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.”

Multiple Bases Hunker Down, Evacuate Aircraft for Hurricane Helene

Sept. 26, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force installations across Florida hunkered down for Hurricane Helene on Sept. 26, closing many on-base services and only allowing mission-essential personnel on base.

The Category 2 hurricane, which is expected to strengthen and make landfall as a Category 4 storm, is also impacting the first-ever launch of a Space Force Guardian into orbit.

Florida’s Tyndall Air Force Base, Eglin Air Force Base, and MacDill Air Force Base all moved to mission essential posture as of the morning of Sept. 26. The storm is expected to make landfall around Florida’s Big Bend region in the evening.

At Tyndall, the base has moved to “HURCON 1” status, meaning 50-knot winds were expected in the next 12 hours. The base is closed to all non-mission essential personnel, but no evacuation orders have been issued.

The track of the storm had shifted slightly east of Tyndall as of the early afternoon of Sept. 26, and the base is now forecasted to avoid a direct hit such as the one it suffered in 2018 when the Category 5 Hurricane Michael caused widespread destruction and $5 billion in damages. Officials previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the base’s new F-35 fighters deployed to Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., for a training exercise before the storm and will extend their stay there until the storm passes.

Col. Ed Szczepanik, installation commander for MacDill, issued a limited evacuation order Sept. 25 to allow security forces to secure the base ahead of the storm. MacDill, which sits almost exactly at sea level in the Tampa Bay area, also evacuated its KC-135 tankers on Sept. 24 ahead of the storm. The base also serves as headquarters for U.S. Central Command.

Crew chiefs assigned to the 6th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron perform preflight checks on a KC-135 Stratotanker ahead of Tropical Storm Helene at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, Sept. 24, 2024. Aircraft were relocated due to projected winds and are expected to return once flying conditions are favorable. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Lauren Cobin

Eglin announced it was moving to “mission essential” posture, under which “only official business will be conducted and vital services will be provided.” Many base services were closed Sept. 26. The base also posted to social media that it was moving its aircraft into hangars to avoid the bad weather.

Elsewhere, Moody Air Force Base in Georgia closed Sept. 26 except for mission essential personnel and is evacuating its aircraft, which include A-10 attack jets, HH-60 helicopters, and HC-130s.

Aircraft fill up King Hangar to avoid any potential weather conditions from Hurricane Helene Sept. 25 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The base was in full preparation mode to prepare and secure vehicles, buildings and aircraft for the upcoming weather. (U.S. Air Force photo by Matt Veasley)

Patrick Space Force Base, Fla., has closed some on-base services ahead of the hurricane.

One unit isn’t evacuating or hunkering down—the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the Air Force Reserve posted on social media that it is flying its WC-130J “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft into the storm to record data.

Engine start up for another mission into #HurricaneHelene. pic.twitter.com/UnkUPsdEHO
— Hurricane Hunters (@53rdWRS) September 26, 2024

Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama is also hosting an incident support base for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond to the storm, and National Guard units are set to respond too.

“Florida and Georgia have both declared states of emergency and the governor of Florida has activated more than 3,300 National Guardsmen and 12 rotary wing aviation assets in state Active-Duty status,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh noted Sept. 25, adding that Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina are expected to activate their Guard units as well.

For the Space Force, perhaps Helene’s most prominent impact will be to delay the launch of Crew-9, a NASA mission to the International Space Station that will carry Col. Nick Hague. Originally scheduled for Sept. 26, the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket is now set for Sept. 28.

Hague will be the first Guardian ever to launch into orbit, though not the first Space Force member in space—astronaut Mike Hopkins transferred into the new service in 2020 while aboard the ISS.

US to Train 18 More F-16 Pilots for Ukraine, Send New Bombs

Sept. 26, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The United States will train 18 additional Ukrainian F-16 pilots and provide Kyiv with fresh standoff air-to-ground weapons as part of an $8 billion military aid package, President Joe Biden’s administration announced Sept. 26.

The move, made ahead of a meeting at the White House between Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, comes as Ukraine has pushed for more Western assistance to fight off Russia’s invasion.

“To build the capacity of Ukraine’s air force, I have directed the Department of Defense to expand training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots, including by supporting the training of an additional 18 pilots next year,” Biden said in a statement.

Zelenskyy presented Biden with a so-called victory plan ahead of U.S. elections in November. He has pushed for the U.S. to allow its weapons to be used to strike targets in Russia that Ukrainian officials say are being used to launch attacks against Ukraine, including airfields. The U.S. has yet to grant that request, and some U.S. officials argue Russia has already moved its aircraft out of the range of U.S. ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles.

