‘A Generational Leap’: Why the F-35 Needs GE’s XA100 Engine Today

‘A Generational Leap’: Why the F-35 Needs GE’s XA100 Engine Today

Nov. 30, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

Retired Lt. Gen. Sam Angelella caught the bug for high performance engines 40 years ago. It was his first time taxiing down the runway in a T-38. He lit the afterburners on the GE J85, heard the engine thunder, and said to himself, “OK—now I get it.”

That exhilaration in 1982 propelled Angelella through a 34-year Air Force career as an F-16 pilot, where he had a front-row seat as the F-16’s engine variants grew and developed under GE’s innovation. In fact, most of his 3,200 flying hours were spent on GE engines: He piloted Falcons fit with the Block 30 “Big Mouth” during Desert Storm in 1991; he served as an F-16 instructor at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., in 1991 where GE was testing the improved performance F110-129; and he later flew F110-129 powered Block 50s as a squadron commander at Misawa Air Base, Japan, in 1997. At that time, Angelella considered the latter to be the acme of jet engine innovation.

“I thought, ‘This is it. We’re not going to be able to put anything else on [the F-16]. It’s maxed out,’” he said. “Of course, I was wrong. Each time I returned to the F-16, as a Wing Commander at Shaw AFB, and then later as the Wing Commander at Misawa, the F-16 Block 50 had more capability that required that increased power provided by the F-110-129.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Sam Angelella at Spangdahlem Air Base, circa 1998-1991. Courtesy photo.

America’s air superiority relies on continuous improvement, and GE Aerospace has historically and reliably delivered both. It’s a lesson that’s as pertinent today as it was 40 years ago, especially in an increasingly strenuous era when near-peer competitors and adversaries are catching up to U.S. capabilities.

Given the growing threat environment, the Defense Department has shifted its focus over the last 10 years from improving the F-16 to improving the fifth-generation F-35 strike fighter, specifically through the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP). One of the AETP offerings—GE Aerospace’s XA100—has been in development since 2016 as a replacement for the current F135 engine. After years of testing, the XA100 has exceeded the program’s original parameters set by the Air Force and offers a generational jump in mission capabilities.

In GE’s most recent trial under AETP, the XA100 exceeded the program requirements, delivering 30 percent better range, 25 percent better fuel efficiency, 20 percent greater acceleration, and twice the thermal management capabilities over the F135. Using cutting edge technology and materials, the XA100 can alleviate—even eradicate—the concern over durability, thus equipping the next generation of warfighters with an advantage over the adversaries on the horizon.

“The new material is a ceramic matrix composite,” said Angelella, who now consults for GE Aerospace after a six-year tenure as their vice president of military customer programs. “That really gives you increased durability. It gives you increased capability—an engine that you can run at temperatures that you can’t run in the current configuration. And so basically, the durability issue goes away. [Then the] power is increased and [you have] basically unlimited thermal capability for the weapon systems requirements on the airplane.”

Despite the evidence that the XA100 represents a vast generational leap in engine technology, leaping over the “valley of death”—from research and development to operational capability—remains a challenge. Some Pentagon officials and industry members remain skeptical, arguing that the XA100 has higher production costs, instead favoring “incremental upgrades” to the F135 as a more cost-effective alternative in the near-term. But Angelella argues that cost and time are two factors that only strengthen the case for moving forward with the XA100.

“Even if you spend the money for incremental capability right now, you still have this bill to pay later,” he said, referencing that the Pentagon has already spent $2 billion on AETP development. “Why not put that money in the program up front [and] get the full capability into the hands of the warfighter sooner?”

This fall, nearly 50 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle similarly urged the Pentagon to focus on improved technology in the face of increasing threats, in a letter calling for continued funding for AETP.

Generational improvements to combat propulsion performance have never been more pressing for the U.S. as it seeks to ensure continued air dominance in tempestuous theaters like the Indo-Pacific. The XA100 is the most advanced combat engine in the world, and if implemented it would power a strong future for the F-35, said Angelella.

Prior to deploying to Kuwait in 2002, Angelella said, he retrained in the F-16CG Blk 42 at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. At that time, the increased weight and weapons growth in the aircraft had outpaced the engine power. That, combined with the high temperatures and pressure altitude at Luke, often required his students to take off with the radar and other systems turned off so they wouldn’t overheat. Again, he asked, why not add the revolutionary power to the F-35 now, ahead of the weapons growth?

“In this decisive decade, it’s important to create revolutionary change,” said Angelella, echoing prominent USAF leaders, including Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives and the Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. who has repeatedly cautioned DOD leadership that, “Good enough today will fail tomorrow.”

Just as Angelella reflects on how GE’s family of engines shaped the legacy of the F-16, he predicts future warfighters will look back on the decision to fit the F-35 with the XA100 as a pivotal point in the U.S.’s continued air superiority through the 21st century, because if the performance bar isn’t drastically raised today, it won’t be high enough tomorrow.

“Think about the risk reduction that has been done by testing this engine over 10 years working with Air Force Research Lab (AFRL),” Angelella said. “We’re not starting from scratch here … [and] we’re not going to be done. This aircraft, with this engine in it, will continue to grow. We’re talking about being able to do the Block 4 capabilities. How about Block 4 and beyond? How about NGAD? What will that look like? What will future propulsion look like? We can’t just skip a generation. It’s time to get this into production—it’s time to take that generational leap.”

