Air Force Separated 610 Airmen For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

Air Force Separated 610 Airmen For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

March 1, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force separated 610 Airmen for declining the COVID-19 vaccination during the time it was required, from the fall of 2021 through late 2022, Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones told the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 28. In all, 40 Airmen resigned and 14 officers retired.

Congress rescinded the COVID-19 vaccination mandate in the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, and the services are required to clear the records of unvaccinated service members still in uniform.

Ortiz Jones said 98 percent of the Department of the Air Force’s Total Force was vaccinated. That includes roughly 500,000 Active-duty Air Force and Space Force members, along with those in the Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve. Among Active duty Airmen and Guardians, 99 percent are vaccinated, compared with 94.3 percent for the Air National Guard, and 95.9 percent for the Air Force Reserve.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall on Feb. 24 officially halted adverse actions against Airmen and Guardians who declined the vaccine. In a memo to the force, he said personnel records would be changed to remove or redact penalties and negative actions taken solely as a result of their refusal to accept the vaccines.

These changes require no action from the Airmen, he said, so long as the official file contains a request for a waiver. Unvaccinated Airmen who never submitted an accommodation request for exemption from the vaccine must have to initiate the process to have the record considered for review.

“If you are currently serving and submitted an accommodation request, and if the adverse action is tied solely to your refusal of the vaccine, then the Air Force Personnel Center is taking steps now to remove that adverse paperwork from your file,” Ortiz Jones said.

She noted, however, if the refusals coincided with other misconduct, only the vaccine-related actions would be set aside. Discipline for other behavior will not be removed.

“I want to be clear about the caveat,” she said. “If there are aggravating factors, other misconduct, then that’ll have to be reviewed for what may be appropriate.”

If a service member was already separated, that individual must go to the discharge review board for any military record changes.

The rest of the military is following a process similar to the Air Force. Other services’ senior leaders who appeared alongside Ortiz Jones said there are very few former service members they are aware of that want to return to the service now that the vaccine mandate has ended.

Almost all of the Air Force’s COVID-19 vaccine-related separations were general discharges, according to service officials. Those individuals can appeal to the Board for the Correction of Military Records to have their discharges upgraded.

Airmen who wish to rejoin now that the mandate is lifted can reapply. They would have to first appeal to a review board to have their records revised, and then apply through existing recruiting channels.

As part of a class-action lawsuit, a federal court ordered the Air Force to stop kicking Airmen out if they were denied their exemption request or had an unsettled religious exemption in July 2022. Plaintiffs in the suit say 10,000 Airmen and Guardians were negatively impacted by the mandate.

In his memo, Kendall encouraged all members to get vaccinated even without the mandate. The U.S. military still requires other vaccines, and service members must get an exemption to decline them. Unvaccinated status can impact assignments and deployments, especially to countries that place restrictions on unvaccinated individuals.

DOD and the Air Force continue to say being unvaccinated undermines readiness.

“The decision to immunize was the right decision at the time, and in fact, the only choice given the criticality of our mission,” Ortiz Jones said in her opening statement. “Vaccination was essential in allowing us to deploy, rotate our forces to countries that mandated vaccination, and most importantly, keep the men, women, and dependents of the DAF healthy. As they have for decades, the vast majority of our Airmen and Guardians complied with the lawful order to vaccinate.”

Department of the Air Force show that 16 Airmen and Guardians had died from COVID-19 as of October 2022. Air Force civilians and contractors, an older population, were more significantly affected, with about 150 total COVID-19 deaths of that population plus family members.

Testing Underway for New B-52 Engines

Testing Underway for New B-52 Engines

March 1, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Testing is underway of two Rolls-Royce F130 engines to confirm how they perform close together and to test new digital engine controls. Rolls is conducting the tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Miss., the company said.

“We want to be wrapped up by the middle of the year with this testing … because confirming that we’ve got the right inlet paces a lot of things, in terms of finalizing what the nacelle is going to look like,” Rolls-Royce B-52/F130 program director Scott Ames said in an interview.

The program is “marching toward” a critical design review in early 2024, he said. These tests will ensure “we’re ready to go with the next phase of the development program, [and] flight testing, etc.,” Ames said. “We want to make sure we get this locked in.”

The two-engine nacelle test was “a part of the Rolls-Royce proposal from the get-go,” he said. “Coming to a decision finalizing what the inlet mold lines look like for the nacelle by the middle of the year is our overarching objective.”

Ames said the two F130s were “fired up” in December at Stennis, and testing aims to measure airflow around the inlets to inform the final design of new two-engine nacelle that will house the engines on the B-52. Each B-52 will have eight F130 engines in four two-engine nacelles.

The nacelles had to be redesigned because the F130 is sized differently from the TF33 engines they will replace, and they will be positioned differently under the B-52’s wing.

Rolls won a $2.6 billion contract to re-engine the B-52 in September 2021 and will build up to 650 F130 engines to power 75 B-52 bombers, including spares. The Air Force has said the program will pay for itself long before the B-52 retires, now planned for the 2050s.