But the U.S. will provide Ukraine with AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW), a medium-range, air-to-ground, precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 70-plus miles, the White House announced Sept. 26.

The U.S. has already provided the Ukrainian Air Force with JDAM Extended Range guided bombs—which have a range of roughly 50 miles—as well as Small Diameter Bombs and HARM anti-radiation missiles. The Biden administration has stopped short of providing AGM-158 JASSM long-range standoff missiles, which have a range of upwards of 200 miles, a move it has been reportedly considering.

“For nearly three years, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom from Russian aggression, and it has been a top priority of my administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail,” Biden said. “In that time, Ukraine has won the battle of Kyiv, reclaimed more than half the territory that Russia seized at the start of the war, and safeguarded its sovereignty and independence. But there is more work to do. That is why, today, I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war.”

The JSOWs will provide the Ukrainian Air Force with a new standoff weapon, allowing them to strike ground targets from further away. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has air superiority, and both sides have formidable and ample surface-to-air missile systems. However, the JSOW’s range is longest at higher altitudes and Ukrainian aircraft have had to fly low to avoid Russian surface-to-air missiles.

Ukraine has shot down over 100 Russian aircraft, and Russia has shot down over 75 Ukrainian aircraft, Gen. James B. Hecker, the commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and NATO Allied Air Command, told reporters Sept. 17 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

“Aircraft are kind of staying on their own side of the line, if you will,” Hecker said.

The U.S. is also providing Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense system as Russia continues its aerial attacks with drones, glide bombs, and cruise and ballistic missiles. Iran recently provided Russia with short-range ballistic missiles, increasing the threat to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of winter, according to U.S. officials.

“These are deliberate Russian attacks on our power plants, and the entire energy grid,” Zelenskyy said in a speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 25.

Some $2.4 billion of the aid announced Sept. 26 will go towards purchasing additional air defense, drones, and air-to-ground munitions, the White House said.

Ukraine has been promised at least 80 used F-16s from Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium. The U.S. is not providing any aircraft but had to give permission for the American-made fighters to be transferred and is helping arm the Vipers with air-to-surface munitions and air-to-air missiles, including the stalwart AIM-120 AMRAAM.

“I am grateful to the United States for providing the items that are most critical to protecting our people,” Zelenskyy posted on social media. “I also appreciate the decision to expand programs to train more of our pilots to fly F-16s.”

The Arizona Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing, the Air Force unit charged with training foreign F-16 pilots, planned to train a total of 12 Ukrainian pilots in fiscal 2024, which ends Sept. 30, U.S. officials have previously said. It is unclear whether that will be met.

In late August, a Ukrainian F-16 crashed during a massive Russian missile and drone attack, killing pilot Oleksiy “Moonfish” Mes, one of the first Ukrainians trained to fly the fighter.

Five F-16 Fighting Falcons assigned to the 162nd Wing, Morris Air National Guard Base, Tucson, Ariz., fly in formation over southern Arizona, April 6, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Colin Hollowell

Some members of Congress have publicly urged the Biden administration to train more pilots, and Zelenskyy recently said Ukraine had a strategy to speed up its transition to F-16s from Soviet-era Mig-29, Su-27, and Su-24 aircraft.

The U.S. has a limited F-16 training capacity, however. It is unclear if the additional 18 pilots will all be trained in the U.S. The Pentagon did not immediately provide more details but said pilot training was an important part of U.S. and allied assistance.

“We continue to train Ukrainian pilots that either come to the United States or through the … coalition with our partners in different parts of the world. This is something that we know is a priority for them. It’s a priority for us,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Sept. 27. “We’re continuing to work with them to make sure that their pilots get the training that they need so that when they return to Ukraine they can be as effective as needed on the battlefield.”

The 162nd Wing also trains pilots from other foreign countries and has a finite number of slots, with a normal capacity of around 50 pilots per year.

“We also have an obligation to other allies to train their F-16 pilots, so it’s a very delicate balance to make sure we’re keeping all of our allies trained with pilots and we’re also training Ukrainian pilots,” Hecker said. “We can’t just stop training all of the allies that we have and just focus strictly on Ukraine. So we’re working that balance, and I think the team is doing a pretty good job of doing that.”

Denmark is also training F-16 pilots. Other countries, such as the U.K. and France, which do not operate F-16s, have trained Ukrainian pilots on jet aircraft, and Canada, which also does not fly F-16s, recently announced that it would train new pilots who could then move on to more advanced training as part of a long-term commitment to Ukraine.

“We can’t train them fast enough,” Hecker said. “The good news is we have a coalition that is helping with the training.”

Biden said he will convene a leader-level meeting of the 50-member-nation Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which coordinates aid to Kyiv, next month in Germany.