Senators Introduce Bill to Give Premium-Free Health Care to Guard and Reserve Members

Senators Introduce Bill to Give Premium-Free Health Care to Guard and Reserve Members

Nov. 29, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The push to secure free health care for members of the National Guard and Reserve components regardless of duty status gained momentum in the past few days, as a bipartisan pair of senators introduced legislation that would expand coverage and First Lady Jill Biden hosted National Guard leaders for discussions at the White House. 

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and titled the “Healthcare for Our Troops Act,” would provide premium-free medical coverage to members of the Guard and Reserve and their families through Tricare, the Department of Defense’s health insurance program. 

As the moment, eligible members of the Guard and Reserve can purchase plans from Tricare Reserve Select when not on Active-duty orders but must pay premiums under that plan. When on Active-duty orders for more than 30 days, they can get Tricare Prime, an option offered to Active-duty service members and their dependents that requires no out-of-pocket expenses. 

Army Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, has called securing premium-free health care for Guard members one of his top priorities, framing it as an issue of strategic and moral importance. 

Progress on the issue, however, has been elusive. The “Healthcare for Our Troops Act” is actually a companion to similar legislation introduced in the House of Representatives that was introduced back in May 2021—it was referred to the House Armed Services Committee and hasn’t moved since.  

Cost remains a key factor. In an interview with Air Force Times in August, Hokanson cited a year-old figure estimating the cost of providing basic Tricare insurance to part-time Guard members at $700 million. That estimate, however, doesn’t include dependents or Reserve members. A 2021 study by the Institute for Defense Analyses estimated the cost of premium-free Tricare Reserve Select coverage between $1 billion and $3 billion. 

In 2023, the Pentagon requested $55.8 billion for its Military Health System, with $36.9 billion of it going to the Defense Health Program that in part funds Tricare. That’s roughly in line with the past several years, with at least $34 billion being allocated for DHP every year since 2019. 

As things currently stand, Baldwin and Collins’ bill seems highly unlikely to get passed on its own before Congress adjourns and reconvenes for its next session, which would require the lawmakers to reintroduce the bill. With only a few weeks to go, Congress has to tackle a number of high-priority issues such as a government spending bill, the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, funding for Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, and bills affecting same-sex marriage and the Electoral College. 

However, the bill could still become law if it is incorporated into the NDAA, the annual policy bill that is considered must-pass legislation.  

Congressional leaders from both parties and both chambers are currently crafting a compromise NDAA for the House and Senate to agree on outside of the usual conference process, so Baldwin and Collins would have to lobby for the bill to be included in discussions instead of proposing it as an amendment on the Senate floor. 

While the legislature considers the issue, National Guard leaders also got to make their case inside the White House on Nov. 28 when First Lady Jill Biden hosted National Guard members, spouses, and children for a three-hour event. More than 30 states and territories were represented, and Guard members were able to meet with White House staff to discuss “how best to support the families of all those serving in the nation’s Armed Forces,” according to an NGB press release. 

Those discussions included “ensuring all Guardsmen have health insurance regardless of duty status,” the release added. 

Pentagon: China Making ‘Rapid’ Military Strides, May Have 1,500 Nuclear Warheads By 2035

Pentagon: China Making ‘Rapid’ Military Strides, May Have 1,500 Nuclear Warheads By 2035

Nov. 29, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

China is rapidly modernizing its nuclear forces and aims to flex its growing military clout, according to a Pentagon report released Nov. 29.

The annual study, the China Military Power Report, says China may have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035.

“If you look at where we are compared to a couple of years ago, it certainly is a dramatically accelerated pace,” a senior defense official told reporters. “They’ve got a rapid buildup that is kind of too substantial to keep under wraps.”

The report comes one month after the release of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which outlined China as the Defense Department’s “pacing” challenge.

“China is the one country out there that geopolitically has the power potential to be a significant challenge to the United States,” said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, at a recent news conference.

Previous Pentagon studies have focused on nearer-term efforts by the PRC, ending focusing on the 2027 time period. The new report adds two new goalposts: 2035 and 2049. Those timelines are more in line with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goals, the Pentagon said. China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is the armed wing of the CCP.

The U.S. and Russia have long been the world’s major nuclear powers. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the U.S. has about 3,700 nuclear warheads deployed or stockpiled. Russia’s nuclear arsenal numbers about 4,500 warheads. According to the Pentagon report, China has over 400 nuclear warheads, making it the third-largest nuclear state. The U.S. believes China will continue to build up its arsenal and is not currently interested in arms control talks, according to the China Military Power Report and the recently released Nuclear Posture Review.

According to the report, China launched 135 ballistic missiles for test and training purposes in 2021—more than the rest of the world combined, excluding conflict zones. China plans to build at least 300 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos, the Pentagon said.

“They’re doing things now that exceed really their previous attempts, both in terms of the scale, the numbers, and also the complexity and technological sophistication of the capabilities,” the defense official said.

Nuclear and missile capabilities are just one aspect of China’s modernization, according to DOD.

China has also begun to field the H-6N, “its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuelable bomber,” the Pentagon said. The report said China is also developing new medium- and long-range stealth bombers.

According to the senior defense official, China has made progress “fielding modern indigenous systems, increasingly PLA’s readiness, and strengthening its ability to conduct joint operations across the full range of air, land, and maritime as well as nuclear space and counter-space, electronic warfare, and cyberspace operations.” Those capabilities are detailed in Pentagon’s 170-page unclassified report, the China Military Power Report, released to Congress every year.

At China’s recent National Party Congress, during which Xi Jinping stayed on for a third term as general secretary, China said it would complete its modernization goals by 2035. By then, China will have a “world-class” military, according to Xi.