Boeing is the integrator of the project, and Ames said the two companies are anxious to see whose digital performance predictions of airflow around the inlets prove most accurate. “They’re really the experts when it comes to some of those interactions, to our aero performance,” Ames said. “Our folks work very closely with theirs and compare models and predictions on how we think the inlet … is going to behave, and what the air is going to look like coming into the engines.”

Despite different analysis tools, both companies have come up with very similar “analytical, predictive results,” Ames said. “And now we get to test all that out in the real-world environment down at Stennis.”

The current round of testing emphasizes crosswind performance, Ames said, which will be performed outside as wind is blown at the running engines from an enormous box fan mounted on tracks to simulate crosswinds up to 30 mph.   

Initial tests will include a metallic shroud over the back end of the nacelle to “make sure you’ve gotten good, representative exhaust flow lines,” Ames noted, but the full nacelle will be substituted “in a production environment.” The back end of the nacelle is known as the “boat tail,” he said.

Instrumentation at the front end of the engines will “confirm we’ve got all the harmonic zones mapped, and we can stay away from those during … takeoff and in normal operation of the aircraft, up and away,” Ames noted. “We’ve got blade-tip timing, and we’ve got telemetry systems set up. … Really, the main focus of this test is right there at the front end of the engine.”

Rolls won’t be doing planned one-engine shutdowns to see what happens, he said.

“Really, we want to see both engines operating at the same time to see how … those air flows interact, if at all,” Ames said. “To make sure we’ve got that splitter and the rest of the inlet design” right.

Once complete, the next step for Rolls-Royce will be to take the engines to Arnold Engineering Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., for “altitude and freezing fog testing,” Ames said. Meanwhile, development testing at the Rolls-Royce factory in Indianapolis will test electronic engine control operations to confirm “some of the finer points on how we want to control the engine in concert with the aircraft and avionics.”

Two more engines will be available by then, and that additional testing will occupy most of 2024, Ames said. “The first of those engines for next year just showed up last week,” he added.

The final nacelle will be tested in 2025, Ames said. There are no plans to test multiple nacelles with engines until they are mounted on the first B-52 test aircraft.

Having two engines situated side by side in a representative nacelle means visiting Air Force’s “engineering leadership” has been able to “get up on a platform around this twin pod setup and open different doors and take a look at how maintenance would occur.” Prior to that, they could only imagine how it might work by “looking at a computer screen … in design reviews.”

Ames said seeing things in person made a difference. “Being able to see it physically, and … touch where that oil access point is going to be … gave them … a better appreciation for what these engines are going to look like sitting next to each other.”

A new maintenance feature enables maintainers to replace fan blades that become damaged or notched without removing the engine from the wing or even the edge of the engine. Another new feature: “Left-hand” engines can be swapped for “right-hand” engines without much trouble, because the wiring is designed to support either position.

Ames said inflation hasn’t slowed the program. “We are on schedule and on budget right now,” he said, and his customer has reported being “quite happy with how things are progressing from a programmatic standpoint, as well as the technical.”

The F130 is “still on the same schedule” set when the contract was awarded, he said, having completed the Preliminary Design Review on schedule last June and the Critical Design Review on schedule for the first quarter of 2024.

Airpower is the Key to Victory in Ukraine

Airpower is the Key to Victory in Ukraine

Feb. 28, 2023 | By Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

The United States has invested more than $45 billion so far in military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. Allies have chipped in billions more.

Yet among all the advanced weapons provided for the conflict, NATO members have drawn the line at airpower, refusing to provide the advanced jets Ukraine needs to turn the tide in its favor. In effect, we’ve chosen to prolong the war and the suffering of the Ukrainian people by withholding the tools of victory.

It’s not for lack of interest. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought advanced airpower, U.S. lawmakers have asked about it, and airpower advocates have argued for it. The President, however, has refused.

Ukraine “doesn’t need F-16s now,” President Joe Biden told ABC News in an interview broadcast Feb. 24. “There is no basis upon which there is a rationale, according to our military, now, to provide F-16s.”

Perhaps the President isn’t talking to the right military people. Biden says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “needs tanks, he needs artillery, he needs air defense, including another HIMARS.” And there’s no doubt he does.

But he also needs attack aircraft with long-range precision weapons that can challenge Russia’s ability to attack Ukraine, destroy Russian air defense systems near the borders, and kill Russian tanks, artillery, and dug-in positions in the Eastern part of Ukraine.

As a combat veteran F-16 pilot and commander, I know this firsthand: Russian surface-to-air missile sites can be lucrative targets for the Viper.

Now, the Biden administration cites three reasons for saying no to providing Ukraine with multirole F-16s—or Swedish Gripens, which have also been discussed: First, the President and his team have said it would take too long to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, and too long as well to set up the needed maintenance and logistics train for the aircraft. Second, it says other short-term needs trump the longer-term advantage the jets would provide; third, it argues Ukraine needs to fight Russians inside Ukraine, rather than the long-distance attack capabilities represented by modern fighter aircraft.

