New, Miniaturized Data Pod Will Accelerate Fighter Refinements, Fleet Maintenance

Nov. 21, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is experimenting with a new pod expected to sharply improve fleet predictive maintenance and mission data and to accelerate software fixes across the entire Combat Air Forces. The pod miniaturizes and encapsulates a test rig previously too large and expensive for use in anything other than test aircraft.

Assuming funding is forthcoming, the Air Force plans to outfit half the CAF with the Quick Reaction Instrumentation Pod (QRIP) by the end of 2025, according to the 59th Test and Evaluation Squadron. Some 19 F-35s are now equipped with it, and USAF plans to put it on more F-35s and F-22s first, followed by aircraft from the fourth-generation fleet. The cost of the unit is orders of magnitude less than the previous, comparable test rig.

The QRIP collects both mission data from sensors and weapons, as well as vehicle performance data from engines, flight controls, etc., according to the 59th TES. The pods will also improve mission debriefs and help “find unknown issues, correct software deficiencies, improve mission data … in ways we’ve never been able to do before,” said Lt. Col. Nathan Malafa, 59th TES commander, in an email.

The pod, described as “football-sized,” fits inside the F-35 weapons bay, where it doesn’t interfere with any other function. Test units have been flying with USAF F-35s since March. The pod is made by Curtiss-Wright and is part of the company’s QRNexus family of data recording systems.

“Instrumentation packages like QRIP are traditionally reserved for integration on test aircraft, designed to collect data strictly for test and evaluation purposes,” according to a 59th TES press release. “These devices have historically been too large, cumbersome, and expensive to consider for operational aircraft integration, until now.” Those previous test rigs, weighing more than a ton and costing as much as $25 million apiece, dwarf the eight-pound QRIP, which costs around $230,000. The unit has a capacity of “almost a Terabyte of data,” the Air Force said.

The pod will allow USAF to make use of “crowd-sourced data” that can point toward problem-prone components and track break rates and failure reasons for various systems. That will improve the speed of maintenance and presumably lower its cost.

The data will be available to software developers “within minutes, versus the traditional weeks or months,” building better data sets “while improving mission data reprogramming, data products, and software development,” the 59th TES said.

The squadron was unable to disclose which units the QRIP pod is equipping right now, but they are “scattered around the Air Force” and have delivered data from aircraft operating on deployments outside the continental U.S., a 59th spokesperson said. The device has also been tested with Marine Corps and Navy F-35s, suggesting it will have application to the entire F-35 fleet, including international users.

“We’re also working plans for other platforms, but a concrete timeline has not been solidified yet,” she said.

The crowd-sourced data provided so far have “accelerated reprogramming changes, highlighted software deficiencies, enabled rapid debriefs, and provided data products previously unavailable to pilots and intelligence officers,” according to a 53rd Wing release.

“The more data we can collect from the Air Force’s diverse portfolio puts the ‘crowd’” in crowd-sourced data “and amplifies data sets we can use to gain competitive advantage against our adversaries and competitors,” said Malafa in the release.

“QRIP captures data that is currently not being recorded, or being discarded at the cutting room floor, and makes it available and accessible at the speed of relevance,” he said. “Big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence do the heavy lifting to sift through this data and highlight where action needs to be taken.” The data collected by the QRIPs has been demonstrated “to great effect by watching video from [outside CONUS] sorties minutes after the data is ingested, over 6,000 miles away,” said Malafa. “The implications of this are only limited by our imagination.”

KC-46 Crews Set AMC Endurance Record in 36-Hour Flight as Air Force Looks to Expand Use

Nov. 21, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

A KC-46A Pegasus flew a 36-hour nonstop mission that covered more than 16,000 miles from Nov. 16 to Nov. 17, the Air Force announced. Crews traveled from Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H., over North America, Hawaii, and Guam, before retracing their path and landing back at their home base. The flight was the longest Air Mobility Command mission to date.

