Biden Will Nominate USAF’s Brown to Chair Joint Chiefs

May 24, 2023 | By Chris Gordon, Greg Hadley and David Roza

President Joe Biden will announce he is nominating Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on May 25, a senior administration official confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

POLITICO first reported Biden’s planned announcement. The confirmation comes a little more than two weeks after reports first circulated that Brown had won the nod to be the president’s senior military adviser.

Biden will make his announcement in the White House’s Rose Garden, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III in attendance, the White House said.

“In Gen. Brown, the President knows he will … benefit from a wealth of military experience, shaped in both peacetime and war—a leader who understands the strategic challenges the United States faces around the world, but who also will ably represent the men and women of our armed forces, as well as their families,” the senior official said. “Gen. Brown has flown alongside allies and partners in combat, served overseas, and commanded at every possible level in the Air Force and in joint commands, to include our forces in Europe, the Middle East, and in Asia.”

Air & Space Forces Association president and CEO, retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright, hailed Biden’s choice of Brown as the “right choice at the right time for our nation’s security.”

“Gen. Brown’s unparalleled operational experience, his enormous knowledge of the China threat and INDOPACOM [area of responsibility] and his tenure as Air Force Chief of Staff combine to make him the best possible choice to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the senior military advisor to the President and the Secretary of Defense,” Wright said in a statement. “The fact that he is also an Airman—the first in 18 years to hold the post is also critically important. The threats our nation and allies face today, both in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe, are dangers that must be knowledgeably understood and addressed in the air and space domains and across the full spectrum of the joint fight.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Brown will succeed Army Gen. Mark Milley and become the first Air Force general to hold the position since Gen. Richard Myers stepped down in 2005—and only the fifth Airman in the 73-year history of the job.

His path in the Senate may be rocky, however—Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has placed a legislative hold on all general and flag officer promotions to protest the Biden administration’s policy to reimburse troops who travel out-of-state to obtain an abortion. It is unclear if Democrats will vote on Brown’s nomination while roughly 200 other promotions remain in limbo.

Brown’s Backstory

An F-16 fighter pilot by trade, Brown would bring nearly four decades of military service to the nation’s top military job, including stints as a commander in the Pacific and Middle East. He would also be the second Black service member to serve as Chairman, following Army Gen. Colin Powell, who served as chairman from 1989 to 1993.

Commissioned in 1984, Brown was both an instructor and the commander of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, among the hardest schools in the military and the embodiment of the concept of Top Gun warfighters. He also led fighter wings in South Korea and Italy before taking on key positions in major commands at the heart of U.S. national security.

In 2014, Brown was the director of operations for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration for U.S. Air Forces in Europe, shortly after Russia invaded Crimea; from 2015 to 2016, he commanded U.S. Air Forces Central as the U.S. and its allies conducted an air campaign against the Islamic State group; and from 2018 to 2020, he led Pacific Air Forces just as the U.S. shifted its strategic focus from counterterrorism in the Middle East to deterring China in the Pacific.

Tenure as Chief of Staff

Shortly after ascending to Chief of Staff of the Air Force in 2020, Brown articulated his vision for the service in a document titled “Accelerate Change or Lose,” a phrase that became his mantra for cutting bureaucracy and promoting innovation across the service.

“I’d rather be uncomfortable than lose. That’s exactly why I wrote ‘Accelerate Change or Lose,’” Brown said in March. “As Airmen, we must think differently about what it means to fly, fight, and win. Because we know that our speed, agility, and lethality are exponential force multipliers to any global military operation.”

As part of that approach, Brown has urged Airmen to adopt a faster, more risk-tolerant mindset in pursuit of new tactics and technologies in order to defeat China and Russia in a possible conflict.

In March, he unveiled his future operating concept to inform the Air Force’s future force design, emphasizing the importance of Airpower in any conflict.

In addition to his push to cut bureaucracy, Brown has also made removing gender and racial disparities from the Air Force a top priority, as the Department of the Air Force has ordered sweeping reviews into the state of those disparities.

Prior to his confirmation as the first ever Black Air Force Chief of Staff, Brown released a video in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the ensuing nationwide protests about racial bias. In that video, which generated national headlines, Brown discussed his own challenges while rising through the predominantly-White ranks of the Air Force fighter pilot corps.

“I’m thinking about the pressure I felt to perform error-free, especially for supervisors I perceived had expected less from me as an African-American,” Brown said in that video. “I’m thinking about having to represent by working twice as hard to prove their expectations and perceptions of African Americans were invalid.”

