USAF Going ‘Line by Line’ to Slash Sentinel’s Rocketing Costs

USAF Going ‘Line by Line’ to Slash Sentinel’s Rocketing Costs

Sept. 5, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force officials are re-examining the infrastructure overhaul that sent costs soaring over plan for the next-generation Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile upgrade.

USAF leaders have blamed the massive infrastructure overhaul for “critical” cost and schedule misses and now say they are going “line by line” through every requirement to simplify their plans and drive down runaway costs. Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante had to certify the necessity to continue work on Sentinel after cost-overruns triggered a Nunn-McCurdy Act review.

In certifying Sentinel, however, LaPlante rescinded the program’s Milestone B decision, delaying it from going into engineering and manufacturing development. Instead, he ordered the Air Force to develop a restructuring plan. 

Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife and Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Andrew P. Hunter said at a Defense News conference Sept. 4 that they are making a thorough examination of Sentinel’s requirements. 

“I just spent an afternoon going through requirements, line by line,” Slife said. “I mean, this is going to be going on for, you know, for months and months, but absolutely it is down to that level of detail. And it’s not just the top-level requirements. The top-level requirements are fairly easily understood. It’s the derived requirements that actually can become problematic.” 

The need to modernize the aging land-based leg of the nuclear triad to provide a strategic deterrent to nuclear war is well understood; it’s the flow of choices that follow that pose the challenges where costs start to multiply, with the projected cost of the program having ballooned from $95.3 billion to $140.9 billion 

Each decision builds on a prior one. One requirement choice means “you’re going to need a facility that is this big, and if you’re going to need a facility that big, here’s how much concrete it’s going to take,” Slife explained. “And if it’s going to take that much concrete, you’re going to have to have a workforce. It’s working it all the way down until you understand exactly where the cost drivers are in the program.” 

Sentinel is meant to be a complete replacement for the Minuteman system—and while the Minuteman III missiles were first fielded in 1970, the launch centers, support facilities, cabling, and other infrastructure date back even further, to the early 1960s. 

“The tendency is to focus on the missile,” Hunter said. “In fact, that was how we did the program initially—we focused on the missile. And we really neglected the complexity of the ground infrastructure.”  

Retired Col. Jennifer Reeves, a former ICBM wing commander who is now a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the Air Force only started doing depot-level maintenance on launch and launch control facilities in 2017—more than 50 years after they were first activated. 

The failure to think more about ground facilities belies their importance, she said. “An airplane can just go fly in the air anywhere,” she said. “You don’t need the actual structure that the airplane lives in to fly the airplane, which is not the case with the missile. Without the silo, there’s no way to launch it. There’s no way to operate it. They are umbilically connected.” 

Hunter said that was clear on a recent visit to Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., where he went with Undersecretary of the Air Force Melissa Dalton. 

“When you look at the complexity of the current ground infrastructure, and you think about what we ask it to do, we don’t just have a missile,” Hunter said. “We have to have a deterrent. So we have to have a missile where we can respond instantly, at all times, without fail, and in the context of the highest of high-intensity conflicts. … We ask our ground infrastructure essentially to provide most of those capabilities. The missile itself is only a small piece of that puzzle. It’s a very challenging requirement, and it’s instantiated in this ground infrastructure.” 

Hunter said the Air Force will bring “a lot of engineering focus” to the ground infrastructure and appeared hopeful that savings would be found.  

“[We can] change our design for the ground infrastructure to be simpler, more affordable,” he said. “We’ll work closely together with the operational committee on the requirements to make sure we’re still doing what it takes to deliver nuclear deterrence, but in an affordable way.” 

Slife offered an example of the tradeoffs: Security can be physical, or it can rely on manpower. One costs more up front, the other costs more over time. Officials have also previously said the Sentinel launch control facilities will be larger than the Minuteman ones, which could require more construction costs. And Reeves noted that the plan already was to move from five launch control centers per squadron to three, simplifying the overall system. 

Still, there is a limit to how much can be simplified. Asked if the service still planned to replace the copper cable used for communications and connectivity with advanced fiber optic cables, Hunter quickly responded that “we do see that as part of the solution going forward.” 

7,500 Hours: Longest Flying A-10 Pilot Ever Retires After 37-Year Career

7,500 Hours: Longest Flying A-10 Pilot Ever Retires After 37-Year Career

Sept. 5, 2024 | By David Roza

An era came to a close late last month when the A-10 pilot with the most flight time ever, Lt. Col. John “Karl” Marks, retired after a 37-year career and 7,500 hours behind the stick of the Thunderbolt II, affectionately known as the Warthog. 

A native of Kansas City, Kan., Marks retired at a ceremony at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., home to his Air Force Reserve unit, the 442nd Fighter Wing, on Aug. 23, according to a press release.

