SDA Director Suspended Pending Investigation

Jan. 16, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

Derek M. Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation, the Department of the Air Force announced late Jan. 16.

The department provided no other details on the nature of the investigation or a timeline for when it may be completed. Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant, head of Space Systems Command, will serve as SDA’s acting director in the interim.

Tournear became SDA’s first permanent director in 2019, shortly after the agency was established under the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering to accelerate the acquisition of commercial tech for space, particularly for low-Earth orbit.

Under Tournear, SDA developed plans for what is now called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture: a massive constellation of hundreds of satellites in low-Earth orbit with new spacecraft going up in two-year cycles to keep refreshing the technology on orbit. The PWSA will consist of “layers”—one for missile warning and tracking, and one for transporting data—with each layer being updated by new “tranches.”

Already, SDA has awarded contracts for more than 450 satellites across three tranches—unheard-of speed in military space, where programs can take a decade or more to launch a few large, bespoke satellites.

Along the way, Tournear has become one of the more recognizable figures in the Pentagon’s space enterprise, providing frequent updates on the agency’s progress and even taking to social media to call out internal Pentagon criticism of his style. In October 2022, SDA officially transitioned into the Space Force, becoming one of three acquisition organizations in the service.

It is unclear if Tournear’s suspension threatens to derail or slow SDA’s ambitious plans. The agency is targeting March or April for its next launch of satellites.

US, Korea, Japan Fly Together as Chinese Delegation Visits Japan

Jan. 16, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

American B-1 bombers flew alongside Japanese and South Korean fighters on Jan. 15 as Japan hosted a visiting Chinese military delegation.

The moves come just days before U.S. President Donald Trump is inaugurated, highlighting a delicate moment in the strategic environment of the Indo-Pacific.

Pacific Air Forces announced the trilateral flight, which included two Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-2s and two Republic of Korea Air Force F-15Ks each. PACAF did not specify what base the B-1s came from or if they landed in either country.

“This first trilateral flight of 2025 builds upon a history of strong trilateral cooperation, enabling an immediate coordinated response to regional security challenges,” PACAF said in a release. “This increasingly steady and sophisticated trilateral interoperability of our aerial and maritime forces strengthens our collective deterrence and defense posture.”

Two U.S. B-1B Lancers are escorted by two Republic of Korea Air Force F-15Ks Slam Eagles and two Japan Air Self-Defense Force Mitsubishi F-2s in airspace between South Korea and Japan, Jan. 15, 2025. The increasingly steady and sophisticated trilateral interoperability of the three nations’ aerial and maritime forces strengthens their collective deterrence and defense postures. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Stephanie Serrano

The U.S., Japan, and South Korea held their first ever trilateral air exercise in October 2023 and have since flown together three more times, each time with American bombers escorted by Japanese, American, and South Korean fighters.

Bilateral bomber-fighter flights between the U.S. and either Japan or South Korea have been commonplace over the years, but tensions with China and North Korea have led to closer ties between Japan and South Korea, overcoming a historically strained relationship.

The growing ties between the three countries were highlighted by a trilateral summit between the nations’ political leaders in August 2023, when they agreed to conduct more annual exercises.

Since then, however, all three countries have experienced political turmoil and change. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida left office in October amid poor approval ratings, U.S. President Joe Biden is set to leave office, and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been impeached over a declaration of martial law.

Amidst all this change, analysts have noted that China has sought to ease tensions with outreach to U.S. allies like the European Union and Japan. In particular, the Japanese government announced Jan. 14 that it was hosting a delegation from the People’s Liberation Army for the first time in years. The visit began Jan. 13 and will last until Jan. 17, with the Chinese delegation meeting their Japanese counterparts and visiting military units, according to a statement from China’s Defense Ministry.

Officials did not say what military units the Chinese delegation would visit.

The U.S. has dozens of facilities in Japan, including Yokota Air Base, Misawa Air Base, and Kadena Air Base, which also host Japanese units. Kadena in particular is located on the island of Okinawa and is the closest USAF base to Taiwan. F-35 fighters recently arrived at Kadena as part of a rotation of fighters to the base, and the 18th Wing there just concluded an Agile Combat Employment exercise with F-16 fighters.

Trump Picks NRO’s Meink as Next Air Force Secretary

Jan. 16, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

President-elect Donald Trump has picked Dr. Troy E. Meink to become the next Secretary of the Air Force, he announced Jan. 16.

Meink is currently the principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a Department of Defense intelligence agency that works closely with the Space Force.

If confirmed, Meink would be the first Air Force Secretary to come to the job from the NRO in decades—Hans Mark served concurrently as Undersecretary of the Air Force and head of the NRO before becoming Air Force Secretary in 1979 and John L. McLucas served as the fourth director of the NRO before becoming Air Force Secretary in 1973.