“This extended mission is yet another example of capable Airmen taking charge and moving out to accelerate our employment of the KC-46A,” Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), said in a statement.

The aircraft took off from a snow-covered base in New England and refueled the F-22 Raptors over sun-splashed light blue waters in the Pacific. A six-minute video captures scenes from the mission.

AMC has pushed to prove the capabilities of its approximately 40 KC-46s in 2022. In May, the aircraft flew over 24 hours in non-stop sortie. In September, the aircraft was cleared for worldwide combat operations. A KC-46 recently flew without a co-pilot to test operations with a bare-bones crew. Minihan has said he plans to employ AMC’s fleet in new ways.

“The proof-of-concept mission falls directly in line with his intent to move faster in a risk-informed manner to meet Joint Force requirements in a peer competitor fight,” AMC spokesperson Capt. Natasha Mosquera told Air & Spaces Forces Magazine on Nov. 21.

The KC-46 has faced issues since the Air Force first took delivery of the aircraft in 2020. Its refueling system as been troubled, facing issues with the boom and the Remote Vision System (RVS) used to operate it. Relying on an array of cameras and monitors, the RVS can wash out or cause depth perception issues in certain conditions. The fix has been put off until 2025 after Boeing and the Air Force said they had supply chain troubles and regulatory hurdles that would delay it.

The boom is also facing a redesign. The refueling pipe requires a new actuator that will allow the boom to refuel all aircraft. A KC-46 had a mishap in October while it was refueling another aircraft that caused damage to the tanker.

In a statement in early November, Mosquera said the incident occurred “after experiencing a problem with the refueling system, causing damage to the boom and fuselage.”

Mosquera said the boom fix, or the Boom Telescoping Actuator Redesign (BTAR), will not be retrofitted to the fleet until the beginning of fiscal 2026. The Air Force has not released the results of its accident investigation or whether the issue being addressed by the redesign caused the incident.

Without the redesign, the KC-46 cannot refuel A-10s, which are “too thrust-limited to overcome the stiff boom issue,” according to Mosquera.

She recently told Air & Space Forces Magazine that Boeing’s subcontractor for the part, Moog, was facing “issues getting a compliant actuator.”

Despite the issues, Mosquera said the Air Force determined that the KC-46 was fit for worldwide deployment after the service updated “crew training, techniques, and procedures to work around known limitations.”

Even though the aircraft has unresolved flaws, Air Mobility Command has sought to demonstrate the capability of its newest tanker with endurance missions.

“Pease’s accomplishment of this mission is the third consecutive success proving the KC-46A’s airborne persistence, building on previous 22- and 24-hour missions,” Lt. Col. Joshua Renfro, the head of AMC’s KC-46 cross-functional team, said in a statement.

During the day-and-a-half mission, the KC-46 was refueled by two different KC-46s positioned at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, in preparation for the mission. Three aircrews took turns at the controls of the KC-46 during the extreme-duration flight: two New Hampshire Air National Guard crews from the 133rd Air Refueling Squadron and one Active-duty crew from the 64th Air Refueling Squadron. Both squadrons are under the command of the 157th Air Refueling Wing at Pease Air National Guard Base. During the mission, the KC-46 fueled F-22 Raptors in a closed-loop pattern off the coast of Hawaii, the 157th Air Refueling Wing said. The aircraft continued west to the U.S. territory of Guam, crossing the International Date Line before turning back home and returning to New Hampshire.

The aircraft carried a total of 16 crew, including pilots, boom operators, aircraft maintainers, and a flight surgeon during the multi-day trek. Overall, the mission was part of a commitment by AMC to learn more about their aircraft and Airmen.

The mission’s flight surgeon, Maj. Heidi MacVittie, used a NASA app to track data about the pilots, such as their reaction time. The goal was to learn if using multiple, more rested crews is preferable to the Air Force’s current practices.

“The goals were to test the aircrew’s ability to self-assess and also evaluate whether using multiple crews on a work-rest cycle would be preferable to the current standard practice of utilizing alertness medications to sustain a crew for a long durations of work,” Mosquera said.