What He’ll Face

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brown will face both social and strategic challenges, as the military not only strives to stay ahead of China but also struggles to attract new talent at a time where declining propensity to serve is hurting recruitment numbers across several of the services. Though the chairman has no operational command authority over the armed forces, Brown would be the top military adviser to Biden and Austin.

As a native Texan, Brown also brings decades of experience smoking Texas brisket low and slow, as well as a lifelong love for the superhero Spider-Man.

Brown’s selection as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs also creates a vacancy for the Air Force’s top job.

How Can Ukraine Use the F-16? Retired USAF Generals and F-16 Pilots Explain.

May 24, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The Biden administration’s long-awaited decision to support a European effort to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s is the first step in a lengthy process to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-style air force into a Western one, a pair of retired high-ranking U.S. Air Force generals told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“It’s not about delivery just now,” said retired Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. “Ukraine is going to need an air force to defend itself because Russia will be back.”

Less clear is whether Ukraine will field the aircraft in time to influence developments on the battlefield this year.

The U.S. has aided Ukraine’s air force so far by providing munitions, including High-Speed Anti-Radiation missiles (HARMs) that the Ukrainians have jerry-rigged to operate from their aging Soviet-era planes. In recent months, the U.S. has also provided extended-range JDAM guided bombs.

Poland and Slovakia are providing Ukraine with MiG-29s from their inventories. But there is no debate the F-16 will mark a quantum leap over the planes currently in Ukraine’s inventory.

“The integration of avionics, weapons systems, and weapons are decades ahead of what they’re flying now,” Breedlove said. “There will be an increased capability, increased radar range, increased weapons range, etc. But this is not the be-all to end-all.”

Ukrainian officials have expressed hope they will be flying the planes by the fall, but some U.S. officials said they cannot guarantee the aircraft will be in Ukraine’s hands before the end of the year.

A U.S. Air National Guard analysis assessing Ukrainian pilots’ skills, reported by Yahoo News, said they could be trained to operate the plane in as little as four months. It could take months more, however, to turn those pilots into airmen who can hold their own in combat and make full use of the F-16’s attributes, experts said.

If Ukrainians are not thoroughly trained in Western tactics, “you’re not going to realize any of the benefits of having a real four-plus generation aircraft,” said Breedlove, a former F-16 pilot. “If you take an F-16 and fly it and use it like a MiG-29, you’re just going have a hotrod MiG-29, and that’s it.”

Still, the time needed is likely far short of the 18 months the Pentagon previously cited as the fastest possible timeline.

“We always overestimate how long it’s going to take to bring a new weapons system into the Ukrainian military,” Breedlove said. “They can clearly outperform our expectations.”

For now, Ukrainian forces are expected to rely on HIMARS rockets, armor, artillery, and British Storm Shadow missiles as they seek to bust through Russian defensive lines during their planned counteroffensive.

“If they are not successful in their counteroffensive, then everything else is largely a moot point,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said May 23 when pressed on specifics about the provision of F-16s.

Until last week, the White House had held back from facilitating Ukraine’s acquisition of F-16s because it was worried that supplying Ukraine with the planes risked escalation with Russia and because of concerns the aircraft would not survive Russia’s formidable air defenses.

Instead of aircraft, U.S. officials have focused on providing Ukraine with air defenses, which has resulted in largely mutually-denied airspace over the country. But some F-16 proponents argue that since Ukraine’s counteroffensive is so critical, the U.S. should have been quicker to supply Kyiv with Western aircraft.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem, a former F-16 pilot and director of research at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said military planners should not throw up their hands but should use drones, electronic warfare, countermeasures, and real-time targeting to enable Ukraine’s air force to find pockets in which it can operate and strike. Stutzriem said it’s not about only the aircraft, but the integration of many capabilities to gain air superiority. Then, the fighter can strike Russian forces and their logistics.

“It can go fast with great flexibility to strike the adversary in depth, not merely where the land forces engage along a front,” Stutzriem said. “That’s why airpower was invented, to rise above the trenches and slog of land warfare.”

How a Rusty B-52 Carcass Is Key to the Bomber’s Big Upgrades

May 24, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

OKLAHOMA CITY—Within a brand-new, gleaming-white facility called the “high bay” at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, a battered and rusty-looking fuselage and left wing of a B-52H has become a laboratory for the government-industry team that will revamp the aged Stratofortress fleet for the next 30 years.

