After Years of Trying, Air Force Retires First A-10 to the Boneyard

April 14, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

It’s finally happening—the Air Force has begun to retire its A-10 Thunderbolt IIs. An A-10 from the 74th Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., arrived at the Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. on April 5, the service said. The aircraft is the first of 21 A-10s that will be leaving service by the end of September.

“Air Combat Command is prioritizing the A-10s with the least combat effectiveness for retirement first to ensure the most combat capable airframes remain in service,” the Air Force said in a news release. The remaining 20 aircraft “will retire from various bases” by the end of the fiscal year.

The Air Force has sought to retire some of the close air support aircraft for years but was blocked by Congress. The service finally got its way in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act and was OK’d to divest 21 A-10s this year. The service is seeking to retire another 42 A-10s as part of its fiscal 2024 budget. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has said the service wants to rid itself of the A-10 entirely by the end of the decade.

While the aircraft that arrived at the Boneyard left the 74th Fighter Squadron after 43 years of service in the Air Force, the Active-Duty unit is not winding down its A-10 operations. Instead, the retired A-10 sent to the Boneyard is being replaced by an Indiana Air National Guard A-10. The Indiana ANG A-10 unit, the 122nd Fighter Wing, also known as the Blacksnakes, is transitioning to F-16s. The unit’s nickname has led their A-10s to sport unique nose art, even by A-10 standards.

Aircraft at the Boneyard are preserved in the dry desert of Arizona and often cannibalized for parts. The A-10 that landed Davis-Monthan on April 5, tail number 80-149, is now in the hands of 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Squadron, which will “get to work preserving as much of it as possible while removing parts that can be used for replacements in other A-10s,” the Air Force said.

The Air Force’s planned divesture of 21 A-10s in the fiscal year 2023 will leave the service with around 260 aircraft by September. Brown said the service is ditching its 4+1 fighter model—with the A-10 as the outlier—and plans to sunset all A-10s by 2029.

“We’re retiring A-10s faster than we originally thought”, Brown said at the annual McAleese defense conference March 15. “I think that’s probably the right answer.”

But in the near-term, concerns over capacity have led to high-profile A-10 deployments. While the Air Force argues that the four-decade-old A-10s—which have been upgraded over the years—are not survivable against an advanced adversary, U.S. Central Command is using them to fill out its fighter squadron requirements in the Middle East.

A planned deployment of A-10s to CENTCOM was accelerated in the wake of attacks from Iranian-backed militias on U.S. bases in Syria. The command produced a slick video noting their arrival at the end of March and has continued to publicize recent A-10 operations in the region.

For the past week A10s from the 75th Expeditionary Squadron (EFS) have been flying missions over the CENTCOM region.#AirPower #Warthogs pic.twitter.com/XWTRfriTee
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 11, 2023

“The A-10s remain the most effective close air support platform in the world today even after 45 years,” Capt. Kevin Domingue, the pilot from the 74th Fighter Squadron who flew the now-retired A-10 to the Boneyard, said in the news release. “As long as the Air Force allows the aircraft to fly and be properly maintained, this community is ready to provide that expertise anywhere in the world against any adversary.”

For Space Systems, Cybersecurity = Systems Engineering

April 14, 2023 | By Stephen Bolish

When it comes to cybersecurity in space organizations, everyone has heard the statement, “Bake it in, don’t bolt it on.” The real question is, “How?”

There’s a straightforward answer: good cybersecurity = good systems engineering.

For starters, cybersecurity artifacts = systems engineering documentation. In other words, when the cybersecurity team asks for the software list, hardware list, and systems topology—those are simply systems engineering documents.

A Single Discipline

For decades, cybersecurity and systems engineering have grown into two separate job descriptions—creating a cultural gap—but it’s always been a single discipline. Cybersecurity is, and always has been, an integral part of the systems engineering lifecycle, from requirements to operations.

And that’s the key to building in cybersecurity into space systems from the beginning, to keep pace with today’s fast-moving threat environment. By bringing together cybersecurity and systems engineering teams in innovative ways, space organizations can turn them into a single, highly efficient team delivering more effective capabilities.

