The Berlin Airlift: An Example to Emulate 75 Years Later

Sept. 29, 2024 | By Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula USAF (Ret.) and Douglas A. Birkey

Sept. 30 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Airlift. In the first victory of the Cold War, U.S. and U.K. Airmen flew 278,000 sorties, rescuing the people of West Berlin from starvation by blockade after Soviet forces cut off all ground access to the city. Those flights poured in 2.3 million tons of provisions, mostly food and fuel, over 15 stressful months.

Yet the strategic significance of this crucial air campaign was far greater than a massive aerial moving job. The Berlin Airlift demonstrated the criticality of harnessing prudent national security solutions when options are limited and the stakes are incredibly high. Such circumstances abound today.

While the 75th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift’s end deserves to be commemorated as a tremendous achievement, there is no guarantee we could execute such an operation today—a reality that demands attention and action. Legitimate questions regarding decisive national leadership, clear security strategies, and military depth and readiness loom over us today at a time when the U.S. arguably faces a more complex and challenging world than ever before in history.

The roots of the Berlin Airlift extend to the end of World War II, when the allies divided Germany into zones of occupation. A section of Berlin overseen by the Western allies was surrounded by a region under Soviet control. On June 24, 1948, the Soviets blockaded the city in a bid to seize control, effectively threatening to starve the city’s 2 million inhabitants until the allies capitulated.

President Harry S. Truman made a decisive call: “We stay in Berlin, period.”

Realizing that objective was far less clear, however. Initial military options included a direct attack to reopen a key highway corridor. But as this course might invite World War III, it was quickly dismissed. Airlift became the answer not due to raw power, but because it could achieve the ultimate objective: to overcome the blockade.

The airlift was an unprecedented and audacious undertaking: a non-stop parade of cargo aircraft touching down at Berlin’s Tempelhof airport every 45 seconds. Armed with Truman’s clear intent, a viable airlift strategy, and significant airlift capacity that remained in the wake of World War II, the western Allies had the tools to make it work. Individual discipline, dedication to duty, and sacrifice on the part of the aircrews did the rest.

That is what we celebrate today, 75 years later.

But the enduring tenets of that success stand apart from realities we see in today’s U.S. security enterprise.

America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago signaled the world’s despots that American will is not what it once was. Adversaries took note and have called the U.S. deterrent bluff. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s aggression in the South Pacific, and Iran’s coordinated attacks via Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis should all be seen in the light of that catastrophic failure. The Houthis—relative to world powers, a flea on the tail of an ally cat—shut down the Red Sea to international commerce with no significant consequence. North Korea continues to develop its nuclear arsenal. In each case, the U.S. has responded reactively, rather than through decisive national leadership.

The notion of will directly ties to strategy. Too often these days, we see reluctant U.S. policy approaches that cede the initiative to opponents. Deterrence—the avoidance of conflict through the credible threat of a forceful response—only works if adversaries clearly believe they are held under threat. In no sport can a team win through defense alone. There comes a point where offense must come into play in order to win the contest.

These days, however, America is lacking in its ability to field an effective offense, whether measured in capability or capacity. The U.S. Air Force—descendants of the Airmen who executed the Berlin Airlift—is now the smallest and oldest in its history. Readiness is at dangerously low levels. Today’s Airmen would be significantly resource challenged to execute a major sustained operation on the scale of a 21st century version of the Berlin Airlift. Our Space Force is likewise under-resourced. So too is our Navy.

The United States must reset and rebuild the capacity and capability to answer and deter the threats now facing the nation.

A photo from the inside of Reach 871, a U.S. Air Force C-17 flown from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Qatar on Aug. 15, 2021. USAF

The good news is that a reset is possible and the case for action is abundantly clear. America faces an array of adversaries whose objectives are directly opposed to our interests and values. Russia persists in its war of attrition against Ukraine, rattling the nuclear card as a means to deter Ukraine’s suppliers from removing limits on how western arms are used. China is designing a force expressly to counter and defeat the United States. Iran is doing all in its power to sew division throughout the Middle East.

These rivals are playing for keeps. National leadership must respond accordingly, which includes articulating the case for action to the American public. As the Berlin Airlift proved, strength is an essential pre-condition if we want to preserve peace in a very dangerous world.

The time has come as well to reinforce decisive leadership in the military. It is time to stop focusing on what adversaries are doing to us and instead pursue strategies that seize the initiative. This does not necessarily mean direct conflict, but it certainly means clearly stating positions, holding to them, and playing to win. Otherwise, U.S. credibility will be shattered.

Above all, we must sufficiently resource our men and women in uniform to answer the challenges they face. If we ask them to risk the ultimate sacrifice, we must do all in our power to equip them for success—not forgo advanced technological capability because of self-imposed and arbitrary budget caps.

America met the moment 75 years ago. The Soviets relented and the routes into West Berlin were reopened. We must meet the moment again today. Too much is at risk to consider any other course.

Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula is the Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Douglas A. Birkey is the institute’s Executive Director.

F-16 Navigation System Failure in Bad Weather Led to Crash off Korea: New Report

Sept. 27, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

A critical failure of an F-16’s navigation system and its backup, coupled with poor weather conditions, led to a crash off the coast of South Korea last December, destroying the $28 million fighter, according to an Air Force Accident Investigation Board release Sept. 26.

The F-16 was flying from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, for a training mission on Dec. 11, 2023. The pilot, who ejected safely, sustained no serious injuries and was returned to full flight duties a few weeks later.

The investigation found the crash was primarily due to a failure in the aircraft’s embedded global positioning and inertial navigation system known as EGI. The EGI combines GPS and inertial navigation that tracks movement using onboard sensors. When the EGI fails, the pilot loses access to critical navigation and must rely on backup instruments.