T-38 Makes Belly Landing at Columbus AFB—Second Incident in Two Weeks

Nov. 21, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s note: This story was updated Nov. 23 to clarify the location of the February 2021 crash.

Less than two weeks after a T-38 trainer aircraft crashed near Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., another experienced an in-flight emergency that ended with the pilot executing a gear-up landing Nov. 18.

The pilot landed the aircraft, a T-38C, successfully and was OK, a base spokesperson said in a press release.

The exact cause of the incident is still being investigated, but the emergency was first reported about 10:45 a.m. local time and involved a malfunction with the landing gear, the press release stated.

“Response crews executed emergency procedures successfully,” the release added.

While the incident did not leave anyone injured, it does mark another emergency for the T-38 fleet at Columbus. On Nov. 7, a T-38A pilot was forced to eject after an in-flight emergency. That aircraft crashed.

And in February 2021, two pilots—a USAF instructor pilot assigned to the 50th Flying Training Squadron at Columbus and a Japan Air Self-Defense Force student pilot—died in a T-38 crash at Dannelly Field near Montgomery, Ala. The crash was later attributed to spatial disorientation.

Other T-38 crashes and incidents in the last few years have occurred at other bases. One pilot died and two more were injured in a November 2021 incident involving two T-38s at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas. In February 2021, a T-38 at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., also had to execute a gear-up landing.

Gear-up, or “belly,” landings are rare but do occur. An A-10 pilot was forced to execute one in April 2020, and this past January, a South Korean F-35 pilot had to perform one.

The supersonic T-38, built by Northrop, entered service in 1960 and has been modified a number of times to restore its structural strength and improve its training capabilities. The Air Force is developing the Boeing T-7A to take its place, but the T-38 fleet is not expected to be fully retired until about 2030.

The Air Force uses the T-38 for advanced undergraduate pilot training for pilots headed to fighters and bombers, as a companion trainer for some aircraft, and as a graduate-level fighter training platform. The type is also used as an “aggressor” aircraft to provide sparring partners for some USAF fighters.

Lawmakers Ask Air Force to Study Why It Lacks Latino General Officers—and to Come Up With a Plan

Nov. 21, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in October that the service needs to do a better job of identifying, recruiting, and mentoring Hispanic/Latino officers, especially at its very highest ranks.

Now, a group of lawmakers is asking for a formal review to determine what exactly is holding Hispanic Airmen back from joining the Air Force’s general officer corps—and for a plan for how to fix it.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), a group of 36 Democrats across the House and Senate, sent a letter requesting the internal review to Kendall on Nov. 16, citing statistics that show that just 2.6 percent of generals and admirals in the U.S. military identify as Hispanic or Latino.

The Department of the Air Force is no outlier, with just 17 Hispanic generals out of 593 total, according to the most recent data—2.9 percent. For the Active-duty Air Force and Space Force just three general officers identified their ethnicity as Hispanic/Latino, less than one percent of the entire general officer corps. None are three- or four-star generals.

Kendall noted those statistics during a conference sponsored by the Air Force’s Hispanic Empowerment and Advancement Team (HEAT) and hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association on Oct. 14.

“[Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.] and I briefed [Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III] recently. We went through our general officer posture, basically, and the thing that jumped out at us was that we are not promoting enough Hispanics to the senior ranks,” Kendall said at the time. “So we’ve got to ask ourselves: Why is that true? And we’ve got to go figure out what to do about it.”

At the time, Kendall didn’t detail the department’s plans for how it would investigate those questions—and now, the CHC is pushing for specific plans and asked in its letter for a response from Kendall by Jan. 11, 2023.

In particular, the legislators want to know “how the DAF plans to conduct a review to identify barriers holding Latino officers from rising to the senior ranks of general officer (O-7 to O-10) and to provide countermeasures and action plans to address identified Latino disparities in the DAF over the next 10 years,” the letter states.