“I’m glad he’s on our side,” wing commander Col. Mike Leonas said in the release. “I wouldn’t want to fight him.”

Then-1st Lt. John Marks, poses with an A-10 Thunderbolt II at King Fahd Air Base, Saudi Arabia, during Desert Storm in February, 1991. (Courtesy photo via 442nd Fighter Wing / Lt. Col. Marks)

Marks first commissioned in 1987 and went on to see combat in the 1991 Gulf War, where he and his flight lead, Capt. Eric “Fish” Salomonson, at the age of 26 and 28, respectively, destroyed 23 Iraqi tanks over the course of three sorties in just one day. The second sortie saw them flying under low, rainy overcast to attack a row of tanks surrounded by anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) at the direction of a Marine forward air controller flying an F/A-18.

“It was very dark and eerie because of the oil smoke, low clouds, and rain,” Marks told author William L. Smallwood in the 1993 book “Warthog.” 

“And while we were circling around looking at all the AAA and Fish was asking about threats, the Marine FAC just says ‘Look, are you coming in or not?’” Marks recalled. “Of course, when you say something like that to two Hog drivers, it’s like a slap in the face, so we went in.”

That was just the start of Marks’ career. The rest of it, by the numbers, included:

  • 13 deployments (including for the Gulf War)
  • 358 combat sorties, including 48 troops-in-contact situations
  • 1,161 combat hours, during which he shot 39,340 rounds of 30mm ammunition, dropped nearly 350 bombs, and fired 59 Maverick air-to-ground missiles
  • Fired another 141,500 30mm rounds outside of combat for a total of 180,840 30mm rounds
  • Received a Distinguished Flying Cross, 18 Air Medals, and 11 Aerial Achievement Medals, “among many other citations and awards,” according to the press release.

Keeping Marks out of a deployment could be a struggle at times. Retired Maj. Gen. Brian Borgen, who presided over the retirement ceremony, remembered being confronted by Marks in a hallway after he was passed over for a 2002 deployment to Afghanistan.

“He’s like ‘WTF? Why am I not going?’” Borgen said, according to the release. “And he was serious. He was angry at me.”

“Marks said he considers it a compliment that Borgen often told him, “‘Karl, we didn’t hire you for your personality,’” according to the release.

Marks’ skill as an A-10 pilot really shined during a 2014 fight over the Kunar Vally in Afghanistan, where he and his wingman supported a group of Afghan and U.S. Special Forces soldiers under attack by the Taliban. Marks had to play three roles simultaneously: pilot, air traffic controller, and joint terminal attack controller, to keep planes from hitting each other and to keep ordnance from hitting friendly forces as F-16s, an AC-130, and Apache and Little Bird helicopters showed up to save the ground troops, who all made it out with just a few noncritical injuries.

“That mission was unique just in the magnitude of the amount of things I had to use that I’d learned over many years of training,” Marks told Task & Purpose in 2021. “My wingman afterwards said he was just trying to hang on, like ‘I don’t know how you did that.’”

Among the audience at the retirement ceremony were a few JTACs who came all the way from Germany, the press release said.

“I’m very proud our biggest cheerleaders are the guys on the ground who say ‘this thing saved my life,’” Marks told Task & Purpose. “That’s the proudest part of flying the airplane.”

Lt. Col. John Marks, right, the highest-time A-10 pilot in history, poses with 1st Lt. Dylan Mackey after flying his 7,000th hour in an A-10 Sept. 1, 2021, at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Marks requested to fly the mission with the youngest pilot in the 303rd Fighter Squadron as his wingman. (US Air Force photo by Major Shelley Ecklebe)

‘Tremendous Positive Influence’

When not destroying ground targets, Marks used his decades of experience to mold new generations of Hog pilots. Indeed, nearly a third of his 7,500 hours were spent in the instructor pilot role and 598 in the evaluator role, making sure younger pilots were qualified to go to war, the press release noted. 

“Karl has been a tremendous positive influence on the A-10 community,” a fellow A-10 pilot, retired Lt. Col. Gregg Montijo, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “His experience and wisdom has been passed to generations of A-10 pilots that filtered through the entire community over the years.”

Montijo pointed out that Marks could have pursued the normal Air Force career track of advancing into higher leadership ranks. Instead, he remained close to the operations side to help raise a community of experts in close air support, forward air control, combat search and rescue, and the Warthog’s many other missions.

“I’ve watched him mentor young pilots in the briefing room then teach them in the air,” Col. Jim Macaulay, then commander of the 442nd Operations Group, said in 2016 after Marks eclipsed 6,000 hours. “Every sortie, he brings it strong, which infects our young pilots that seek to emulate him.”