“Through these actions, my message is clear: The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war,” Biden said in a statement.

Faced with New and Growing Demands, Military Propulsion Needs More Support: Experts

Sept. 25, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The U.S. has a lead over China and Russia in military propulsion, but there’s a real peril of losing that edge soon if research is not sustained and new engine technologies are not actually fielded, experts said at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference last week. They also said that an engine “ecosystem” for Collaborative Combat Aircraft is still in its infancy, but chances are there will be no one-size-fits-all powerplant solution for CCA engines.

The Adaptive Engine Transition Program was “the last, big, major research and development activity” in the field of propulsion, said Michael R. Gregg, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s aerospace systems directorate, during a panel discussion, but that program dates back two decades.

The Pentagon also opted not to use either of the AETP engines in the F-35 Block 4 upgrade, and not seeing that work come to fruition is discouraging to potential propulsion engineers, Gregg said.

“If there isn’t a sustained effort” that continues to fund, develop, and field advanced engine technology, “industry is not going to keep talent in that pool,” Gregg said. The demand signal for engineers who can do such work “has really shrunk,” he added, as there is also no learning to be had from having an engine in the lab, but which has not been exposed to the rigors of real-world operation.

Meanwhile, military propulsion efforts are being stretched with more and more different demands in the fields of hypersonics, fighter engine technology, small engines for drones, and missiles, without a corresponding increase in funding.

“From a research perspective, we’re getting much more demand for the smaller engines,” which are “less exquisite, but maybe cheaper,” Gregg said. These efforts are coming at the expense of “that high-end, most exquisite, most technologically challenging,” engine work.

Advanced Engines

Experts have frequently noted that in a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific or Europe, the U.S. would be fighting an “away game” against the likes of China and Russia.

“our adversary is going to have most likely strength in numbers, and they’ll have the benefit of proximity. What they don’t have today is an advantage in propulsion capability, but they are working hard to close those gaps,” said David Tweedie, GE Aerospace Edison Works vice president and general manager for advanced products.

To maintain that edge, Tweedie called for steady, sustained investment.

In the AETP program, GE Aerospace built the XA100 and Pratt & Whiteny built the XA101, but the Pentagon opted not to use either one for the F-35. The knowledge gained from inventing adaptive engine technology won’t be lost; both companies are tweaking it for the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program to power the Air Force’s next fighter. But the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program is under review and will likely change. Senior leaders at the conference said they are contemplating a single-engine version of the NGAD, of which fewer than 300 are likely to be built. That may weigh against carrying two contractors into production.

While there is uncertainty around NGAD, though, Tweedie expressed confidence that the Air Force will always “need to put some sort of tactical platforms into a stand-in capability—crewed or uncrewed—with significant range, payload and survivability, and you’re going to need the next generation of propulsion system to make that work.”

Whenever that next generation is required, “we need to be ready, collectively, as an industry,” he concluded.

The ability to produce a cutting-edge fighter engine “doesn’t happen by accident,” Gregg said. “It takes sustained, persistent investment over a long time and right now, with the pace of aircraft [fielding] getting longer we have fewer in production, and we have fewer opportunities to bring in new systems.”

New technologies and digital tools are improving the propulsion engineering process, he added. But funding is needed to keep progress going and actually field new engines.

CCA

Another major challenge facing military propulsion is how to power the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft—autonomous “wingmen” drones that need to be inexpensive but still reliable, yielding a capability that can keep up with fighters

Gregg said AFRL has not yet “cracked the code” on developing powerplants for CCA—and the process is made even harder by the fact that different CCA drones may have different missions.

“It would be nice if we could build an ecosystem” where engines are variable enough to be tailored to the mission, Gregg said. “We’re thinking hard about that. I think what drives CCA is ultimately going to be the price point. We want to think about maybe 1,000 to 5,000 hours of engine [life]. And if you think along those lines from the beginning, does that change your materials? Does that change your maintenance concept or sustainment concept? Does that change how you run it? So there’s lots of things that we need to experiment with, and learn and test and figure out, but from my point of view, CCA … really opens the aperture.”

Tweedie noted that GE inked a deal with Kratos Defense and Security over the summer to partner on smaller engines optimized for CCAs. Kratos “has a great skill set when it comes to agile, low-cost” engines, he said.

Pratt & Whitney vice president for military development program Chris Flynn predicted the Air Force will put a premium on speed in the CCA program—“I’ve got to go fast, right?”—and affordability.

“That’s where commercial-off-the-shelf comes in. We have a stable of engines at Pratt & Whitney that can provide various levels of thrust that can be pulled off of a production line today and inserted into a [CCA]. So that’s going to take care of the speed element,” Flynn said.