Undersecretary of defense for policy Colin Kahl, responding to questions from lawmakers during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, cited the long lead times for acquiring and training as the major hurdles, arguing that training now in anticipation of getting F-16s later is misguided: “It doesn’t make sense to start to train them on a system they may never get,” he said. Ground-based artillery systems are therefore more appropriate.

Unfortunately, the comparative cost is only part of the equation; the comparative effects of air-delivered weapons are not equal. There’s nothing like the morale-killing nature of air-delivered weapons to destroy an enemy’s will to fight.

It’s now 32 years since I led the 614th Fighter Squadron in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. At a recent reunion, we gathered to relive some of that past and pay tribute to those in other squadrons who did not make it home. Like Ukrainian Airmen today, my squadron mates were warriors—whether they served in the air or took care of planes on the ground. All were passionately and personally committed to their squadron mates and to the mission at hand, ruthless in their collective ability to seek out and destroy the enemy.

Over the 43 days of Operation Desert Storm, we accomplished that with stunning and sobering success. Some things have changed in the three decades since. Russian air defenses have grown more sophisticated. But so, too, have the systems on board the F-16. Fighter pilots and their spirit of attack still have the advantage over the SAM operators in both lethality and maneuverability, and they possess integrated electronic warfare defense systems for self-protection, plus the availability of new long-range air-delivered precision weapons. Equipping the F-16 with the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and its extended-range variant would make them even more deadly and effective against Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems.

The comparison that comes to mind in Ukraine, however, is not America’s overwhelming victory in Iraq, born largely on dominant airpower, but rather Vietnam, where self-imposed limits on airpower undermined the war effort and ultimately led to failure.

In Desert Storm, our Air Force was empowered with appropriate rules of engagement developed by our combined forces air commander Gen. Chuck Horner and my AFA colleague, then Lt. Col. (and now retired Lt. Gen.) David A. Deptula, who led the planning efforts. Our AGM-88 HARM missiles were highly effective against Iraqi SAM sites. While we suffered our share of losses—my squadron saw two very fine squadron mates shot down—we still had the ability, capacity, and authority to destroy targets wherever we saw them. The shoot-downs hardened us and made us even more determined to fight, win, and bring our squadron compatriots home alive. And we did.

That was not the case in Vietnam, where artificial limits on where and how our aircraft could attack failed to leverage the full strength and capability of U.S. airpower. Constant constraints, poor organization, and a failure to understand how to use airpower effectively needlessly put our Airmen at risk and neglectfully extended the war.

Haunted by the Korean War experience where swift U.S. successes following the Battle of Inchon set off a face-to-face conflict with China, American leaders wanted to avoid escalating the conflict in Vietnam into a direct fight with China or Russia, both of which backed North Vietnam. That fear effectively deterred us from ever fully committing to a South Vietnamese victory. Instead, we fought for a draw—an end to hostilities—and not for any semblance of victory.

In Ukraine we again seem deterred by our fear of wider conflict with Russia, even a weakened Russia that has failed miserably in its attempt to shatter a much smaller and weaker foe. To be sure, U.S. and allied support is helping Ukraine to stand up to Russia. But we should not be satisfied with helping Ukraine fight to a draw, especially as Russia occupies a swath of Eastern Ukraine. To do so is to expect future fights and future wars over the same territory again, as soon as Russia regains its military strength.

Rather, we should help Ukraine defeat Putin’s menace and ensure all adversaries know and understand the shared commitment of the U.S. and NATO to the principles of the rules-based order.

“Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capability left,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said Feb. 14 during NATO meetings in Brussels. “We need to do everything that we can to get Ukraine as much air defense capability as we possibly can.”

What the Secretary is missing is how important a good offense is to effective defense. The relative asymmetric killing power of fighter pilots in F-16s would empower Ukraine even more than the remarkable HIMARS precision ground fires. The reason is the speed, maneuverability, and effectiveness airpower can unleash from above. Doing so could put an end to the inhumanity of the Russian assault.

Putin understands power and seeks to exploit weakness. Our failure to deliver airpower to Ukraine empowers his approach, even as his ill-trained forces struggle on the ground.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict must not continue in a framework of extended debates about escalation, retaliation, or illogical justification for Western-made artillery systems. The Russians must stop now and go home. Only the fighter pilot Spirit of Attack and the overwhelming, persuasive, lethality of integrated air and space power from above will quickly send them there.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright is President/CEO of the Air & Space Forces Association, and a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. His last assignment was as commander, U.S. Forces Japan, and commander, 5th Air Force, Yokota Air Base, Japan.

USAF Selects Boeing’s E-7A Wedgetail as Successor to AWACS

USAF Selects Boeing’s E-7A Wedgetail as Successor to AWACS

Feb. 28, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force selected Boeing to develop its E-7A future airborne battle management aircraft, with an initial contract not-to-exceed $1.2 billion to start work on a prototype. Production of an Air Force-specific version of the jet is to begin in 2025, the Air Force said Feb. 28.

The E-7A Wedgetail “will provide advanced Airborne Moving Target Indication and Battle Management, Command, and Control capabilities, and advanced Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array radar that enhances airborne battle management and enables long-range kill chains with potential peer adversaries,” the Air Force said.