Still bearing its nose art—nicknamed “Damage, Inc. II”—the B-52H, which sat in the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force, Ariz., for more than two decades, will serve as a testbed for engineers looking to align new digital models of the bomber with the hands-on real world.

The right wing and tail horizontal stabilizer from the aircraft are in a separate stress test facility—McFarland Research and Development in Wichita, Kan.—to determine how much structural life is left in the wings and control surfaces of the B-52 fleet, among other things.

The carcass will be a valuable tool for engineers “who have never had the chance to get inside” one of the bombers, said Jennifer Wong, head of bomber programs for Boeing, which along with Rolls-Royce provided travel, meals, and lodging for reporters traveling to Oklahoma City to report on the B-52J program.

Boeing is responsible for integrating the various upgrades that will turn the B-52H into the B-52J, including new engines, a new radar, communications and navigation, new weapons, and other improvements.

“In order to perform all of the necessary mods of this program, we are touching more than just the engines,” Wong said.

A carcass of a B-52H sits in the “High Bay” at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex. Staff photo by John Tirpak/Air & Space Forces Magazine

The carcass will allow engineers to crawl around in the airplane, to see how much space there is for installation of new gear and for maintainers to work on new equipment, and to appreciate the variations present in an aircraft built with sheet metal methods and blueprints more than a half century ago, Wong said. And crucially, it will allow these explorations without taking any of the Air Force’s current B-52s out of commission.

The aircraft made the month-long, 1,500-mile flatbed journey from Davis-Monthan to Oklahoma City in early 2022 and is already serving as a reality check on the B-52 engineers’ digital models, used to project how they will mount new engines and pylons, run new cable, replace cockpit instrumentation, and otherwise organize the B-52’s rebirth.

The carcass has also helped engineers determine the proper placement of the B-52’s new Rolls-Royce F130-200 engines, to see how the flaps will have to be re-shaped to accommodate the new engine nacelles. It will also offer an opportunity for fit-tests of new cockpit displays, wiring, and generator accessories that will be located in the landing gear bays, for example.

The digital models are intended to make sure those new items don’t interfere with older ones; the carcass ensures the models haven’t missed something, such as “finding out you can’t reach a particular panel once this new thing is in place,” one engineer said.

“We like to say everything underneath the wing is pretty much brand new … or modified for this program,” Wong said. “But in doing so, when you integrate new engines, you’re also affecting the wiring … the hydraulic system, the power system. … All of those have to be redesigned, modified and/or developed.”

The hope is the B-52 carcass will smooth the way toward final designs.

The nose of a B-52H sits in the “High Bay” at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex. Staff photo by John Tirpak/Air & Space Forces Magazine

The virtual reality systems developed by Rolls-Royce and Boeing for the new engines and other aircraft gear have gotten high marks from maintainers and will likely be offered to the Air Force as a maintenance training system at some point, company officials said. But that is not part of the B-52 upgrade effort, according to Col. Louis Ruscetta, senior material leader for the program.

“This is an upgrade with a lot of moving parts,” Ruscetta said. “I want to keep this … as simple as possible.”

For example, installing the new radar and preventing it from interfering with other systems is a formidable task in itself. It comes in two parts: the sensor of the AN/APG-79V4 used on the F/A-18 will be in the new radome, but the processor will come from the APG-82 flown on the F-15. They will be mounted—together—and must fit in fuselage space occupied by the current system.

The new system is also heavier than the old one, and though it doesn’t affect the aircraft’s weight and balance, the structure in that part of the aircraft has to bear a new load.

The radar will be used for both targeting and navigation but won’t be integrated with the electronic warfare system, Ruscetta said.

“We have that as a growth requirement,” he said. “It will have the hooks to do that. But under the KISS methodology [Keep It Simple, Stupid], I wanted to make this a radar integration program, and not an EW integration program, which is a lot different scope.”

In the cockpit, the digital models can be checked to see if crewmembers can see and reach new displays and controls associated with the new systems or upgraded to new standards. Because the B-52 was built in the 1960s—from a 1950s design—not all sizes of Airmen will be able to operate the aircraft, but the program is aiming to make the cockpit friendly to more pilots.

An illustration of what the B-52 cockpit will look like after proposed upgrades. Staff photo by John Tirpak/Illustration courtesy of Boeing

The High Bay will also serve to test interfaces for various weapons, pylons, and other B-52 accessories. Present in the facility were two dummy rounds of the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), several variants of the GBU-31/32/38 Joint Direct Attack Munition, the ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy, B-52 wing-mounted weapons pylons, a Common Strategic Rotary Launcher, and various items of B-52 ground equipment. There also appeared to be other weapons which a Boeing official said might be future “notional” munitions.

