Photos: F-22s Deploy to Tinian for First Time as Part of ACE Exercise

Photos: F-22s Deploy to Tinian for First Time as Part of ACE Exercise

March 3, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

For the first time, F-22s have deployed to the U.S. territory of Tinian, a small island around 100 miles north of the American military hub of Guam. The rotation of Raptors, which began March 1, is part of an exercise dubbed Agile Reaper 23-1.

Over time, the Department of Defense plans to turn Tinian into a permanent alternative location for aircraft operating out of Guam.

Over the first week of March, the Air Force will conduct flight operations from Tinian with F-22s from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER)’s 525th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron of 3rd Air Expedtionary Wing. The unit deployed to Kadena Air Base, Japan, in late 2022 to replace aging F-15 Eagle fighters.

“For them to come support this exercise shows how agile we truly are,” Col. Kevin “Jinx” Jamieson, the commander of the 3rd Air Expeditionary Wing, told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an email.

Wargames have shown U.S. air bases in Japan and Guam would likely be targets should the U.S. be drawn into a conflict with China. Service officials believe the U.S. needs more airfields in the Indo-Pacific to counter the threat of Chinese cruise and ballistic missiles and have introduced the concept of Agile Combat Employment, known as ACE, to meet the threat.

“Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are a strategic location that requires agility to defend if we find ourselves in a contested and degraded environment,” Jamieson said, adding that the excercise will give his team “a sense of reality and to rehearse in an environment that will likely challenge us real world.”

Having Tinian temporarily host American aircraft is not new—the U.S. first began using the island to launch warplanes after seizing it in World War II. It is, however, novel ground for the F-22, America’s premier air-to-air fighter.

In February, Tinian, one of the three main Northern Mariana Islands, hosted Air Force F-35 Lighting II fighters as part of exercise Cope North. The F-22’s operations at Tinian International Airport, which has just a single runway, mark the second time in less than a month that American fifth-generation stealth fighters have deployed there.

Crews on Tianan turning around F-22s so that they can flew sorties in the area’s training area, the Mariana Islands Range Complex (MIRC), which Jamieson called “an operationally relevant environment.”

F-22s will operate with maintenance personnel and other ground crew in the Northern Mariana Islands but receive support from additional aircraft flying out of Guam, including KC-135 Stratotanker refuelers, C-17 cargo planes, and a E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft.

“We are operating as a hub-and-spoke which is a major element within the ACE operational framework,” Jamieson said. “The hub is located at Andersen AFB here at Guam and the spoke is operating out of Tinian International Airport.”

JBER’s aircraft are part of Pacific Air Forces, but its F-22s deploy around the world, from the Middle East to Europe, and have now set up operations at Kadena on a rotational basis. Nevertheless, its Airmen still call Alaska home.

“From 10 degrees and snowing, to 90 and raining, Airmen from the 3rd AEW will use [Agile Reaper] 23-1 to practice and validate new ways to deploy, maneuver and project power,” JBER said in a March 1 news release.

In addition to the F-22s, the C-17s in the excercise are also from JBER as well Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickham, Hawaii. Guam is roughly 4,000 miles west of Hawaii and more than 4,500 miles from Alaska, but long-distance missions are commonplace for C-17s.

Though not part of the Agile Reaper exercise, operating from short and rough runways is one of the elements of the ACE and something the C-17 was designed to do. So to put the aircraft and Airmen out of their comfort zone, some C-17s participating in Agile Reaper have already conducted flight operations out of Anderson under minimal light with air traffic controllers wearing night vision goggles.

The Air Force says Agile Reaper is a prime test for “ACE’s hub and spoke frameworks by only employing bare-necessity, mission essential personnel and equipment to operate in a degraded environment.”

In Message to Force, Austin Touts ‘Once-in-a-Generation’ Investments

In Message to Force, Austin Touts ‘Once-in-a-Generation’ Investments

March 3, 2023 | By David Roza

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III touted “major investments” in the nuclear triad, space, and next-generation fighter aircraft—along with “once-in-a-generation” expenditures for shipyards and munitions manufacturing—in a message to the force ahead of the Pentagon’s 2024 budget release, which is anticipated in the next two weeks.

Austin’s March 2 message to Department of Defense personnel reinforced the National Defense Strategy’s emphasis on China as the nation’s pacing threat and the ongoing threat to stability posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine. He also emphasized the department’s integrated deterrence strategy and the ability to “coordinate our efforts across all warfighting domains, theaters, and the spectrum of conflict to create new and more complex dilemmas for our adversaries.”