The first E-7A is to be ready for operational duty by 2027, the Air Force said. It expects to buy 24 more E-7As by 2032, with a final anticipated inventory of 26 aircraft. No E-7A funding was included in USAF’s budget two years ago; some cuts in other programs may be needed to fund the project.

“We conducted a thorough analysis of viable industry options to ensure the selected E-3 replacement could meet the specific needs of the U.S.,” Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter said in a press release.

The Air Force will retain its E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) until the E-7A is fielded, he added.

“The rapid prototyping program will integrate U.S.-based mission systems into the existing airborne platform to meet DAF requirements, while simultaneously ensuring interoperability with coalition and allied partners already operating the E-7A,” a service spokesperson reported.

The E-7A was originally developed for Australia, and has also been adopted by the U.K. By leveraging allied investment in the E-7A, the U.S. aims to acquire the new AWACS replacements more quickly than would otherwise be possible.

The Air Force’s aging and deteriorating 707-based E-3B/G AWACS aircraft are increasingly difficult to keep flying with mission capable rates plunging to under 60 percent in recent years.

The new aircraft will be USAF’s “principal airborne sensor for detecting, identifying, tracking, and reporting all airborne activity to Joint Force commanders,” Hunter said in a press statement.

“This contract award is a critical step in ensuring that the Department continues delivering battle space awareness and management capabilities to U.S. warfighters, allies, and partners for the next several decades,” he said. “The E-7A will enable greater airborne battlespace awareness through its precise, real-time air picture and will be able to control and direct individual aircraft under a wide range of environmental and operational conditions.”

The Air Force is continuing modernization of the E-3 to meet the service’s obligations under the 2022 National Defense Strategy, the service said, and will continue to provide “worldwide Battle Management  Command and Control and Airborne Moving Target Indication Operations as required,” it said.

The Air Force plans to handle both the airborne and ground moving target indication missions with space-based assets a decade in the future and is now developing the necessary constellations to make that migration possible.

Saab had offered an AWACS solution with its GlobalEye platform. No other offerors were deemed capable of meeting USAF’s needs on the desired timetable.

Think Tank Leaders Recommend Top Focus Areas for House Intelligence Committee

Think Tank Leaders Recommend Top Focus Areas for House Intelligence Committee

Feb. 28, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

The war in Ukraine, China’s regional actions, technological threats, and drug trafficking were the top concerns of leading think tankers testifying before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Frederick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine highlights both strengths and weaknesses of U.S. intelligence.

“What is most urgently required is for the intelligence community … to build a capacity for providing intelligence-driven, longer-term analytical frameworks regarding this strategic competition, so our country can more confidently understand and operationalize the wealth of daily intelligence that it receives,” Kempe said. “How we manage this generational opportunity before us will dictate how this inflection point turns, just as was the case after World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.”

He encouraged a reimagination of the rules and institutions established after World War II to more effectively counter today’s authoritarian influences, such as China, Russia, and Iran.

He also encouraged deeper banks of knowledge, understanding, and analysis in regard to today’s U.S. rivals.

“If we had possessed those wells of deep analytical knowledge, we might have done a better job of predicting Putin’s next steps after the Georgia invasion of 2008, Crimea in 2014, and understanding the fundamental weaknesses of [the] Russian military,” he said. Likewise, he said, the U.S. might have been quicker to recognize “China’s revisionist turn under President Xi Jinping,” Kempe said.

But while Kempe urged “organizational changes … to meet the moment,” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, warned against any major overhaul of the intelligence community. Too many consequential events continue around the globe, he said, and while some changes may be warranted, a rush to judgment is not the answer.

Haas said the committee should explore whether the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has the resources and personnel it needs, and whether its formation in the wake of 9/11 has enhanced U.S. intelligence or not.

“I’d look at the record of analysis—any number of things to look at—how they did at predicting the Arab Spring, China’s trajectory under Xi, the fall of Afghanistan, the quality of Russia armed forces, protests in Iran, the pandemic,” he said. “Where there were mistakes, I think it would be important for the committee to explore where the IC got it right. What accounts for that?”

Jason Matheny, president of RAND Corporation, cited Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as concerns, but noted his organization is paying increasing attention to technology and analytic tools, including artificial intelligence and synthetic biology (syn bio) as topics of interest.

“Both hold the potential to broadly transform entire industries, including ones critical to our economic competitiveness, such as medicine, manufacturing, and energy,” he said. “But both technologies also pose grave security challenges for which we’re currently unprepared.”

Matheny said syn bio could spawn potentially more destructive viruses than we saw in the COVID-19 pandemic, and that artificial intelligence has the potential to spawn new “cyber weapons” and “disinformation attacks” on a scale not seen to date. Technology, he predicted, will continue to outpace government reform or policy initiatives aiming to curb its power or potential.

Matheny recommended “ensur[ing] an increased national intelligence emphasis on emerging and disruptive technology topics,” and “significantly expand[ing] collection and analysis  of key foreign public syn bio.” In addition, he said the U.S. should “strengthen the intelligence community’s institutional capacity for carrying out such a strategy by creating new partnerships and information sharing agreements among government agencies, academic labs, and industrial firms.”