Since then, other Air Force secretaries have had some background in space—Barbara Barrett and Edward Aldridge were both trained for space flight, Michael Wynne and John J. Welch Jr. both oversaw space divisions within defense industry, and Robert Seamans and Mark were both deputy NASA administrators.

But Meink would be unique given how deep his experience is at the intersection of defense and space. While he served in the Air Force as a KC-135 tanker navigator from 1988-1993, he spent much of his career as a civilian working for the Air Force in various space roles, including as the deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space. He has been at the NRO for years, having been appointed to his current role under the previous Trump administration.

Before becoming the NRO’s current No. 2 in 2020, Meink was the director of Geospatial Intelligence Systems Acquisition (GEOINT) at the agency and responsible for a $15 billion budget overseeing acquiring satellite systems.

Meink’s selection may be a significant boost for the Space Force—USSF leaders have said their service needs more resources and manpower to keep up with a growing mission set, as they face their first ever budget cut in 2025. Trump is seen as friendly to the Space Force, having championed its creation in his first term, and Meink would be perhaps the most space-knowledgeable senior leader in the Pentagon.

If confirmed, Meink will step on the other side of an ongoing debate between the Space Force and the NRO and other Intelligence Community agencies over roles and responsibilities for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance from space.

Beyond that, however, Meink will face major questions during the confirmation process and early in his tenure about how to handle the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance program, Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, and the over-budget and behind-schedule Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

Dr. Troy E. Meink, Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space, answers questions during a space budget briefing on March 5, 2014, at the Pentagon. U.S. Air Force photo by Scott M. Ash

The Department of the Air Force pick had been a notable hole in Trump’s planned national security team.

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army National Guard officer, is Trump’s pick to be the 29th Secretary of Defense. Hegseth had a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate on Jan. 14 and appears likely to be confirmed despite allegations of personal misconduct and intense criticism from Democrats.

“Troy will work with our incredible Secretary of Defense Nominee, Pete Hegseth, to ensure that our Nation’s Air Force is the most effective and deadly force in the World, as we secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media network Truth Social.

Meink would round out Trump’s picks for service secretaries. Trump named John Phelan, a businessman donor with an MBA from Harvard, to be Secretary of the Navy and Daniel P. Driscoll, an Army veteran and Yale Law School graduate, to lead the Army. Driscoll has been a senior advisor to fellow Yale Law grad Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.

Stephen Feinberg, financier, is Trump’s pick for Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Elbridge “Bridge” Colby has been named to lead the Pentagon’s policy shop.

News Editor Greg Hadley contributed to this report.

Anduril Picks Ohio Site for ‘Arsenal’ Plant to Build CCAs and More

Jan. 16, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Anduril Industries, the Silicon Valley startup that has made splashy moves in the world of defense, has selected a site adjacent to Rickenbacker International Airport, about ten miles south of Columbus, Ohio, as the site of its flagship “Arsenal” factory, where it plans to manufacture advanced, low-cost systems such as its “Fury” Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force.

The timeline to get the factory up and running is ambitious, as Anduril plans to have the first products rolling out the door by mid-2026, according to Chris Brose, the firm’s chief strategy officer. He said that this timeline is not optional, as Anduril is obligated to begin series production of certain contract items by that point.

In a Jan. 15 press conference, Brose said Anduril will eventually invest “hundreds of millions” of dollars and possibly more than $1 billion at the site, which initially comprises some 700,000 square feet of an existing facility which Anduril will modernize. The entire site can accommodate five million square feet of production space, he added.

Anduril has said the “Arsenal” factory is aimed at producing military items at “hyper scale,” necessary to achieve credible deterrence against China and other potential U.S. adversaries. Its concept for the factory calls for producing large numbers of “non-exquisite” autonomous systems for the U.S. military by workers who do not need intensive training or education in a facility that can be quickly reconfigured for different items. The name is a nod to the “Arsenal of Democracy” moniker coined by president Franklin Roosevelt on the eve of World War II.

The Barracuda-500 cruise missile, one of a variety of advanced products Anduril will likely produce at its new facility near Columbus, Ohio.

“A lot of what we’re doing here is designing autonomous systems and weapons that can be mass-produced, where the broadest workforce possible can build and assemble those systems,” Brose said. “People with commercial automotive experience, for example, can immediately snap in and start contributing to defense production.” He said the company aims at “changing the way defense manufacturing happens at the level of design, at the level of supply chain, at the level of software, and we’re very confident that we’ll be realizing that vision here this year or next in the state of Ohio.”