One aspect of the B-52 not getting a refresh is its basic appearance. While the C-5M Galaxy got fresh interior paint and soft surfaces when it was re-engined in the 2010s—Air Mobility Command generals said they wanted their Galaxy pilots to feel like it was a new airplane—the B-52 won’t be getting any such cosmetic improvements.

“That’s not part of this program,” Ruscetta said, though the Air Force might opt to do it at some later date.

SpOC’s Whiting: Space Force Eyes Fielding Its Own ISR Satellites

May 24, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

With the Air Force giving up on aging intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance planes, the Space Force finds itself seeking a way to take on that mission—and defining the capabilities it needs to do so, the head of Space Operations Command said May 24.

Space-based ISR is ultimately seen as replacing airborne ISR for hitting mobile targets on the ground. ISR from space has traditionally been an intelligence function, but frequently unavailable in a timely way to military operators. That’s going to have to change, Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting suggested during a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies webinar.

The National Reconnaissance Office owns most of the government surveillance satellite technology and a rapidly expanding commercial industry is growing around space-based sensing, technologies that have aided Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

Where does that leave the Space Force?

“If we look at the other services, which have been around a lot longer than the Space Force, all of them have tactical Title 10 ISR capability that they retain or they present to a combatant command to execute missions on behalf of tactical warfighters,” Whiting said. “So as we think about that for the Space Force, it’s no different in the Space Force than the other domains, but we need to start by looking at what exists today.”

Whiting said the U.S. has the “world’s best” ISR capabilities today, between the NRO and industry, but having what’s best today isn’t the same as having what’s needed tomorrow.

“Whether it’s owned by the Space Force or we leverage these other two sets of capabilities in some unique way, all of that is in discussion right now,” Whiting said. But to fill the gaps between what the intelligence community can provide and what industry has to offer, it’s likely the Space Force will be the one to make up the difference.

“I just don’t think we should be concerned if we do land in a place that says ‘Hey, the Space Force will have retained capability for our own purposes to support tactical warfighting like the other services do,’” Whiting said. “But no decisions have been made, and those discussions are ongoing.”

Retired Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, Explorer Chair at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence (MI-SPACE), said it makes sense for the Space Force to have its own “in-house” ISR capabilities to provide for the needs of combatant commanders around the world.

“There’s a reason it’s called National Reconnaissance—it’s not combatant commander reconnaissance,” said Chilton, who served as the head of Air Force Space Command and U.S. Strategic Command. “And my sense is the services’ job is to support the combatant commanders. That needs to be their No. 1 priority. When it’s a national asset, appropriately so, there are national requirements that could perhaps trump the requirements of a combatant commander, even when he or she is engaged.”

Whiting likewise noted the need to understand the requirements on the tactical edge—where warfighters are operating—suggesting there may be a gap the Space Force needs to fill.

“I think we’ve got to look at what capabilities are out there today and where the taskings are coming from, and then what’s ultimately getting to the tactical warfighter,” said Whiting. “And if between what’s in the National Reconnaissance enterprise and what’s in commercial, we need to develop something new, then we’ll figure that out where that command and control and tasking lies.”

The Space Force and NRO are closely aligned. USSF has an element within the NRO, and the agency’s deputy director is Space Force Maj. Gen. Christopher S. Povak. Figuring out how the two work together, connect, and interact—and how that fits with U.S. Space Command—has been an ongoing topic of discussion.

The Space Force and NRO collaborate on projects, including Silent Barker, which has been wrapped in secrecy. “We had a need on the Space Force side to develop a follow on to the Space-Based Space Situational Awareness satellite, SBSS, while at the same time the NRO had indications and warning requirements to help intelligence in [geosynchronous orbit],” Whiting said. “Well, we decided to work together and there’s a program called Silent Barker that’s going to get after both of those requirements. We have a joint program office in the NRO that is leading the development of that system. That will launch later this year.”

When Chilton asked if the Space Force will retain control over the Silent Barker satellite, Whiting demurred.

“In this case, it’s going to be more about the data. And so we will have access to all that data and the ability to use Silent Barker for our purposes.”

“But who gets to decide which way it’s looking?” Chilton asked.

“We will have a process to do that, and we’ve got a CONOPs with the NRO that indicates what it will be doing each and every day,” Whiting said.

Such prioritization and deconfliction processes are essential, Chilton noted, “unless you own and operate” the satellites in question.