The intelligence committee should strengthen the nation’s ability to “lead national intelligence estimates and net assessments on global trends on syn bio and AI that include assessments of key foreign public and private entities, their infrastructure, investments, and misuse of their technologies.”

Matheny encouraged an “IC framework to share classified [science and technology] intelligence with allied high technology nations,” especially the U.S. Five Eyes partners (the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), as well as Germany, France, Japan, Singapore, Netherlands, and South Korea.

Amy Zegart, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of Political Science at Stanford University, said switching resources from counterterrorism to today’s challenges is not enough.

“The explosion of open-source information available online, the growth of commercial satellite capabilities, and the rise of AI have created an open-source intelligence revolution that is making new insights possible, and that is creating a global ecosystem of citizen investigators,” she said. “A new agency would give open source [intelligence gathering and analysis] the budget, personnel, and seat at the table to champion it.”

Hudson Institute President John Walters encouraged the committee to focus on illegal drug trafficking, particularly nation-sponsored activity. He noted that illegal drugs kill 30 times as many people each year as the 9/11 terrorists killed in one day. “Our adversaries have identified this vulnerability and they are exploiting it,” Walters said. “Let’s begin by recognizing that narco-terrorists are terrorists; they are proxies for the Chinese Communist Party.”

Walters, who was director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George W. Bush, said narco-terrorists aren’t treated as the serious threats they truly are, and made direct ties between drug trafficking and China.

“The [Peoples Republic of China] has been the source of finished fentanyl and precursor chemicals used to make finished fentanyl in Mexico,” he said. “In addition, the PRC is involved in key money laundering operations for the Mexican cartels.”

He said the U.S. should work to destabilize drug cartels as it did to break up terrorist organizations.

“As with al Qaeda, the highest value targets are at the top of the pyramid,” Walters said. “A broad and repeated attack on the most senior leadership and their lieutenants is likely to cause the greatest destabilization.”

Pratt & Whitney’s New Fix for F-35 Engine Issues Will Allow Deliveries to Resume

Pratt & Whitney’s New Fix for F-35 Engine Issues Will Allow Deliveries to Resume

Feb. 28, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Pratt & Whitney has developed a fix for its F135 engines afflicted with “harmonic resonance,” which should only take 30 minutes per affected engine to correct, company officials said. Deliveries of the engine, which powers the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, resumed Feb. 18 after nearly a two-month hiatus, they said.

As a result, deliveries of all-up F-35 aircraft should resume “very soon,” an industry official said. The aircraft is one of the U.S. military’s most expensive and important weapons programs.

Jennifer Latka, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president for the F135 program, told reporters that the company has developed a field fix for the “very small number” of engines affected by “harmonic resonance,” which is a vibration issue discovered in the aftermath of an F-35B crash at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility in December. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the F-35.

The fix offers an “immediate resolution” to the problem, which is already being made on production engines, and “in the field right now,” according to Latka. She declined to specify how many engines have the problem or what exactly the fix entails, but she said “for sure we are going to be retrofitting some jets.” The repair takes about half an hour and “we are not going deep into the core” of the engine to make it, said Latka.

“There are several other actions that we will be taking over time” to address the problem, she said, and referred requests for additional details to the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO). But the immediate action allows the aircraft to operate safely and resume deliveries, Latka said.

The problem manifested after the fleet accumulated more than 600,000 hours of flying time, and it is a “systems issue” affecting “multiple parameters” rather than a problem traceable to a single part, Latka noted.  

When asked for further details on the additional actions that will be required, the JPO declined to provide specifics.

“The government is currently working to provide instructions to the fleet and to Lockheed Martin to enable safe resumption of flight operations of impacted aircraft and new production aircraft,” the JPO said.

It echoed Pratt & Whitney’s statement that the harmonic resonance issue “was limited to a small number of aircraft.” The government and industry team is applying “mitigation measures that will fully address/resolve this rare phenomenon in impacted F135 engines,” according to the JPO.

Deliveries of F135 engines to Lockheed Martin’s various final assembly and checkout locations were halted Dec. 27. The Maryland-based defense giant stopped delivering F-35s in mid-December because a pending safety investigation prevented the company from conducting government-handover test flights. By last week, Lockheed Martin had completed the assembly of 21 F-35s which it has been storing until acceptance flights can resume.

But Lockheed Martin did not halt production after the accident. The harmonic resonance issue affected some engines in the aircraft assembly line as well as some in the field, but the JPO has declined to offer any numbers of affected aircraft.

Latka noted that the company hosted an industry day Feb. 28 to discuss its Engine Core Upgrade (ECU) proposal to upgrade the F135’s power and cooling needed to accommodate the Block 4 version of the fighter, which will offer significant technical enhancements.

“We have already started work on the engine core upgrade,” Latka said. “We received $200 million from Congress in FY22 and FY23, funding that brings us through preliminary design. And then in FY24, we begin detailed design.”

The first engine would begin testing by 2026 and “enter service at the end of 2028,” assuming the Air Force, the JPO, and Congress agree.