Among the benefits of the location are its adjacency to the airport—which is an air cargo hub for the area and which is used by the Air National Guard’s 121st Air Refueling Wing—as well as nearby rail lines and highways, other manufacturers setting up in the area, and proximity to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, some 85 miles to the west in Dayton, Brose said. He also said there is ample room for growth beyond the initial facility at the location.

Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted, participating in the press conference, said an announcement will made in the coming days explaining the incentives Ohio offered Anduril to bring the facility to the Columbus area. The plant should bring about 4,000 jobs to the area.

Anduril announced plans for the Arsenal factory last August, but Brose said the hunt for a location was underway for the better part of a year, and the selection was made in the last few weeks. Company officials had previously downplayed the possibility of an Ohio location.

“The site itself could not be better,” Brose said. “We’re talking 5 million square feet of production space at scale; a 700,000 square foot facility that exists now that we will be aggressively working to renovate, and build out the space for the immediate defense programs that we are delivering right now.” Expansion is possible on a further 500 acres at the site, he said.

Within 45 minutes, Anduril will “have access to a talented labor market of upwards of a million people …many of which are already working in the automotive and aerospace industries,” he said. That expertise is “incredibly relevant to our vision of defense production.”

Rickenbacker boasts two 12,000-foot runways and a 75-acre private apron but test activities may be conducted farther afield, near Wright-Patt, which hosts Air Force Materiel Command.

“The initial products that we’re really focused on building at Arsenal … are flying things,” Brose said. The specifics of testing “is a conversation that we’re going to have in the months to come with our partners in Ohio.”

Husted said there is a designated flight test area near Springfield Airport near Wright-Patt. Joby Aviation, which builds electric aircraft, “is building their manufacturing facility in Dayton” and will use that testing area as well. He also noted the expansion of GE Aerospace in Cincinnati.

“And there’s a partnership with the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence, which is connected to some of the Agility Prime efforts, connected to Wright-Patterson,” he said. “So we have this sort of consortium that exists between Dayton, Springfield and Columbus and … this is another reason it’s such an attractive place,” Husted said.

“We’ve really worked in Ohio at building an economic development strategy around the assets we have in the aerospace and defense sector,” he added. “I’m most familiar with what we’ve done at Wright-Patterson,” around which he said employment “has grown 19,000 employees inside defense, to 38,000 in that whole sector of the workforce” The Air Force is “a huge customer.”

Though it’s only been in the defense business for eight years, Brose said Anduril is “winning programs. We are in a position to deliver. Arsenal 1 is going to be an operational facility incredibly quickly because of the timeline. We have to deliver for the customers and the warfighters, who are counting on the systems that Anduril is producing right now.”

In addition to various unmanned aerial systems like the Roadrunner vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and counter-UAS gear, Anduril’s products include Lattice software and command-and-control systems, solid rocket motors, and it has also announced plans for low-cost cruise missiles.

Brose said there are no plans to produce “energetics” at the Ohio site, and work on SRMs will continue at its Alabama facility. He also there are currently no plans to move any existing manufacturing work to Ohio, as the plan is to add production capacity, not consolidate it.

Success With CCA Points Way to Greater Innovation, Board Says

Jan. 15, 2025 | By Greg Hadley and Tobias Naegele

The Defense Innovation Board adopted a series of new recommendations and praised the Air Force for its big bets on emerging technology in recent years that seem primed to help new entrants to the defense market bridge the so-called valley of death between initial investment and actual production contracts.

The Board, including former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former assistant secretary of the Air Force Will Roper, and former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mac Thornberry, adopted eight recommendations for how the Pentagon can improve innovation by focusing investments, streamlining management of innovation offices, and changing the culture.

Citing the Air Force Research Laboratory’s approach, the report said DOD should more frequently place “routine large bets using programs resembling Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) Vanguard initiatives.” The Board wants DOD to to commit “to procuring and fielding five to 10 game-changing capabilities inside 2027.”

AFRL launched its Vanguard concept in 2020, selecting three of its highest-value research projects for intense, dedicated funding—some $157 million combined in the first year alone. Among them:

Skyborg, an artificial intelligence-enabled system to control unmanned aircraft in a future manned/unmanned aircraft teaming concept

Navigation Technology Satellite-3, an experimental satellite meant to complement GPS and increase the resilience of satellite navigation.

Golden Horde, munitions that can set up their own network, change their targets in flight, and synchronize their strikes.

Skyborg has since transitioned to a program of record, becoming the major Collaborative Combat Aircraft program to which Air Force leaders are pinning much of their hopes for future combat mass.

According to Air Force budget documents, Golden Horde also transitioned from a research effort to an acquisition one under the service’s Weapons Program Executive Officer.

Other programs have since been added to the Vanguard initiative, with funding exceeding $100 million every year and reaching as high as high as $255 million in fiscal 2024.