Austin said investments to strengthen cybersecurity, long-range fires, undersea warfare, and joint all-domain command and control will feed that integrated deterrence approach to dissuade China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and international terrorist organizations from risking war with the U.S.

China, however, presents “a generational challenge,” Austin said. In order for the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge, he said the U.S. must make a “once-in-a-generation investment in our shipyards and our munitions base, and much more,” as well as continue historic investments in defense research and engineering.

Concerns about the state of the U.S. defense industrial base are growing. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said at a Heritage Foundation event in November that uncertainty in military budgets has undermined confidence among industry, according to U.S. Naval Institute News. “No industry is going to make those kinds of investments unless we give them a higher degree of confidence,” he said.

The munitions base is struggling to keep up with demand for weapons, as the U.S. and allies send arms to Ukraine and stockpiles must be refilled.

Austin cited the need for “next-generation capabilities in fighter aircraft,” which would encompass both the Next-Generation Air Dominance program and Collaborative Combat Aircraft, essentially unmanned drones that would work alongside manned fighters as scouts, jammers, or additional strike platforms. By foregoing their own pilots and life support systems, CCAs should be smaller and less costly.

Austin also emphasized strengthening partnerships “by improving interoperability, deepening information-sharing and joint planning, and conducting more complex joint and combined exercises.” He said the U.S. can also get better at sharing among its own military services and agencies, as well as with academia.

Austin said he wants to “deepen the Department’s partnerships with America’s best universities,” as part of an effort towards “building pathways of opportunity for all qualified American patriots who choose to serve their country.”

The Air Force in particular has tried to improve the diversity of its officer corps in recent years, especially within its pilot ranks.

Austin also wants to retain those who do join up by making “significant investments to improve the quality of life for our service members, including making moves easier, strengthening childcare support, and expanding spousal employment opportunities,” he wrote. However, the secretary warned that more work is needed in the military’s mental health care and suicide prevention efforts, as well as its military housing and health systems.

“I’m honored to call each of you colleagues,” Austin concluded. “Together, we will continue to tackle the challenges of this decisive decade to meet our sacred obligation to defend the American people.”

Here’s What USAF’s Science Board Is Studying Now

Here’s What USAF’s Science Board Is Studying Now

March 3, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board aims to complete four studies in 2023, with two focused on a couple of Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives. 

The scientific advisors provide independent advice on key science and technology needs, and this year will focus on:  

  • Air and Surface Moving Target Indication 
  • Scalable Approaches to Resilient Air Operations 
  • Developmental and Operational Testing 
  • Assessing Advanced Aerospace Mobility Concepts 

Initial findings are due to Kendall in July, with a final report to be published in December, according to an Air Force release.  

Moving Target Indication 

Tracking moving targets and delivering that data to weapon systems on the move is among the most pressing of Kendall’s seven operational imperatives.

The Air Force’s early warning and battle management fleets are aging. The E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) and E-8 joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS) aircraft will be retired in the coming years, while the new E-7A Wedgetail isn’t slated to come online until 2027. While space-based surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance technology is available, getting the targeting data from sensors to shooters still far from a seamless process. 

However, the question of how much the department can and should rely on satellites for moving target engagement remains open-ended—in its release, the Scientific Advisory Board noted that “tracking moving targets from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) requires near-continuous target coverage and hence highly proliferated constellations [and] … a Space-Based Radar (SBR) able to detect slowly moving targets must have a long antenna which tends to make satellite cost high.” 

As costs drop, the release states, “the Department of the Air Force would benefit from an independent assessment of the feasibility of developing and deploying a system incorporating aircraft and satellites to provide surveillance and targeting of moving targets.” 

In particular, the study will look at traditional and novel concepts for tracking moving targets, both in peacetime and in highly contested environments, and assess things like their ability to generate both the quality and quantity of data needed, the cost of developing new technologies and approaches, and the threats posed to them. 

After that, the study will “propose science and technology investments needed in the near-, mid-, and far-term.” 

The study panel will is led by Dr. David Whelan, the former chief technologist at Boeing Defense, Space & Security and now a professor of engineering at the University of California San Diego. The vice chair is Dr. Ryan Hersey, director of the Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory at Georgia Tech. 