It’s Time to Stop Thinking Putin Owns the Sky

May 24, 2023 | By Maj. Gen. Lawrence A. Stutzriem, USAF (Ret.)

Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem, USAF (Ret.) is the director of research at Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He is a veteran fighter pilot and commander, with time in the F-4, F-16, and A-10. He directed combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On June 9, 1982, Israeli Air Force (IAF) combat aircraft flew into the jaws of one of the most heavily fortified air defense regions on the globe—Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Packed with Soviet-built, Syrian-owned surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), and air defense fighters, defense experts deemed it impenetrable. Yet within two hours, nearly all the Syrian air defenses lay in ruins and Israeli combat aircraft owned the sky.

Four decades later, the lessons of that faceoff hold priceless lessons for Ukraine—especially now that Western powers have finally agreed to provide modern combat aircraft.

Until now, U.S. military leaders have maintained that Russian air defenses are effectively impenetrable by fourth-generation jets like the F-16. In reality they can be defeated—albeit at high risk. Circumstances facing the Ukrainians warrant taking that risk. However, the approach to executing these missions is far more complex than merely adding airframes.

No one is advocating Ukraine fly F-16s blindly into the Russian defenses. Effective use of airpower requires a mix of strategy, tactics, capabilities, and technology to net desired effects. Subject to an effective, integrated attack, even a robust air defense like Russia’s has vulnerabilities. It comes down to the right mix of operational concepts properly executed through an orchestration of warfighting capabilities. This is what comprises an integrated air campaign—and exactly what made the IAF successful in 1982.

To exploit weaknesses in the Soviet-built, Syrian-operated air defenses in the Beqaa Valley, the IAF’s integrated attack incorporated U.S. designed F-15, F-16, and F-4 fighter aircraft, Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), decoys, electronic attack systems, battle management, and more. The IAF exploited gaps and seams in the Syrian defenses, using their intelligence and knowledge of those seams to project power precisely at the right time and place, thus degrading the enterprise. Then came the knock-out blow, when fighter aircraft destroyed all 19 SAM sites. The defenses were not an impossible operational challenge. There were varying points of strength and weakness. The IAF focused on the latter.

Since then, Russia has significantly improved its integrated air defenses. Russian SAMs are still viewed as the best in their class. This is why the United States and its allies are investing so aggressively in new fifth-generation combat aircraft, like the F-35 and B-21. These low-observable aircraft offer a huge advantage over integrated air defenses, and in future conflict, the U.S. will need those next-generation capabilities. But in its war with Russia now, Ukraine does not have that option. Smaller and less well-resourced than Russia, Ukraine must work within the art of the possible, despite the risks. Without modern fighter jets and other capabilities associated with air campaign design, Ukrainians face a slow death in a war of attrition they cannot sustain.

Degrading Russian air defenses is a major step in establishing air superiority that will enable Ukraine to rise above the trenches and barriers to allow fighter jets to attack Russian forces, facilities, logistics, and communications within Ukraine.

Take note that China and other adversaries are watching. Ukraine’s willingness to challenge Russian air defenses has parallels with the U.S. and its allies. By supporting Ukraine, we send the signal that we too will not give up when challenged by ground-based air defenses.

While Russian air defenses pose a significant threat, they also have significant weaknesses. Ukraine can exploit these, including Russia’s poorly trained conscription force. Russian President Vladimir Putin entered the war with known personnel deficiencies; battlefield attrition has further diluted available talent. Additionally, Russia’s defenses are networked. Those links can be attacked.

Ukraine has several types of unmanned, loitering aircraft and munitions. These are incredibly useful for projecting surveillance, sensing, and striking power at low risk. More sophisticated unmanned attacks can be waged by larger reusable UAVs, like the MQ-9 Reaper or MQ-1C Gray Eagle. Some may get shot down, but many will succeed in executing their strikes as part of an integrated air campaign—particularly if they are equipped with modern electronic countermeasures pods.

Regardless, any SAM expended against or destroyed by UAVs cannot be used against manned aircraft. The aim is to place the air defense network under significant stress that suppresses and degrades its effectiveness. This allows windows of opportunity for manned combat aircraft, like F-16s, which are capable of complex operations required to eliminate Russian offensive capabilities.

In a war for survival, Ukraine needs every weapon it can bring to the fight. There comes a point where Putin’s stockpiles will deplete. Russia cannot afford to sacrifice its entire IADS capacity in Ukraine—they have many more borders to defend.