“That’s the schedule. We’re already off and running,” Latka said. She added that the ECU “pulls from previous U.S, services investments” and “technologies in this upgrade that pull from the Navy’s fuel burn reduction program that Pratt was part of in 2017-ish.” It will also use technology derived from the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP) effort, in which Pratt & Whitney and GE Aerospace each developed adaptive engines that could fit in the F-35.

The Air Force has said it will make its intentions clear on AETP in the fiscal 2024 budget request, set to be sent to Congress next week. It could opt to develop a new AETP engine for its F-35s or go with the ECU. It’s not yet certain whether the Navy would help fund an AETP integration and insertion, and the Air Force may not have the funds to finance the AETP on its own. However, GE has argued that not going ahead with the AETP would hurt the engine industrial base and its ability to continue developing and producing cutting-edge powerplants. Since 2012, GE has been locked out of F-35 propulsion contracts.

Latka said Pratt and Whitney, a division of Raytheon Technologies, believes the ECU would cost $2.4 billion “over four years” while the company claims an AETP offering would cost $40 billion, although the latter figure includes Pratt and Whitney’s own estimates of secondary maintenance and non-common parts costs among the global fleet of F-35s on top of development costs.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated March 2 to clarify which comments were made by Jennifer Latka, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president for the F135 program, and after Pratt & Whitney clarified the first F135 ECU engine could begin testing by 2026.

F-16s Not Timely or Affordable for Ukraine, DOD Policy Chief Says

F-16s Not Timely or Affordable for Ukraine, DOD Policy Chief Says

Feb. 28, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

A senior Department of Defense official provided the clearest explanation yet for why the U.S. has declined Ukraine’s requests to restock their air force with American-made fighters: It would take too long and cost too much.

Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, said F-16s would cost too much, especially given how long it would take before Ukraine could use the aircraft in combat.

“We don’t see F-16s as the top priority right now,” Kahl testified Feb. 28 at a House Armed Services Committee hearing. Air defense, artillery and long-range precision fires, and armored vehicles and tanks are more important right now, Kahl said.

Providing F-16s could take three to six years for new aircraft and cost up to $11 billion to equip Ukraine, Kahl said. But he also acknowledged that older, used F-16s could be provided for as little as $2 billion, and fielded in as little as 18-24 months.

The cost is dependent on the number, age, and types of F-16s provided. Kahl said the long lead time on delivery negates any potential advantage of getting Ukrainian pilots into F-16 training right now, as they wouldn’t have planes to fly once they completed training.

“It is a priority for the Ukrainians,” Kahl said of Western aircraft. “But it’s not one of their top three priorities.”

In an interview broadcast Feb. 24, President Joe Biden said Ukraine “didn’t need” F-16s, at least for now. Biden discussed the matter with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy face-to-face when he visited Kyiv earlier in February.

Kahl said Ukraine requested as many as 128 fourth-generation aircraft—a mix of F-15s, F/A-18s, and F-16s. But the U.S. holds a different view of what Ukraine needs right now. Kahl said over the longer term, Ukraine will likely get Western jets.

“Our Air Force estimates that over the long-term, Ukraine would probably need 50-80 F-16s to replace their existing air force,” Kahl said. Such a force would cost $10-11 billion, he added.

Lawmakers from both parties and both the House and Senate have called on the Biden administration to provide F-16s. In testimony, Kahl’s most extensive answers came in response to Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), an Air Force veteran who signed a bipartisan letter supporting the provision of F-16s to Ukraine.

There is also opposition in the House. HASC Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) agreed with Kahl, suggesting that pledging F-16s to Ukraine right now would not be the most prudent use of American resources.

The F-16 was designed and introduced more than four decades ago, but new versions are still in production. Now made by Lockheed Martin, the current Block 70/72 models in production first flew this past January and are far more advanced than other models, featuring AESA radars and high-tech targeting pods. Lockheed Martin says it has a backlog of 148 new jets on order, all for overseas customers.

Kahl said the U.S. could possibly offer Ukraine older Block 30/32 F-16s, but it is not clear where exactly those jets would come from. The Air Force has 935 F-16C and F-16D jets in its inventory, plus an additional 66 QF-16s, which are used as remotely piloted aerial targets.

If the U.S. halved the number of aircraft it thought Ukraine needed, to around 36 older models, that would still cost $2-$3 billion, Kahl said. A U.S. F-16 squadron is composed of around 24 aircraft.

Older F-16s could also be taken from the Air Force’s retired boneyard at Davis-Monahan Air Force Base, Ariz., but how long it would take to make any of those aircraft flyable is unknown. They are in varying condition and many have already been cannibalized for parts.

The Air Force is also loath to part with existing aircraft in its inventory, because its capacity is already stretched thin.

U.S. officials have sought to balance providing Ukraine with military capabilities without harming America’s own defense, which has been a particularly challenging issue with munitions supplies.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Feb. 26 that the U.S. was focused on augmenting Ukraine’s Soviet-designed air force, and that while Ukraine may eventually shift to Western aircraft, that was a question “for another time.”