But in this case, the backup also failed the pilot; investigators faulted a malfunctioning backup Standby Attitude Indicator (SAI) and poor weather conditions with limited visibility as causes of the pilot’s disorientation that contributed to the crash. The SAI shows the jet’s orientation—whether it’s level, climbing, or turning.

Although the exact cause of the EGI failure remains unclear due to the loss of the black box, a power outage is suspected to have triggered the malfunction, as seen in similar past incidents.

“Based on the data available, I could not determine why the EGI malfunctioned,” Col. Philip Lancaster, the board president, wrote in the report. “The ‘most likely’ cause of failure is a loss of power which may or may not be visible to the pilot.”

The incident began shortly after the 8:23 a.m. takeoff of a four-ship formation of F-16s from Kunsan during a routine exercise. The pilot involved in the mishap encountered dense cloud cover, forcing him to rely fully on the aircraft’s navigation system to fly, a state known as instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).

About 15 minutes into the flight, the jet’s EGI system malfunctioned, wiping out the pilot’s critical navigation and attitude displays that are essential for keeping the plane level or on course.

“The absence of the EGI failure while in IMC may have prevented this mishap,” the report stated.

With the EGI down, the pilot tried to rely on the backup SAI, which had already shown some faulty pitch and bank data earlier in the flight. Hoping for clear skies, the pilot then started a descent through the clouds.

The system kept giving conflicting readings, showing a climb while airspeed and altitude instruments indicated a descent. This mismatch of data with the cloudy conditions led to the pilot experiencing spatial disorientation—a condition where the pilot could not accurately interpret the aircraft’s position relative to the horizon.

“After transitioning to the SAI, the Mishap Pilot had difficulty maintaining level flight and overall spatial orientation due to the weather conditions and a poorly performing SAI, so the [pilot] prioritized a descend below the forecasted ceiling (believed to be 3,500 ft) where clear sky was expected,” the report stated.

The pilot told one of his wingmen to follow closely, about 500 feet behind, while relaying altitude and airspeed information during the descent. However, the report noted that radar data alone from the other F-16 wasn’t enough to resolve the mishap pilot’s spatial awareness. When the other pilot’s radar showed the mishap plane slightly climbing, the mishap aircraft’s SAI still indicated a nose-up position with continued altitude loss.

“When unable to find airspace free of clouds at 3,000 feet, the Mishap Pilot attempted to level off, causing further disorientation,” the report read.

At around 8:42 a.m., the pilot attempted to eject, though without the black box data, the exact timing and aircraft position at ejection remain uncertain. Shortly after, the F-16 crashed into the Yellow Sea, approximately 81 nautical miles west of Kunsan. The jet, belonging to the 8th Fighter Wing, was completely destroyed, with a valued loss of $28,259,045. The pilot was rescued by a Republic of Korea Navy ship and treated for hypothermia.

Since last year, Kunsan has experienced three F-16 crashes, occurring in May and December of 2023, and January of this year. No personnel have been injured in any of the crashes, and the Air Force has stated that the incidents do not appear to be related.

“The Air Force is working to limit the impacts of temporary power fluctuations on flight instrument systems in the F-16,” the service said in a statement following the release of the report.

The investigation report for the third F-16 crash in January this year is still being conducted and its results will be published “as soon as they are available,” the statement added.

USSF Awards Contracts for New C2 Software to Manage Frequently Moving Satellites

Sept. 27, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Rapid Capabilities Office, charged with quickly delivering cutting-edge, often-classified technologies for the Space Force, has awarded orders to 20 different small companies to work on software for commanding and controlling satellites that move around in orbit.

The program, dubbed Rapid Resilient Command and Control (R2C2), could be crucial as the Space Force considers the concept of “dynamic space operations,” in which instead of station-keeping to preserve fuel, satellites move frequently to dodge threats, gather data, be refueled, and more.

In June, the Space RCO announced it was creating a pool of vendors for R2C2 through what is called an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, estimated to be worth $1 billion over five to seven years. The Sept. 26 announcement marks the first awards from that contract, with each company receiving up to $600,000.

“These awards are designed to help the awardees gain a baseline understanding of the current architecture, capabilities, and processes used within R2C2 and onboard essential personnel, while also providing the government team insight into the awardees’ classified processing capabilities and management processes,” the RCO said in a release.

The software these vendors will build will help operators at ground stations to manage “dynamic USSF satellites with protect-and-defend missions” at the tactical level, according to the release, as well as other satellites’ rendezvous and proximity operations planning, telemetry, and tracking and command.

Space RCO director Kelly Hammett said in December 2023 that R2C2 is fundamentally about “connecting the mission and the capability in the satellites with the ability to C2 them in a dynamic environment.

Hammett also said at the time the program was being managed by a combined office between his organization and Space Systems Command and had made good progress since starting in February 2023.

“We brought a couple of our design agents on contract. We have a number of demos,” he said then. “We’re actually going to be showing working software here in the next three months.”

In its Sept. 25 release, the Space RCO said that in May, the program “deployed mission-unique software to the cloud and demonstrated end-to-end data flow for a classified USSF satellite program,” followed by a demo in August in which the team was able to feed commands through its software on a commercial cloud to an on-orbit Space Force satellite.

The R2C2 program is closely related to another Space RCO effort, the Satellite Communications Augmentation Resource. That program will modernize the Space Force’s aging Satellite Control Network and allow the service’s array of antennas to connect with multiple satellites at a time, greatly expanding operators’ ability to talk with their satellites.

That bandwidth and speed will be crucial for dynamic space operations, requiring operators to be much more hands-on in directing satellites where to go and when to do it. That will require upgraded battle management software such as R2C2 to ensure operators have a full picture of what’s happening.

It’s all a far cry from most current satellite’s movements and operations, which mostly requires Guardians to focus on “station keeping,” or ensuring they stay in place in orbit.