“As private investments get larger, they necessarily get fewer. With so much capital on the line, investors go all-in to ensure companies succeed. While having the equivalent of Seed and Series A investors that build portfolios of small investments is critical and needed in DOD, having Series D-like investors that place big bets for crossing the valley to the [program of record] is needed to finish the process,” the board wrote in its report.

Small Business Research

The DIB also said the Air Force offers a better model for managing Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

The SBIR/STTR programs award small contracts to smaller businesses to research, develop, and hopefully commercialize promising technologies. Companies can receive anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars for a “Phase 1” contract to a few million for a “Phase 2” contract, while “Phase 3” deals are bigger and meant to commercialize the tech. But many companies get stuck in Phase 1 and 2, coming back year after year for more awards without ever progressing to Phase 3.

To overcome that, the board recommends establishing “Oasis Funds,” essentially a pool from which service acquisition executives can pull larger sums to help companies make the transition from prototyping to production. These funds would be based on “the AFWERX Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) and Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) programs,” the board noted.

AFWERX, the Air Force’s innovation arm, developed those two programs to attack the same problems the board noted. Both rely on a combination of SBIR/STTR, government, and private capital funds, with tactical funding increases going up to $2 million and strategic funding increases topping out at $15 million.

In 2024, the programs combined to award funding increases to 158 companies, using $583 million in SBIR funds, $702 million in matching government funds, and $619 million in matching private funds: $1.9 billion total.

By pairing public and private funding sources, the board wrote, AFWERX entices program managers to invest their own dollars while also providing “a better measure of product-market fit” by seeing what the commercial market will back.

Yet the board also found fault with the Air Force for not giving AFWERX even more latitude to invest in nontraditional companies.

“Formalizing AFWERX as the investment acquisition authority provided top cover to push boundaries. But AFWERX lacked sufficient staffing, equipping, and administration from the Air Force to sustainably scale it,” the board wrote. “This paradigm still exists today.”

Indeed, while AFWERX and AFRL are two of several pockets within DOD trying to invest in new tech and innovation, coordination and scale are persistent issues across the Pentagon, the board wrote.

“Methods for both investing and transitioning R&D into programs of record were demonstrated. … However, these methods were never formalized, shared, and integrated into a repeatable, transparent process capable of transitioning new DOD R&D entrants to recurring revenue at scale,” the board wrote.

Organizationally and culturally, the report states, the Pentagon is still not set up to consistently scale new technology or tap into new innovation.

Experts recommended the Defense Innovation Unit, a relatively new department-wide organization, be expanded to serve as the guide for small or nontraditional defense companies across all the various innovation arms and organizations set up across the Pentagon, such as the Air Force Research Library and AFWERX. They also called for the DOD to cut back on “burdensome, confusing, or lengthy contracting” and speed up the security clearance process for innovative companies.

New Pentagon Report: Troop Pay Is Competitive, but Allowance Formulas Need Updates

Jan. 15, 2025 | By David Roza

Service members are for the most part paid more than their civilian counterparts, but there are still ways the Pentagon can better compensate troops and their families, according to a new Department of Defense report—including changes to how it calculates allowances for housing and cost of living.

The 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC) is a sweeping look at the military compensation system, including basic pay, housing allowance, cost of living allowance, child care incentives, bonuses, and other benefits.

Those benefits have come under scrutiny in recent years, as troops reported unaffordable housing near their station assignments, food insecurity, and difficulty for spouses trying to find work. Federal lawmakers flagged several of those challenges in a Quality of Life report released last April. Those concerns “lent a sense of urgency” to work on this QRMC, which started back in 2023, according to the report.

“We know through long-standing research and lived experience that when the department prioritizes the basic needs of its service members and families to include fundamental quality of life factors, our members are better able to focus on their mission to defend the nation,” a senior defense official told reporters Jan. 15. “This requires a competitive compensation package to incentivize both the next generation to serve, as well as recognizing and retaining military skill sets that we have today.”

Overall, the report made eight recommendations to improve the system, grouped under three findings:

A. Military compensation is strongly competitive with the civilian labor market, but it needs to remain that way.

Keep military compensation above that of most civilian counterparts

Better inform troops about their compensation and benefits by improving communication

Make military service more appealing to recruits with highly-sought after skills and experiences

B. Reduce pay volatility by improving data collection and processing

Update Basic Allowance for Housing methodology

Improve methodology for the cost of living allowance

Regularly review deployment entitlements

C. Target non-cash compensation to better retain service members and their families

Expand retirement savings options, child care support, and spouse employment initiatives

Institute a regular quality of life review

Pay Raise

The first of the QRMC’s three core findings is that the overall military compensation package is “strongly competitive” with the civilian labor market. On average, enlisted troops make more money than 82 percent of their civilian counterparts with similar education and experience, while officers make more than 75 percent, the report found.