Scalable Approaches to Resilient Air Operations 

With Agile Combat Employment gaining traction in the Air Force as a means of distributing operations and quickly deploying small expeditionary teams of Airmen to different remote locations, Kendall has also emphasized the need for resilient basing. 

But ACE presents numerous operational and logistical challenges, and the Scientific Advisory Board recommended a study of technologies that could help with base defense. 

“Such approaches might include Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs), both lasers and High-Power Microwave (HPM) systems; runway independent aircraft technologies to increase the number of places to launch and recover aircraft; non-kinetic defense approaches … ; and low-cost kinetic interceptors fired from guns,” the release states. 

The study will review how costly and effective such alternatives could be and what it would take to incorporate them into the Air Force’s ACE concept of operations, then propose science and technology investments. 

Dr. Steve Warner of the Institute for Defense Analyses will chair the study, with Glenn Kuller of Lockheed Martin as his No. 2. 

The Air Force Research Laboratory has studied directed energy weapons extensively in recent years, including some that could defend bases against unmanned aerial systems. And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently announced it is working on high-speed runway independent technologies with U.S. Special Operations Command. 

Other Studies 

A third study seeks to dig into the logistical challenges of operating in the vast IndoPACOM theater. Among the concepts the Air Force is investigating are blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft concepts and Rocket Cargo to distribute supplies more quickly and cost-effectively over great distances. The Scientific Advisory Board listed autonomous technologies and electric or hybrid aircraft as potentially useful “mobility approaches,” as well. Toward that end, a third panel is studying the effectiveness and survivability of those concepts. 

A fourth area of study would address Air Force and Pentagon concerns about the speed of testing for new platforms. The scientific advisors studying whether digital engineering, modeling and simulation, and automated tests using artificial intelligence can further accelerate Air Force testing solutions. 

‘We’re Weird’: New Commander Details Life Inside Task Force 99

‘We’re Weird’: New Commander Details Life Inside Task Force 99

March 2, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Task Force 99, an Air Forces Central unit, has taken on outsize importance in U.S. Central Command’s efforts to promote itself as the most innovative and resourceful combatant command now that it can no longer draw the assets it had when the Middle East was America’s primary focus.

Now, after five months under the command of Lt. Col. Erin Brilla, the fledgling task force is shifting to Col. Robert Smoker.

“I want you to identify and break down barriers and unleash your members’ potential,” Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, AFCENT commander, said at the change of command ceremony Feb. 23 at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. “Let your team run until apprehended. We’re excited to see how you carry Task Force 99’s momentum into the future.”

Under Brilla, Task Force 99 was established in October 2022 as part of a broader CENTCOM push among the Army, Navy, and Air Force to promote innovation, unmanned systems, and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence. Task Force 99’s focus is on adapting commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to fit military requirements. It recently conducted its first operational test of a mapping drone, which was deemed a success. The unit is headquartered at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, so members cycle in and out based on their deployments.

That means a lot of turnover. Under Smoker, Task Force 99 will continue to try to cut through much of the typical red tape to fill positions and field new systems quickly.

“I personally, as the commander, work on taking away those blockers for people, and then everybody else just does what they’re supposed to be doing that day,” Smoker said. “We’re not hierarchical at all.”

The unit largely has no backup for individual roles. That is not entirely by design, as the team plans to double in the upcoming months. But currently with nine Airmen, including Smoker, the unit is one-deep in individual skills. Even when a member rotates out, the unit cannot fully replace those skills.

“We’re bringing people on to do the specific jobs,” Smoker said. 

As for the colonel now in command, Smoker heard about the job from his perch at State College Air Station, Pa., where he most recently commanded the 193rd Air Intelligence Squadron. It was Smoker’s background that led him to the job.

Like Brilla, he learned about the opportunity to command the unit through the grapevine. Smoker served on Active Duty in the Air Force before moving to the civilian world and staying on in the Air National Guard. He is an Air Force Academy graduate who like many Airmen of his time had multiple deployments to CENTCOM previously in support of Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. After joining the private sector, Smoker worked for a startup company that was bought by a large defense contractor and worked on projects fielded by DARPA.

Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, 9th Air Force (Air Forces Central) commander, left, presides over a change-of-command ceremony in which Col. Robert G. Smoker succeeds Lt. Col. Erin K. Brilla as Task Force 99 commander during a ceremony at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, Feb. 23, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Javier Cruz

As someone with the civilian defense industry, from which Task Force 99 is intended to draw its commercial technology, Smoker says getting into Task Force 99 is somewhat similar to applying for a civilian job, with interviews and a questionnaire to complete.