China has adopted strong diplomatic stances, placing import bans on many Australian goods after it called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and placing trade restrictions on Lithuania after Bejing deemed its relations with Taiwan too friendly.

U.S. tensions with China have been high, the senior defense official said, and flights by Chinese forces into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone have increased along with missile tests and other demonstrations of force, particularly after Speaker of the House Nanci Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

In a recent meeting with Xi, President Joe Biden “raised U.S. objections to the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan, which undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity,” according to the White House.

The official added that Chinese aircraft and ships conducting “centerline crossings” of the midpoint between China and Taiwan have become “sort of routine” and part of a “new normal.”

“In 2021, the PRC increasingly turned to the PLA as an instrument of statecraft as it adopted more coercive and aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region,” the report states. “PLA now sets its sights to 2027 with a goal to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the PRC’s armed forces. If realized, this 2027 objective could give the PLA capabilities to be a more credible military tool for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to wield as it pursues Taiwan unification.”

The Pentagon report expresses concern that a more capable Chinese military will be used to push countries Beijing’s way.

“Xi Jinping and the PRC leadership are determined that the armed forces should take a more active role in advancing the PRC’s foreign policy goals globally,” the defense official told reporters.

According to the Pentagon report, in 2021, the PLA unveiled a new “core operational concept” of “multi-domain precision warfare.” The Chinese model would use data across networked systems-of-systems and artificial intelligence to identify and strike targets. That goal shares much in common with the Pentagon’s own joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) effort.

In addition to new bombers, China aims to overhaul its air force and military aviation, according to the Pentagon.

“They’re improving in terms of the platforms that they’re developing and operating: the air-to-air missiles, the integrated air defense systems,” the senior defense official said. “We’re seeing improvements in all those kinds of areas, trying to make their training and their exercises more sophisticated, more realistic. That’s a path that they’ve been trying to go down for many years. … They talk sometimes about a world-class air force—which aligns with the 2049 goal for a world-class military. We’re tracking that they’re trying to really sort of progress rapidly on all fronts, from equipment to the training to the quality of pilots and other personnel.”

While the Pentagon expresses concern over China’s global ability to project power and “revise the international order in support of Beijing’s system of governance and national interests,” the DOD report does not view a military stand-off between the two countries as looming in the short term. While China insists it will take the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan by force if necessary, the U.S. official said the report did not indicate Beijing had plans to launch an all-out assault on the island in the near term.

“I don’t see any kind of imminent indications of an invasion,” the defense official said. “We’re definitely very focused on this level of more intimidating and coercive behavior and watching closely to see how things unfold.”

Dickinson: US Space Command Is Studying New Ways to Use Existing Satellites

Dickinson: US Space Command Is Studying New Ways to Use Existing Satellites

Nov. 29, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

U.S. Space Command is “making good progress” toward its goals to network the Defense Department’s space-based missile defense and other sensors and to transform single-purpose satellites to do more than one job, Army Gen. James H. Dickinson said Nov. 29.

The command’s leader since August 2020, Dickinson spoke during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He described the command’s priority as “to preserve freedom of access to, and freedom of action in, space. This is the priority of all joint and combined military space forces” such as the unified combatant command reestablished in 2019. 

Dickinson also serves as the DOD’s global sensor manager, he said, “able to kind of orchestrate … and synchronize” any efforts to network them together.

Taking into account the “speed of competition with China and Russia,” Dickinson said planning to incorporate new systems even five years down the road is too long. “So today I’m looking for what is good enough today that I can use right now. How can we get the most out of what we have today?”

Dickinson has promoted the concepts of space domain awareness and, more recently, space superiority. Space domain awareness, he says, furthers the conventional practice of tracking and identifying objects in space to also explore “the why” of activities taking place in Earth’s orbit. 

The even newer concept of space superiority, in turn, represents “a condition where we’ve secured freedom of action in the domain while denying … freedom of action to the adversary.” It also “requires coordinated offensive and defensive operations,” Dickinson added, and space domain awareness is “a critical requirement” of it.

Missile defense—such as detecting North Korean launches with “as much warning as possible”—makes up one mission area in which Dickinson wants to unite DOD, interagency, and even commercial satellites “into an integrated sensor network.” 

He characterized such a network as a “battle management system” to “link operational- and tactical-level planners, allowing them to choose the right platform to deliver the right effects at the right time” and to “shrink the kill web—to understand more fully and decide more quickly with confidence.”

Dickinson predicted that handing off the responsibility for space traffic management will help to free up people in the command to focus on improving space domain awareness. The Commerce Department is in the process of taking over the duties of notifying the world’s space operators when their satellites are in danger of colliding with other spacecraft or orbital debris.

U.S. Space Command is also exploring how to do more with individual satellites, Dickinson said, and he cited the Missile Defense Agency as having “done work in terms of looking at sensors that do solely missile defense, but how could they do space domain awareness, for example? … A lot of times people say, ‘Well, it was never designed to do space domain awareness.’ But it has the ability to do so, and so we are … actively pursuing that.”

The solutions in these cases amount to “software-type capabilities,” Dickinson said. 

“We’ve got some more work to do, but we’re making good progress.”

Northrop Grumman Offers New B-21 Raider Details Ahead of Rollout

Northrop Grumman Offers New B-21 Raider Details Ahead of Rollout

Nov. 29, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Days before the first B-21 Raider is set to emerge from Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., factory, the company revealed new details about the seven-year-old, largely classified bomber program. Northrop described complementary elements of the B-21 “family of systems”; confirmed a “digital twin” version of the aircraft; and, in a break with previous programs, eliminated the “block upgrade” approach to modernization.