He noted that the Northrop Grumman Scaled Composites Model 437—an aircraft expected to experiment with CCA technologies—recently flew with a Pratt 535 engine.

“My prediction,” he added, “is that the Air Force is going to want more out of CCAs, not less.” They will need “more power and thermal capability” because they will be using artificial intelligence which will be “sucking all kinds of power, [and] they need cooling.”

Other Challenges

Tweedie said the biggest near-term challenge in propulsion is not just adding more power to aircraft but also to “deal with all those systems that generate heat.” With fighters loaded up with more and more processors, they generate lots of heat that must be dissipated, while the engines themselves must be cooler to reduce vulnerability to heat-tracking systems.

There are three ways to address the problem, he said: “First at the architectural level … adaptive engines provide a lot more levers for us to do some segregation between the thrust producing parts of the engine and the thermal and power sides of the engine, so you can get the best of both worlds.”

At the component level, “heat exchangers are critical to that lightweight, informal, complex geometry really lends itself to additive technology” and will “unlock the design engineers’ toolkit to be able to produce those.”

Third, he said, is integrating with the “multiple companies with different pieces” of an aircraft. They must avoid working in silos, he said. Digital tools especially help with that cross-communication.

Flynn said he sees “exponential increases in the requirements” for engine performance and cooling with sixth-generation aircraft. “And … it’s all about how we digitally design the system architecture.”

Thanks to the NGAP program’s digital foundation, “the propulsion enterprise is transforming” the way engines are designed, Flynn said, “in terms of being able to model these systems from end to end, quickly, identify what works and what doesn’t work, model that again and do this in a digital environment until you find the right solution.”

Tweedie also cited the shift from “nickel-based super-alloys in our hot sections, combustors and turbines” to ceramic-based materials as a major advancement, allowing the engines to run hotter and provide far more performance, while also being lighter. This was a case where the technology started out in military programs, was proved in commercial programs and led to advances on the XA100 and NGAP.

Flynn said Pratt has learned that “no matter what we do with specifying the way” an engine will be used, “when it gets to the field, it’s going to be used differently.” He said the company has formalized ways of feeding field experience back to the lab for a perpetual improvement program that “brings that learning back into our systems.”

Senate Confirms Nordhaus as National Guard Boss; Air Guard Nominee Still Waiting

Sept. 25, 2024 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Senate on Sept. 24 quietly approved Air Force Lt. Gen. Steven S. Nordhaus to lead the National Guard, filling a vacancy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff that has persisted for nearly two months.

Nordhaus’ promotion was ushered through in a unanimous voice vote as the Senate wound down for the evening. It was not immediately clear when he will pin on a fourth star and be sworn into the job.

Nordhaus, a career fighter pilot who runs the 1st Air Force, or Air Forces Northern, and the Continental U.S. Command Region for NORAD, will take over as the top officer managing policy and resources for around 325,000 National Guard troops across the globe. He’ll become the most senior leader in Washington balancing the desires of state Guard leadership as their units are stretched thin on missions from disaster response to driving school buses.

President Joe Biden tapped Nordhaus to replace Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson on July 23, about two weeks before Hokanson retired after four years in the job. His late nomination butted up against Congress’s August recess, pushing a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee to Sept. 12.

Army National Guard boss Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Stubbs has served as the acting National Guard chief in the interim.

Also confirmed this week were Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Reed, who will lead U.S. Transportation Command; Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Clark, who will command Army forces in the Pacific; and Navy Vice Adm. Alvin Holsey, who will lead U.S. Southern Command. Each will be promoted to the rank of general or admiral.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) had blocked Clark’s promotion to become a four-star over concerns that Clark failed to alert the White House about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization in January while the nominee was serving as Austin’s senior military aide.

Still in limbo is Maj. Gen. Duke Pirak, the Air National Guard deputy director who has filled in as its top officer since Lt. Gen. Michael Loh departed in June. Pirak, a fighter pilot-turned-policy strategist, was nominated March 14 to lead the Air Guard.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said he would put Pirak’s nomination on hold until the Air National Guard agreed to exempt Alaska from planned staffing changes that would convert some full-time positions across the Air Guard to lower-paying roles with different responsibilities, the Alaska Beacon reported in August. A National Guard spokesperson confirmed Sept. 17 that the Alaska National Guard is exempt from the changes, which the Guard refers to as “full-time leveling.”

Sullivan’s office did not respond to a query from Air & Space Forces Magazine on Sept. 25 whether the senator has lifted the hold as a result of the exemption.

Congress is set to leave town until after the Nov. 5 elections, potentially further delaying Pirak’s confirmation until the end of the year.