“You can’t really tell, necessarily, based on someone’s military resume,” he said. “You need to know if they’re a good fit or not.”

Once they get the job, they’re expected to deliver, even it means asking for help from someone who previously would not been seen as a peer.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re a lieutenant colonel or an A1C,” he said, referring to an Airman First Class. “We’re weird. Everybody has their job to do and they do it.”

Top Pentagon Official: China’s Air Actions Are ‘Dangerous and Destabilizing’

Top Pentagon Official: China’s Air Actions Are ‘Dangerous and Destabilizing’

March 2, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

China’s growing capabilities and recent boldness in the air domain represent “dangerous and destabilizing” behavior patterns, the Pentagon’s top official on the Indo-Pacific said March 2.

Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, discussed how China continues to prod the U.S. and challenge stability in region, even as the U.S. executes a number of cooperation initiatives, as part of a Hudson Institute forum.

“We are seeing a [People’s Liberation Army] that is growing more capable but … growing also more willing to take risk, more willing to use the military instrument of power in a way that we haven’t seen in previous eras,” Ratner said.

This has manifested itself in many recent air encounters between China and the U.S. and its allies, who were operating lawfully in international airspace. Ratner noted an encounter where an Australian aircraft flew through chaff released by a PLA fighter and another incident where the PLA aircraft harassed a Canadian aircraft.

“So here’s an ally of the United States on the other side of the world, helping to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions against North Korea—resolutions that China voted for—and the PLA is coming out and intercepting these aircraft in a dangerous way, and doing it multiple times,” he said. “And then, of course, you heard from [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] in December of a similar event of a PLA Navy aircraft coming within 20 feet of a U.S. aircraft, again, quite dangerous, and these aren’t isolated incidents.”

Air incidents aren’t the only issues. Ratner also noted China’s maritime forces pointing a “military-grade laser” at Philippine vessel crews, sending forces to contested parts of the region, and “covert PRC maritime militia land reclamation in the South China Sea.”

He also pointed to the recent Chinese spy balloon incident, saying it was unambiguously meant for surveillance.

“It was equipment that’s inconsistent with weather balloons or whatever they were claiming it was,” Ratner said, noting that it was “part of a broader fleet” that China is utilizing. “We know that these balloons have flown … over more than 40 countries across five continents, so this was not just an isolated incident.”

Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific Security Chair for Hudson Institute, asked Ratner how to characterize China’s buildup and the threat of failure in the region.

Ratner pointed to the “strategy documents” released by the Biden administration that describe China as the only power capable of “overthrowing the international order … in a way that runs directly counter to vital U.S. national interests.” It’s China’s “power,” “intent,” and “ambition” that pose such a challenge, he said—though so far, the U.S. has worked with its partners and allies to make sure China’s aggression doesn’t succeed.

“As Deputy Secretary [of Defense Kathleen] Hicks said recently … that when leaders wake up in Beijing, they think today’s not the day,” Ratner said. “Our assessment is that that is true right now, that deterrence is real, deterrence is strong, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure it stays that way.”

Ratner also expressed guarded optimism the U.S. can make it through the 2020s without China invading Taiwan, but it’s a tough scenario. “The challenge is enormous; the capabilities are growing; the ambition is there,” he said. “What we’re doing is reinforcing that deterrence, ensuring that the costs of aggression remain unacceptably high to Beijing—and I think we have a pathway to do that.”

Cronin also introduced the challenge of working with countries in the region through agreements, as with the Philippines, while facing down the specter that the U.S. and China “could come to blows” over such agreements.

Deputy secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia Lindsey Ford said the Secretary of Defense and other leaders have addressed this.

“We don’t think that our partners in Southeast Asia, in South Asia, in the Indo-Pacific, have to choose at sort of the strategic level between having a relationship with the United States and having a relationship with China,” she said. “What we’ve focused on is making sure that they have the space to make the choices that they want to make and the ones that they think are in their own sovereign interest.”

Ford also emphasized the many multilateral initiatives undertaken in the region, including a growing trilateral relationship with Japan and Australia and the trilateral initiative with Japan and South Korea—an effort South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeo said March 1 was most important to countering North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

She particularly highlighted work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Emerging Leaders initiative.