The airplane is due to roll out of Plant 42 on Dec. 2, with its first flight forecast in mid-2023.

The bomber “has … been designed as the lead component of a larger family of systems that will deliver intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic attack and multi-domain networking capabilities,” the company said in a Nov. 29 release.

The statement confirms that the B-21—which Northrop Grumman describes as a “sixth-generation” combat aircraft—will rely on external support platforms or systems, although whether these are escort aircraft, bomber-launched vehicles, satellites, or some other technology is unclear. In recent months, Air Force officials have begun describing the B-21 as an ISR node deep within enemy-controlled airspace.  

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently announced he was abandoning plans to develop autonomous, long-range, collaborative combat aircraft meant to escort the B-21 deep into enemy territory, but that did not rule out the bomber launching decoys, jamming vehicles, or ISR-collecting drones.

The company said it has successfully demonstrated migration of B-21 ground systems data to “a cloud environment.” This demonstration included “the B-21 digital twin, that will support B-21 operations and sustainment. This robust cloud-based digital infrastructure will result in a more maintainable and sustainable aircraft with lower-cost infrastructure.”

A “digital twin” is a finely detailed digital model of a system that allows changes—and their ramifications—to be explored by engineers with far greater fidelity and speed than were possible using older design and development technology.

Because it has an open architecture, the B-21 will forego the usual pattern of block upgrades, Northrop Grumman noted.

“To meet the evolving threat environment, the B-21 has been designed from day one for rapid upgradeability,” the company said. “Unlike earlier generation aircraft, the B-21 will not undergo block upgrades. New technology, capabilities and weapons will be seamlessly incorporated through agile software upgrades and built-in hardware flexibility. This will ensure the B-21 Raider can continuously meet the evolving threat head on for decades to come.”

The statement added that, as a “digital bomber,” the B-21 “uses agile software development, advanced manufacturing techniques and digital engineering tools to help mitigate production risk” and “enable modern sustainment practices.”

The company said maintainability was set as “an equally important requirement to stealth performance” at the beginning of the program; and “long-term operations and sustainment affordability [have] been a B-21 program priority from the start,” the company said. Working collaboratively on maintainability with the Air Force, the company said it’s “driving more affordable, predictable operations and sustainment outcomes.” There are six examples of the B-21 in various stages of construction, the company noted.

Northrop Grumman described the B-21 as a “sixth-generation” aircraft, a term which has yet to be clearly defined. A fifth-generation aircraft employs a high degree of stealth in all aspects, and sensor fusion for a high degree of situational awareness.

Various descriptions of “sixth generation” circulating in industry would improve on that by adding an “optionally manned” capability—which the B-21 is meant to have—even better situational awareness, better stealth, and, potentially, use of directed-energy weapons, among other possible attributes.

On stealth, the company said it’s applying “continuously advancing technology, employing new manufacturing techniques and materials to ensure the B-21 will defeat the anti-access, area-denial systems it will face.”

The B-21 “benefits from more than three decades of strike and stealth technology,” the company said, referring to its work on the B-2 Spirit bomber, the YF-23 fighter prototype, the Tacit Blue stealth demonstrator, the AGM-137 Tri-Service Standoff Missile, and presumed numerous classified programs.

“It is the next evolution of the Air Force strategic bomber fleet,” Northrop Grumman asserted, describing the B-21 as a “visible and flexible deterrent.”

Developed “with the next generation of stealth technology, advanced networking capabilities and an open systems architecture, the B-21 is optimized for the high-end threat environment. It will play a critical role in helping the Air Force meet its most complex missions.”

The Raider “will provide the Air Force with long range, high survivability and mission payload flexibility. The B-21 will penetrate the toughest defenses for precision strikes anywhere in the world,” crucial for demonstrating the nation’s “resolve.” It will give regional commanders the “ability to hold any target, anywhere in the world at risk.”

Calling the B-21 the “backbone of the future for U.S. airpower,” Northrop Grumman said the B-21 will “deliver a new era of capability and flexibility through advanced integration of data, sensors and weapons. Capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear payloads, the B-21 will be one of the most effective aircraft in the sky, with the ability to use a broad mix of stand-off and direct attack munitions.”

Northrop Grumman said it has built a supplier base of 400 companies “across 40 states,” comprising a “nationwide team” of 8,000 people “from Northrop Grumman, industry partners and the Air Force.”

The company noted that the B-21 was named “Raider” to commemorate the B-25 Doolittle raiders that bombed Japan early in WWII.

“The actions of these 80 volunteers were instrumental in shifting momentum in the Pacific theater,” and the mission served as a “catalyst to a multitude” of future achievements “in U.S. air superiority from land or sea.”

Austin to Lawmakers: Continuing Resolution Costing Pentagon ‘at Least $3 Billion’ Per Month

Austin to Lawmakers: Continuing Resolution Costing Pentagon ‘at Least $3 Billion’ Per Month

Nov. 28, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

With less than three weeks left before Congress’ latest continuing resolution funding the government runs out, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III sent a letter to leading lawmakers, urging them to pass a spending bill before the start of 2023. 

Austin sent copies of the letter Nov. 28 to the top Republican and Democrat in both the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the Appropriations Committees in both chambers. 

Politico and Punchbowl News first reported the delivery of the letter, and a spokesperson for the Senate Appropriations Committee confirmed its details to Air & Space Forces Magazine. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment. 

In the letter, Austin pleads with Congress to “complete a full-year, whole of government funding bill before the end of 2022,” warning that “failure to do so will result in significant harm to our people and our programs and would cause harm to our national security and our competitiveness.” 