But competition with the civilian market remains fierce, and recent recruiting challenges showed officials that the military has to keep its troops in the 75th to 80th percentile for enlisted troops and around the 75th percentile for officers. Maintaining that edge will require keeping a close eye on civilian pay, the report said.

The edge should grow this year as the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act will raise basic pay 14.5 percent for junior enlisted troops through the E-4 paygrade, in addition to a 4.5 percent pay raise for the rest of the military. The raise means enlisted troops will make more money than 87 percent of their equivalent civilian counterparts, while junior enlisted troops in particular will make more than 95 percent, the defense official said.

But the department needs to sweeten the pot for “lateral entrants,” the term for recruits who join up with prior skills and qualifications such as in medicine and cybersecurity. Today, lateral entrants can come in at a higher rank, but not with more years of service, which limits their pay compared to troops at the same level who rose up through the ranks. The 14th QRMC called for expanding “constructive credits” to include both higher rank and years of service.

The military pay and compensation structure is complex, particularly when service members have to move or when there are changes in allowances. The report recommended that the military improve communication with troops so that they better understand their pay and benefits.

“While the QRMC found overall strength in the total compensation package, this does not seem to translate to service member satisfaction with military pay,” said the report, which called for clarifying key concepts and comparing pay to civilian options in the communications campaign.

Reduce Volatility

The other challenge with military pay and compensation, the report found, is how quickly it can respond to changing circumstances, and whether the data for informing those changes is adequate.

A key example is the basic allowance for housing (BAH). Overall, the review found that BAH for service members with dependents is between 17 and 60 percent higher than average civilian housing expenditures. But BAH varies based on military housing area (MHA), and accurately setting the BAH for each pay grade in each MHA has been hit or miss.

BAH rates are far more generous in some areas and for some pay grades than others, which can lead to confusion and frustration when troops change stations and find themselves with less spending power. Nationwide housing trends can also lead to discrepancies, such as when three-bedroom townhouses are more expensive on average than three-bedroom single-family homes.

To fix the issue, the report recommended replacing BAH calculations with a better model that will lead to more reliable, accurate, and stable BAH rates over time. It also called for ditching the current housing profile system—which breaks up housing into apartments, townhouses, and single-family homes with a set of number of bedrooms each—in favor of one that just focuses on the number of bedrooms, which will better keep pace with housing trends.

“BAH profiles based on ‘number of bedrooms’ adds flexibility to more accurately estimate housing costs in remote or challenging markets with unique housing distributions,” the report said.

Former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass advocated for revamping how BAH is calculated back in 2022.

Similar discrepancies crop up for the cost of living allowance (COLA), which helps offset non-housing expenses in pricey areas. COLA for overseas locations can fluctuate frequently, and even COLAs in the U.S. are sometimes thrown off by inaccurate triennial Living Pattern Surveys. The report called for conducting the Living Pattern Survey every year and including more data to make them more accurate.

Service members receive combat zone tax exclusion and imminent danger pay for serving in regions that are hostile or dangerous, but these benefits can stay in place for decades. That means troops in some zones that are no longer hostile receive deployment entitlements while troops in more hostile areas do not. Entitlements need to be regularly reviewed every five years to ensure consistency, the report said.

Retain the Family

The 14th QRMC was the first to focus on “the realities of dual-income military households,” the report said. Most military spouses want to work, the report found, but frequent moves and changes in child care access reduce their ability to do so, which can in turn affect retention decisions.

Non-cash compensation could help, the report said. For example, Congress could pass laws that would remove vesting requirements from pension plans so that military spouses are less affected by the loss of income induced by frequent moves. Other non-cash compensation options include continued support for child care and employment initiatives.

Some of those non-cash initiatives can be grouped under what the report called “quality of life,” factors such as housing, dining, base facilities, health care access, spouse employment, child care, and recreation. The report called for the Defense Department to conduct a periodic quality of life review to inform decisions in those areas, similar to the report Congress released last year.

The senior defense official told reporters that there has been some discussion about cycling between QRMCs and quality of life reviews so that the two inform each other.

“Is there value in investing that dollar in additional, you know, cash compensation changes, RMC changes?” the official said. “Or will we get a better return on investment for both recruiting and retention purposes if we put that next dollar into, say, quality of service programs as was mentioned before, barracks, dining, child care, military spouse employment efforts, things like that.”

USAF Rejiggers T-7 Plan Again: New Test Aircraft, Delayed Production

Jan. 15, 2025 | By Greg Hadley and Chris Gordon

The Air Force plans to buy four more production-representative T-7 jets for test and delay the first production contract by a year, until fiscal 2026—the latest setback to acquiring USAF’s first new trainer in decades.