In fact, while preparing for the 2021 flight that would take him through 7,000 hours, Marks insisted on flying with the youngest pilot in the squadron, Lt. Dylan Mackey, whose father, retired Brig. Gen. “Jimmy Mac” Mackey, used to fly A-10s with Marks back in the day.

“Karl has so many tricks up his sleeve that I’m just trying to hang on and absorb everything I can,” the younger Mackey said at the time. “You are always guaranteed to learn something new flying with him.”

As the Air Force looks to retire the A-10, there will likely never be another Warthog pilot as experienced as Marks, but his legacy is here to stay.

“He is living proof that you don’t have to wear stars on your shoulders to have long-lasting positive impacts for our Air Force,” Montijo said.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft banks after a low-angle strafing run August 8, 2024, at Cannon Range, Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. (Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Gutierrez)
How the KC-46A Fleet Is Maximizing Warfighter Capability with Urgency

How the KC-46A Fleet Is Maximizing Warfighter Capability with Urgency

Sept. 5, 2024

In the face of emerging threats around the globe, the U.S. and allies are rapidly growing aerial refueling capability to meet the challenge. As the KC-46A global fleet has more than 90 aircraft with tens of thousands of flight hours in aggregate, operators are optimizing operational concepts, accelerating preparation for sustainment logistics in a contested environment and driving evolutionary capability upgrades to outpace peer threats.

“Now that KC-46 has been in service for a few years, the young men and women who fly and maintain the aircraft are capitalizing on all the knowledge and experience they’ve gained to generate innovative ways to employ and maintain the fleet,“ said Sean Liedman, director of Global Reach for Boeing Defense, Space & Security’s Mobility, Surveillance, and Bombers division. “There’s an opportunity to improve the efficiency of our sustainment posture with all of the data that’s been garnered over the course of its service.”

Maximizing Fleet Efficiencies

It all starts with learning from KC-46A operations in the field to advance mission readiness for the future fight. A good example is the recent contract that the Air Force awarded to Boeing for KC-46A software and data enhancements for more efficient flight planning. These improvements—based on information gleaned from years of crew experience with the platform’s cargo loading and takeoff and landing data management—further advance the mission readiness and performance envelope of the world’s most advanced multimission tanker.

“The U.S. Air Force and allies are performing crucial global missions with the growing KC-46A tanker fleet and finding ways to extract more capability from the platform,” said Lynn Fox, KC-46 vice president and program manager. “We’re collaborating to integrate enhancements like these and bring additional capabilities to the battlespace as rapidly as possible to meet the evolving needs of the mission.”

Strengthening Sustainment

With growing knowledge of the platform based on thousands of flight hours and maintenance checks, there are also opportunities to fine-tune initial maintenance parameters in order to optimize KC-46A fleet sustainment. As the Air Force leads on organic sustainment of the fleet, there are innovative ways to implement predictive maintenance and supply chain logistics methodologies to ensure the fleet is at the highest level of readiness.

Honing sustainment with the fleet today accelerates the path for solutions to future challenges such as logistics in contested environments.

Staff Sgt. Austin Sondergard, 605th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, prepares to refuel a KC-46 Pegasus from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing after night operations during Bamboo Eagle 24-3 on Aug. 6, 2024, at Sacramento Mather Airport, California. Image: DVIDS – The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

That challenge intensifies as battlespace capabilities become ever more advanced. Consider software sustainment. Under a recent contract from the U.S. Air Force, Boeing is supporting these efforts by developing a Systems Integration Laboratory supporting software maintenance and sustainment for the KC-46A weapons system. As part of Boeing’s contracted support, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex at Tinker Air Force Base will be equipped with the necessary infrastructure and resources for advancing the Air Force’s organic sustainment of the tanker’s mission systems.

“This new capability will play a vital role in supporting the USAF’s mission and maintaining the cutting-edge technology of the KC-46A,” said Janelle Bakke, KC-46 Support and Training Program Manager.

Rapid Evolution

With more than 90 KC-46A tankers in service for the U.S. Air Force and allies, the Pegasus is already delivering crucial multi-mission capability around the globe, including connectivity and battlespace awareness that are unprecedented in a tanker.

As Air Force and allied operators continue to prove out the current capabilities of the KC-46A, they can also rapidly test and integrate new capabilities to continuously evolve the platform to stay ahead of peer threats.

Indeed, the world’s most advanced aerial refueler also offers a testbed for further advancing evolutionary aerial refueling capabilities.

The KC-46A Block 1 upgrade does just that, further enhancing the data and communications connectivity the Pegasus provides with additional line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight communications technologies including antijamming and encryption features.

Boeing continues investing in new capabilities and emergent technologies to ensure future KC-46A operational effectiveness and mission readiness into the future.

