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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think Tank Leaders Recommend Top Focus Areas for House Intelligence Committee

Think Tank Leaders Recommend Top Focus Areas for House Intelligence Committee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US Hopes to Salvage New START, Says Arms Control Official

US Hopes to Salvage New START, Says Arms Control Official

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

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

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

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

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

Stewart insisted those claims were false. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not a Clean Sweep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

McConnell Air Force Base Evacuates Tankers From Severe Storms

McConnell Air Force Base Evacuates Tankers From Severe Storms

A derecho moving across the central U.S. Feb. 26 forced the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan. to move its aircraft out of the severe storm’s path.

“We [relocated] most of our KC-46 and KC-135 fleet this weekend, save for a few aircraft that were undergoing extended maintenance,” John Van Winkle, the 22nd Air Refueling Wing’s chief of public affairs, said in an email. He noted that the remaining aircraft and flight line equipment were protected in hangars.

The storm spawned at least nine tornadoes in Oklahoma and Kansas, and disrupted weather in the Texas panhandle.

In Norman, Okla., about 15 miles south of Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., The Weather Channel and other news outlets reported 12 injuries and storm damage after a tornado touched down there Feb. 26. Oklahoma News 4 reported one death in Roger Mills County near Cheyenne, Okla., in the western part of the state. A spokesperson for Tinker Air Force Base said the base and its aircraft were spared.

In Texas, the storm whipped up 114 mph winds, and by Feb. 27 morning more than 75,000 residences and businesses were without power in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, according to The Weather Channel. By the afternoon of Feb. 27, that number had dropped to a little more than 18,000, according to the power outage tracker poweroutage.us.

Though tornadoes can occur at anytime of year, they are most prevalent in spring, particularly from Texas up through the Midwest. It has been nearly 10 years since a devastating EF-5 tornado ripped through Moore, Okla., close to Tinker AFB in May 2013.

Air Force’s Task Force 99 Conducts First Successful Drone Tests

Air Force’s Task Force 99 Conducts First Successful Drone Tests

The Air Force’s Task Force 99, a showcase unit defense officials have cited as a model of how to make the most of existing resources in the Middle East, recently concluded its first operational experiment, a successful test of using small drones for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles, Air Forces Central (AFCENT) leaders said.

The task force is designed to help AFCENT to do more with less in the Middle East. After decades as the highest-priority theater, today both the Pacific and Europe are increasingly gaining priority. AFCENT leaders intend to as part of a new drive to experiment throughout U.S. Central Command and adopt a “culture of innovation.”

“Depending on the on the systems we’re bringing in, that will always be an ongoing process,” Col. Robert Smoker, the task force commander, told Air & Space Forces Magazine Feb. 24. “But we are at the point now where we have actually done our first operational evaluation in theater.”

Smoker said the team tested a small commercial drone with a “mapping capability,” and which he called promising. “It performed admirably and as advertised,” Smoker said. “So it looks like it could be good for potential use in the future for folks at AFCENT.”

Speaking at an AFA Warfighters in Action event Feb. 13, Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the AFCENT commander, said the test was part of a broader effort to “fill some of the gaps that we have as our other more traditional ISR platforms have gone to other regions or other priorities for the Air Force.”

“So we’re trying to solve our own problems,” Grynkewich added. “And we’re trying to do it in a way that’s less expensive and that is, frankly, in many cases more effective than we might have been able to do [before].”

Task Force 99 plans to next test more complex drones and will start joint experiments with Navy Task Force 59 to test long-range unmanned aerial systems in March.

“The Navy problem was maritime domain awareness,” Gynkewich said. “Our problem was air domain awareness, and air domain awareness not just for tracking objects in the air, but maybe finding things on the ground that launch into the air, and how those could be a threat to us.”

Smoker, an Air National Guard Airman whose civilian job is in the defense industry, took command of Task Force 99 Feb. 23, relieving Lt. Col. Erin Brilla at the end of her CENTCOM tour.

Established in October 2022 with a focus on testing products costing from a few hundred dollars up to $75,000, the Task Force includes just nine Airmen, including Smoker.

“The ultimate goal with these operational evaluations is to determine that this thing does work as advertised, and it works in the environment in which we want it to operate,” Smoker said.