Barriers and disparities are both areas where the Air Force has been conducting work as of late, with its Barrier Analysis Working Groups, of which HEAT is one, and its disparity reports, released in 2020 and 2021.

In particular, the second disparity report released in September 2021 found that Hispanic/Latino Airmen and Guardians were more likely to be subjects of Air Force criminal investigations and less likely to be selected for enlisted leadership positions or as squadron/group commanders. The Hispanic/Latino population was also underrepresented in officer accessions, officer promotions, and in key career fields such as pilot, which often fill the ranks of leadership.

When the second disparity report was released, both Kendall and the Air Force inspector general emphasized that it was meant to merely record disparities, not identify or address the root causes of them. Further analysis was needed, they said, similar to the root cause analysis done for the first disparity review, which focused exclusively on Black Airmen and Guardians.

A little more than a year later, such analysis for the second report has yet to be released. The Department of the Air Force did not immediately respond to a query from Air & Space Forces Magazine as to if and when that analysis will be made public.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus did not give a deadline by which it wants the Air Force to conduct the proposed internal review or formulate action plans. But a spokesperson for Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), who helped lead the drafting of the letter, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the members are hoping Kendall will lay out an “expeditious timeline.”

Members decided to raise the issue when they did, the spokesperson added, “after meetings with Latino veterans and advocates.” Carbajal is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, as are fellow caucus members Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona).

But while CHC members are pushing for a plan to increase diversity in the upper ranks, they also noted that solutions may take time to implement, especially given how long it takes officers to reach the upper ranks.

“Given Congress’ involvement in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion over the last several years, and the sensitive nature of this issue, this is an area of great concern to the CHC and an issue that the Caucus understands requires the Department further develop a pipeline of junior and mid-grade officers,” the letter states.

Air Force Drops BEAST Week From Boot Camp in Favor of ACE Exercise

Nov. 18, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

After 16 years, the Air Force is caging the BEAST.

For more than a decade and a half, future Airmen in Basic Military Training have undergone Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training, a four-day-long exercise meant to simulate deployments, particularly those in the Middle East that defined military service throughout the early 2000s.

But with the Air Force increasingly focusing on competition with China and the operational concept of agile combat employment, BMT leaders decided an overhaul was needed.

Now, the service is implementing a new training exercise, dubbed Primary Agile Combat Employment Range, Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise, or PACER FORGE.

Instead of four days, the exercise will last 36 hours, and trainees will be split into smaller, dispersed teams that are tested with scenarios “built to provide flexibility, promote information seeking, teamwork, decision-making and are results focused,” according to an Air Force release.

“The move toward PACER FORGE is not just a renaming or re-branding of BEAST,” Col. Jeff Pixley, commander of the 737th Training Group, said in the release. “This was a year-long effort to reimagine BEAST.”

The Air Force has been simulating deployments for decades now. In 1999, the service introduced “Warrior Week” into BMT, complete with a tent city, improvised airstrip, and a focus on things such as humanitarian deployments, contingency operations, and peacekeeping.

In 2006, Warrior Week became BEAST, which featured hundreds of trainees training in an austere but relatively large encampment, facing the sorts of challenges that were commonplace in Middle East deployments—incoming mortar rounds, complex attacks, roadside bombs, car bombs, and unexploded ordnance.

The tactical course formed the highlight of BEAST, where trainees low-crawled to wooden barriers, charged the enemy with rifles, made spur-of-the-moment ethical decisions, and high-crawled up a steep, sandy hill as they dodged “sniper fire.”

Upon taking command of BMT in 2021, however, Pixley determined that BEAST was too focused on “just-in-time pre-deployment training,” according to the Air Force release.

PACER FORGE will still have scenarios for trainees, but for now, the service isn’t detailing exactly what those are.

“We want it to be something trainees consider so important and formative that they don’t spoil it for those that follow,” Pixley said.

Pixley did offer some clues, however, in emphasizing that the scenarios will be aimed at developing “multi-capable Airmen” while being “physically demanding and based on real-world operations.”