In particular, Austin wrote that for every month the Pentagon operates under a continuing resolution—which keeps funding frozen at the previous year’s level—the Defense Department loses “at least $3 billion” compared to its 2023 budget request. 

Congress approved $728.5 billion for the Pentagon in its 2022 omnibus spending bill, while DOD’s 2023 request was for $773 billion—and there has been bipartisan interest in boosting that number even higher to deal with the effects of inflation.

But that interest has been tempered by political realities, a common refrain on Capitol Hill in recent years, as Republicans and Democrats still have not agreed to a spending bill. A continuing resolution was needed in late September to keep the government from shutting down through Dec. 16, and recent reports indicate that another might be necessary as negotiations drag on. 

While that happens, the Pentagon is stuck in a holding pattern with which it has become all too familiar over the past few decades, unable to start new programs or enter into new contracts, as funds are stuck in old accounts. And that delay, as much as any reduced spending power, carries consequences, Austin said. 

“The CR costs us time as well as money, and money can’t buy back time, especially for lost training events,” Austin wrote in his letter. “Under the CR, Congress prohibits the military from commencing new initiatives, such as those requested by our theater commanders in the Indo-Pacific and around the world or in support of service members and their families at home.” 

Austin’s warning is just the latest in a long line from Pentagon and Air Force leaders over the years. In May, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made the case that a CR in fiscal 2023 would be “particularly negative” because it would limit the department’s ability to mitigate inflationary pressures. 

Those warnings, however, haven’t stopped Congress from passing at least one CR every year since 1997. In fiscal 2022, a full budget wasn’t passed until March, more than five months into the fiscal year. 

Austin referenced that pattern while pointing to the threat posed by China, the top priority identified in the recently updated National Defense Strategy. 

“We can’t outcompete China with our hands tied behind our back three, four, five or six months of every fiscal year,” Austin wrote. 

For what it is worth, Congressional leaders still say they want to pass a full spending bill before 2023 starts and a new Congress begins Jan. 3. 

“[Senate Appropriations Committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy] is determined to produce a twelve-bill omnibus with Ukraine and disaster funding before the end of this Congress,” a Senate Appropriations Committee spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine in a statement. “At a time when inflation is impacting every American family and our national security, a CR is simply unacceptable.” 

Time, however, is running short, and other pieces of legislation may take up time before. One such bill is the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act—leaders still hope to debate and pass the annual policy bill in early December. 

Air Force Advancing ACE in Italian-Hosted F-35 Exercise

Air Force Advancing ACE in Italian-Hosted F-35 Exercise

Nov. 28, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. and allied air forces engaged in a two-week exercise with F-35s over the skies of Italy and the Mediterranean Sea as part of a push by the U.S. Air Force to work better with allies and to operate from more bases in the region. An accompanying meeting of F-35 air chiefs included 11 countries.

The exercise Falcon Strike 2022 wrapped up Nov. 25 and involved a mix of American, Italian, and Dutch stealth F-35 fifth-generation fighters flying alongside American fourth-generation F-16 Fighting Falcons. Italian command and control aircraft, tankers, and other assets supported the sorties. In total, the nations contributed more than 50 aircraft to Falcon Strike, according to the Italian Air Force.

“Falcon Strike prepares our F-35 pilots to carry out missions against current and future threats worldwide,” Maj. Mirko van Meerlant of the Royal Netherlands Air Force said in a news release.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) supported the exercise with F-35As from the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom and F-16s from the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base in Italy. USAFE said the exercise focused on integrating advanced F-35s—and the ever-expanding number of countries that fly the jet—with existing capabilities in the region such as the F-16. A spokesperson for USAFE said Falcon Strike 2022 is one of the largest exercises the command’s F-35s have taken part in since arriving in Europe in December 2021.

Amendola Air Base, the main air base that hosted the event, also held a meeting of top leaders of many air forces that operate the F-35 to “crosstalk” ways to employ the fighter and to give updates on how each nation is using its aircraft, according to USAFE.

For the U.S., the exercise advanced a broader goal for the Air Force. Agile combat employment, or ACE, was top of mind for the Americans at Amendola. ACE aims to move toward distributed operations and the ability to operate with a smaller footprint. The Air Force sees ACE as the way ahead as large American air bases may be at risk from missile attacks or other strikes from China or Russia, which present the main security challenges according to the National Defense Strategy.

“Our partnerships in the European theater provide the backbone of USAFE’s Agile Combat Employment doctrine,” a spokesperson for USAFE said of the exercise.

Gen. James B. Hecker, the USAFE commander, said Falcon Strike and the accompanying air chiefs meeting would help the U.S. draw on allied resources in the future.

“There might be times when a U.S. F-35 has to divert to another air base, or maybe we can even plan on going to another air base and we don’t have the maintenance or the equipment to go with them,” Hecker told reporters at the air chiefs meeting in Italy, according to USAFE.

Hecker said such flexibility is a necessity, not a luxury.

“I think it’s really a war fighting imperative to be able to do that,” Hecker said of ACE.

The meeting of F-35 air chiefs included top air force leaders from the U.S., Italy, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the U.K. The Lockheed Martin-made F-35 has strong demand in Europe. Germany recently committed to buying 35 F-35s in light of Russian aggression.

“We looked at various options, and the F-35 is already being flown in Europe, and thus Europe has grown together,” German Parliamentary State Secretary Siemtje Möller for the Ministry of Defense told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “The F-35 was a big opportunity. We needed something we could buy now. We wanted to join the family of user nations. It will provide interoperability and shared capability throughout Europe and NATO.”