Threats Around the Globe

Continuing to advance the in-service and in-production KC-46A delivers the maximum aerial refueling capability along the fastest, most affordable timeline for the warfighter.

“We’re laser focused on continuing to deliver capacity and new capabilities into the field as rapidly as possible,” said Liedman, “because we know the U.S. and allies can’t wait.”

A 22nd Air Refueling Wing KC-46A Pegasus lowers its boom to refuel a 15th Wing C-17 Globemaster III over the Pacific Ocean June 29, 2024. Image: DVIDS – The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

As the U.S. Air Force analyzes next generation aerial refueling systems requirements, the KC-46A Pegasus is advancing aerial refueling capabilities, operational concepts, and logistics for contested environments with aircraft that are in operation right now—and paving the path for the future of multi-mission aerial refueling.

Posted in Air
New F-16 Electronic Warfare System ‘on Par with Fifth-Gen’ Enters Flight Test

New F-16 Electronic Warfare System ‘on Par with Fifth-Gen’ Enters Flight Test

Sept. 4, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-16’s new electronic warfare suite, the AN/ALQ-257, has begun flight testing after successfully completing ground tests in an anechoic chamber, Northrop Grumman reported.

The Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite, or IVEWS, mounted in a Block 50 F-16, completed an Air Force evaluation in the Joint Preflight Integration of Munitions and Electronic Sensors (J-Prime) facility—an anechoic chamber—last month, Northrop said. That same aircraft has been conducting flight tests for about two weeks, and will soon be joined by a second F-16, a company official said. Northrop is not yet cleared to reveal the location of testing.

Flight testing to validate what was learned in the chamber will take just a few weeks, and an operational assessment will be completed “by the fourth quarter of this year,” said James Conroy, vice president of navigation, targeting, and survivability, in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. Developmental and operational testing should be completed in early 2025, and based on the results, the Air Force will decide future milestones such as when production and deliveries can begin and when the first F-16 unit is expected to be declared operational, he said.

“We’re going fast,” Conroy said, because the Air Force’s F-16s “don’t have this kind of survivability equipment” and need it to be operationally relevant. The system is an all-digital jammer that has been extensively tested to cooperate with and deconflict with the F-16’s new AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), an active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar. The two systems can be used simultaneously, Conroy said. Both are made by Northrop.

The electronic warfare system is capable of detecting, identifying and countering “the most advanced threats” on the battlefield today, Conroy said, and can perform accurate geo-location of emitters with just a single aircraft. The simulations in the chamber were “intense,” he said.

The IVEWS will be internal to the F-16 and will replace the centerline-mounted AN/ALQ-131 self-defense jamming pod, freeing one external station on the fighter for a fuel tank or weapon. The system will use antennas located elsewhere on the fuselage; the outer mold line of the aircraft hasn’t been altered, Conroy said.   

He declined to characterize whether the IVEWS is comparable to the Eagle Passive/Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS) being mounted on F-15Es and F-15EXs, saying only that that they are “both advanced electronic warfare systems” and can work together.

The IVEWS is intended to provide the F-16 with electronic warfare capabilities “on a par with fifth-generation aircraft, significantly enhancing survivability for operations in contested and congested electromagnetic spectrum environments,” Northrop said. “Its ultra-wideband suite can detect, identify, and counter advanced radio frequency threats, including millimeter wave systems.”

The IVEWS started out as a Middle-Tier Acquisition program to achieve rapidly fielding; it became an Air Force program of record in 2019.

Conroy said the system will be especially helpful in coping with mobile anti-aircraft radars and missiles whose position is unknown at the start of a mission and which may turn on and fire on F-16s when directly overhead or nearby.

To reach this point, the IVEWS has undergone three years of testing, both on the ground and in the air aboard Northrop’s Bombardier CRJ, acting as a surrogate for the F-16 in the Northern Lightning 2021 exercise, Conroy said. It has also been tested at Hill Air Force Base’s F-16 Block 50 avionics system integration laboratory.

In the chamber, the IVEWS was “subjected to accurate representations of complex radio frequency spectrum threats,” Northrop said in a press release. It demonstrated “the ability to detect, identify, and counter advanced radio frequency threats while operating safely with other F-16 systems.”

Conroy said the system could permit the F-16 to remain credible into the 2040s, and is being evaluated by a number of F-16 user countries, particularly those buying the F-16 Block 70. Turkey has signed a letter of agreement selecting the IVEWS for its Block 70s.

Guetlein: Space Force Moving to Counter New Adversary Kill Webs

Guetlein: Space Force Moving to Counter New Adversary Kill Webs

Sept. 4, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Adversaries are developing increasingly sophisticated networks in space that enable not just kill chains but kill webs, which are “extremely difficult to defeat,” according to the Space Force’s No. 2 officer.  