PHOTO: Russian Aircraft Intercepted By US F-16 in Russian-Style Camo. Here’s Why

Sept. 27, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

When a Russian warplane ventured near Alaska earlier this month, it faced a familiar—if perhaps unexpected—sight.

On a trip into the Alaska Air Identification Zone (ADIZ) in September, a Russian Ilyushin Il-38 maritime surveillance aircraft was photographed by the U.S. military flying alongside a fighter with navy blue, light blue, and gray camouflage, complete with bright red numbering—the colors of the Russian Aerospace Forces, or VKS. But the aircraft was an American F-16 flying a routine intercept mission for NORAD.

How a Russian-styled fighter intercepted a Russian warplane is a story of U.S. Air Force restructuring.

The F-16, from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, was from the 18th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, which flies 1980s-era, “pre-block” Vipers. The unit is tasked with homeland defense. But until February, that unit was known as the 18th Aggressor Squadron, tasked with simulating enemy combatants for dissimilar training.

When asked earlier this month about the unit—and specifically whether the bold paint jobs that mimic other nations, a notable feature of Air Force aggressor squadrons, were still on the jets—the commander of U.S. forces in the area noted that the planes still have vestiges of their past.

“They have a variation and a mix of paint jobs, but we’re still on the journey of the development there,” Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham, the commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region, Alaskan Command, and the 11th Air Force, said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine on Sept. 16. “Great Airmen, doing incredible work with the mission that they’ve been given.”

Cunningham is familiar with aggressors, having previously commanded the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., which runs the Red Flag combat training exercise series complete with a fleet of aggressor aircraft.

The change to the 18th Fighter Interceptor Squadron aligned the unit with “national priorities,” Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, Cunningham’s predecessor, said earlier this year. The move allowed the unit to “organize, train, and equip for their primary combat mission of providing aerospace control for homeland defense missions,” the 354th Fighter Wing said in an April news release.

“From an 11th Air Force perspective, we’re essentially the force provider to Alaska NORAD region—the alert forces that we have that stand at the ready to run those intercepts,” Cunningham said. “We just stood up the 18th Fighter Interceptor Squadron not that long ago, under Lt. Gen. Nahom’s command, and that kind of bears the brunt of most of that—taking the intercepts there. But we have a much broader alert force that makes that happen so that is definitely a total force team.”

U.S. Air Force Col. Curtis Dougherty, commander, 354th Operations Group, addresses the crowd during the 18th Aggressor Squadron redesignation at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Feb. 2, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Carson Jeney

Cunningham pointed out the squadron’s work during an intercept of a combined bomber patrol of Russian and Chinese aircraft in the Alaska ADIZ in July, during which the squadron worked with F-35s, also from the 354th Fighter Wing, and Canadian Royal Air Force F-18 Hornets.

During September, there were four Russian flights into the Alaska ADIZ within the span of a week during a Russian naval exercise, each involving multiple aircraft. Another Russian flight of four aircraft occurred Sept. 23.

The Chinese and Russian flights were all in international airspace as Alaska ADIZ stretches beyond American and Canadian territory, and ADIZ intercepts around the world often occur, including intercepts of American aircraft. The U.S. has intercepted Russian planes near Alaska since the Cold War.

“Even though on the surface, just because you see the pictures, it seems like what happens in Alaska NORAD region is easy,” Cunningham said. “But making that look easy is part of the awesomeness of the team that pulls all that off, because the distance, the geography that exists in the Arctic and across Alaska is significant—underappreciated often. It’s basically like going from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States and pulling off an intercept.”

CCA Drones Could Cost Less Than $1,200 per Pound—But Can They Get Sensors to Match?

Sept. 27, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Collaborative Combat Aircraft—the autonomous “wingmen” drones the Air Force is pursuing to pair with manned fighters—can truly provide “affordable mass” because their per-pound cost could be two-thirds or even less than a crewed fighter, experts said last week at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

During a Sept. 18 panel, officials also discussed the reasoning behind the design priorities for CCAs and how they are being developed.

“You buy aircraft by the pound,” noted Robert Winkler, vice president of corporate development and national security programs at Kratos Defense and Security Systems.

Crewed fighters and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft “normally cost somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000 a pound,” Winkler said. But years of studies from the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center have led to flying autonomous prototypes with a “baseline now … down to $1,200 a pound for CCA-type equipment, and everybody’s working hard to get even below $1,000 a pound,” Winkler said.

Some companies are even saying they can reduce the price to $600-$800 a pound, Winkler added. “That’s how you get the affordability, at the same time that you get the survivability.”

What is not yet in hand, Winkler warned, are “exquisite” sensors whose price matches the low cost of the airframe.

“The major cost of [CCAs] is going to be mission [equipment],” he asserted. The Air Force’s radars, electro-optical cameras, and ISR equipment are “the best weapons sensors on the planet [but] … what we don’t have is in the middle. We don’t have something that fits, that can be used multiple times, but it’s an exquisite sensor, and we need to get to that part as well; to bring that cost down.”

Survivability—often achieved through stealth—must go hand-in-hand with affordability, Winkler added.

“Obviously, you don’t want to have these aircraft get out there and just get all get shot down. And obviously, you don’t want them to be ‘silver bullets,’ where they cost so much that you can’t afford to lose them. So there is a right balance,” that must be found between those considerations, he said.

CCA drones must have the “right blend of onboard/offboard [mission equipment] and organic survivability treatments and methods such that you have a high probability to get the aircraft back without driving the cost or the ceiling [so high] that you’re afraid to” risk the platform, he said.

“That’s really what we’re after, is affordable mass. So there’s a knee in the curve where that happens. And I think we’ve everything you see on the [exhibition] floor today is pretty much balanced for affordability.”