Wasted Time and Expense, Limited Functionality

In many organizations across both government and business, systems engineers focus their design efforts on a system’s critical functionality, without a full understanding of the cybersecurity requirements. Later, after the system is mostly or completely built, the cybersecurity team recreates artifacts (e.g., software and hardware lists, and data flow diagrams) to understand how everything fits together.

That’s just the beginning. The cybersecurity team then goes back to the systems engineers to tell them how to rework the system, shut down key parts, or close vulnerabilities, to properly secure the system. The result: wasted time and expense by both teams, with organizations sacrificing either functionality over security, or security over functionality.

Bridging the Cultural Gap

Space organizations can take a practical, step-by-step approach to bridging the cultural gap between cybersecurity and systems engineering. The first step is cross-training that helps each team understand the other team’s perspective.

Small groups of systems engineers, for example, are temporarily embedded with cybersecurity teams. The systems engineers get a chance to learn about the kinds of constraints the cybersecurity experts are under, and how their tools work. Over the course of the training, the systems engineers can see how they might design their systems to meet cybersecurity constraints more effectively.

At the same time, cybersecurity experts are temporarily embedded with systems engineering teams. The cybersecurity experts get a chance to see how difficult it is to design a system—and make the necessary tradeoffs—when you’re not sure where cybersecurity fits in.

Bringing the Teams Together

In the second step, the two teams are brought together, in tabletop discussions, as system design begins. They bounce ideas back and forth about the various functional, design, and cybersecurity issues. Once they agree on a design, they work together to build and test a prototype that—from the outset—is both as secure and functional as possible. Often, this is the first time cybersecurity experts get a “seat at the table” in system design.

A common outgrowth of this collaboration is that cybersecurity teams and systems engineers seek to gain more expertise in each other’s fields, and so get education, training and certifications. Over time, they move toward working as a single team that sees cybersecurity and systems engineering as a unified discipline.

Stephen Bolish (bolish_stephen@bah.com), BS EE, MS EE, CISSP, is a Principal at Booz Allen with more than 27 years of engineering and cybersecurity experience supporting commercial, defense, and federal clients. He and his team focus on demystifying cybersecurity, and building highly effective engineering teams.

Shyu: Pentagon’s 2024 S&T Budget Is Focused on Joint Warfighting

April 13, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

Joint capabilities and maturing technologies topped the list of priorities as Defense Department leaders discussed the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2024 science and technology budget request at a National Defense Industrial Association forum April 13.

“Everything we’ve been doing is very much focusing on the joint warfighting capability and what we need to do to fight as a joint force,” said Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

The 2024 Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RTD&E) budget request, she noted, is 12 percent higher than 2023 at $145 billion. Of that total, the Air Force has the biggest piece at 32 percent, while the Space Force is at about 13.3 percent.

The S&T portion of the budget, which includes basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development has seen a surge in funding in recent years, and that will continue, Shyu saud.

“We are at … almost $17.8 billion, which is 8.3 percent over last year,” she noted.

Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory and technology executive officer for both Air Force and Space Force, said the services did pretty well in the budget throughout all of their eight RDT&E authorities. Total funding, she noted, was $49 billion.

“As far as what the Air Force Research Lab does in support of the Air Forces and the Space Force, we have enacted in the basic science portfolio, it’s about 2 percent of that overall RDT&E budget; applied research is 4 percent; and the [advanced technology development] budget is 2 percent,” she said, noting that it’s a small portion of the overall RDT&E budget. “We have some great seedlings of innovation and science ideas in our [basic science] portfolio that we grow and mature, with more robust capabilities and more robust investments in [the others].”

Pringle added that AFWERX and SpaceWERX will have a little more than $1 billion for small business research.

In addition to the budget itself, Pringle also addressed the challenges inherent in budget allocations and where funds and talent can be best utilized while determining future threats.

“We also know that the technological competition is here and it’s something that we need to plan for and get ahead of,” Pringle said. ”So the two sides of the coin—the military competition and the technological one—is how we assess the environment and, in turn, respond and plan and try to get ahead of the trends that we see out there.”