By 2034, more than 600 F-35s will be operating in Europe, according to Hecker, who also leads NATO Allied Air Command. In its statement on Falcon Strike, the Dutch Ministry of Defense said the event was “above all” focused on the F-35. Around 1,000 service members from the Netherlands, Italy, and the U.S. participated in the exercise, operating from multiple air bases on the Italian mainland and a training range in Sardinia.

Hecker hopes eventual deployments of U.S. F-35s to foreign bases can advance the goal of ACE. He said the U.S. and its allies aim to make the F-35 employable across Europe, irrespective of which air bases or air forces are involved.

“We’re trying to make it interoperable, so if any F-35 nation can work with any F-35, no matter what nation it comes from, it can work on it—not just refuel it, but rearm it as well,” Hecker said. “We want to get to that stage in the game, and this is the beginning of that.”

Air Force Announces Pause of Much-Maligned ‘myEval’ Platform

Air Force Announces Pause of Much-Maligned ‘myEval’ Platform

Nov. 28, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Less than a year after announcing the rollout of a new online platform for evaluations, the Air Force is pausing use of the system amid a deluge of complaints from Airmen. 

The service initially promised that the platform, dubbed myEval, would be a “21st century IT application” and eventually include functions such as “click to sign” for forms, the auto-population of information directly from the Military Personnel Data System, and “integration with other myFSS applications, such as myFitness, to auto-populate performance-related data.”

Such features, however, were not available upon launch in February, and complaints quickly began emerging on Reddit, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

On Nov. 19, the Air Force Personnel Center seemingly yielded to those complaints, announcing that it would “pause using the current version of myEval to create and process all enlisted and officer evaluations.” Instead, Airmen will use PDFs from e-Pubs to complete evaluations, processed through the Case Management System. 

“This pause also allows our A1, AFPC, and Digital Transformation Activity teams to focus on the future myEval so it provides the trust, reliability, transparency, and simplicity we need moving forward,” AFPC said in a Facebook post. 

The agency gave no timeline for when myEval might be relaunched or used again, and the Air Force did not respond to a Nov. 22 query from Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

The move to shelve the system ends a tumultuous 11 months since the Air Force first rolled out myEval. The Air Force did not immediately detail how many complaints it received from Airmen about the application, or any other data about the feedback it received, but the overwhelming consensus was that it was confusing, buggy, and frequently failed. 

Among the issues Airmen have publicly noted, many said it often took multiple attempts to perform a single step before forms or changes were recorded; data that was pulled was incorrect and hard to change; character limits and spacing created appearance issues on performance reviews; and other problems. 

Issues with the system were so prolific and widespread that Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass acknowledged the problem in a Sept. 1 “Coffee Talk” livestream on Facebook.

“I think everyone would say it’s not as well executed as it could be,” Allvin said at the time. “We own that.”

Bass once more acknowledged the problems in a Nov. 21 post confirming that myEval has been paused. 

“We get it, folks. We have seen the memes and the jokes … more importantly, we have seen the legitimate concerns and feedback about myEval,” Bass wrote. “As it stands now, the system is not able to seamlessly process reports into a member’s official records.” 

Bass even poked fun at the system herself, posting a meme from the 2014 film “The Babadook,” with a mother asking her child, “Why can’t you be normal?” and the child being labeled “myEval.” 

Airmen across the service posted plenty of memes and jokes about myEval over the last several months, but there was also concern that the system’s problems would have very real effects on service members’ careers—potentially costing promotions, assignments, or awards—to say nothing of the day-to-day headaches and stress that dealing with the system caused. 

Yet while many Airmen have clamored for myEval to be shelved for months now, the shift to PDFs and the Case Management System could potentially create new headaches, as some Airmen posted on social media that they had labored through myEval to finish evaluations, only to now have to restart the process. 

Q&A: The New Chief of Space Operations on Empowering the Force 

Q&A: The New Chief of Space Operations on Empowering the Force 

Nov. 27, 2022 | By Tobias Naegele

Gen. B. Chance “Salty” Saltzman became the second-ever Chief of Space Operations on Nov. 2, bringing with him a resume unlikely ever to be repeated. A space operator most of his career, he was the deputy air component commander at U.S. Central Command and the first Space Force S-3 operations czar. He spoke with Air & Space Forces Magazine Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele a few weeks after taking over as Chief. 

Q: Every new Chief brings ideas and concerns that grew out of personal experiences in the service over the course of a career. What was one of those for you?  

A: I think one overriding thing that I was always frustrated by in the space community is how high up the chain decisions have to be made. Lack of trust, of lower-level [staff] … Some of what I thought were the most simple decisions, you had to defer up the chain. I thought that slowed us down. I thought that it didn’t train our junior members to be a good decision-makers. And I just said, we have got to figure out how to empower our younger members—I’m thinking about the skills of officers here, but this equally applies to the enlisted corps positions—how do we push this down? When we say Mission Command, do we mean it? Or is that just kind of the phrase of the day? And if you mean it, it’s how you respond when they make bad decisions; it’s how you respond to not being comfortable that you don’t get to make a decision because it’s more important that the right person at the right organizational level makes this decision—even if you think you might be able to make it better. … Rather than pulling the decision and authority up, [leaders should] mentor down. Train them how to make the better decisions. It’s the ‘teach a man to fish’ kind of thing. … 