The conference’s technology expo featured full-scale models of Anduril’s “Fury” drone and General Atomics’ unnamed aircraft, which have been selected as the finalists for the first increment of CCA, as well as GA’s actual XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing System (OBSS), which flew last summer and shares many design features with the company’s CCA.

A model of Anduril’s Fury drone on display at the AFRL booth at the Tech Expo – Air, Space & Cyber Conference on September 17, 2024. Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Minimal Maintenance

Beyond mass, CCA drones will also need to fit with the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment model, operating from remote and austere locations throughout a theater. To that end, General Atomics is aiming to “get rid of any kind of scheduled maintenance,” said Dave Alexander, president of GA’s Aeronautical Systems division.

It will be necessary to put oil and fuel in a CCA. “But other than that, I think we really need to design this system that you don’t touch it out in the field,” Alexander said—minimizing the need for spares and test equipment.

General Atomics has learned from experience with its Predator and Reaper families of remotely-piloted aircraft to “minimize the system. Keep it simple and keep it all-electric,” Alexander said, noting that all-electric aircraft have reduced maintenance needs and higher reliability.

“Let’s design these things so you don’t put wrenches on them … [and with] the minimum equipment list,” Alexander said.

Jason Levin, senior vice president for air dominance and strike at Anduril Industries, agreed with the need to reduce maintenance and added that “the whole point is to reduce manpower and be a force multiplier. We don’t want to add people with the system CCA is delivering. We want to minimize people, minimize infrastructure … autonomy for the whole life cycle; pre-flight, post-flight, maintenance.” That includes minimizing ground equipment and eliminating unique ground equipment when possible.

The goal is to “make the system as easy and intuitive to operate with” and minimize the training needed for operators, he added.

Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, Director, Air Force Force Design, Integration and Wargaming; Dave Alexander, President, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.; Robert Winkler, Vice President of Corporate Development & National Security Programs, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions; Jason Levin, PhD, Senior Vice President for Air Dominance and Strike, Anduril Industries during a panel discussion. Photo by Jud McCrehin/staff

Missions and Testing

Levin also said Increment 1 drones will be constantly improved and updated with what’s learned in perpetual flight testing and software updates. Several members of the panel said that as the CCAs take shape, there’s no substitute for live-fly development of their autonomous brains.

“We have a fleet of surrogate jets we fly at our test sites, so we can take the same autonomy, do the simulation, hundreds of thousands of runs, push it into the jets and fly at our test site,” Levin said. “And we have hundreds of flights of flying these aircraft in multiship formations, doing collaborative autonomy. We’re able to get that feedback early and improve the system over time.”

The main effort for the first increment of CCAs will be rectifying the relatively low internal missile loadout on crewed fifth-generation fighters, according to Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, director of force design, integration, and wargaming.

In the Air Force’s initial analysis of CCA, Kunkel said, the service looked at a wide variety of possible missions—electronic warfare, ISR, suppression of enemy air defenses, etc. Eventually, officials decided that for the first increment, the CCA version that had “the most impact on the battlefield was, frankly, a missile truck; something that could perform the air-to-air mission and be part of this system that produces or achieves air superiority. So that’s why we went with the CCA that we have now,” Kunkel said.

Narrowing the focus for the first increment also met the objective of “to “get something that could have an impact on the battlefield” as quickly as possible, Kunkel said.

Other missions, new weapons, and different kinds of aircraft will be included in other increments, Kunkel added, saying he’s “certain” of it.

Even if CCAs were not “affordable mass,” they would be worth pursuing because they open up new tactical possibilities and allow the Air Force to “take risks we wouldn’t take with something that has a person in it.”

Kunkel noted that an experimental unit has been created at Nellis Air Force Base to put CCA technology in the hands of operators and let them experiment with it to find new possibilities for battlefield use.

“This is not a test unit, this is an operational unit. And the thought is, bring in our warfighters that have some experience with this from all different backgrounds. And not only the flyers that would actually fly and develop tactics, but also folks on the ground, so we can learn exactly what we need from an autonomy perspective.”

Senator to DOD: Redo Study on Suicide by Job Specialty

Sept. 26, 2024 | By David Roza and Rachel S. Cohen

About two months after the Pentagon released a congressionally mandated study on military suicide rates broken down by career field, the senator who led the charge for the study is telling Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III that the released data falls short of what was required by the law.

“I am concerned that the Department did not fully comply,” with section 599 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Angus King Jr. (I-Maine) wrote to Austin in a Sept. 19 letter that was posted to the unofficial Air Force subreddit Sept. 24. A spokesperson for Sen. King’s office confirmed the letter was authentic.

In response to a query from Air & Space Forces Magazine, a Defense Department spokesperson said, “We continue to work with our partners in Congress on efforts to prevent suicide” and that the Department’s practice “is to respond directly to any requests from members of Congress.”

The Pentagon originally faced a deadline of Dec. 31, 2023 to provide a breakdown of military suicides since 2001 by year, military job code, and status (Active-Duty, Reserve, or National Guard). It further directed DOD to compare per capita suicide rates to the overall suicide rate for each service, the wider military, and to the national suicide rate over the same period of time.

The goal of the study was to better understand specific factors, such as workload, that contribute to military suicide deaths.

“Anecdotally we know [suicide rates are] really bad in certain career fields,” retired Master Sgt. Chris McGhee said in an April interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. A former F-16 maintainer, McGhee was a key advocate in pushing King’s office to add the measure to the NDAA.

“I consider this to be a starting point to investigate what is going on within those career fields that is driving these suicide rates,” he said in April.

When the study finally came out on July 31, it identified military jobs with the highest rates of suicide, including infantry, explosive ordnance disposal and diving, combat engineers, medical care specialists, and “not elsewhere classified” technical specialists, a catch-all term that includes mortuary affairs, firefighters, and nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialists.