The U.S. must stay the course in supporting the rapid transfer of Western combat aircraft and associated weapons. The sooner the U.S. transfers both manned and unmanned combat aircraft, the greater advantage Ukraine can gain over Putin’s forces. Also crucial are training for both pilots and maintainers, plus ample flows of spare parts and munitions. Ukraine must have both the ability to fight and to sustain the fight.

When I joined the U.S. Air Force in the wake of the Vietnam War, the experienced combat pilots who trained me had flown in some of the most challenging threat environments ever constructed. Despite heavy losses and challenging odds, those airmen were successful because they never stopped innovating in the face of a skilled opponent. That’s what the IAF did in 1982.

It’s what Ukraine must do now. The West is right to give them the aircraft and weapons they need—the tools to fight the war they’ve been forced to fight. Let the training begin, and let Ukraine take the war to its enemy.

B-1s Deploy to Europe for NATO Deterrence, Immediately Met by Russian Fighter

May 23, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Four U.S. Air Force bombers are deploying to Europe as part of a reassurance mission for America’s NATO allies. It did not take long for Russia to take note.

Two B-1B Lancers “were operating in international airspace in the Baltic Sea region alongside NATO allies and partners during their theater arrival” when the U.S. bombers had an “unplanned interaction with foreign fighter aircraft,” a spokesperson for U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said an Su-27 Flanker was dispatched to monitor the American bombers. A spokesperson for U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said the B-1s “were interacted with safely and professionally by Russian aircraft.”

The two B-1s landed at RAF Fairford, U.K., where they will be joined by two more B-1s on May 25 to fill out the rest of the Bomber Task Force mission, designed to support “NATO deterrence initiatives,” according to a USAFE press release issued May 23.

A B-1B Lancer from the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron arrives at RAF Fairford, United Kingdom, May 23, 2023 for Bomber Task Force Europe 23-3. U.S. Air Force photo

“Two of the Texas-based supersonic bombers from Dyess Air Force Base’s 7th Bomb Wing entered the theater today by first integrating with allies and partners conducting NATO’s Air Policing and Air Shielding missions throughout the Baltic Sea region,” USAFE added. “The Baltic Sea serves as a critical economic corridor, and consistent coalition surveillance of the international air and maritime space preserves safe and secure passage for all.”

Air Policing and Air Shielding are NATO efforts to bolster the alliance’s eastern flank to prevent further Russian aggression in Europe as Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine continues.

“The highly agile aircraft’s 12-hour mission from North America to Europe demonstrates the U.S. Air Force’s rapid ability to deploy anywhere, anytime, and provide lethal precision and global strike options U.S. and allied commanders,” USAFE said in its release.

EUCOM and USAFE representatives said they did not immediately have further details to add about the encounter with the Russian aircraft.

Armed Russian fighters have been less kind towards American aircraft over Syria in recent months. Russian planes have gotten within 500 feet of U.S. planes at times in what U.S. officials have said are potentially dangerous interactions. Two Su-27s harassed an America MQ-9 Reaper over the Black Sea in March. One of the Russian fighters clipped the drone’s propeller and forced the American military to intentionally crash the aircraft due to the damage, according to the Pentagon.

But Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, as well as the EUCOM and USAFE officials, said the most recent incident involving Russian and American aircraft was not alarming.

“This is a long-planned exercise in Europe,” Ryder said, adding Bomber Task Force missions led by Air Force Global Strike Command “fly regularly around the world.”

GAO Faults DOD for Lax Oversight of F-35 Spare Parts

May 23, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon lacks oversight of potentially millions of spare parts for the F-35, a new Government Accountability Office report states—meaning the F-35 Joint Program Office has not been able to review losses worth tens of millions of dollars in recent years.

“DOD’s lack of accountability over the F-35 global spares pool affects its ability to resolve the material weakness related to the F-35 program,” the report concluded.

The report marks yet another problem for the fighter jet’s sustainment enterprise, which continues to concern Pentagon officials, lawmakers, and acquisition experts over the F-35’s high operating costs, its balking Autonomic Information Logistics System, and a chronic shortages of some spare parts.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said this week that it was a “serious mistake” to allow Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor, to own the technical baseline of the aircraft, thus controlling the program’s life cycle and creating “a perpetual monopoly” on sustainment, modifications, and upgrades.

Now GAO’s report faults the Defense Department for ceding to Lockheed oversight for spare parts at subcontractor facilities. “The F-35 Joint Program Office does not track or enter these spare parts into an accountable property system of record that would enable it to capture and store real-time changes to property records,” the report states. “Currently, the prime contractors maintain this information.”