Multi-capable Airmen has become the Air Force’s term to describe Airmen who can practice agile combat employment—the idea of smaller teams of personnel operating out of remote or austere locations, sometimes performing jobs outside of their career field, and capable of moving quickly.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has made ACE a key part of his overall pivot toward China and other peer competitors, and units have practiced it everywhere from inside the Arctic Circle to across remote islands in the Pacific to a highway in Michigan.

Now, it’s making its way into BMT.

“Agile combat employment is about building foundational skills and problem-solving behaviors in an increasingly challenged threat environment to codify repeatable and understandable processes,” said Lt. Col. Jeff Parrish, commander of the 319th Training Squadron, which is responsible for the oversight of PACER FORGE.

Future Airmen have been taking part in PACER FORGE since at least October, and Pixley said leaders have received a positive response.

“What we are doing is making them ready to join any team, to work well together, to solve tough problems, to be good wingmen and teammates, and to innovate,” Pixley said in a statement. “If we get it right, it will be the highlight of their BMT experience, despite only being 36 hours in length. Early feedback suggests we are absolutely on the right track.”

US Remains Committed to Middle East Despite Strategy Shift, Kahl Says

Nov. 18, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The Department of Defense’s senior policy official laid out the Biden administration’s security strategy for the Middle East.

In a speech in Bahrain on Nov. 18, Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, said the U.S. is still committed to the region despite a shift in its security focus away from the Middle East and toward Russia and China in the new National Defense Strategy.

“We haven’t gone anywhere,” Kahl said at the Manama Dialogue security forum. “What I can guarantee is that we continue to have vital national interests in this part of the world. And a lot has changed, but that has not. That has not changed.”

After more than two decades of U.S. wars in the Middle East, the new NDS is continuing the Trump administration’s shift toward deterring Beijing and Moscow. Kahl’s comments sought to assuage concerns on the part of Arab partners and Israel that the U.S. military commitment is shrinking as Iran’s nuclear program is growing. Kahl augured that the U.S. still has the ability to rapidly project power into far-flung regions and react to flare-ups in the Middle East.

“In the future, success in how we fight will not be determined by the simple arithmetic of boots on the ground but rather by maintaining our readiness to rapidly respond by flowing forces where they are needed globally, and to fall in with interoperable allies and partners,” he said.

Recently, the Air Force has dispatched bombers and fighters to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) region that are not normally based in the area. Those deployments have been touted as examples of America’s capability to respond when needed.

Kahl also highlighted another Air Force element that the U.S. hopes to build on: Task Force 99, an Air Forces Central detachment that is exploring the use of unmanned aerial systems. He also cited the Navy’s Task Force 59, which fields maritime drones, and other activities focused on technological advancement.

“The pace of technological change demands that we do business differently, and CENTCOM has become a critical hub for innovation and experimentation,” Kahl said. “The region itself is moving fast to embrace the opportunity of technology with the United States in a supporting role. The U.S.-Saudi combined Expeditionary Robotics Operation Center is a great example of the innovation emerging from within this region. Even as the United States upgrades its approach to security, our commitment to the region is enduring.”

The U.S. has continued military operations under CENTCOM as part of the coalition that is carrying out Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS.

“The leadership of many of you here today is directly responsible for the dismantling of terrorist networks and assistance to vulnerable populations, but there is still more work to do,” Kahl told the gathering of regional security leaders. “We must stay the course and continue to expand and improve our coalition to fight the stateless extremist organizations that continue to threaten our security.”

Kahl said the U.S. remains the most reliable partner in the region and cautioned countries against associating themselves with Russia or China. The U.S. and its partners view Iran as a major regional threat, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby said Nov. 18. Yet Russia has associated itself with the theocratic regime in Tehran by acquiring Iranian-made drones for its war in Ukraine, Kahl said.