Grynkewich said he is giving Task Force 99 a long runway to experiment as “super-empowered” Airmen. CENTCOM envisions all services working together on these experiments, with the goal of increasing awareness of all threats in the region. The Navy already employs a deployed network of surveillance vessels as part of Task Force 59. The Army stood up its Task Force 39 in November 2022, with one of its focuses being counter-UAS solutions.

AFCENT hosted an innovation day at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., headquarters on Feb. 15, bringing in more than 70 industry partners for an event hosted by Grynkewich.

“It’s a dangerous region, and there are people attacking us every day,” Grynkewich said at the time. Both Iran and ISIS have used drones to attack American assets and partners in the Middle East, and Iran’s drone threat has prompted the U.S. to call in F-22 Raptors to deploy to the region multiple times. U.S. troops in Syria face particularly acute risks from drones, and are using new counter-UAS systems to augment their defenses.

“We’ve got the best operators on the ground intercepting these threats,” Grynkewich said. “But we can’t always rely on that, which is why we need to be able to provide new technologies and new approaches in new ways that increase the length of time we have to engage.”

Ukraine ‘Doesn’t Need’ F-16s, Biden Says, But Others Say ‘It’s Not Off the Table’

Ukraine ‘Doesn’t Need’ F-16s, Biden Says, But Others Say ‘It’s Not Off the Table’

President Joe Biden’s position has been clear all along: Ukraine will not get multi-role fighter jets from the U.S. any time soon.

“He doesn’t need F-16s now,” Biden told ABC News in an interview broadcast Feb. 24, referring to requests from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But others continue to press the case. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, met with Zelenskyy on Feb. 21, then said he agreed with the Ukrainian president that Ukraine needs F-16s and ATACM surface-to-surface missiles. 

“I don’t think it’s off the table,” McCaul said on ABC’s This Week Feb. 26. “I think with enough pressure from Congress on both sides of the aisle, we can get into Ukraine what they really need to win this fight. Otherwise, what are we doing in Ukraine?”

The Biden administration argues against providing F-16s now because it will take too long to get them there and to get Ukraine’s air force trained to use them.  

“There is no basis upon which there is a rationale, according to our military, now, to provide F-16s,” Biden said. “[Zelenskyy] needs tanks. He needs artillery. He needs air defense, including another HIMARS. There are things he needs now that we’re sending him to put him in a position to be able to make gains this spring and this summer going into the fall.”

The Ukrainians have other ways of keeping the Russian Aerospace Forces, or VKS, out of the fight, others argue, including the PATRIOT air defense systems Ukraine has acquired.

In the year since Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. has refrained from providing long-range ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles and other systems, seeking to draw a distinction between weapons Ukraine can use to defend itself and any that might have utility in taking the war to Russia. F-16s would complicate that position.

Some former U.S. military officials say Ukraine’s limited airpower is precisely what is hampering its forces from waging a true combined arms fight against Russian forces.

“Our air forces of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines have afforded battlefield air superiority over our troops in every war since Korea,” said retired Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, who was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander when Russia seized Crimea in 2014. He told Air & Space Forces Magazine in early February that air power is crucial to combined arms combat. “It’s important that a nation can allow its troops the freedom to fight under that kind of air cover,” Breedlove said. “The Ukrainian Air Force has a small and limited-sized and older force. They have used them magnificently to thwart the Russians.” 

F-16s are not the only option. The West could also provide F-18s, tactical aircraft originally designed to operate from aircraft carriers, which by their very nature as floating runways have limited depots and a small footprint. Sweden’s Saab Gripen is another fighter designed to operate with a limited support crew and under harsh conditions.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Feb. 8 that his country would train Ukrainian pilots, though the details remain unclear.

The White House has not ruled out providing F-16s in the future, including after a negotiated settlement, if that should occur. In that case, the West would help Kyiv improve its defense capabilities. Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Feb. 26 that, for now, the U.S. was attempting to bolster Ukrainian’s existing aircraft as much as possible.

“It’s important for people to understand that Ukrainian pilots are currently flying day in and day out,” Sullivan said. “They are flying their Soviet-era fighters, MiG fighters, Sukhois. And the coalition is providing spare parts for those planes to ensure that they can stay in the sky. So first of all, we are providing a substantial amount of support to the Ukrainian Air Force for the limited kinds of missions that the current war calls for them to undertake.”

Discussions over U.S. manned aircraft, Sullivan added, remain “a question for another day, for another phase.”

In the meantime, the U.S. is providing a growing number of cutting-edge unmanned aircraft to Ukraine in its latest $2 billion round of military aid.