“This is a way that we begin to bring together emerging leaders on the U.S. side with a lot of our ASEAN counterparts to really sort of strengthen that network going forward,” Ford said. “I think when you look at that all together, you should take away that the picture here is one in which the U.S. and other partners are creating a security architecture that is going to be a lot more resilient.”

Entire F-35 Fleet to Get Fix for Engine Vibration Issue

Entire F-35 Fleet to Get Fix for Engine Vibration Issue

March 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak

The entire F-35 fleet is slated to get a retrofit its engine manufacturer and the U.S. military say will fix a problem that halted deliveries of the jet for two months. Engine maker Pratt & Whitney has identified the solution, but the move will affect hundreds of fighters globally. 

The decision to make the fix to every fighter in the fleet comes even as both the F-35 Joint Program Office and Pratt say only a “small number” of fighters were actually affected by the problem of “harmonic resonance.” 

The JPO confirmed the retrofits to Air & Space Forces Magazine in a March 2 statement, days after Pratt & Whitney officials told reporters they had identified a fix for the vibration issue identified after an F-35B crash at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility in December. 

The crash, in which the aircraft suddenly pitched forward during a vertical descent and struck the runway, had far-reaching implications as the F-35 JPO stopped accepting deliveries of both the F-35 and its F135 engine and issued flight restrictions for some aircraft, though both the Air Force and the JPO repeatedly declined to specify how many. 

That “small number” of fighters will have to get the retrofit done immediately under the Time Compliance Technical Directive issued by the JPO—once that happens, they’ll be cleared to fly again. 

But it won’t just be that small group that will have to get the fix. The TCTD also directs retrofits for the entire fleet within 90 days, although none of the aircraft will be restricted from flying before getting the fix. 

“While only a small number of aircraft were impacted by the harmonic resonance, the plan is to retrofit the entire fleet, because the retrofit is inexpensive, non-intrusive and supports the JPO’s desire to maintain and manage a single configuration across the entire fleet,” JPO spokesman Russell Goemaere told Air & Space Forces Magazine in a statement. 

Officials have declined to say what exactly the fix will entail. Both Pratt & Whitney and the JPO specified that it can take place at the operational level, outside of depots—but while a Pratt official claimed the fix only takes 30 minutes, Goemaere said in a statement that it takes between four and eight hours to complete. 

F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin says it has delivered 890 F-35s over the course of the program, and it has more than 20 other fighters waiting in storage for deliveries to resume—while F135 engine deliveries have been cleared to resume, the fighter itself is still on hold. 

Service Will Remain at Heart of King Aerospace No Matter How Aviation and Technology Change

Service Will Remain at Heart of King Aerospace No Matter How Aviation and Technology Change

March 2, 2023

Military aviation and technology are ever-changing, from the prevalence of drones to a shift to jets for special mission surveillance, once the province of propeller aircraft.

The creation of the U.S. Space Force in 2019 is, of course, a prime example of the evolving military and the changing defense needs of the nation, reflected in everything from the newest branch honing its mission to this magazine changing its name to the need to add another seat at the table aboard flying command posts.

King Aerospace, based in Addison, Texas, with major facilities in Oklahoma and Arkansas, has been evolving to meet the needs of military, government and business customers since it was founded in 1992. 

Whether providing contractor logistics support (CLS) at bases across the country and globe, performing heavy maintenance, modifying and painting aircraft, or serving as a prime contractor or subcontractor, King Aerospace has focused on meeting and responding to the needs of the customer, whether a warfighter or a Boeing Business Jet operator. That focus will be part of the company’s future, no matter where aviation leads it, and is built upon cornerstone principles that include quality in everything (no excuses) and mutual respect.

“The tried and true values of serving the customer remain constant,” said Greg Mitchell, vice president of government services and a Navy aviation veteran. “Aircraft change and technology advances are happening all around us, but personalized responsiveness has been our calling card and that doesn’t change. We’ve built our reputation and our model on that.”

Skills Working Together for the Mission

The King Aerospace team is experienced with CLS and serving the military and government. From back left to foreground: President Jarid King, Vice President of Government Services Greg Mitchell, recently retired Dean Nelson and Steve Sawyer, general manager in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

King Aerospace began with a CLS program, maintaining and helping staff the U.S. Air Force’s E-9A surveillance program out of Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. Since then, CLS has been a tradition, including the C-9B program for the U.S. Navy and, currently, overseeing the U.S. Army’s SEMA program at over a dozen locations worldwide.