“A kill chain in its simplest form is a gun fires a bullet, and a bullet hits a target,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein said at the Defense News Conference on Sept 4. By comparison, kill webs are much more complex networks of sensors, communication systems, and weapons working together across domains to strike multiple targets simultaneously.

“Unfortunately, the adversary is capable of using these kill webs to hold our joint forces at risk across great distances, across multiple domains, and with persistence, this is a very sophisticated and challenging threat,” Guetlein said.

The kill web is a relatively new concept—U.S. military officials only started using it in earnest around 2018. Already, however, leaders are warning that adversaries are employing the idea. Back in March, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman warned that China has launched more than 470 ISR satellites that are “feeding a robust sensor-shooter kill web.”

The sensor-to-shooter kill web speeds up attacks by improving data sharing and automation, enabling strikes in seconds. Guetlein outlined three key Space Force initiatives to counter the threat, including a new technology the service expects to acquire in the coming years.

Moving Target Indications (MTI)

Kill webs have allowed adversaries to push the lines of battle farther from their shores while denying oversight of their territory. “As they’ve done that, we’ve had to go higher and higher to get the same perspective of what’s going on the battlefield,” explained Guetlein. With that, the service is boosting investment in advanced detection and tracking technologies to protect existing capabilities and eliminate the first mover advantage.

“In the future, we plan to see continued investment in areas like Ground Moving Target Indications (GMTI), new investments in Air Moving Target Indications (AMTI), as well as investments in alternative methods to GPS,” said Guetlein. “I would say you’re looking at probably early [2030s] for some of that capability to start coming online, both for GMTI and for AMTI.”

For several years now, the Pentagon has explored the idea of space-based moving target indication, as older Air Force platforms like the E-3 AWACS and E-8 JSTARS are considered unlikely to survive long in a potential conflict with China.

The Space Force’s joint venture for GMTI with the National Reconnaissance Office is gearing up to bring tactical targeting from space into play, using satellites to deliver pinpoint accuracy. In its 2024 budget request, the service outlined plans to spend $243 million on MTI this year, and more than $1.2 billion over the next five years, describing it as “an evolved weapon system.”

“Most of this kit is classified, and a lot of it is focused on defeating the adversaries’ kill webs if necessary,” said Guetlein. While the specifics are under wraps, the approach focuses on enhancing threat detection and protection across all domains, Guetlein added.

Domain Awareness

Situational awareness will also be key to disrupting kill webs, Guetlein said, emphasizing the service’s focus on enhanced capabilities and global partnerships to stay ahead. Programs like the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP), dubbed a “neighborhood watch station 22,000 miles away in space,” according to Guetlein, are keeping an eye on movements in orbit.

Meanwhile, projects such as the Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability through the AUKUS alliance bolster this effort by providing 24/7, all-weather tracking of objects in deep space. Last month, following the first radar installation in Australia, the service awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to build a second radar in the U.K. Once the third and final radar is installed in the U.S. by 2030, it is expected to maximize coverage by sharing data and connecting the three sites.

Resilient SATCOM

The service is also driving to bolster SATCOM capacity, another vital element in gaining the upper hand against kill webs.

“We expect a significant increase in demand in the coming years and during times of crisis or conflict,” said Guetlein.

The Space Development Agency (SDA) is currently at the forefront of this mission, having launched 19 communications and eight missile tracking satellites already as part of its Proliferated Warfare Space Architecture (PWSA).

Last month, the agency awarded contracts for the final 20 satellites in the second tranche of its proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation, paving the way for hundreds more to launch in the coming years. To date, the SDA has now locked in contracts for over 430 satellites across Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 of the PWSA, that will deliver secure communications, data transport, and advanced missile warning and tracking capabilities.

“SDA’s next set of 154 satellites are programmed through production and are scheduled to start launching in the upcoming fiscal year,” said Guetlein, stressing that this will make it significantly harder for adversaries to disrupt communications.

USAF Rethinks Whether It Needs a Manned 6th-Gen Fighter for Air Superiority

USAF Rethinks Whether It Needs a Manned 6th-Gen Fighter for Air Superiority

Sept. 4, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is reconsidering how it gains air superiority—and whether it needs a manned sixth-generation fighter to achieve it, acquisition boss Andrew P. Hunter and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife said. 

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in July the Air Force would take a “pause” on its Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter program, rather than commit to the program as planned. But amid mounting speculation over the program’s future he expressed confidence that “we’re still going to do a sixth-generation, crewed aircraft.” 

On Sept. 4, however, Hunter and Slife suggested at a Defense News conference that USAF will use the pause to revisit fundamental questions about NGAD.