Uniquely, the F-35’s global spares pool does not belong to the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and foreign partner. Instead, the F-35 partners buy access to the spares pool. At issue for GAO is whether the spare parts at non-prime contractor facilities are considered government-furnished property (GFP), which ensures the parts are entered into a Pentagon system that allows it to have oversight and information about the costs, locations, and quantities of spare parts in the global spares pool.

Only one of the F-35’s two prime contractors—the report does not specify whether that is Lockheed Martin, responsible for the aircraft, or Pratt & Whitney, which makes the engines—considers such parts government-furnished, so they are not entered into the Pentagon’s system. According to the report, the contractor and agencies within the Defense Department have been debating the point since 2015.

Exactly how many parts are at issue is likewise unclear. GAO report noted that the F-35 Joint Program Office still does not have a full accounting of the cost, total quantity, and locations of spare parts in the global spares pool.

GAO investigators assert that one of the two primes saw more than 1 million parts lost, damaged, or destroyed, a loss of at least $85 million. The report said the F-35 JPO had adjudicated responsibility and liability for just 60,000 of those parts, or less than 2 percent. What’s more, GAO said the program office was entirely dependent on the contractors to report accurately, with no back up means to verify losses.

“For example, losses that have not been reported to the F-35 JPO include 34 actuator doors and 14 batteries with total costs of over $3.2 million and $2.1 million, respectively, that were lost in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2019,” the report noted.

GAO also faulted the program office for failing to stay current on excess, obsolete, or unserviceable spares. Some 19,000 such parts were still awaiting instructions as of last October, according to the report.

GAO offered four recommendations to address its concerns. It said the Pentagon should:

Take steps to ensure that all spare parts are categorized appropriately and accountable to the government

Review existing policies for asset accountability and clarify when parts are considered government-furnished property

Develop a process for contractors to report losses on spare parts not considered GFP until the government can agree on a contract amendment to make those parts GFP

Develop procedures to provide timely instructions for excess, obsolete, or unserviceable parts

The Pentagon agreed with all four the recommendations, the report noted.

Kendall: Digital Engineering Was ‘Over-Hyped,’ But Can Save 20 Percent on Time and Cost

May 23, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Digital engineering can save about 20 percent in time and money over the approaches of just a few years ago, but its benefits have been exaggerated and it is not a revolutionary method that will radically cut development time and cost, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 22.

“It was over-hyped,” Kendall told reporters at a Defense Writers Group meeting.

Instead, Kendall said while digital engineering works best with technologies that are already well understood, it requires at least as much real-world testing when it is applied to all-new things.

Kendall’s remarks offer a note of caution after defense and Air Force officials alike have hailed the practice of designing new systems entirely in the digital realm as a revolutionary change in how the Pentagon will do business.

While the benefits of digital engineering are inarguable, Kendall said—such as allowing industry and government design specialists to see “exactly the state of a design or a program” at the same time—there are limits.

“I’ve tried to get reasonable data on how much” digital engineering saves in cost and schedule, he said. “My best feel for that is, it’s on the order of 20 percent, as a ballpark number.”

While that figure is significant, it’s not on the order of ten times or more, Kendall noted.

“With the capacity of modern computing capabilities, data storage, and communications to handle large amounts of data, we’ve been able to integrate our models,” Kendall said. “So, models that worked independently and had to be correlated—somewhat manually—can now talk to each other. And so you get a fully-integrated digital design, whereas before you would have had to do different parts of the design separately.”

This approach is paying dividends with the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, he said.

“The program office for NGAD is living in the same design space, if you will, as the NGAD bidders,” he said. “They have direct access into the database that’s being used for the design.” Visiting the program office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Kendall said he saw “a government engineer, who was very capable, working directly with one of the two contractors—he was on one of the teams—and interfacing with them on the design.”

Such an arrangement decreases back-and-forth and reduces misunderstanding, Kendall said. But the Air Force has to be careful not to let those efficiencies go to waste.

“One of the things that’s been true in engineering forever is that if you give an engineer more time, he’ll just do more design iterations because no engineer is ever completely happy with what he’s designed,” Kendall noted.

“So there’s a risk that we’ll just take advantage of the efficiency … to do more, right? What we need to do is get to where we’re comfortable with it, and then go forward with the next stage of development.”

Industry, he said, is motivated to get designs into production, so digital engineering “hopefully … will help us get into production more efficiently, more effectively.”

But he scoffed at the notion that digital engineering can drastically reduce the amount of testing required of new systems.