“Turning to Beijing or Moscow to check Tehran strikes me as a fool’s errand,” Kahl said. “It’s never going to work. And, in fact, it’s even less likely to work with Russia than at any time in the past because Russia used to be the big brother in the equation. And now their army has been so attrited in Ukraine that they are now dependent on Tehran. They’re so desperate. They’re going to the Iranians for drones and Pyongyang for artillery. So they’re not going to deliver the security that the region needs.”

China, Kahl argued, does not make weapons as well as the U.S. Further, countries that cooperate closely with China will limit their potential for deeper integration with the U.S. due to American security concerns about that Chinese presence.

“You can turn to countries that have fewer conditions, or you don’t have to worry about that,” Kahl said of countries turning to Beijing. “That’s fine. You’ll get equipment that’s not nearly as good. You’ll get equipment that can’t be sustained. You’ll get equipment that can’t be integrated or interoperable with the equipment that you already have, or the equipment that all your neighbors have. And you will ultimately get to a point where you are in so deep with countries like China that it will put natural limits on our ability to cooperate. Not for punitive reasons, but because it’ll create security risks to our forces and our systems in the region.”

Despite a smaller U.S. footprint in the Middle East, Kahl said the U.S. offers the best prospect for cooperating against common foes.

“Are the Americans sometimes frustrating to work with?” Kahl said. “Of course we are. But don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”

CSAF Decorates Airman Who Responded to Suicide Bombing During Afghanistan Evacuation

Nov. 18, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

An Airman who rushed to help in the aftermath of the suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, during Operation Allies Refuge received the Distinguished Flying Cross on Nov. 17—with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. presenting the medal.

Brown gave the award to Tech. Sgt. Katherine Rosa Orellana at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., marking the first Distinguished Flying Cross the Brown has presented in his career, according to an Air Force press release.

Orellana, a critical care and trauma team respiratory therapist with the 375th Air Mobility Wing, is currently embedded in Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. But in August 2021, the then-staff sergeant was deployed to Hamid Karzai International Airport as part of the noncombatant evacuation of tens of thousands of U.S., Afghan, and other partner nation civilians, as the Taliban seized control of the country.

On Aug. 26, 2021, an explosion ripped through the crowd at one of the gates of the airport, killing and injuring scores of people.

Orellana was among the first to respond to the crisis and helped to save the lives of 22 individuals, including Afghan evacuees and U.S. service members.

Over an eight-hour period, she helped evacuate five ventilated patients and expedited necessary testing for one critically injured patient while under the threat of attack, according to the service’s release.

“I joined the team a week prior and had to trust they knew what they were doing, and when we went in, we just did our jobs,” Orellana said in a statement. “And we did really well.”

A subsequent Pentagon report determined that a single suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members—11 Marines, one Sailor, and one Soldier—and 170 civilians. It was the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan since 2011. Another 45 troops were wounded.

Orellana was one of roughly 60 Air Force medical personnel assigned to the hospital at HKIA during the evacuation, who helped respond amid the chaos in the bombing’s aftermath.

The Distinguished Flying Cross is awarded for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight and is the nation’s fourth-highest award for heroism. Orellana’s medal was awarded with the “C” device for combat, given only when the service member “was personally exposed to hostile action or under significant risk of hostile action.”

Orellana also had the honor of receiving her award from Brown during an all-call in front of more than 1,000 Airmen—many of whom also participated in Operation Allies Refuge.

“Thanks for making my day,” Brown said, according to the Air Force release. “Many of you were involved in the largest humanitarian airlift in the world, and you should be proud.”

All told, Air Mobility Command has said it will award 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses to Airmen involved in Operation Allies Refuge, seven with the “V” device for valor and 74 with the “C” device. Another 12 Airmen will receive Bronze Star Medals.

Already, AMC has handed out awards to several crews of C-17s that flew out hundreds of civilians during the evacuation, including the crew of REACH 871, the record-breaking flight that carried 823 people to safety.