There’s a Thomas Jefferson quote that I have hanging on a placard back at home: ‘I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control … the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.’ … That’s the way I see Mission Command. …  I’m going to delegate down. I’m going to empower … and they’re going to get some stuff wrong. They’re going to do things not how I would do it. And I can respond one of two ways: I can pull those authorities away from them and pull them up. Or I can educate, train, build, and show them how to do better the next time and just live with the fact that it was not quite as good as I want them to be. And then hope they do that at the next echelon, and the next echelon after that. It’s hard sometimes. When people make mistakes, I could be embarrassed. At some point, the Chairman’s going to yell, or the Secretary of the Air Force, and I’m going to be embarrassed, probably in a public forum, for something that somebody else did, that I could have done better. … And I think it would be a very human response to get mad down the chain and say, ‘All right, you’re never doing that again—I’m doing it.’ That’s the real test. Do I have the conviction of this approach to say, ‘Hey, I got embarrassed by this,’ and use that as the training and mentoring opportunity [it should be]. … I hope I have the patience to take the deep breath and have a mature response when that happens. 

Q: Many Americans are still unaware we have a Space Force, or if they are aware, why we need one. How can you change that? 

A: You know, I was at the Washington Commanders game [after Veterans Day] and they were doing a salute to service. All of the services are holding their seal with members of the service, and the Space Force was right there with all the others, and they played the medley, and they played the Space Force song. It wasn’t a packed house, but it wasn’t inconsequential, either, and it’s on TV. You chip away, right? I can’t educate 300 million people, but we can chip away at it. We just have to make ourselves available. … One of the little things I like, is I’m gonna encourage our people to wear uniforms in the airports when they travel. It says Space Force. The times I’ve done it, people notice, they say, well, ‘That’s a real thing? I’ve never seen a Space Force guy.’ … So no big campaigns, just kind of keep chipping away. 

Q: You’re operating in a new sphere as a four-star and as a service chief. And I imagine there are still some who don’t think the Space Force merits equal status. So your challenge is to prove you belong on the team. How? 

A: What I have working for me are facts. Over the last 20 years, the other services have been able to save money by buying different kinds of equipment in smaller numbers, because of space capabilities. Whether it’s precision with weapons—you know how a B-17 drops 200 bombs and hits 0.5 targets, while one B-2 hits 80 independent targets because of GPS. … So … we will deliver force structure because [we] recognize now that our adversaries see the asymmetric advantage that space provides for the joint force. They are holding at risk our space capabilities. And they built their own space capabilities to do over-the-horizon targeting, new capabilities to create this very defensive bubble for themselves.

I will argue that what we bring as a new service is focus. You don’t have time to focus on how to get it right in space, because you’re doing the air campaign, or you’re doing the land campaign, or at sea. So don’t worry about it. I’ve got you. We know the nuances, and if we don’t know, we’re going to study, and we’re going to dedicate ourselves to learning them. From the time you’re a brand-new technician or a second lieutenant, we are thinking about the space domain, and where the vulnerabilities are, and how you could shore those up. It’s just dedicated focus, and that’s going to make the joint force better. … Every time we say those words, nobody disagrees with us.

Q: So that makes you the indispensable force? 

A: I don’t think we’re the indispensable force. I think they’re all indispensable, because the problems we’re going to face are multidomain problems. So the joint force has to collectively think about vulnerabilities, attack vectors, opportunities, weights of effort from all the domains to create problems. … The bad analogy is like a cake. What’s indispensable? The flour? The eggs? So my job is just eggs. That’s what I do. But if we think about how it comes together when you mix it, is a joint force. 

Q: Size is an issue. The Space Force is still too small to send the right level leaders to all the meetings and places they need to be, too small to fill all the jobs you probably need. What’s the right size for the force? Do you have a hard number in mind?

A: There are still some substantial growth areas. … I think our headquarters is still not the size that it needs to be to effectively integrate into the Department of Defense. There are still some gaps. I don’t believe our general officer corps is the size it needs to be. The tip of that pyramid kind of starts to define what the rest of the structure needs to be. We have our service components that are going to the combatant commands, that are going to be responsible for integrating space capabilities. … We’re talking about two dozen people right now in EUCOM. That’s not going to be sufficient. … We don’t have the test community that we need. We don’t have the training infrastructure that we need. Our institutional force is not the size it needs to be to maintain the quality of training and education, doctrine, and operational concepts. That’s all new for us. We lived with Air Force operational concepts. Now we’ve got to build our own. We lived in the margins of Air Force tactics validation. Now we’ve got to develop our own. So these are all growth areas. Would it surprise me if five, six, seven years from now we’re twice as big? No.

Q: Within your service, you have just two four-star general billets, the chief and the vice, and until you have someone commanding U.S. Space Command, you’re not going to have a third. Do you have a picture of how many general officers you think you need?

A: I looked across all the services and said, OK, if you have this many general officers, what does a healthy pyramid look like? And it’s actually pretty consistent. For two four-stars, you would need six three-stars, 12 two-stars, and 16 one-stars. That’s kind of the planning factor the other services use, and if we had that, that would work. So that’s 36. We now have 21. It would be a big increase.

Q: And that would build the structure to give you the numbers you need?

A: The problem is that Congress could throw billets at us tomorrow, but we’ve got to grow people to fill those positions. Everything I just mentioned, those are not entry-level positions. If you’re going to be a tester, you’ve got to have some operations background. If you’re going to represent space in the combatant commands, integrated into our plans, you’ve got to have an operational background. So when the hole in your force is that mid-grade to senior grade, the only way out is either pull from other forces, other services, civilianize, or allow time to grow the force. And it’s a combination of all three … take a program manager in Space Systems Command—should that program manager be a GS-15 or an O-6? Because if it’s an O-6, it’s going to take me 18 years to produce one of those, because every O-6 starts as a second lieutenant. And if it’s a GS-15, I might be able to pull somebody that’s got program management experience from commercial industry or another place and pull them straight over.