However, the study fell short of Congress’ mandate in several areas. For one thing, it provided data going back only as far as 2011, rather than 2001 as directed, despite the fact that the Defense Department in 2010 produced an in-depth study of suicide deaths between 2001 and 2009.

A DOD spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the Pentagon could not provide the data requested by Congress prior to 2011, because “the Department had not comprehensively tracked collateral information about suicide deaths; as a result, it is not able to correlate deaths from suicide with occupational codes prior to 2011.”

The study also did not break down suicide rate data year-by-year or by each occupational code. For example, the Pentagon lumped all aircraft maintenance fields into one category, “aircraft and aircraft related,” without specifying the precise jobs in the category or the number of deaths in each job specialty.

It also did not distinguish between types of aircraft such as helicopter, fighter, airlift, drones, or other types that vary wildly in terms of operational tempo and spare parts availability. It also aggregated the total for special forces, conventional infantry, and military training instructors, fields that entail many different skills and challenges.

The data also lacks context, said Katherine Kuzminski, Deputy Director of Studies and the Director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security.

“If there’s 36 Special Forces deaths by suicide, is that 36 out of 40, or is that 36 out of 10,000?” she said in August. “The way it’s lumped together, it’s difficult to get a sense of what [the data] truly means.”

The Pentagon cited DOD regulations for its decision because of the small numbers in data sets. “Military service component rates will not be calculated when the number of suicides is less than 20,” as it could invite statistical instability, the study read. “Instead, only the number of suicides will be reported.”

That differs from the 2010 study, which did list suicides for each year by service, as well as aggregated rates for all eight years, even when that number was just one person. Not breaking down the data year by year also obscures the potential impact of specific events such as the 2014 Air Force drawdown, where about 20,000 Airmen left the service, McGhee said.

Kuzminski said the study provided “a good starting point that will now help members of Congress and their staff create more specific questions,” but McGhee argued it fell short of the legal requirements.

“The law required certain data, not DOD interpretations and solutions,” he said. “If DOD wanted to provide their own interpretation for context, there is no issue. But to supplant their interpretation as data, in violation of the law is problematic.”

King made a similar argument in his Sept. 19 letter to Austin. The senator said he understood that there are inconsistencies in data sets and challenges with providing reliable suicide rates, but he requested the Pentagon provide:

disaggregated suicide rates for each occupational code for each year going back to 2001. If there are fewer than 20 service members who died by suicide and a rate would be inconsistent, then provide this caveat; and

the ‘raw data’ of disaggregated service member suicides (not rates) by year of the number of suicides by each occupational code, including those data sets that are below 20

“If there is incomplete data, then I urge you to include as much information as possible rather than rejecting all data for a given year,” King wrote. “Including the ‘raw data’ with the rates will help to address the challenges you identified with invalid or incorrect conclusions based solely by comparing rates.”

It could be a while before the next steps materialize. The senator asked for a response by Nov. 1 that will “include a decision on whether the Department will provide the data” and a timeframe for redoing the report.

The spokesperson pointed out that the Pentagon, under Austin’s direction, launched the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee in 2022, and “is substantially enhancing data efforts to prevent a range of behaviors, including suicide,” through more integrated prevention and evaluation efforts.

Service members and veterans who are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, and those who know a service member or veteran in crisis, can call the Veterans/Military Crisis Line for confidential support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Call 988 and press 1; text 988; or chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat.

Pentagon Needs More Accountability to Speed Acquisition: Former Defense Officials

Sept. 26, 2024 | By Rachel S. Cohen

U.S. military leaders must embrace flexibility, train the next generation, and hold themselves accountable if the Pentagon hopes to deliver cutting-edge weapons and vehicles to the battlefield in a timely manner, three former defense officials said in a report released Sept. 25.

The report, written in partnership with the Washington-based think tank Center for a New American Security, is the latest missive in a decadeslong endeavor to reform the defense acquisition’s famously sluggish enterprise to better respond to modern threats.

The report, authored by Michael Brown, former director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit; Ellen Lord, the first undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment; Robert Work, a former deputy defense secretary; and Andrew Metrick, a former defense fellow at CNAS, pushes the Pentagon to improve in both leadership and technical development to reach its goals.

Faced with the prospect of becoming embroiled in a fast-moving war with China or Russia that could render American combat tech obsolete within months, advocates are urging the Pentagon to build on its progress before the U.S. falls too far behind its adversaries.

“While the DOD is able to deliver relevant, urgent capabilities to U.S. warfighters at speed and scale from traditional and nontraditional sources with existing authorities, policies and procedures, it fails to do so in a regular, institutionalized fashion because of a risk-averse culture that often does not leverage existing options that are new, agile and responsive,” the report said.

Pentagon leaders must create a supportive culture of innovation that empowers product teams from government and industry with consistent funding and clear objectives, the report said. The department must grow more comfortable with pursuing quick wins rather than waiting for a more complex but capable solution to come to fruition. And the military should better understand the acquisition tools and partnerships at their disposal to move new ideas through the so-called “Valley of Death” to deliver them to real-life troops.

Some service members and military software-development shops have adopted those objectives piecemeal to bring their own ideas to fruition. But the Defense Department has been slow to adjust its broader culture to match, typically requiring that acquisition programs undergo a long process of planning and review rather than iterating on a basic solution. It can also be difficult to repurpose money to speedily develop something new when real-world conditions demand a pivot.

“In an environment characterized by multiple geopolitical threats to a rules-based world order, it is incumbent upon the DOD to continue evolving its business systems to allow emerging technologies to be applied to war fighting capability in a relevant timeframe,” the report states.

To solve the problem, the former defense officials want the Pentagon to mirror the tech industry rather than continue acquisition processes that can take decades to deliver a working product.

Their recommendations come as Silicon Valley and tech startups across the country are increasingly vying for a place in the defense-industrial complex, despite the culture clash that has put small businesses and the commercial tech sector at odds with government acquisition.