She reiterated Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s seven operational imperatives and noted that they are instrumental in the Air Force’s success moving forward.

“We’re trying to break this operational landscape for the Air Force to be successful, and we’re trying to translate it into the component technologies, so that we can start to think about what’s the science that we need to accomplish now in order to achieve those operational imperatives in the future,” Pringle said.

Much of this is knowing which questions must be asked now and what technologies should the force explore today to be successful in the next decade or more.

“Translating that battle space to technology space, we’ve really homed in on the common language of functional capability areas as our common language,” she said. “This enables us to speak to warfighters in a more specific way in a language that they understand, but it also translates multiple domains.”

Ultimately, she said, the Air Force S&T enterprise wants to see missions as Guardians and Airmen see missions, and use that to make decisions about how to invest in the future.

“We’ve been on this journey for the past little over a year, and we’re starting to use that to drive what our investment portfolio is, and so in the coming months, you’re going to see a lot more about how this translates,” Pringle added. “But I wanted to give you a sense of these priorities because these will stand the test of time.”

In Historic First, USAF Deploys B-1s to India for Exercise

April 13, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

A pair of B-1B Lancers from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., will participate in a joint exercise with the Indian Air Force this week—the first time the BONE has participated in an exercise there.

F-15E fighters, C-130J cargo planes, and C-17 transport aircraft also are taking part in Cope India 2023, Pacific Air Forces told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Indian news outlets first reported the B-1s’ participation, citing PACAF commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach.

The visit is the second trip to India in three months—in February, Lancers conducted flyovers at the biennial Aero India air show. B-1s also participated in Aero India 21, the first time a Lancer had ever landed in India.

The Cope India joint exercise between the USAF and IAF began in 2004 and has subsequently been held in 2005, 2006, 2009, and 2018. Over the years, the U.S. Air Force has sent F-15s, F-16s, C-130Hs, C-130Js, and C-17s to the exercise.

The first phase of the 2023 edition began April 10, according to a release from the Indian Defence Ministry, with a focus on air mobility. C-17s from the 15th Wing at Joint Base Hickam-Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and C-130Js from the 374th Airlift Wing at Yokota Air Base, Japan, participated.

The second phase, which kicked off April 13, will include F-15Es from the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., in addition to the B-1s. The Indian Air Force will fly Su-30 MKI, Rafale, Tejas and Jaguar fighter aircraft.

The exercise is slated to conclude April 24. The USAF has yet to release any imagery from Cope India 23.

The Biden administration has sought to foster ties with India recently, both as part of its broader efforts to bolster alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific against the influence of China, and in an attempt to further alienate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the U.S. Air Force brought a considerable presence to Aero India 23, including F-35 fighters, as the Indian Air Force mulls upgrades.

B-1s have also become a regular sight in the region as of late, thanks to Bomber Task Force rotations. Lancers have flown four times with South Korean fighters this year, as well as exercises with the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force.

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers, assigned to the 34th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, fly over Aero India 23 at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru, India, Feb. 14, 2023. The weeklong biennial exhibition is Asia’s largest aviation event and hosts government delegations and corporate executives from 26 countries. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Richard P. Ebensberger)

The exercise is slated to conclude April 24. The USAF has yet to release any imagery from Cope India 23.

Air Force Futures Lays Out Four Scenarios for 2040 in New Report

April 13, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Transformative advances in computing, far greater emphasis on information warfare, and increasingly scarce sanctuaries from adversaries’ reach are among the factors that will shape air warfare in 2040, according to a new report from the Air Force’s futurists.

The Global Futures Report released April 12 by Air Force Futures defines four very different potential states of the world in 2040, each shaped by different trajectories applied to data and other emerging trends.

Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, director of Air Force Futures, and his co-authors say the scenarios do not aim to precisely predict the future, but rather to offer foresight to decision-makers preparing for whatever future is actually in store. Compared and analyzed against each other, they also offer takeaways on the trends leaders must watch in the years to come.