Across three decades, the privately held company has grown its capabilities to include maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO), modifications, paint and other services. Military derivatives of commercial aircraft, from King Airs to Boeing 737s, are a common denominator. That experience allows King Aerospace to leverage skills gained in one sector – like Boeing Business Jets – when working on military or government agency versions of the same aircraft, Boeing 737s. Similarly, the companies that make up King Aerospace – KAI for military, KACC for commercial customers and KACC Arkansas for widebody government special mission aircraft – support one another as needed.

“A lot of our CLS competitors don’t have the in-house capability for MRO services,” Mitchell says. “You truly do get one-stop shopping with us.”

“We’re not just a CLS company. We’re MRO facility. We’re a military modifications company,” said Keith Weaver, vice president-business development. “We have all these links and connections, and every King Aerospace company complements the others.”

With contractor logistics support, the King Aerospace team manages parts, maintenance and other services that keep the mission and the aircraft running.

Able to Handle What’s Next

With a deep bench of capabilities and a focus on the mission, King Aerospace and its leaders see a future rich in opportunities to continue serving and responding to the needs of military and government.

That could include unmanned aircraft, helicopters, expanded engineering services, a wider variety of CLS, basically anything involving aircraft and supporting the military.

“Our personnel have pretty varied backgrounds in different aircraft platforms that range from widebody aircraft to rotary wing aircraft,” says Mitchell, mentioning his own background in helicopters. “The fundamentals are the same as to how you take care of any aircraft from a program management standpoint.”

“Working on a drone is no different than working on an airplane. It’s just doesn’t have a pilot,” says Steve Sawyer, general manager of the company’s Ardmore, Oklahoma, facility, a Navy veteran and former manager of the SEMA program. “Somebody has to fly them and maintain them, so there’s still an infrastructure that can never be marginalized.”

King Aerospace supports U.S. military programs across the country and around the globe, including in South Korea. 

“There are still bad guys. There are still conflicts. Whatever shape and form that takes in aircraft, they still have to be supported,” Sawyer says.

“We do an incredible job at adapting to an environment where the government says, ‘We need to go here and do this.’ We figure it out. That’s what we do,” Sawyer says.

With over 400 employees, King Aerospace is not a small company but between its size and streamlined management, it’s responsive in ways that many competitors are not.

“A customer can pick up the phone and get a hold of real people who can solve their problems instead of it being run through layers and layers,” Mitchell says.

It’s an approach valued by top leadership – its owners – as well as customers.

“We’re flexible; we’re rapid to respond,” says Jarid King, president. “Decisions take moments, not days, weeks or months. That’s what sets us apart.”

Learn more about King Aerospace here.

US Set Up Afghans for Failure, With a Force Too Complex to Maintain, IG Says

US Set Up Afghans for Failure, With a Force Too Complex to Maintain, IG Says

March 1, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. created an Afghan air force that was too technologically advanced for its native country to sustain, then pulled the rug out from under it, according to a U.S. government inspector general report.

A blistering 148-page document by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that Afghan security forces were too heavily reliant on U.S. forces for airstrikes and on American maintenance contractors to keep Afghan aircraft flying. When the Biden administration abruptly withdrew its forces in 2021, following the agreement the Trump administration made with the Taliban in 2020, Afghan National Security Forces (ANDSF) were unable to sustain themselves.

The SIGAR report found decisions the U.S. made regarding Afghanistan’s air force particularly confounding.

The U.S. didn’t expect the Afghan Air Force (AAF) to be self-sufficient when the U.S. withdrew. Aghan forces were heavily reliant on aircraft to move about the country because of Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain and the Taliban’s large areas of control.

“Afghans were familiar with the Soviet-made Mi-17 helicopter that was a core AAF component at the start of the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, and they were able to do most of the maintenance on those aircraft,” SIGAR said.

Afghanistan might have been able to sustain its Soviet aircraft with its own maintainers by 2019, SIGAR said, if only the U.S. military had not begun transitioning the AAF to U.S.-made platforms.

“The shift from Mi-17s to UH-60s moved the date for AAF self-sufficiency back to at least 2030,” the SIGAR report said. Leaving in 2021 put the AAF in an untenable bind.

In 2020, a year before the U.S. withdrawal, Afghan maintainers could only conduct around 40 percent of the work themselves, according to SIGAR. Then, in March 2021, the Biden administration decided to pull civilian contract aircraft maintainers out of Afghanistan.