Senior leaders need to set clear metrics for projects and release public updates on their progress, the report said. The former defense officials hope doing so would set an example for lower-level leaders to embrace accountability as well.

Each military service should create new career opportunities by rotating “promising individuals” through jobs in operations, research and development, and acquisition, the report also recommended. Doing so can help streamline each part of the process and illuminate ideas that more-siloed workers might not have otherwise seen.

The Defense Department must also pursue “iteration and adaptation” rather than perfection, and allow the offices that manage systems development to “address the art of the possible,” the former leaders argued.

“This action is only possible if Congress provides flexible and timely funding that allows the DOD to move funds in the year of execution,” they wrote.

To understand what’s on the line, the report noted, Ukraine’s defense against Russia stands as a stark example.

The beleaguered nation has kept Russia’s much larger military from seizing vast swaths of Ukrainian territory by rushing new capabilities to the front lines. By eschewing the red tape that slows military development, Ukrainian forces have wielded commercial drones for intelligence-gathering missions and enemy targeting and repurposed Jet Skis as fireships—significantly cheaper and faster options than seeking new tech tailor-made for those missions.

The report noted that the U.S. also has a history of thinking outside the box in wartime—but that it needs to do so all of the time.

“While a war in the Indo-Pacific is likely to require some systems that are different than those in Ukraine, the United States must drive similar responsiveness and urgency into its capability development processes,” the report states.

The report is a product of a defense technology task force launched by CNAS in October 2023 and chaired by Brown, Lord, and Work. Their recommendations come as the Air Force undertakes a sweeping reorganization that aims to streamline the bureaucracy that can doom fresh software and hardware initiatives.

A new Integrated Capabilities Command will try to better meet the needs of combat units around the world by considering their real-world requirements in advance and bridging the gap between first developing a system and upgrading it over the long term.

But the Air Force has already had success in units that break the mold. The report hailed the achievements of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which helps launch technologically advanced, secretive aircraft like the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle and the B-21 Raider bomber.

RCO leaders prize “product over process” by empowering low-level employees to take chances, allowing the team to directly connect with senior leaders and governing through a board of directors rather than the typical acquisition chain of command, the former defense officials noted.

“These examples demonstrate that an empowered product team—those staffed with the right talent with access to senior leadership—can deliver impactful capabilities that meet clear warfighter needs on time and at scale,” they wrote.

Air Force Faces Hits to Readiness, New Programs Under Continuing Resolution

Sept. 26, 2024 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The House and Senate passed a continuing resolution Sept. 25 to keep the government funded through Dec. 20, and President Joe Biden signed the bill Sept. 26.

The move means the Department of the Air Force, along with the rest of the Pentagon and the federal government, will start fiscal 2025 with spending levels frozen at the previous year’s marks and be unable to start many new programs.

Air Force and DOD officials frequently bemoan the effects of CRs, yet they have become the norm each year as Congress repeatedly fails to approve appropriations bills on time.

Last week, the Department of the Air Force provided a fact sheet to Air & Space Forces Magazine, detailing the effects of a CR, highlighted by degraded military readiness and slowed delivery of critical equipment.

A continuing resolution will hamper promised pay increases for troops, hinder nuclear modernization, and pause purchases of weapons and aircraft the Air Force sees as key in a future war with China.

“Any length of CR impacts readiness, hinders acceleration of the Space Force, delays military construction projects, reduces aircraft availability, and curbs modernization in the race for technological superiority,” the department argued. “These impacts get dramatically more perilous as sequestration is imposed under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.”

The Air Force seeks a budget of $188.1 billion in fiscal 2025; the Space Force requested $29.4 billion.

Under a three-month CR—very similar to the one passed by Congress—the Department of the Air Force warned that space launch and testing modernization will fall short and technologies that protect space-based communications cannot enter production. Such a bill also hits routine maintenance of aircraft and other equipment, the Air Force’s flight training budget, facilities upkeep, and upcoming contract awards.

Moving forward, there is no guarantee Congress will pass a new budget by Dec. 20—lawmakers frequently pass multiple CRs per year, and the upcoming election means Congress is out of session for all of October.

Should the government have to operate under a CR for six months, it could stop the Air Force from buying greater numbers of high-end munitions like the extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, and Stand-In Attack Weapon. That could trigger a $400 million fine for failing to meet contract obligations, the Air Force said, and hurt Air Force and Navy stockpiles.

Such a bill would delay production of the first seven T-7A Red Hawk training jets by a year and keep flat the number of MH-139 Grey Wolf patrol helicopters in production at Boeing, the service said. Fighter programs are also at risk; a CR may restrict future F-35 Lightning II contracts and delay further production of the new F-15EX Eagle II, “potentially leading to [a] production line break and [delaying] support for fielded active and ANG aircraft,” the Air Force said.

After six months, the Air Force may also struggle to cover increases in military pay or dole out bonuses designed to keep Airmen in critical and undermanned career fields. A CR could delay Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve training and affect funding for “must-pay” housing and subsistence stipends, the service said.

And while less likely, a yearlong CR may postpone progress toward the department’s strategic goals, stall the Space Force’s advancement, and prevent dozens of major construction projects from getting underway.

Work on Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the Air Force’s top priority effort to field a fleet of drone wingmen, would also see delays under a yearlong CR, the service said.

If a CR is still in place on April 30, 2025, federal discretionary spending would automatically be slashed to meet caps imposed by the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act.

“These actions not only stifle modernization, but inalterably give ground to our adversaries by reducing [Department of the Air Force] buying power by $15 [billion],” the department said.

CRs also prevent the services from launching new programs, slowing research and development, and pausing projects to restore or replace neglected buildings on base.

The Department of the Air Force flagged 33 new construction projects totaling $2.1 billion, from aircraft simulator facilities to a child care center, that are put on hold under a CR. At least $1.3 billion more in research, procurement and maintenance initiatives—not including classified programs—also face delays.