“Hubris warns that no entity can create the exact future it wants,” the report states. “However, organizations have a duty to discover opportunities and take advantage of them, make unforeseen disasters foreseeable and avoid them, and work diligently and disruptively to shape the future to their advantage. For the USAF and the DOD, the risk of a narrow vision and inaction is simply too high.”

Four Futures

The four scenarios envisioned are based on the Four Future Archetypes, a methodology developed by the Hawaii Research Center for Future Studies that defines four general paths the future might follow.

“A trend can either continue on its current trajectory (Continued Growth), encounter significant limits (Constrained), form a discontinuity to leap to a different market and growth curve (Transformational), or fail to adapt or become the cause of change (Collapse),” explain the report’s authors.

Applying those trajectories to identifiable trends, Air Force Futures examined the joint force’s core functions— Fires, Protection, Movement and Maneuver, Information, Intelligence, Command and Control (C2), and Sustainment. Unsurprisingly, the future trajectories vary wildly.

In a future of continued growth, great power competition between the U.S. and China continues, with more proxy wars enabling both sides to develop and test new technologies, such as hypersonic weapons, biological and chemical weapons, and even gene-editing to improve troops’ performance. Artificial intelligence and automation continue to progress, but ethical and political considerations limit the U.S. military’s use of it. More and better sensors, long-range fires, and kill webs force planners to abandon the concept of “sanctuaries” and focus on dispersing assets and troops. Supply chains remain vulnerable and interconnected.

In a “constrained” situation, biological and natural disasters have limited resources, and widespread anti-access/area denial systems have made it even harder for militaries to maneuver. Exquisite long-range fires mean the Air Force and other services have to disperse their assets to smaller, hardened bases, even within the U.S. The advanced weaponry also causes a stalemate between Great Powers, leading to more “gray zone” activities that fall short of open conflict, such as information warfare and the hacking of key infrastructure. However, due to polarization, limited resources for the military, and a focus on developing advanced weapons, the U.S. is ill-prepared to pivot to deterring and defending against gray zone activities.

In the “transformational” future, countries gain the ability to strike targets from space near-instantaneously, thanks to advancements in areas like directed energy. There are no “sanctuaries,” and countries also develop new weapons of mass destruction based on new biological and chemical breakthroughs. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing have advanced such that humans are out of the loop, and the speed of cyber is so fast that commanders are unable to change a course of action midway. The Air Force has consolidated its forces into small, hardened bases and increasingly relies on high-speed vertical takeoff and landing platforms enabled by advancements in energy technology.

In a “collapse” scenario, the effects of climate change threaten military bases and disrupt ground stations that control satellites, causing a collision in low-Earth orbit that creates massive clouds of debris and limits access to space. Technological advancements are proliferated throughout the world, giving smaller states and non-state actors outsized influence and capabilities. The U.S. is roiled by internal political and social division and steps back from the NATO alliance as isolationism builds, leading the Air Force and other military services to shrink with lower investment. Information warfare becomes increasingly crucial as communications degrade but technology advances, giving individuals the ability to manipulate the system.

Takeaways

Air Force Futures acknowledged that “readers should maintain healthy skepticism about each trend’s direction and velocity. … None of the trends are inevitable and few will occur in the manner laid out in this report.”

However, the authors noted six broad takeaways:

Transformational Computing. In every scenario, artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous systems and quantum computing were crucial factors.

The Myth of Sanctuary. Advances in sensors and weapons systems—especially without effective countermeasures—will likely make sanctuaries a myth, even within the U.S.

Cognitive Soft Targets. Information warfare leveraging artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and intelligence operations, will expand and become more effective.

Force Multipliers. Unforeseen developments will have cascading effects, creating potential force multipliers in areas that could include “AI/ML, Quantum Computing, Directed Energy, Energy Webs, Sensor Ubiquity, and Space Operations.”

Economic Interconnectedness. If global economy interdependence declines, the future world will be much different. What happens “defines the next 20 years,” the authors said, presenting vulnerabilities in the supply chain, breakdowns in trade, and declining intellectual collaboration.

Life Science Collapse. Between climate change, limited resources, nuclear weapons, chemical and biological warfare, and gene editing technologies, potentially dramatic changes could impact the fundamentals of life as we know it.