“From a requirements perspective, what I would say is we’re going back and starting at the beginning with ‘What is the thing we’re trying to do?’” Slife said. “‘How do we achieve air superiority in a contested environment?’ would be one way to frame the question. A different way to frame the question would be, ‘How do we build a sixth-gen manned fighter platform?’ I mean, those are not necessarily the same question.” 

– Andrew P. Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

Air Force doctrine defines air superiority as the “degree of control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats.” The key to that is the given time and place. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in February it would be “cost prohibitive to be able to say that we’re going to build enough Air Force to do it the way we did before and have air superiority for days and weeks on end.” In May, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife added that “our traditional conception of what things like air superiority means have changed.” 

So too has technology, Hunter said. Since “we did the initial analysis of alternatives for NGAD, frankly, our technology base has advanced in ways faster than we anticipated,” he said. “So we see that there are capabilities that we have [now] that perhaps we would want to be part of this mission space going forward that weren’t baked into where we started with the NGAD system.” 

That includes advances in autonomy that is fueling the development of Collaborative Combat Aircraft. USAF wants to start fielding CCAs quickly, through an incremental, iterative approach that leaders argue can more rapidly incorporate emerging technologies.  

CCA are being developed as part of a family of systems under NGAD, and Hunter suggested that with the pause on a manned platform, the Air Force may now tweak the entire family. 

“I wouldn’t rule anything out,” he said. “But I also wouldn’t rule anything back in. What we’ve got to make sure is, as we sum it up into a package that delivers air superiority, that it actually meets the mission need as best we are able to do it, and is affordable at the same time.” 

Speaking on the same panel, Slife spoke of taking a mission engineering approach to the design and fielding of these weapons, one focused less on specific platforms than on systems-level integration.

Such an approach could change how the Air Force moves forward on NGAD, Hunter suggested. “It’s not any individual platform that’s going to deliver air superiority. It’s the entire force,” he said. “And we know that we have many things in our force that we will into the next several decades. We’re going to have an F-35 force. We’re going to have the F-15EX, we have F-22s. And so, what is the role that we need to have to supplement those capabilities that we will know will be resident in our force, to deliver that full capability that we need?” 

Whether Hunter is suggesting the Air Force could keep its F-22 air dominance fighters well into the mid-2030s or longer is unclear. That decision would reverse earlier plans to retire the Raptors by around 2030. But given the pause on NGAD and Raptor modernization plans, it now seems at least plausible that the F-22s remain longer.

Hunter was coy when asked if there was a chance the Air Force could restart NGAD with a contract award as soon as 2025. 

“We’ll have to wait and see what our analysis delivers,” he said. 

Editor’s Note: This story was updated Sept. 5 to correct the source of a quote as Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife, not Andrew Hunter.

Air Force Standing Up New Wing For ‘Doomsday’ Command and Control

Air Force Standing Up New Wing For ‘Doomsday’ Command and Control

Sept. 4, 2024 | By David Roza

The Air Force aims to improve its strategic command and control capabilities by standing up a new wing at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. The 95th Wing will put disparate command and control units from the Active-duty Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve under one wing to provide a more unified command and better advocate for resources for strategic command and control, the branch explained in a Sept. 4 press release.

“This decision represents the culmination of years of work by the Air Force and the congressional defense committees to ensure the United States is fully prepared to deter and defeat any adversary who threatens our national security,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a retired Air Force brigadier general who once commanded the 55th Wing at Offutt, said in a statement.

The units involved in the new wing are the 595th Command and Control Group (CACG) based at Offutt; the 253rd CACG, a Wyoming Air National Guard unit based in Cheyenne, Wyo.; and the Air Force Reserve’s 610th Command and Control Squadron based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

No personnel from the 253rd or the 610th will move for the new wing, but about 70 new military job slots will open at Offutt over the next few years, with the first to arrive in spring 2025, the Air Force said in the press release. The wing is expected to be fully operational by 2027.

air force doomsday
An E-4B National Airborne Operations Center aircraft takes off from Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., July 10, 2019. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Skovo.

The 595th CACG’s job is to make sure senior U.S. officials can maintain nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) and command conventional forces during a crisis. It flies and maintains the Air Force’s fleet of four E-4B National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC). Also known as the ‘Doomsday plane’, the E-4B is a Boeing 747 hardened against the effects of nuclear detonations, including electromagnetic pulse, and equipped with worldwide communications gear. 

According to the Air Force, the 95th Wing “will provide a unified command path to assure readiness” of the 595th’s NAOC and NC3 missions. The 595th is currently a standalone group under the 8th Air Force, the Active-duty bomber-flying numbered Air Force under Air Force Global Strike Command. Most other 8th Air Force component units are wings, larger organizations that generally receive more resources.