Military officials are asking for an exception to the restriction on new starts for at least five efforts. Those include a Space Force program to develop secure tactical communications satellites, “bunker-buster” bombs designed to penetrate targets deep underground, and nuclear weapons security.

Service leaders fear potential budgetary woes could hit programs of all sizes and across all missions.

Speaking to reporters at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference here Sept. 16, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said a sweeping new training exercise, slated for next summer to practice for a prospective war with China, could be pared back without adequate funding in place. Space Force Brig. Gen. Kristin L. Panzenhagen, the top officer overseeing launch facilities at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, said the service may have trouble awarding the next National Security Space Launch contract—which hires commercial firms to take military satellites and payloads to orbit—if they don’t get a new budget.

Air Force Undersecretary Melissa G. Dalton predicted that a CR could delay bringing on the service’s secretive new B-21 Raider stealth bomber as well as postpone development of a new land-based nuclear missile and efforts to maintain the current arsenal.

“The stakes are pretty high,” Dalton said Sept. 18. “We need resources aligned and on time.”

As a last-ditch effort to support top priorities that would be neglected by a CR, service leaders can ask lawmakers to repurpose existing funds away from other programs. It’s unclear whether the Department of the Air Force will lean on that option in the absence of stable funding.

“We’re going to be doing as much as we can to continue our momentum on moving things forward,” Allvin said. “If that requires reprogramming, then we’ll … pursue those as necessary. But I really can’t give you a very precise answer on that now, until we see … how long that continuing resolution would be.”

News Editor Greg Hadley and Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed to this story.

‘The Gucci Way’: Air Force’s Very Last KC-10 Tanker Bids Adieu at Travis

Sept. 26, 2024 | By David Roza

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.—Military aircraft are not known for fine dining, which is why several years ago Master Sgt. Van Stewart Jr. was surprised to wake up midway through a 19-hour flight to the Middle East aboard a KC-10 refueling tanker to the smell of roasted pork shoulder.

“I think they pre-roasted it, then brought it aboard and warmed it up,” the flight engineer recalled “It was delicious.”

Stewart’s story was one of many shared Sept. 25 and 26 here, as KC-10 Extender air and ground crew members past and present gathered to bid farewell to the last of the Air Force’s 60 KC-10s before its flight to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, also known as The Boneyard, in Arizona.

The jet, tail number 79-1948, took off from Travis at about 10:15 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Sept. 26, flying under the callsign “Gucci 10,” an ode to the “Gucci” nickname and motto at the 9th Air Refueling Squadron, the last unit to operate the jet. The wheels-up was the last of thousands in the KC-10’s 44 years of service since it first took off in 1980. It was quickly joined by two F-15Cs from the California Air National Guard’s 144th Fighter Wing.

Also known as “Big Sexy,” the KC-10 can haul nearly twice as much gas as its older sibling, the KC-135, and almost as much cargo as the C-17, a dedicated transport jet. Retired Chief Master Sgt. Robert Lasseigne knew he was seeing something special when he joined the team testing the jet in 1980 in Yuma, Ariz.

A crew chief, Lasseigne had just come from the bumpier, colder C-130. By comparison, the KC-10 was literally an airliner; the jet was based on the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and retained 88 percent systems commonality, according to the Air Force.

“The KC-10 was just great from a maintenance perspective,” Lasseigne told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “It was a good airplane, smooth rider, reliable, and it was very good at executing its mission.”

The crew chief recalled carrying all the spare parts, maintainers, and extra pilots for an F-15 squadron aboard three KC-10s while refueling the fighters from Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., on their way to a deployment overseas.

“When you do stuff like that, then you know what the total fight really is,” he said.

Stewart had a similar experience during his first mission on the KC-10.

“You hear the stories when you go through training, but then you actually execute the mission, and you see the amount of cargo we load on, and then you look out while you’re airborne, you see three fighters on both wings,” he said. “That’s who you’re dragging to wherever you need to get to.”

‘Never Once Let Me Down’

The KC-10’s vast fuel tanks paid off during the longest fighter combat mission in history. April 14, 1986, saw 24 F-111 strike fighters and five EF-111 electronic warfare variants take off from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, U.K., to strike targets in Libya in response to a terrorist attack on a Berlin discotheque that the U.S. and West Germany blamed on Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

The French and Spanish governments refused to allow U.S. aircraft to fly over their countries en route to the strike, so the fighters had to circle around much of the continent in a 6,400 mile, 13-hour trip, much longer than the standard F-111 sortie of about two hours.

Operation El Dorado Canyon, as the mission became known, depended on nearly 30 KC-10 and KC-135 tankers refueling the fighters and each other multiple times there and back, often in radio silence. Senior Master Sgt. Kevin Danel remembered the briefing at RAF Mildenhall at 6 a.m. filled with tanker crews from across the service and a surprise appearance by then-Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Charles Gabriel.

“That’s when I realized ‘we’re not kidding, this is serious,’” the now-retired KC-10 flight engineer recalled. “The Chief of Staff of the Air Force is here. We’re going to do it.”

Danel and the rest of his crew’s first job was to serve as backup in case a tanker broke down before the mission launched later that night. None of the jets malfunctioned, so their next job was to take off at around midnight and refuel the tankers on their way back from the Mediterranean Sea.

“One of the KC-10s just barely had enough fuel” to get to the rendezvous point because it had given so much to the F-111s en route, Danel said. The mission showcased the Extender’s “tremendous capability” he said. “It could carry so much more fuel, so it could do what it did.”

Lt. Col. Andrew Baer, commander of the 9th Air Refueling Squadron at Travis, described the amount of gas the KC-10 can haul as “staggering.”