Such takeaways are intended to be a starting point for more analysis and discussion, the authors say.

“The report will be used to inform planners, strategists, and wargame scenarios positioning Airmen to anticipate, prepare, and operate in the future,” according to an Air Force release.

Army, Air National Guard Need a Strategy for Better Helicopter Safety, GAO Says

April 12, 2023 | By David Roza

The Army and Air National Guard need to sharpen their strategies for promoting safety and mitigating risk in helicopter units, the Government Accountability Office wrote in a report released April 12.

From fiscal year 2012 to 2021, there have been 298 accidents involving National Guard helicopters during noncombat flights. The GAO determined many of these accidents were caused by human error, with broader institutional issues that also need to be addressed.

Though some of the GAO’s report and recommendations apply more to the Army National Guard than the Air National Guard, the common ones include not routinely evaluating processes for preflight risk assessment; overworking unit safety officers; and pilots not getting enough flight hours due to lack of maintenance, funding, staffing, or other organizational shortfalls.

The report comes in the wake of two deadly Army helicopter accidents that occurred earlier this year. The first occurred in February when a Tennessee Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training sortie in Alabama. The second occurred in March when two Black Hawks from the 101st Airborne Division crashed in Kentucky. Two Soldiers were killed in the first crash, while nine were killed in the second.

Though both the Army and Air National Guard have a range of safety and risk reduction measures, the components can do more to make sure those measures are being implemented effectively, the GAO report states.

The Data

Of the 298 helicopter accidents reported by Army and Air National Guard from 2012 through 2021, 45 were serious Class A or Class B accidents that involved death, permanent disability, prolonged hospitalization, or more than $500,000 in damages—40 involving Army National Guard helicopters, five involving Air National Guard helicopters.. The worst of those accidents killed 28 Guardsmen.

The discrepancy between the Army and Air Force Guards is likely due in part to the difference in flying hours between the two components—the Army National Guard flies helicopters for an average of 200,000 hours per year, while the ANG averages 3,500 flying hours. The Army National Guard also flies more types of helicopters, whereas the GAO report studied only the HH-60 Pave Hawk on the Air National Guard side.

Army National Guard helicopter accident rates were below those of the Army Active-Duty component, while the Air National Guard accident numbers were too small to make a meaningful comparison with its Active-Duty counterpart.

When the Army or the Air Force investigate an accident, the services look to see if it may have been caused by human error, material failure, environmental factors, or any combination of the three. Human error was listed as a contributing factor in most of the accidents, the GAO found. On the Army side, investigators detected that not following training procedures, a lack of situational awareness, and overconfidence contributed to many accidents, while on the Air Force side, “wrong choice of action during an operation” and “inadequate real-time risk assessment” were the most commonly cited factors.

The data informed GAO’s recommendations for how to more effectively implement safety and risk reduction measures.

What’s Going Wrong

The GAO found that while the Air National Guard has a stringent process for documenting the implementation of safety recommendations made after helicopter accident investigations, the Army National Guard has no such system. Creating such a system was the GAO’s first Army-specific recommendation. Another Army-specific recommendation was to regularly evaluate National Guard helicopter aircrew performance during training, also something the Air National Guard does.

Other GAO recommendations applied to both the Army and Air National Guard, such as a direction that the components both need to make sure their helicopter units continuously evaluate and update their risk management worksheets. Aircrews use risk management worksheets to gauge risk levels and mitigation strategies before a flight and, if necessary, receive approval for the flight from higher up the chain of command.

The flaw in the system is neither Army nor Air National Guard helicopter units regularly update their worksheets to reflect lessons learned in safety and risk reduction.

Service officials were hesitant to develop standardized worksheets for all units due to the diversity of aircraft and mission sets across the force, but Air Force officials said making sure those worksheets are continuously updated could be part of the service’s unit inspection program.

The GAO also found that unit safety officers in both the Army and Air National Guard were “hindered due to workload and staffing imbalances.” Between conducting safety briefings, analyzing hazards, coordinating with other safety organizations, recording accidents, and their regular flying duties, unit safety officers have a lot on their plates, and many who spoke with the GAO said they could better support safety if it was their primary duty or they were assigned to the role full-time.