The new wing should also benefit the 253rd CACG and 610th CACS because it will “provide an enterprise view of broad Command and Control, or C2, capabilities and improve the ability to lead, advocate and provide for resources, training and readiness,” the Air Force explained.

The 610th CACS conducts command and control training for multiple combatant commands, an Air Force official told Air & Space Forces Magazine, while the 253rd CACG supports various missions in U.S. Northern Command.

Putting the Reserve and Guard units in the 95th Wing is meant to improve command and control “and normalize funding paths to organize, train and equip units,” the Air Force explained. The service said the new wing is part of a larger reorganization as the Air Force prepares for potential future conflicts against near-peer rivals such as China and Russia. 

“Modern war technologies make defense readiness and command efficiencies more critical than ever before,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) in a statement. “The activation of the 95th Wing will serve to strengthen American military effectiveness and is aligned with the standout record of service in our state.”

The announcement comes about five months after the Air Force awarded a $13 billion contract to replace the NAOC with the Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC). The current E-4Bs have been flying since the 1970s and are struggling “capability gaps, diminishing manufacturing sources, increased maintenance costs, and parts obsolescence,” according to budget documents. 

In May, the contractor, Sierra Nevada Corporation, announced it had secured five Korean Air 747-8 passenger jets to host the system. The aircraft were built around 2015 and will be about 15 years old when the first ones enter service.

Generative AI is Now in Space. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal

Generative AI is Now in Space. Here’s Why That’s a Big Deal

Sept. 4, 2024 | By Dan Wald and Karen Fields

This summer, we witnessed an important milestone in the history of human activity in space: on July 11, what is believed to be the first generative AI tool in space began operation. The tool, a large language model (LLM), aims to assist astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as they perform certain maintenance and repair procedures. 

The project’s primary purpose was to prove that an LLM—and generative AI more broadly—can deploy and operate in the harsh environment of space. Here’s why that milestone is so significant and what it portends for the future.

The Challenge 

First, it must be said that deploying anything into space is enormously complicated and rife with uncompromising constraints. Weight, size, power, and bandwidth requirements must be minimized with ruthless discipline—and AI applications are no exception. They rely on large databases and consume lots of computing and power resources to do what they do, making their presence aboard any spacecraft a challenge. 

In this case, an LLM retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) application was re-architected and dramatically downsized—along with its computing and power needs—for practical use in the sparest of environments. 

It was proved that it could be done, but you may be asking about the why: what benefits are there to having generative AI in space?

Autonomy 

The main benefit is autonomy. Generative AI can enable spacecraft—and their onboard human operators, if they are manned—to be far more self-sufficient. Today, much of the information that spacecraft need to perform their missions is conveyed remotely, via communications links from ground stations or control centers.

Consider a maintenance manual. Enabling an onboard LLM to assist astronauts directly – without the need for directions to be transmitted to astronauts through communications links – delivers greater autonomy to that crew. 

Such autonomy becomes even more important when the information needed is highly sensitive or urgent for real-time operations. For example, what if a satellite is performing a national security mission and requires instructions on how to process certain signals or imagery data it has just collected or on how to act on that information? What if the communications between a satellite and ground station are vulnerable to compromise in a contested environment?

Speed

Space operators understand there are many cases where the latency of a satellite’s communications with a ground station—or even the critical dependency of a satellite’s mission on a communications link—is a serious risk to the mission. There may also be unacceptable cybersecurity vulnerabilities associated with transmitting sensitive information across those communications links. 

When rapid, secure operational performance is critical, a capable, onboard generative AI solution could bring enormous value to a mission. 

Generative AI can also deliver capabilities similar to those produced with predictive AI and machine learning solutions—such as anomaly detection or complex imagery analysis, for example—but with far greater speed and much less cost, size, and power requirements. If developed further, this capability could dramatically improve the ability of spacecraft to maneuver autonomously in orbit to avoid collisions with space debris or to assist dock-and-refuel missions. 

The Future of Generative AI in Space 

It was 120 years ago that the world witnessed the first flight of a powered, heavier-then-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk. The real significance of that event was not the 10 seconds and 120 feet that the Wright Flyer was aloft; it was the demonstration that powered flight is indeed possible and the inspiration that it provided to the Wright brothers and countless other innovators who worked hard to further develop our mastery of air and space in the decades that followed. 

We’ve now seen that generative AI can successfully deploy to space. There is an exciting future in realizing the possibilities that this unleashes. 

Dan Wald is an AI solutions architect for space applications at Booz Allen.

Karen Fields leads the NASA account at Booz Allen. 