The plans increase the test fleet from five to nine, mostly at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the developmental flight test campaign has been underway since November 2023, when the Air Force formally took possession of the first aircraft.

In a Jan. 15 release, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Andrew P. Hunter said the additional test aircraft would allow Air Education and Training Command to more quickly develop future curriculum for the T-7, while also addressing “emergent issues.”

Officials have told Air & Space Forces Magazine in recent weeks that the T-7 has encountered problems during testing. Multiple updates to the T-7’s flight control software have been required, delaying progress. According to the commander of Edwards’s 412th Test Wing, Brig. Gen. Douglas P. Wickert, the problem centered on control issues when the aircraft was operating at high angles of attack.

The T-7 will eventually replace the aging T-38 Talon as the Air Force’s advanced trainer. Now averaging about 60 years of age, the T-38 has had safety issues of its own. But Wickert said the Air Force did not want to rush the T-7 workup.

“The T-38 is a dangerous aircraft,” he said in December. “We don’t want something that’s just as dangerous.”

A Boeing spokesperson acknowledged the flight control setbacks, but said the problem is now solved.

“We experienced a delay, but the issues have been resolved and the program is pressing forward with high angle of attack testing up to 30 degrees,” a Boeing spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine before the latest Air Force announcement. The spokesperson said such issues “are not uncommon when testing a new aircraft.”

Wickert and the Air Force’s chief test pilot for the T-7, Lt. Col. Jonathan “Gremlin” Aronoff, expressed optimism the program was getting on track.

“Software blocks are a normal part of developing an airplane,” Aronoff said. “As we find things, we’ll fix them and move forward. So it’s very much an iterative process.”

Yet as the number of test aircraft will increase, the timeline for the program to clear Milestone C and start getting production aircraft continues to slip. In its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Air Force planned to buy its first lot of seven production T-7s this year. Now it wants to push that lot buy to fiscal 2026.

The T-7’s launch has had ups and downs from the start. USAF awarded Boeing a contract for 351 aircraft in 2018, and one year later unveiled the “Red Hawk” moniker as they announced the T-7 had passed its critical design review. By then Boeing was flying two production-representative T-7s and boasting that it had “revolutionized” aircraft design by using digital methods to go from the drawing board to first flight of the prototype in three years.

Along the way, however, issues emerged. In 2021, the Air Force revealed that the T-7 suffered from “aircraft wing rock” at high angles of attack, making it unstable in the roll axis. In late 2022, after the rollout, issues with the flight control software and escape system came to light. The ejection seat was required to accommodate a wider range of body sizes, and what was eventually revealed as faulty instruments caused problems with testing data. And in early 2024, Boeing identified quality problems with some T-7 parts.

Meanwhile, projected initial operational capability was repeatedly delayed. How projected IOC has slipped:

At contract signing in 2018: End of fiscal 2024

2022 (in 2023 budget request): Q1 of fiscal 2026

2023 (in 2024 budget request): Q2 of fiscal 2027

2024 (in 2025 budget request): Q2 of fiscal 2028

Now the Air Force is trying to accelerate IOC once again, with hopes of reaching IOC by 2027, the Jan. 15 release said.

“We appreciate the partnership with the U.S. Air Force and are committed to providing our warfighters with the safest, most-advanced training system in the world,” interim Boeing Defense, Space and Security president and CEO Steve Parker said in a statement to Air & Space Forces Magazine about the new plan. “This innovative approach allows us to provide a production-ready configuration to the Air Force prior to low-rate initial production, further reducing any future risk to production. This will accelerate the path to delivering this critical capability on the timeline the Air Force needs.”

Slower procurement is another result of all the delays:

In its 2023 budget request, the Air Force projected that it would buy 21 T-7s in 2025 after procuring 14 the year before

In its 2024 request, that projected number dropped to 14 T-7s in 2025 as the first year of production.

In its 2025 request, the buy was set for just 7 T-7s.

Now, it will procure 0 production T-7s.

To execute the adjusted plan, the Air Force will seek Congressional action in the months ahead. Lawmakers have already expressed skepticism and frustration with T-7 delays, inserting report language in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act requiring a “schedule risk assessment” of the T-7A, “at the 80 percent confidence level, that includes risks associated with the overlap of the development, testing, and production phases of the program and risks related to contractor management.”

Take Sentinel Off the Air Force Books? ‘Doesn’t Create New Money,’ Kendall Says

Jan. 14, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force leaders say their budgets aren’t big enough for all the service needs to do to prepare for great power competition with the likes of China—and amid this resource-constrained environment, one of the biggest item on the service’s books is the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

But while some advocates have argued in favor of pulling out Sentinel and nuclear modernization into their own budget account separate from the Air Force, outgoing Secretary Frank Kendall is lukewarm on the idea, saying it wouldn’t really solve any of the services’ budgetary problems.