“They will not let you just be the safety guy; you will always have additional duties,” one safety officer told the report authors.

The GAO found neither the Army nor Air National Guard have a consistent approach to staffing safety officers, though the Air Force Safety Directorate has recommended wing commanders assign full-time personnel to the wing Chief of Safety position.

The report also found that both Army and Air National Guard helicopter units suffer from low flying hours. On average, Army helicopter pilots did not meet the proficiency goal of 9 flight hours per month for the majority of helicopter types, while Air Force helicopter pilots often fall short of their goal of 12.5 hours per month.

Many factors contribute to the low hours. In some cases, Army and Air National Guard units used up most of their annual flying hours at the start of the year, often assisting with state and regional emergency support, which meant they could not fly as much through the rest of the year. In other cases, finding time to fly was difficult to juggle for pilots with full-time jobs.

To make matters worse, Guard units often do not have enough funding to bring in pilots for more hours, and they also struggle with maintenance and parts availability, all of which makes scheduling part-time pilots more difficult. There are also not many instructor pilots to go around, and the same problem applies to non-pilot aircrew, who are often essential for safe or realistic training.

Flying hours also rely on maintenance hours, which is another pain point for many Guard units. The GAO found that no Army National Guard helicopter type met its annual mission capable goals from fiscal year 2017 to 2021, while the Air National Guard Pave Hawk missed its goals in fiscal year 2017 and 2019. Air National Guardsmen told the GAO that two-shift maintenance operations are required for helicopter units, but they do not have enough people to staff both shifts.

Finally, Guard helicopter pilots often have trouble accessing simulators to meet flying hour goals and provide training even through bad weather and maintenance hiccups. The Air Force’s only Pave Hawk simulator available to Air National Guard pilots is at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

Fixing It

Though the Army and Air National Guard have taken steps to address these challenges, their actions remain incomplete, GAO wrote, and neither component has established clear priorities to address the challenges preventing Guard helicopter pilots from reaching their flying hour goals. Nor do either of the components have comprehensive data for monitoring progress.

“The challenges are complex and require a coordinated approach to ensure that any resource adjustments are supportable and are aligned with priorities,” the GAO wrote. “By developing a comprehensive strategy that defines goals, priorities, and performance measures, the Army and Air Force would be better positioned to address the complex and inter-related challenges that have hindered National Guard helicopter pilots from achieving their training objectives.”

The GAO recommended the Army and Air National Guard:

Implement measures to make sure helicopter units continuously evaluate and update operational risk management worksheets.

Assess the resource and workload allocations of safety personnel to ensure helicopter units have enough staff and resources to implement operational flight safety programs.

Develop a comprehensive strategy including goals and performance measures for challenges that hinder helicopter pilot training.

Boneyard-Bound: USAF Retires First of 13 AWACS

April 12, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

The aging E-3 AWACS fleet got a little smaller last week, as the first of 13 E-3s to be retired this year took off from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., for the last time.

E-3 Tail Number 0560 departed for the Boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., on April 6, a week after the 552nd Air Control Wing hosted a retirement celebration with retired and Active-Duty Airmen getting a chance to sign their names to the airframe, an Air Force tradition.

“It’s sad. It means a new way is coming, but it’s still sad because we have a lot of great memories,” a former Airman told local television station KOLO. “We had a great mission back 20, 25 years ago.”

With the retirement, the Air Force’s AWACS fleet shrunk to 30 aircraft, on its way to under 18. Based on the commercially defunct 707 airframe, E-3s are expensive to maintain, their mission-capable rates plunging below 65 percent in recent years.

Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly called the E-3s “unsustainable without a Herculean effort” last year, praising “miracle worker” maintainers for getting the aircraft to fly at all. Averaging over 40 years old, the AWACS fleet is among the oldest in the Air Force.

The Air Force first announced plans to retire 15 E-3s from Tinker in April 2022, but Congress paused the push with a provision in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act approving retirements only if USAF demonstrated progress acquiring its replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail.