Q: What is your guidance, then, to the force?

A: My priorities start with a resilient, ready, combat-credible force. And I know exactly what that means. But when I talk to some of the junior and senior officers, they don’t necessarily know in detail what that means. My experience, from the Weapons School and employment of air power, has given me a very, very clear understanding of what needs to be done. That means it’s my job to make sure they understand, to train them, to document my guidance and help them understand. Because this is the shift to a mindset of contestability that most of these officers didn’t grow up learning. They grew up in engineering—’How do I make the system last as long as possible?’ ‘How do I make decisions for longevity?’—not ‘How do I make decisions for attribution and attrition and other things you think about in a contested domain?’ So it’s my responsibility to convey that … so that they’re ready.

Q: The Space Force is roughly 50/50, officers to enlisted. That’s a very different model than what you see in other services. Do you anticipate it will stay that way? 

A: This is where we have to go back and do some things that the other services haven’t had to do for a long, long time: Ask what, exactly, is the purpose of your enlisted corps? … The answer is that technical is always the bedrock of the enlisted force. We have a highly technical workforce. And if we can continue to give them the experience and longevity in certain areas, you create this technical competency, … the systems operators … the technical corporate knowledge. On the acquisition side, I think that the technical skills to accomplish the JCIDS [Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System] process can be heavily weighted on the civilians. Again, longevity … grows over time. So you have these two technical skill sets: For operations, it’s the enlisted. On the acquisition side, it’s the civilians. And your officers, they are the leaders. They have to understand all of that, but they have to make decisions. And that’s a fundamentally different skill set. You have to train them for that, to take all these inputs and [decide] … this is what we’re going to do. That’s what the officers bring. 

Q: At the Space Systems Command campus in Los Angeles, you see banners posted that say, ‘The Threat is Real.’ The implication is that people either hadn’t believed it or weren’t thinking about it. Your focus is similarly on warfighting. What are you doing to build that part of the culture? 

A: I was with the 18th Space Defense Squadron—they’re the ones that maintain the space catalog [of satellites on orbit]. And I’m talking to this specialist. He’s great. And he is so excited about his job, right? He’s tracking the mega constellations. So a StarLink launch is up and 60 spacecraft fly off. And I don’t know if you know how they do that, but they just tumble the rocket body and … because the velocities are slightly different, that’s hard to differentiate quickly, when you’re just using radar. So it’s a processing problem. He says ‘the last time they did this launch, it took us, you know, like 48 hours before we even saw 60. And this time, we did it like 16 hours, because we use a slightly different radar looking angle.’ … And I go, ‘Hey, what can the enemy do to take advantage of this and hide their activities?’ … And he didn’t know how to answer. So I say thanks, and then I grab the squadron commander, and I say, ‘He doesn’t understand the threat. He doesn’t understand what I need from him, [or] that there’s an adversary who is trying to prevent him from doing his job.’ Because—I know, we don’t have the simulators to simulate that, and I don’t have the procedures and tactics to quantify that, and that’s my job. But we’ve got to start having these discussions with these kids. That’s the shift. It’s not about the catalog—that’s what it always was about before. It’s about threat. It’s about our need to understand the domain. And the adversary is trying to prevent us from understanding it.

Q: There’s a great line in the movie “Dr. Strangelove” where the point is made that the Doomsday weapon cannot deter anything if no one knows it exists. The Space Force is ultimately playing a very high-level strategic game. How much do you let adversaries know? And how much does holding information secret limit you from getting the money you need to be effective?

A: So this is ‘the Space Force Theory of Success.’ I’m writing it. And you don’t get to see it yet. 

Q: It says ‘unclassified.’ You’re not going to let me see it?

A: You’re going to see it eventually. But not yet. Because if we don’t describe what we’re trying to do, how do we know what to build? How do we know where to go, where to put our resources? And this is so complicated, it’s so technical. We have to be able to describe this in an unclassified way to say, ‘This is what the problem is,’ and ‘this is our approach to addressing it.’ And ‘Here’s what we need to focus on, and buy, and invest in. … Here’s how I see my role in how we’re doing the business of the Space Force. I’ve watched too many times the senior leader issue guidance and direction and a strategy that becomes an action plan. And then some director of staff somewhere starts tasking it out. We’ve all seen this with varying degrees of success. … I’m going to try to kill two birds with one stone, proving that the Pentagon supports empowerment and giving you [military and civilian Guardians] a broad understanding of where we’re headed. I want to give some left and right guardrails. And then you owe me all of the activities that support it. The activities are going to be broad enough that it requires all of them to do something. There is a training and readiness piece to this; there is an operational piece to this; and an acquisition piece. I’m not going to write any big lines of effort that don’t affect everybody. So, therefore, now you come back to me. … I want to see your plan for implementing my vision.

Q: So is it implicit that you expect your commanders to push that request down to the next level, and so on? 

A: It’s not implicit—it will be explicit. I have no reason to believe that you can do this if you hold the authorities to yourself. You have to pass this down. And [those subordinate organizations] organically determine the opportunities, activities, and investments that are needed at their level, for their piece of the puzzle, and that aggregates up under your vision, which aggregates up under my vision. So there’s going to be buy-in because it’s their ideas, their initiatives. We’re going to provide enough guidance so that we’re happy with whatever they come up with.