“When we pull up to an exercise or to an event, and the controller says, ‘how much fuel do you have to give’ and you call back ‘300,000 [pounds],’ the radio stops,” he said. “People say, ‘what?’ It is just amazingly capable.”

That capability saved lives during the war in Afghanistan, where Baer filled up plenty of near-empty fighters so they could keep providing close air support for troops in contact.

“Even if that fighter started heading for home because he had to, we had the engines and speed to run him down, put the boom down, fill it up so he could turn around and come back,” Baer said. “Almost 4,000 hours in this plane, it has never once let me down.”

A U.S. Air Force KC-10 Extender refuels a U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II in support of exercise Enduring Lightning III over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Oct. 12, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Duncan C. Bevan)

Fighter pilots shared that admiration.

“There are few better sights I’ve seen from the cockpit than the silhouette of the KC-10 on the horizon with its boom extended, and the relief I felt knowing I would soon get the fuel I needed to complete the mission,” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., an F-16 pilot, in a video statement played at the Sept. 26 ceremony.

But perhaps the most telling endorsement came from a KC-135 pilot, the new head of Air Mobility Command, Gen. John D. Lamontagne.

“There are tankers,” he said, raising one hand to eye level, “and then there are KC-10s,” raising the other hand above his head as far as he could go.

‘Well, This is a Nice Airplane’

The Extender also sported creature comforts including a coffee-maker, a refrigerator, and an oven, all of which were newer and nicer than the facilities aboard other aircraft such as the KC-135.

“Everybody else was envious of what we had, because there we were playing in an airliner,” said Danel, who considered the KC-10 “a big upgrade” over his previous aircraft, the C-141 Starlifter.

The fact that civilian airliners operated the DC-10 made for a collegial air crew culture, particularly in reserve units, said another flight engineer, retired Master Sgt. Michael Engelbrecht, better known by his nickname, “Commander Scumby.” On other aircraft, the commissioned pilots might not interact as much with the enlisted flight engineers, but on the KC-10, those flight engineers may soon be a fellow first officer or captain on the DC-10 at the airlines.

“A lot of these guys in the reserves, they were all airline pilots,” Engelbrecht said. “They knew that one day you could actually be sitting next to them if you got all your ratings. And then I became really good friends with a lot of the pilots.

“A lot of my buddies that are pilots at UPS or Hawaiian Airlines, they were flight engineers, because most of us said, ‘Well, this is a nice airplane, let’s do it for a living,’” he added.

Along the way, the 9th Air Refueling Squadron picked up the term ‘Gucci’ as both a nickname and a way of life. Accounts differ as to where the term came from. Danel said it started when an Airman brought a Gucci brand carpet back from Honolulu to the squadron’s break area at March Air Force Base, Calif., where it was headquartered at the time. The squadron then became known as the “Gucci boys,” and used the callsign Gucci during airlift missions.

“Part of it too was because we had the nicest tanker,” he added. “It was so much nicer than the KC-135.”

Meanwhile, Stewart said the term originated when a group of squadron members went on a mission without any luggage, so they wound up buying Gucci brand luggage and hauling it around. Either way, “Gucci” has become a lifestyle at the 9th ARS.

“That’s like our motto: ‘Everything’s Gucci,’” Stewart said. “Whether it’s taking care of your Airmen or executing the mission, we just do it the Gucci way.”

Maintainers recreated the nose art for the final KC-10, tail number 79-1948, based on archival images that showed the artwork on the jet’s nose during its earliest days in service. (Air & Space Forces Magazine photo by David Roza)

Generations United

That common identity between KC-10 crews past and present was on display at the farewell ceremony, where maintainers painstakingly recreated nose art on the final Extender of a knight riding a dragon. That nose art was spotted on the same tail number, 79-1948, back when it was originally delivered to Strategic Air Command, Baer explained.

“The nickname given to the airplane by the maintainers and the crews was Excalibur,” said the lieutenant colonel, who commanded the jet’s final flight.

Back in the SAC days, KC-10s sported a blue and white paint scheme. But the nose art reappeared in later images of the jet after it had been painted in a gray and white ‘Shamu’ paint scheme. Most nose art paint schemes are a one-off, Baer said, so the fact that the knight and dragon appeared twice made it a no-brainer for 79-1948’s final flight to the boneyard.

“Headquarters needs to approve nose art, and when we showed the history of how the nose art had been installed and reinstalled, it was a profound ‘yes,’” he said. “We’re really proud we put it right where it was, in the right scale, the right colors. It’s the real thing.”

But as great as the KC-10 was, the people who fixed and operated it were what made it special, Baer said.

“You saw generations from really the first delivery guys, the guys who were senior in 1980, all the way to some of our youngest Airmen out here shaking hands and meeting them,” he said of the ceremony. “That’s what is so incredible right now, in this one moment of time, we have multiple generations of people that are united by that airframe.”

kc-10 farewell — An Airman signs a banner for the KC-10 refueling tanker at the jet’s farewell ceremony at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., Sept. 25, 2024. (Air & Space Forces Magazine photo by David Roza)

Those generations got to see the 79-1948 off when it climbed into the air for the last time on Sept. 26.

“I’m probably trying to hold it in because there’ll be so many people, but then when we get in the bus or get back home … it’s probably going to all come out,” said Stewart, the final KC-10 flight engineer, the day before the flight. “It’s going to be weird coming off the plane and not ever coming to pick it up.”

But while the KC-10 is retiring, the refueling mission continues as the the 9th ARS and other former KC-10 squadrons transition to the brand new KC-46 Pegasus, which Baer described as “a technological marvel.” It’ll be the latest tanker for the 9th, whose refueling history goes all the way back to 1951.

“Old Big Sexy is going away,” Stewart said, “but rest assured that the 9th Air Refueling Squadron and the other tanker squadrons, they’re still going to be bringing fuel to the fight in an upgraded capacity.”