“Back in the F-35 [design] days I remember industry coming in and saying, ‘we’re so good at engineering now, we don’t need to do testing anymore,’” Kendall said. “That’s not true. And it’s particularly not true when you push the envelope outside of things you’ve done before, where … you don’t have as much confidence in your models.”

When designing a system that represents “a small incremental improvement,” the Air Force and its contractors can be confident that its digital model is accurate, Kendall said.

“But when you’re doing something that’s going to be radically different than prior programs, you’ve got to get into testing to validate … your design efforts,” he noted.

A prime example of that is the T-7 Advanced Trainer, being developed by Boeing. After being digitally designed and flying just three years after its conception, the aircraft is now two years behind schedule in reaching Initial Operational Capability, due largely to the ejection/escape system not performing as expected, particularly with pilot manikins at the low end of the range of physiques the jet must accommodate. Boeing has also faulted supply chain and workforce issues as contributing to the delay.

“You see this all the time,” Kendall said. “Hypersonics are a good example: If you haven’t done it before, you’re going to have to go and actually do it.”

Perhaps the biggest test of digital engineering thus far might be Northrop Grumman’s B-21 bomber, a project generally regarded as having had few major hiccups in development. Kendal said he is being “cautious” in his remarks about the program, though, for a simple reason: “We haven’t flown yet.”

Famously quoted as saying the F-35 was an example of “acquisition malpractice,” Kendall said the main issue with that program “was the too-early start of production, and we had a lot of design changes we had to make after we started production.” He doesn’t want to repeat that with the B-21.

“There’s a balance, there,” he said. “There’ll be some concurrency between both B-21 and NGAD, between development and production, but you want to do that in a rational way that doesn’t take excessive risk.”

USAF General to Lead NSA and CYBERCOM: First Time Ever

May 23, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and Chris Gordon

Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, will be nominated to lead CYBERCOM and the National Security Agency, Air Force and defense officials confirmed May 23.

The nomination, which has not yet been officially announced, was first reported by Politico. If confirmed by the Senate, Haugh will be the first Airman ever to lead CYBERCOM, which was established in 2010, five years after then-Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden left office as director of the NSA. Hayden went on to become Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and then Director of the CIA.

Haugh has been the deputy at CYBERCOM since last summer and would succeed Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, who is retiring. He was commander of the 16th Air Force, also known as Air Forces Cyber, before that.

Haugh has commanded at the squadron, group, wing levels as well, and had a stint as director of intelligence at CYBERCOM.

As the 16th Air Force’s first commander after its reactivation, Haugh was tasked by Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly with leading ACC’s shift in culture from a focus on short-term combat to one of long-term competition. In that role, he built a new command responsible for cyber, spectrum, and information warfare, areas in the so-called “gray zone” of conflict. It oversees wings with missions ranging from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to cyberspace and weather.

As chief of CYBERCOM and the NSA, Haugh will lead some 27,000 people, the vast majority employed at the nation’s foremost signals intelligence agency. He will be the chief officer responsible for countering cyber warfare threats from Russia, China, North Korea, and others. Nakasone, At a March hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he warned that Russia remains a “very capable adversary” in cyberspace, and that the hugely popular social media app TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, could be a means of data collection for the Chinese government and enable potential influence operations.

Congress is considering whether it will reauthorize programs under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set to expire at the end of the year. The programs play a key role in NSA operations, and Nakasone has urged lawmakers to renew it.

Some in Congress have also questioned whether the time has come to assign separate commanders to lead NSA and CYBERCOM, which have been be dual-hatted since CYBERCOM was launched 13 years ago. Others have wondered if the time has come to establish a separate military branch for cyber operations, as the U.S. did with the Space Force in 2019.

Nakasone said in written testimony for the March hearing that a recent study from high-level defense and intelligence officials concluded there are “substantial benefits that present compelling evidence for retaining the existing structure.”

Haugh’s nomination may take some time to get through the Senate, meanwhile. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has placed a hold on all general officer promotions to protest a Biden administration policy that reimburses troops who must travel out-of-state to obtain a legal abortion. Tuberville says the policy violates the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions. Opponents say Tuberville should drop the hold and take the matter up as part of the annual defense authorization process.

The standoff is now holding up 200 nominations, and others are already in the works.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Nakasone’s planned departure in the “coming months” on May 10. If Haugh is not confirmed by the Senate before then, he may take over as acting commander of CYBERCOM. However, the NSA’s deputy director is a civilian, George Barnes.