced March 20 could move that concept closer to reality. The Small Business Innovation Research contract was awarded by SpaceWERX, an entity within Space Force that helps industry, academia, and the government develop space security technologies. SpaceNews reported that the satellite to be built in the ground demonstration will be made up of at least three modules made by NovaWurks. If all goes well, building satellites in space build could have implications beyond Earth’s orbit.

“The ability to assemble a functional satellite off of another platform is something that will open up not just Earth orbit markets and on-the-fly changes to existing satellites, but to on-demand satellites for lunar or Martian exploration,” Dr. Robert Ambrose, director of space and robotics initiatives at TEES, said in the Arkisys announcement. “This is incredibly exciting for us as we are developing platforms to validate and demonstrate higher fidelity robotics on orbit, to build, assemble, repair, and operate.” 

PACAF Commander: Air Superiority Is the Focus in Indo-Pacific

PACAF Commander: Air Superiority Is the Focus in Indo-Pacific

March 20, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Give Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, one extra dollar, and he would spend it bolstering U.S. air superiority in the region. 

Speaking at an Aerospace Nation event hosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Wilsbach said March 20 that air superiority is a joint endeavor of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and includes everything from combat jets to tankers, airlifters, and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and command and control assets like the E-7 Wedgetail. 

“It starts with the E-7,” Wilsbach said. “Having domain awareness is important. [The reason] why we need the E-7 so badly is because our current fleet of E-3s are challenged remarkably, just getting them in the air.”

The E-3s now average more than 42 years old and are based on a Boeing 707 airframe that is hardly in use anywhere any longer.

“Our maintainers are doing great work to keep those things in flying order, but [the aircraft] are old and they take a lot of maintenance to keep them in optimal condition,” Wilbach said. “And then the other fact is “Even when they’re perfectly in order and they get airborne, they don’t necessarily see what they need to see in the 21st century modern warfare. The E-7 does … and so the E-7 is absolutely critical.” 

The Air Force is contracted with Boeing to supply the E-7 and anticipates getting the first aircraft in 2027. To prepare its first E-7 crews, USAF is working with the Royal Australian Air Force, which already flies the airframe, Wilsbach said, giving U.S. Airmen a “sneak peak” at the Wedgetail now and over the next several years.  

“This sharing of tactics, techniques and procedures between the allies and partners only makes them stronger,” Wilsbach said. “Exercising on a very frequent basis helps us to be interoperable.”

USAF is also working with the Australians on developing Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the semi-autonomous drones that will fly alongside crewed fighters in the future, adding combat mass and new capabilities. The Royal Australian Air Force worked with Boeing to develop its MQ-28 Ghost Bat, which is similar to the U.S. CCA concept. 

“We really look forward to what they’re doing with the MQ-28 Ghost Bat there,” Wilsbach said. “They are doing some great work figuring out exactly how to use this aircraft and we look forward to seeing what they learned and then perhaps applying that to our CCA program ourselves.” 

U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said two weeks ago the service envisions a notional fleet of 1,000 CCAs—or even as many as 2,000—to help deter, and if necessary, fight the substantial forces of China in the Pacific. Wilsbach acknowledged that in a peer fight like that, the Air Force must anticipate significant losses, so mass will make a difference. 

“The ability to create dilemmas and mass up those dilemmas on your adversary causes them to make mistakes, it causes them to use weapons, and it eventually will cause them to lose their assets versus us,” Wilsbach said. 

CCAs will notionally supplement both the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) family of systems and the existing F-35A Lightning II. Yet achieving air superiority will require far more than platforms, Wilsbach said.

“One thing that people often don’t think about with respect to air superiority is weapons to be able to kill ships” that will seek to keep U.S. air forces far off shore, Wilsbach said. “They’re going to put ships out probably to the east of Taiwan,” he added. The radars and missile systems on those ships will seek to impose China’s anti-access/area denial strategy, “and when they take away that airspace, it takes away our ability to have freedom of maneuver, and to create effects via airpower—until you can attrite those ships.” 

Also critical is access to resilient, dispersed basing, which lessens reliance on major bases and increases complexity for adversary missile strikes. USAF’s adoption of Agile Combat Employment, in which small teams of Airmen deploy and operate from remote locales, often performing duties outside their usual specialties, “is becoming more of a theme for more and more of our allies and partners,” Wilsbach said. 

Developing the ACE concept further, the Air Force is building up small airfields throughout the Pacific, working with the State Department and Pentagon to negotiate access to more airfields, and even develop and share new technologies to make airfield repair faster. 

“This quick-drying concrete that we have, you pour it and it’s the consistency of a milkshake when it goes in the hole,” he said. “And 45 minutes later, you can walk on it. Three hours later, you can land a C-17 on it.” 