Also honored earlier this month with DFCs were Capt. Jedd Dillman, a flight nurse, and Master Sgt. Matthew Newman, a respiratory therapist. They were the first aeromedical evacuation Airmen in AMC history to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Still more are soon to come. AMC commander Gen. Mike Minihan is scheduled to hand out 36 Distinguished Flying Crosses at Joint Base Charleston, S.C., on Nov. 21.

airman afghanistan — Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. presents a Distinguished Flying Cross citation to Tech. Sgt. Katherine Rosa Orellana, 375th Medical Group critical care and trauma team respiratory therapist, during an all-call at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Nov. 17, 2022. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Violette Hosack.

Air Force Touts Unity of Effort in Push Toward New Collaborative Combat Aircraft

Nov. 17, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force will make a “significant investment” in uncrewed, collaborative combat aircraft, or CCAs, in the fiscal 2024 budget, a quartet of generals announced at the Pentagon. They insisted that the technology is mature enough to move aggressively toward a program that will yield operational capability in a few years.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has previously said CCA technology is mature enough that the concept can proceed to becoming a program of record, and that it will first appear in the ’24 budget request.

The four generals—Maj. Gen. Heather L. Pringle, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory; Maj. Gen. R. Scott Jobe, director of plans, programs, and requirements for Air Combat Command (ACC); Brig. Gen. Dale R. White, program executive officer for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft; and Brig. Gen. Joseph D. Kunkel, director of plans and deputy chief of staff for plans and programs—collectively made the case that the push toward CCAs is well coordinated within the service, that the operational side of the service is onboard with the concept, and that experimentation so far has shown that it will be, in the words of White, “a game changer.”

The presentation seemed arranged to show unity within the service about the desirability of adding uncrewed airplanes to the crewed aircraft fleet, with buy-in from operators, technologists, budget planners, and sustainers.

In recent months, some current and retired senior leaders, including ACC commander Gen. Mark D. Kelly, have cautioned that introducing CCAs must be done iteratively, so that aircrews can build trust in their autonomous teammates and be comfortable with the technology before taking it to war.

CCAs “bring you a lot of opportunity for tactics, techniques, and procedures development, with different kinds of scheme of maneuver [and] with a different firepower that’s really not been seen before,” Jobe said.

“If you think of these things as an extension of our crewed aircraft, and the ability to manage risk in a different way, it brings a lot of potential capability, at a lower price point,” he said.

White said that an “enormous amount of analytical work” has gone into the concept, and that along with the science and technology done to date, “it’s instilled a level of confidence in us that this is a capability to pursue, that we need to pursue quickly, and we believe that it’s a game-changer.”

In order to “move the needle to get the capability faster,” White said companies were brought in early to “show us the art of the possible,” and “they have answered the call.” This was a different way of approaching a new capability, he said, and “we have worked with many vendors.”

It’s a “very collaborative relationship,” White said. “I think that’s what’s really key.” There has been “user involvement” since the beginning of the program, he said.

The CCAs will build directly on work done with the Skyborg program, one of the Air Force’s “Vanguard” technology incubators, which has created an artificial intelligence that can fly an aircraft. Skyborg has demonstrated that the technology is “portable,” Pringle said, having been shown to work in a number of different uncrewed aircraft, both solely and in concert with crewed aircraft. More demonstrations are still to come and are underway, she said.

The capability “in and of itself is critically important,” White said. The speed to ramp is really important, because this capability is something that we do believe will change the nature of the fight.”

While they would not characterize the level of funding planned for the program, “what I can say is, when our budget goes across the river, you’re going go see a significant investment” in CCAs, Kunkel said. He’s under orders from Kendall to “field an operational capability as soon as possible.”

Jobe added that the time to a usable capability must be “on a relevant timeline,” but he didn’t elaborate, except to say it’s “not something that’s going to take 10 years.” The timing of CCA introduction is “sensitive,” he said.

Capability development is taking place in “five distinct areas,” Jobe said, to apply CCAs to a highly complex threat. This, in turn, requires “teaming across the entire Air Force, [which has] been fairly unique to this exercise, at least in my experience.”