“Resolute Support commander Gen. [Austin S.] Miller warned that the U.S. withdrawal could leave the ANDSF without vital air support and maintenance,” the SIGAR report said. “That is exactly what happened.”

As some aircraft went down for maintenance, other aircraft were flown harder and farther between maintenance intervals, accelerating the problem. The AAF had enough trained pilots but too few skilled maintainers.

“In a matter of months, 60 percent of the Black Hawks were grounded, with no Afghan or U.S. government plan to bring them back to life,” Sami Sadat, a former Afghan general now in exile, told SIGAR.

That left the rest of the Afghan forces in increasingly dire straits. “Afghan soldiers in isolated bases were running out of ammunition or dying for lack of medical evacuation capabilities,” SIGAR said. “Without air mobility, ANDSF bases remained isolated and vulnerable to being cut off and overrun.”

By August 2021, the entire Afghan government collapsed, leading to the chaotic withdrawal and evacuation by the U.S. Air Force of tens of thousands of military and civilians from Kabul.

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder declined to comment on specific aspects of the SIGAR report but said DOD had provided its input.

Asked if the Department of Defense planned to publicly explain what went wrong, Ryder said DOD had conducted its own classified “lessons learned report,” but could not say if portions of that document will ever be released to the public.

SIGAR reported that “the United States employed a ‘mirror imaging’ approach with the ANDSF—the practice of teaching other countries to fight the U.S. way, with ground troops protected by massive air support.” But when the U.S. prepared to go, the Afghans couldn’t sustain their fight on their own.

The report concluded with a quote from a South Vietnamese Army officer reflecting on the collapse of South Vietnam nearly 50 years earlier: “They taught us to fight like rich men, even though we were living as poor men.”

“In the end, the officer said that he cannibalized several helicopters for spare parts, commandeered one that was still airworthy, and took as many men as he could with him to sanctuary in a nearby country,” the report said. “It was a decision mirrored by Afghan pilots 46 years later in the summer of 2021.”

With NDS as a Guide, DOD Pursues Stronger Partnerships

With NDS as a Guide, DOD Pursues Stronger Partnerships

March 1, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

The U.S. must strengthen its ties to allies, especially now as Russia and China seem to be moving closer together, said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategies, Plans, and Capabilities at a March 1 forum focused on the 2022 National Defense Strategy at the Center for a New American Security.

Echoing the strategy itself and its conclusion that China is the primary military, economic, technological, and diplomatic competitor to the U.S., while Russia is still an “acute threat, one that is immediate and sharp,” she noted the challenge of dealing with Russia and China as partners.

“We can’t help but watch the Russian alignment with the People’s Republic of China,” Karlin said. “Both seem to favor a world in which they can trample over the sovereignty of their smaller neighbors and have a free hand in their self-declared spheres of influence.”

With the NDS as “the department’s North Star,” Karlin said the Pentagon is pursuing a “wraparound strategy” to ensure the NDS “is infused in the department’s day-to-day business.” For example, she cited the simultaneous release of the NDS, Missile Defense Review, and the Nuclear Posture Review last fall.

“The concept of deterrence is not new whatsoever,” she said. “But we’re really trying to evolve our approach to it because it is just growing ever more important. We’re working hard to invest in a combat credible force, investing in critical capabilities across domains, especially cyber and space, and to ensure that our forces are able to do what is asked.”

Karlin highlighted the AUKUS security pact, which draws Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. into alignment as an example of an integrated approach. Australia will receive nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines, and the three nations will share advanced capabilities in a wide-ranging defense partnership.

“The countries are going to develop and exercise and join advanced military capabilities,” she said. “We’re accelerating the advancement of a bunch of different capabilities across areas as wide-ranging as artificial intelligence and autonomy and cyber.” 

A second integrated deterrence example, she said, was the expansion of Pacific exercises, such as the 14-nation Garuda Shield exercise in Indonesia last August.

“What we’re really trying to do is change and enhance the size, scope, scale, and character of these exercises,” Karlin said. “We’ve seen joint maritime drills with Canada, Japan, the United States, and Australia in the South China Sea, really showing how our different countries can knit together our capabilities and employ our forces together.”

Karlin said the united front NATO and other allies showed in support of Ukraine is another integrated example, and she credited close relationships with European allies and partners for that success. “For us to be able to work together at every stage of defense planning is crucial,” Karlin said. “That means we … will have to address long-standing institutional barriers that inhibit collective planning, interoperability, and mutually beneficial procurement.”