Every Airman in PACAF practices the concept in some form or fashion, Wilsbach said, and now they’re also helping to spread the word to allies.

“Japan and Australia are fantastic Agile Combat Employment partners, because they realize that they need to get good at Agile Combat Employment as well,” Wilsbach said. “There’s a great partnership between those two countries.”  

For 4th Time This Year, B-1 Bombers Join S. Korean Fighters in Show of Force

For 4th Time This Year, B-1 Bombers Join S. Korean Fighters in Show of Force

March 20, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

A pair of B-1B Lancers flew alongside American F-16s and South Korean F-35s over the Korean Peninsula on March 19, the same day North Korea reportedly launched another missile test off its coast. 

The combined air training flight was part of the joint combined exercise Freedom Shield 23, which incorporated both live training and simulated command and control scenarios. That event, which began March 13, coincides with Warrior Shield FTX, the biggest U.S.-South Korean exercise in five years. 

Two B-1s from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, joined four ROK F-35s and four USAF F-16s from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, over the peninsula. 

“The ROK and U.S. are displaying a robust combined defense posture and showcasing extended deterrence in action,” read a U.S. Forces-Korea press release. “ROK and U.S. forces continue to strengthen interoperability, increase deployment capability of flexible response forces, and increase robust wartime strategic strike capabilities.” 

It was the fourth time in the past two months that U.S. B-1s flew with ROK fighters.  

  • On Feb. 1, two B-1s and F-22 Raptors flew with South Korean F-35s over the Yellow Sea, just west of the Peninsula. 
  • On Feb. 19, two B-1s flew with F-16s and ROK F-35s through the Korean Air Defense Identification Zone, a buffer area that includes international airspace near the Korean Peninsula. 
  • On March 3, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense announced one B-1 had flown with South Korean F-15K and KF-16 fighters over the Yellow Sea. 

B-1s started flying in the region in November, when B-1s from Ellsworth flew over the Peninsula for the first time in five years. In December and early March, B-52 bombers also flew over South Korea with ROK aircraft, as the U.S. has stepped up presence in the theater. 

The U.S. and South Korean governments pledged in January to ramp up joint military exercises during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, who specifically noted more fighter and bomber missions would take place.

The increased activity is a response to North Korea’s increased missile testing program. North Korea has objected to U.S.-ROK exercises. According to the South Korean news agency Yonhap, “the North’s missile firing came some 25 minutes before a U.S. B-1B strategic bomber entered an operational area of the Korean Peninsula for the allies’ exercises.”

Pyongyang calls the allied exercises as rehearsals for war and routinely urges its forces to prepare for “nuclear war.”

The latest launch came days after another missile test prompted U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to condemn the act in an official statement. 

Chinese Spy Balloon Prompts $90 Million in New Air Defense Spending

Chinese Spy Balloon Prompts $90 Million in New Air Defense Spending

March 20, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The Chinese surveillance balloon that transfixed the nation earlier this year may have popped, but funding to protect against similar threats is inflating, according to the Department of Defense.

The high-attitude surveillance balloon that traversed the U.S. in late January and early February prompted last-minute additions to the Pentagon’s budget—according to DOD officials, there was a late plus-up of around $90 million for measures to protect against similar intrusions in the future.

“We did add some funding late in the process” to address high-altitude balloons, DOD comptroller Michael J. McCord told reporters March 13.

The Pentagon insists the balloon incident was the result of a “domain awareness gap,” in NORAD’s terminology. That lack of awareness, however, was not the result of inadequate radar but the settings, or “gates,” on radars that filter out certain information, a result of being more concerned with bombers and cruise missiles than slow-moving balloons.

McCord described the new funds as earmarked for “sensing and analysis in that particular set of altitudes and phenomenology” for objects similar to Chinese balloon.

“Cruise missiles are the things we care about probably the most in that space of looking at our airspace,” McCord said. “On this particular niche, if you will, we did add some funding to try and refine some capabilities on the back end.”

Adm. Sara A. Joyner, the director of force structure, resources, and assessment (J8) on the Joint Staff, characterized the $90 million as “significant investments” that will improve U.S. sensing in all aspects of U.S. airspace.

“I would tell you that the sensors that we have today are capable of seeing the high-altitude balloons,” Joyner said. “They’re capable of tracking them. It’s a matter of tuning and optimizing those systems to try to get after all forms of intrusions into our airspace.”

Joyner explained that the new investments would try to bridge the gap between detecting fast-moving threats and balloons. When the U.S. stopped filtering out some slow-moving objects, radars started picking up—and the Air Force began shooting down—objects the American government now believes were benign.