“You could separate it. You could put it into a separate account. That doesn’t make it cheaper,” Kendall told Air & Space Forces Magazine. In another interview, he said such an approach “doesn’t create new money.”

The Navy has moved some of its strategic deterrent capabilities to separate accounts, trying to relieve financial pressure on its day-to-day investment and operating accounts, but Kendall doesn’t see that as a long-term solution, for either the Navy or the Air Force.

Rather, he concluded that strategic nuclear modernization programs are “corporate problems” for the Pentagon writ large, especially given that DOD is attempt to modernize its entire nuclear triad at once for the first time in decades.

That is “an extraordinary circumstance, and everybody knows that. So when we build budgets … we approach it that way,” Kendall said, adding that, “It’s not presumed that the services have to eat the cost of these things that … come along generationally like this.”

Still, between the cost of Sentinel, recent budget caps, and other conventional modernization projects, the Air Force faces tough choices. Kendall has said the service cannot afford the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones, and the Next-Generation Aerial refueling System all at once within its expected budgets.

The most recent estimate pegs the cost of Sentinel at more than $140 billion; an amount that could easily cover the cost of NGAD, CCA, and NGAS combined.

Despite this, Kendall said putting Sentinel in a separate account “just gives you a different level of visibility into it, which has probably some merit, but I don’t think it probably changes the equation.”

Budget Math

Another persistent issue advocates say complicates perceptions of the Air Force budget is the “pass-through,” a collection of funds that placed under the Air Force but that it does not control, instead going to various classified efforts.

Kendall said he never attempted to get rid of the “pass-through” for reasons similar to the nuclear modernization account.

“The people that do our budgets understand this,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a factor in their thinking about how they allocate resources.”

When the “pass-through” is taken out, the Air Force typically receives fewer resources than the Army and Navy, even though the National Defense Strategy for eight years has said that the Air Force and Navy have a disproportionate burden of preparing for conflict in the Pacific.

Yet Kendall said that the overall DOD budget shouldn’t be gauged on how evenly funds are allocated among to the services, calling it a “fundamental mistake” to do so.

“We should be looking at, what does the country need to defend itself, and then allocating resources according to that, and who gets what share should not really be part of the equation, as far as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Budget Speed

Kendall said his biggest regret as he leaves office was the struggle to obtain sufficient funds for “completion and execution” of his program, such as the Operational Imperatives he created to highlight the technologies needed to deter or defeat an adversary like China.

“The biggest limitation we had over the last four years has been money, and the length of time it takes to get it,” he said. Between budget submission delays, continuing resolutions, and other budgetary obstacles, “it took … two and a half years to get money for things we knew we needed to do,” Kendall said.

Kendall did praise Congress for approving the Quick Start authorities he requested, so that urgent programs can get underway outside of the normal budgeting process “I’d love to see that expanded so that we don’t have to wait quite so long to do the early, low-cost, but very important work on a new program. That would be a terrific thing to expand. I think I wish I’d had the opportunity to do that,” he said. The Quick Start program has a ceiling of $100 million, which he has previously said is sufficient for the most urgent programs.

Kendall also thinks he succeeded in raising “a growing awareness throughout the department that we have got to be ready for a pure competitor unlike any that we’ve probably ever seen before, and that that has to be approached with a sense of commitment and urgency across the enterprise. … I think we’ve made a lot of progress in that regard, and that’s going to carry us forward.”

He’s not concerned that such focus will be lost under the new administration, “because I think the focus on China as the pacing challenge really was part of the National Security Strategy during the first Trump term. I think it will be a … central part of the strategy during the second term, just as it was for us in the last four years. So I think moving the enterprise in that direction overall is probably the most significant thing that I’ve done.”

Last D-Day C-47 Pathfinder Pilot Dies at 102

Jan. 14, 2025 | By David Roza

Lt. Col. David Hamilton, the last surviving C-47 pilot who flew pathfinding paratroopers into France during the 1944 D-Day invasion, died Jan. 5 at the age of 102.

Hamilton was born in Watford, England, in 1922 and lived in Paris until he and his family moved to New York City when he was six years old. His father flew in World War I and his older brother was a pilot with United Airlines, so when Hamilton joined the U.S. Army Air Forces on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, his goal was to fly.

It took a few years, but in early 1944 the newly-trained C-47 transport pilot arrived in England, where his substantial amount of instrument flying experience earned him a slot in the Pathfinders, a special unit of 20 C-47 crews forming up ahead of the D-Day invasion.