US Air Force F-35s Touch Down on a Highway in Finland for ‘Historic’ Landing

US Air Force F-35s Touch Down on a Highway in Finland for ‘Historic’ Landing

Sept. 4, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

Two U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II fighters landed on a Finnish highway on Sept. 4, the first time fifth-generation American aircraft have operated from a road—not a runway—in Europe. It is part of the service’s push to operate from more locations with less infrastructure in the face of increasing threats to U.S. bases across the globe.

Two F-35s assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing from RAF Lakenheath, U.K., touched down for a planned “austere landing,” U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a release. The command said the operation was a demonstration of the U.S. Air Force’s and NATO’s aptitude for implementing Agile Combat Employment, in which air forces will have a greater ability to operate from non-traditional airfields.

The American jets, along with German fighters, are participating in the Finnish Air Force’s annual Baana exercise during which aircraft are using the Norvatie highway in Rovaniemi and the Hosio highway in Ranua as runways. The exercise started Aug. 31 and runs until Sept. 6.

“The successful first-ever landing of our fifth generation F-35 on a highway in Europe is a testament to the growing relationship and close interoperability we have with our Finnish Allies,” Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, said in a news release. “The opportunity to learn from our Finnish counterparts improves our ability to rapidly deploy and employ air power from unconventional locations and reflects the collective readiness and the agility of our forces.”   

Though operating from dispersed locations was commonplace in the Cold War, it fell out of favor as Russia receded as a threat. But Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has shown that air bases and other key military hubs are high-value targets. Russia has pummeled Ukraine with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and glide bombs to try to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defenses. Ukraine has responded by developing novel ways of attacking Russian air bases far beyond the front line with its own weaponized drones, as Western countries have not allowed the long-range missiles they have provided to attack targets in Russian territory.

Hecker has pushed for more integration among the U.S. and its partners, particularly as many NATO members are switching to the F-35. While the Agile Combat Employment model is often thought of as a Pacific concept, U.S. forces in Europe are highly concentrated at major bases, and USAFE is preparing to operate from alternate locations should a base be threatened.

NATO’s two newest members, Sweden and Finland, are used to operating from bare-bones locations. Sweden’s Gripen fighters are specifically designed to have a small logistical footprint, and the Swedish Air Force practices landing on highways. For Finland, being able to turn a road into a runway is a standard part of training for Finnish fighter pilots.

“Since Finland’s accession to NATO in 2023, it has provided U.S. Airmen significant opportunities to learn from Finnish counterparts,” USAFE said in its release.

The Finnish Air Force currently operates the F/A-18 but is scheduled to buy 64 F-35s to replace its aging Hornet fleet. Finland’s government announced on Sept. 3 that it plans to up its defense budget next year, in part to pay for the F-35s.

“In this age, we spend a lot of resources and time to guarantee and build security for our citizens and our home country,” Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters.

In April, Norwegian maintainers serviced American F-35s for the first time, and the U.S. returned the favor during a one-on-one NATO fighter competition exercise in June. Finland was among the nine NATO allies that participated in that one-day exercise, which was held at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

It is not the first time an F-35A—the conventional take-off and landing variant—has landed on a runway. In 2023, a Norwegian F-35A operated from a highway in Finland. The Marines have also operated F-35Bs, the short takeoff and vertical landing version of the fighter, from a closed U.S. highway, and in 2016, USAF A-10s landed on a highway in Estonia.

But now, the U.S. Air Force has taken a major step in its push to be more agile with its most advanced aircraft in Europe.

Two U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing, RAF Lakenheath, U.K., demonstrate landing and takeoff operations during exercise BAANA 2024, Sept. 4, on Hosio Highway Strip, Ranua, Finland. During the exercise the aircraft landed on a highway strip in Finland to practice Agile Combat Employment which increases the ability of our collective partners to collaborate and operate in a joint, high-intensity environment, improve readiness, responsiveness and interoperability. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Scyrrus Corregidor

“These are the things we have to be able to do, and it takes practice,” Finnish Air Force Col. Saku Joukas, the exercise director and commander of the Lapland Air Wing, said in a news release before the exercise. “Now, the exercise will also have a stronger international element. We will demonstrate our top expertise to our allies, and provide them with an opportunity to learn. In this way, we will also send out a message about the strength of our own defense.”

The watchword for for the Air Force, NATO, and allied officials in Europe is “integration.” The alliance also faces the challenge of attempting to be able to operate with a limited footprint. Leaders across the alliance say they are taking working hard at operating from non-traditional environments, breaking down classification and information-sharing barriers, and cross-servicing each other’s aircraft.

“It’s almost back to the future. If you go back 35 years ago, a lot of the ACE concepts were alive and well here in Europe,” Hecker told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an interview in late July. “That’s what we’re building to try to get back to that construct.”