“We’ve been very focused on hypersonics and cruise missiles—those types of things that we think were on the high-end, fast-moving threats, and tuning for something that’s much slower, like a balloon,” Joyner said. “That’s part of what all this will go into.”

Joyner said defending the homeland is the number one priority for the Department of Defense, and the U.S. had new capabilities, including over-the-horizon radar, debuting that will help protect against a variety of threats from airships to aircraft.

“It flows throughout this budget,” Joyner said of homeland defense. “I think you can see those investments coming online.”

Photos: F-22 Raptors Deploy to Philippines In ‘Milestone’ for Alliance

Photos: F-22 Raptors Deploy to Philippines In ‘Milestone’ for Alliance

March 17, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. Air Force took an important first step March 13 when F-22 Raptors deployed to Clark Air Base, marking the first time U.S. fifth-generation fighters have ever deployed to the Philippines, the USAF announced.

“This was the first time that F-22s, or any 5th-generation aircraft, have landed on and operated out of the Philippines,” Capt. Karl Schroeder, a Raptor pilot assigned to the 525th Fighter Squadron, said in an Air Force news release. “This milestone with a regional ally aids in providing stability and security to the Indo-Pacific.”

The F-22 deployment, which took place on March 13 and 14, comes as the U.S. is undertaking a major effort to strengthen and expand its posture in the Pacific to deter China’s growing military might. 

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III secured access last month to four bases in the Philippines, though discussions still need to be conducted between the two countries on how they might be improved and used.

On March 13, the U.S., Australia, and Britain announced a deal that will provide nuclear submarines to Canberra in the 2030s and 2040s. Under that pact, U.S. and British attack submarines are to rotate through a base near Perth, Australia, starting in 2027.

The U.S. Marines plan to establish a Marine Littoral Regiment in Okinawa by 2025 while Japan is moving ahead with a plan to build up its defense capability, including by buying Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles from the U.S.

The Air Force, for its part, has been working on expanding its access to bases in the region under its Agile Combat Employment, or ACE, plan that aims to disperse its aircraft and make them harder for China to target.

“There’s a strategic calculation on the part of the Biden administration to build up our allies,” Patrick Cronin, an expert on the Asia-Pacific at the Hudson Institute, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“When Marcos came in, that provided this strategic upgrade opportunity,” he added, referring to Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who was sworn in in June 2022 following Rodrigo Duterte. 

“They’ve been leaning forward in terms of showing that we really will defend you if you’re threatened,” Cronin said. “The fact that we had brought F-22s now into Kadena meant it was easy to deploy to a place like the Philippines on a mission and on exercises, so that also made it possible.”

The F-22s are from the 525th Fighter Squadron, which recently wrapped up a weeklong deployment to Tinian, one of the three Northern Mariana Islands. It was the first time that those islands, which are U.S. territory, hosted the fifth-generation fighters.

The U.S. has a Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines dating back to 1951, and the hope is that US cooperation with Manila will deepen over the coming years.

“The Raptor pilots were able to get their eyes on the layout of the land, as well as the different Philippine air bases,” the Air Force release stated. “Being familiar with the airspace and the territory below will allow for increased capability and integration in the future.”

Clark Air Base is not a new location for U.S. aircraft. It first hosted American planes in 1910s when the Philippines was U.S. territory. It was an important base for the U.S. Army Air Forces and Air Force during World War II and the Vietnam War, before eventually being turned over to the Philippines.

But as the Air Force release notes, the U.S. hopes to be able to operate from more locations in the Philippines in the future.

During their deployment, the F-22s conducted air exercises with the Philippine Air Force. Two Philippine FA-50PHs joined the Raptors over the Pacific. The FA-50 is of South Korean origin, sharing similarities to the F-16, and was designed with help from Lockheed Martin. The State Department approved the sale of F-16s to the Philippines in 2021.

“With any operation there are always multiple roles and responsibilities to make the mission happen,” Capt. Joe Baumann, an F-22 pilot assigned to the 525th Fighter Squadron, said in the Air Force release. “With the FA-50’s capability for precision strike and the Raptor’s ability to establish air dominance, we make a lethal combo to support one another on multiple mission sets.”

“It is important for us to integrate with our allies to show that we have the capability to conduct safe and effective operations anywhere in the world while supporting multinational objectives,” Baumann added.

The Raptor engaged in simulated dogfighting, their forte, while the Filipino pilots observed, according to the Air Force. The American aircraft also took on gas from KC-135 Stratotankers from Kadena as another demonstration of American capabilities over the South China Sea.

“This marks yet another exciting moment in our rapidly growing and modernizing alliance, and an important step in our mutual efforts to protect a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” DOD spokesperson Lt. Col. Marty Meiners told Air & Space Forces Magazine.