Kahl left open the possibility that Ukraine could get other Western aircraft, such as British Tornadoes, Swedish Gripens, or French Mirages.

“It doesn’t make sense to start to train them on a system they may never get,” Kahl said.

The U.S. has provided Zuni rockets, Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guided bombs, and AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM) to Ukraine, and helped enable its air force to launch those weapons.

In addition, U.S. defense and military officials said during multiple Congressional hearings Feb. 28 that unmanned aerial systems (UAS) were increasingly important. The U.S. pledged a number of new American UASs in February but has so far declined to provide long-range MQ-9s.

What the U.S. provides remains a topic of evolving choices and debate. “These are the tradeoffs we are making in real-time,” Kahl said.

US Hopes to Salvage New START, Says Arms Control Official

US Hopes to Salvage New START, Says Arms Control Official

Feb. 27, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The U.S. believes the New START strategic arms treaty with Russia—from which Moscow said it is “suspending” its participation—can be saved despite the grim relationship between the two countries, one of the State Department’s top arms control officials said.

At a Brookings Institution event Feb. 27, Mallory Stewart, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, said Russia’s complaints about U.S. lack of compliance with New START aren’t valid, the U.S. wouldn’t gain intelligence about Russia’s war with Ukraine by inspecting Engels air base under the treaty, and that Russia itself has thwarted its own privileges under the deal.

The suspension is not yet in effect, Stewart noted, as the U.S. is still awaiting notification and formal complaints. The U.S. and Russia agreed in 2021 to extend the soon-to-expire New START treaty another five years. Russia has said it will continue to respect the accord’s caps on strategic weapons despite the suspension.

Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the move in a Feb. 22 speech marking the first anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader tied the treaty to the U.S. backing of Ukraine with lethal aid, saying the U.S. means to “inflict a strategic defeat” on Russia and “claim our nuclear facilities.”

Moscow is incensed that under New START the U.S. can inspect Engels air base in western Russia, from which the Russian military has been launching bombers and missile strikes into Ukraine. Russia has also complained that it hasn’t been able to conduct inspections it’s allowed to make in the U.S. to ensure that conversions of bombers and submarines to accommodate longer-range weapons stay within treaty limits.

Stewart insisted those claims were false. 

“Contrary to Russian assertions, there is nothing preventing Russian inspectors from traveling to the United States and conducting inspections,” she said. “Since the summer of 2022, we have made crystal clear to Russia that we are prepared to honor our obligation to host Russian inspectors.” Inspections were halted under mutual agreement during the COVID-19 pandemic with the proviso that they would be resumed after the pandemic had lifted.

“We are prepared to implement” Russia’s permitted inspections of U.S. facilities, but “they’re not taking advantage” of that authority, Stewart said. “We’re encouraging them to do so to confirm that we can demonstrate” that the bomber and submarine conversions “cannot be used for purposes that [are] prohibited.” She urged Russia to allow their inspectors to confirm U.S. treaty compliance.

“It’s really a Catch 22, in the sense that they’re accusing us of being in violation, and yet they’re not taking advantage of the right to confirm that we’re doing the right thing,” Stewart said.

At the same time, “Russia’s blanket denial of inspections of all Russian facilities—including Engels—is not allowed under the treaty,” Stewart asserted.

“Putin’s desire to promote instability and to manipulate nuclear risks is more likely to drive countries to band closer together for their common defense,” she said. “And it certainly will not compel the United States to back down in its support for Ukraine.” The issues Russia has raised are “readily fixable problems.”

President Joe Biden “has made it clear that no matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures,” Stewart said. “The president said this not despite the security threats that exist, but because of them. … The value of arms control is greatest when conditions are ripe for miscalculation, escalation, and spiraling arms races.”

Russia has said it will continue to abide by the numerical limits of New START, and that the deal is “not exhausted,” Stewart said. But the U.S. side is “scratching our heads” over the complaints Russia has cited in suspending the treaty, she said.

For one example, Putin said Russia would resume nuclear testing if the U.S. does, but Stewart said she’s not aware that anyone in the U.S. government has suggested resuming such tests. Only North Korea is conducting such tests.

“So it seems the only reason president Putin brought up the matter was to inject more fear into the pronouncement, already intended to frighten,” she said.

It’s in Russia’s and the U.S.’s interest to keep New START, she said, to avoid another costly nuclear arms race, which Russia is ill-equipped to undertake.

“We have said we are willing to meet on this,” Stewart said. “We just need to understand where these communications are coming from.”

Asked whether the U.S. has defined goals for an agreement after New START, Stewart said the first order of business is to obtain “compliance with New START,” which still has two years to go to before it expires.

The U.S. government said in January Russia was in violation of the treaty because it was blocking American inspectors.

She acknowledged that the Obama administration’s goal of starting to work toward abolition of nuclear weapons has little chance in the near future.

“I think one of the biggest challenges we have right now is that if, if one country with nuclear weapons is pushing towards ‘global zero’ and no other country with nuclear weapons takes the same approach, it’s not a very realistic outlook,” she said.