The Air Force had to submit an acquisition strategy for the Wedgetail before it could retire 10 E-3s, and must award a contract for the procurement of E-7s before it can retire three more.

The Air Force formally awarded a contract to Boeing for the E-7 Wedgetail in late February, clearing the way for the AWACS retirements to begin.

“While some may see the divestment as the end of an era, the retirement of this aircraft marks the beginning of modernization for the 552nd,” Col. Keven Coyle, 552nd ACW commander, said in a statement. “Despite a fleet reduction the mission will remain the same, providing worldwide management as well as command and control operations as required.”

In a release, the Air Force said divesting the 13 E-3s will allow it to focus on maintaining the remaining airplanes. And parts harvested from the retired aircraft at the Boneyard will be recirculated, “providing a temporary improvement for aircraft availability.”

The Air Force is hoping to have its first E-7 ready for operational duty by 2027 and is undertaking a rapid prototyping effort to make that happen, hoping to limit any gaps in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance/command and control. All told, the service wants to buy 25 Wedgetails by 2032.

E-3 AWACS retirement — Current and former members of the 552nd Air Control Wing sign the left wing of E-3 Sentry Aircraft #75-0560 during a divestment event at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, March 31, 2023. The final destination for this aircraft will be with the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona. U.S. Air Force photo by Paul Shirk

US in ‘Focused’ Talks to Offer Multirole F-16s to Philippines

April 12, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. and Philippine officials will hold “focused discussions” about selling the Philippine Air Force multirole fighter aircraft—one of several weapons systems the two countries discussed during a recent dialogue.

The talks are part of the U.S.-Philippines Ministerial Dialogue on April 11, where Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken welcomed their counterparts to Washington, D.C.

Austin announced during a February visit to the Philippines expanded U.S. troops’ access to four new bases in the country, which is strategically important given its location in the southwest Pacific. U.S. Air Force F-22s deployed to the Philippines in March, the first fifth-generation aircraft ever to operate there. And more than 17,000 U.S. troops are participating in the annual Balikatan exercise in the Philippines, which started this week.

In a press conference after the 2+2 meetings, Austin said he and Philippine Secretary of National Defense Carlito Galvez discussed “near-term plans to complete a security sector assistance roadmap to support the delivery of priority defense platforms over the next five to 10 years, including radars, unmanned aerial systems, military transport aircraft, and coastal and air defense systems.”

Austin did not mention negotiations for fighters, but a fact sheet distributed after the event said the two governments will “prioritize the modernization of shared defense capabilities,” specifically “focused discussions on an acquisition plan for a fleet of multirole fighter aircraft for the Philippine Air Force.”

It also said the two would also leverage “the additional $100 million in Foreign Military Financing that the United States announced last fall to support the acquisition of medium-lift helicopters.”

The Philippine Air Force has been in the market for a dozen new multirole fighters since at least June 2022, when then-President Rodrigo Duterte approved a plan. At the time, former Philippine air chief Lt. Gen. Connor Anthony Canlas Sr. said the Islands sought a fourth-generation fighter, having received proposals for U.S. F-16s and Swedish JAS-39 Gripens.

The PAF’s primary fighter today is the FA-50 trainer/light-attack jet from Korea.

The Philippine government ordered 32 Black Hawk helicopters in February 2022 and as many as five new C-130J transport aircraft in 2021. The U.S. Air Force has also transferred C-130Hs to the PAF in recent years.

B-1 and B-2 Bomber Spending to Dwindle as Focus Shifts to B-21, B-52

April 11, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force budget documents show B-1 and B-2 bomber spending dwindling through the end of the 2020s, as the service puts priority on the new B-21 and the upgraded B-52. Though the B-1 and B-2 potentially have additional years of service, the near-cutoff in spending in the next five years could make it difficult to keep them credible into the 2030s, should Congress direct that they be retained.

Global Strike Command has said in the last few years it intends to devote its finite manpower and fiscal resources to a two-bomber force—the B-21 and B-52—and retire the B-1 and B-2, which have recorded middling mission capability rates in recent years.