The Pathfinders carried about 300 Pathfinder paratroopers just two hours ahead of the larger invasion of approximately 13,000 paratroopers. The ground troops’ goal was to mark landing zones and drop zones to guide in the other aircraft.

American paratroopers prepare to board their C-47 for their jump into Normandy. (U.S. Air Force photo / National Archives and Records Administration)

The Pathfinder aircrews used a suite of cutting-edge radar and radio navigation equipment. One was the SCR-717 microwave navigation radar, which, according to the National Air & Space Museum, involved a rotating dish in a radome mounted below the C-47. The dish emitted radar waves that reflected off the terrain and gave the navigator a picture of the shorelines, rivers, roads, and cities below on his cathode ray tube display.

“We had a $100,000 airplane with $500,000 worth of radar in it,” Hamilton told the American Veterans Center in 2022. But the investment paid off when the C-47 flew at night at low altitude.

“I could fly anywhere in northern Europe at night 25 feet above the ground and know I was safe,” he said.

Lt. Col. David Hamilton crouches in the lower right hand corner with a Pathfinder unit.

Taking off for his first combat mission late the night of June 5, 1944, Hamilton said he was not scared, but he was aware of his responsibility as aircraft commander.

“It exceeded that of a fighter pilot who only had himself and his airplane,” he told the Commemorative Air Force in 2021. “I had myself, my airplane, and a crew, plus all the paratroopers and an observer. So I had, you know, 26 people on that airplane when we took off.”

Once over the English Channel, they descended to just 50 feet above the water to get below German radar, then lifted up to 900 feet over the coast of France where they ran into a cloud bank. The clouds wreaked havoc on the Pathfinder formation, as pilots lost sight of the planes in front of them, according to the Air Mobility Command museum, but Hamilton managed to keep track of his flight commander’s right wing.

“I pulled just down the bottom of the cloud bank, broke out, gave them the green light, out they went,” he said. “Took about 10 seconds to get 20 troopers out.”

Hamilton then had to lift his right wing fast to avoid clipping the steeple of a church at Sainte-Mère-Église, he said. But the way back took the crew’s breath away, as the navigator showed them the radar display of the English Channel filled with invasion ships.

“Every individual ship was a dot. It looked like you could walk from England to France,” he said. “[That’s] the one mission that I always look back on as the most important mission I ever flew, because D-Day was so important and it was the beginning of something that was so important. And I didn’t start to really feel that until I saw that picture.”

A Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft “That’s All, Brother” flies over France in support of the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, June 4, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Alvaro Villagomez)

On returning to base, Hamilton’s crew found their C-47’s wingtip blown off and engine controls damaged by 20mm cannon fire, along with 300 tiny holes from .25 caliber machine pistol rounds. He later found out that six of the paratroopers who stepped off his plane were shot before they hit the ground.

“They took a beating,” he said.

A Lifelong Storyteller

D-Day was just the start of the war for Hamilton, who dropped everything from British spies over southern France to winter clothes and ammunition over Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. He ferried Allied generals to the battlefields, took a captured German general back to England, and carried gravely wounded soldiers out of Holland after Operation Market Garden.

After the war, Hamilton flew C-47s and C-54s for civilian airlines, but he rejoined the Air Force to serve in the Korean War, where he flew 51 missions in RB-26 reconnaissance aircraft, according to the Commemorative Air Force. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross, five Air Medals, and two Presidential Unit Citations. He played a role developing the Sidewinder missile and analyzing intelligence during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Hamilton retired from the Air Force in 1963 and went on to become “an executive with a well-known food and liquor distributor,” according to the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

“Beyond his military achievements, Hamilton was a cherished storyteller and educator, often sharing his experiences at airshows, universities, and other events,” wrote the Commemorative Air Force.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. David Hamilton recalls his experience of the D-Day invasion in a 2022 interview with the American Veterans Center. (Screenshot via American Veterans Center)

Indeed, his flair for storytelling never faded. In his 2021 interview with the Commemorative Air Force, the 99-year-old recalled crash-landing a C-47 in a field in England, where the belly-mounted radome stopped the aircraft from hurtling over a 200-foot cliff.

“The only thing that was damaged in the plane, other than the plane, was three cases of Italian whiskey,” he said. “Well, not whiskey, wine–Strega, I don’t know if you know what Strega is, but you don’t want to drink it. They put it and battery acid in the same category.”

In 2019, Hamilton enjoyed his second trip aboard a C-47 over Normandy as part of a 75th anniversary celebration of D-Day, albeit this time without anti-aircraft fire. The next month, he flew a C-47 again over Oklahoma.

“His continued involvement in CAF events, including airshows and educational programs, made him a beloved figure in the aviation history community,” wrote the Commemorative Air Force.