China is not signatory to New START and has ignored all invitations from the U.S. to participate in three-way or bilateral nuclear arms talks with the U.S. and Russia. But the U.S. is pursuing agreements to define norms of behavior in cyber and space, and “even if Russia is not participating,” these may lay the groundwork for future strategic arms talks involving China, Stewart said.

“We have to work with China,” Stewart said, “to prevent miscalculation and miscommunication.”

It would have been helpful to have “more lines of communication” with China during the recent incident of a Chinese spy balloon over the U.S., she said, “to be able to reach out very quickly.”

These are “the kinds of moments in which you try to emphasize that communication is helpful,” she said. “We just have to … walk through the political challenges that … many countries are struggling with, because of this misnomer that arms control is not in the domestic interest.”

China has issued statements urging the U.S. and Russia to work out their differences and reinstate New START, Stewart said, which she said is encouraging. However, China’s stated ambition is to reach nuclear parity with the U.S. and Russia, so it’s in China’s interest that its two competitors continue to observe strategic weapon limits.

“We’re very aware of approaching this time in which we have two near-peer or peer competitors in the strategic arena,” Stewart said.

‘Adverse Actions’ to Be Erased for Some Troops Who Sought Exemptions to COVID Vaccines

‘Adverse Actions’ to Be Erased for Some Troops Who Sought Exemptions to COVID Vaccines

Feb. 27, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Currently serving Airmen and Guardians who sought exemptions from the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate will see those actions reversed and records erased, a new memo from Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall states.

“The DAF will remove adverse information from records of those currently serving service members who sought an exemption on religious, administrative, or medical grounds and who received adverse actions solely due to their refusal to take the vaccine,” the Air Force stated in a Feb. 24 press release.

Letters of admonishment, counseling, or reprimand will be rescinded; nonjudicial punishments “issued solely for vaccine refusal” will be set aside; referral performance reports issued “solely for vaccine refusal after requesting an exemption will be removed from personnel records;” adverse actions related to vaccine refusal detailed in promotion records will be “corrected” or redacted; and involuntary discharge proceedings related to vaccine refusal that are not yet complete will be terminated.

It is unclear how many service members remain Active Duty who are affected by the recent memo. Nor is it clear how long it will take for records to be corrected. The Air Force said service members still on Active, Guard, or Reserve status will not have to initiate any actions for their records to be updated.

“Commanders at all levels must ensure that associated guidance derived from the mandate is rescinded,” Kendall wrote.

As of October 2022, the most recent data available, 97.5 percent of the Department’s Total Force of 497,000 Active Duty Air Force and Space Force, Air Guard, and Air Force Reserve members—were vaccinated against COVID-19. That data indicated nearly 99 percent of Active-duty personnel had been vaccinated.

While Kendall’s memo dispenses with Air Force’s punitive actions for those who sought exemptions, COVID-19 vaccination status can still impact assignments or deployments for them, especially if it presents an issue with another country’s laws.

The Department of Defense officially rescinded its vaccine mandate Jan. 10. On the same day Kendall released his memo, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III issued a memo directing all military departments to issue new guidance to comply with the new DOD policy by Mar. 17.

The Department of the Air Force is canceling all religious accommodation requests related to COVID-19 vaccines, as the issue is now moot. If a service member has other religious accommodation requests related to other mandated vaccines, they must resubmit the request, the Air Force said.

Not a Clean Sweep

However, the slate is not entirely wiped clean for affected service members if there are other issues on their record. Kendall’s memo states that the new policy reversals are solely in response to actions taken for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. If a nonjudicial punishment was issued partially for refusing the vaccine and partly for some other transgression, parts unrelated to the vaccine will be reassessed. If a performance report addresses misconduct other than a refusal to get vaccinated, the report will redact only the portion related to the COVID-19 vaccine and be reevaluated.

“At the time the actions were taken, they were appropriate, equitable, and in accordance with valid lawful policy in effect at the time; however, removal of those actions is now appropriate in some circumstances,” Kendall wrote.

According to April 2022 Congressional testimony, the Air Force had separated 287 Airmen for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Just shy of 98 percent of those received general discharges under honorable conditions. The Space Force had not discharged anyone for refusing to get the vaccine at the time. The 287 Airmen separated represented roughly 0.05 percent of all Active, Reserve, and Guard service members. According to plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the Department of the Air Force, there are around 10,000 unvaccinated Total Force personnel. An unknown number of service members left voluntarily to avoid the vaccination requirement.

The Air Force granted the fewest honorable discharges of all services for refusing the vaccine, which can have implications for the kinds of benefits separated Airmen can receive. A service member that receives a general discharge, as nearly all Airmen did, can usually receive medical benefits from the VA, but they do not have access to G.I. Bill educational benefits.

Kendall’s latest memo did not detail what the Air Force plans to do with separated service members, such as possibly allowing them to reapply to return to service.

One issue that appears to be off the table is providing back pay for any separated service member.

“We are not pursuing, as a matter of policy, back pay for those who refused the vaccine,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters in January. “At the time that those orders were refused, it was a lawful order.”