From the small B-2 fleet of just 20 aircraft, GSC can muster about 14 for operations at any given time, the remainder either being in test, depot, or down for maintenance. The B-2’s stealth systems, though improved over the last decade, remain challenging and a voracious consumer of maintenance man-hours. The B-21 is expected to offer a sharp improvement in availability—a “daily flyer” as Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said at the aircraft’s December 2022 rollout—and require a smaller manpower footprint.

The B-1 fleet was reduced to 45 aircraft less than two years ago, although the maintenance manpower and funding for the 17 retired airplanes was retained to boost the mission capability of those that remain.

The Air Force is requesting $284.9 million for B-2 procurement over the Future Years Defense Plan, running from fiscal year 2024-28. Funding would start at $107.9 million in FY ’24, drop by almost half to $57.16 million in 2025, fall slightly in each of the next two years, and then plummet to $15.78 million in 2028. The “to completion” line in the B-2 procurement account is zero, meaning no further funding is expected to be requested beyond that point.

Research, development, test, and evaluation for the B-2 shows an even more stark dropoff, starting with $87.6 million in 2024, but again falling by more than half to $33.14 million in 2025, followed by just a few thousand dollars a year until 2028, and nothing after that.

Much of the money requested for the B-2 is to upgrade its avionics, communications systems, cockpit displays, weapons, stealth capabilities, training gear, support equipment, and supportability initiatives.

Aircraft that were modified to test the canceled Defensive Management System will be de-modified to make them consistent with the other aircraft in the fleet.

The Air Force will also “study multiple structural, avionics, and engine modifications, as well as advanced weapons integration and advanced communications, that could improve the performance of the aircraft and engines and reduce maintenance man-hours and the logistics footprint of the fleet,” the service said in its budget justification. The B-2 will also receive a cryptological upgrade.

Supportability funding will go toward identifying and fixing specific issues that “drive” non-mission capable rates, USAF said. This will help improve the availability rates for the in-demand bomber.

Funding also supports stealth improvement, called the Low Observable Signature and Supportability Modifications (LOSSM) program. These include improved a broad range of low-observable materials and structures, as well as “radio frequency (RF) diagnostic tools, evaluation systems, and other key support equipment,” the Air Force said. These investments tend to yield a high rate of return on B-2 operating costs and availability, the service noted.

Other improvements include an upgraded identification, friend or foe (IFF) system, training systems and simulator upgrades, and initiatives to address “Diminishing Manufacturing Sources” issues, where parts are hard to get because they are no longer made, or, in the case of software, where systems are at ”end of life” and no longer supportable. The Air Force wants to move toward “a modular, common open system architecture that is sustainable and cyber-resilient.”

Money that was added by Congress in fiscal year 2023 will be used to explore “commercial technologies to include autonomous robotics perimeter defense system, 5G testing support, and advanced software tools.”

The Air Force’s B-1 procurement funding request is $12.8 million in fiscal 2024, falling to $3.31 million in 2025, $4.74 million in 2027, and to around $1 million a year in 2027-28. Over the same period, more was programmed for RDT&E, with $32.68 million across the entire FYDP, but that total is front-loaded to 2024 and 2025, with only a few thousand dollars a year each in 2027 and 2028.

Budget justifications describe the B-1 as an aircraft “with an expected service life beyond 2037.”

The Air Force is constructing a “digital twin” of the B-1B to explore new sustainment technologies developed using digital methods.

Funding items include urgent radio upgrades to prevent the B-1B from losing “secure line of sight, beyond line of sight, and anti-jam communication with ground and air forces,” due to decommissioning of some forms of satellite support and other time-critical changes. Other improvements are being made to cryptological systems and, generally to address Diminishing Manufacturing Sources. Other improvements will require “significant hardware and software development and testing.”

The B-1 will also be provided with gear to carry new weapon systems—particularly, hardware and software for external carriage of hypersonic weapons, although Air Force budget documents did not specify whether those would be the AGM-183 Air-Launch Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), which the Air Force has since said it will not pursue into production, or the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile being developed by Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.