He said there’s been “a lot of analytical support that shows that this actually changes the way that we fight, and it makes us more effective in the way that we engage in combat operations. And it’s been in multiple independent studies, which makes us feel highly, highly confident that we’re on a solid path forward.”

He assured reporters that “there’s the requirements part to include concepts of operations, concepts of employment on how we plan to do crewed/uncrewed teaming, and bringing that all together.” Moreover, “we have to get the organization right,” he said, and there has been work done on developing doctrine for CCAs, as well as planning for how they will be maintained and organized.

Work has also been done determining the “legal authorities” required. The goal is not to create killer robots, he said, and a lot of work is yet to be done with the FAA to even allow armed, uncrewed aircraft to operate in civilian airspace.

“And you’re probably going to see us do operations in a different way than we’ve done in the past,” he said. “Again, this is a different capability.”

The “requirements and attributes” of CCAs have been defined, Jobe said, but a significant amount of modeling and simulation remains to be done to see how those play out in various scenarios.

No one would describe the acquisition strategy for CCAs. Though cooperation with other countries—notably Australia—has been touted in the development of CCAs, he said, “We know we’re going to do our own competition in our own industrial base for a CCA.” That will change if Kendall directs a more internationally collaborative approach, he said.

Though not a joint program, the generals said the Navy has been involved with CCA development from the beginning, and they suggested that the Navy may lend some of its expertise, as well. It’s already working with an uncrewed tanker, the MQ-25 Stingray.

Boeing Reorganizes Defense Business After Financial Troubles

Nov. 17, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) reorganized its divisions, streamlining to help turn around the firm’s financial performance, the aerospace giant announced Nov. 17. Instead of eight divisions, the company will now have four divisions: Air Dominance; Mobility, Surveillance, and Bombers; Vertical Lift; and Space, Intelligence, and Weapons systems.

“These changes will help accelerate operational discipline and program quality and performance, while stabilizing our development and production programs,” BDS chief executive officer Ted Colbert said in a statement. “These are necessary steps to put BDS on the path to stronger, profitable growth.” The consolidation is effective immediately.

Boeing has faced companywide losses, including in its commercial sector. Its defense business has been a significant drag on the company’s recent financial performance following losses incurred on fixed-price government contracts. In October, Boeing reported a loss of $3.3 billion in the third quarter of 2023, with its defense business $2.8 billion in the red.

“Turnarounds take time—and we have more work to do—but I am confident in our team and the actions we’re taking for the future,” Boeing chief executive officer David L. Calhoun wrote in a letter to employees at the time.

Now, Boeing has pivoted in its operations in the hopes of turning around its finances. Only the Vertical Lift division remains untouched, with Mark Cherry remaining vice president and general manager of the division.

Dan Gillian, previously in charge of U.S. government operations for Boeing Global Services, will take over the Mobility, Surveillance, and Bombers division. That portfolio will include the KC-46, Survivable Airborne Operations Center, E-7, E-3, VC-25B, P-8, bombers, 777X components, and executive transport aircraft.

The KC-46 and VC-25B, which will become the new Air Force One, have been a significant financial drag for Boeing. The KC-46 program lost $1.2 billion, and the VC-25B program lost $766 million in the third quarter. The KC-46 has been troubled from the start, problems in its refueling system requiring a revamp and leading to delays. The VC-25B program was priced too cheaply, according to Boeing, making it a loss generator for the company. Supply chain issues and labor shortages have increased problems.

Steve Nordlund, formerly the head of the Phantom Works advanced research and development division, will lead Air Dominance. That division will include the non-space elements of Phantom Works, classified programs, and the F-18, F-15, T-7, MQ-25, and MQ-28 currently used by Australia.

Kay Sears, until now the head of autonomous systems, will take over the new Space, Intelligence, and Weapons Systems unit. That will include space exploration, launch programs, satellites, munitions, missiles, weapon system deterrents, maritime undersea, Phantom Works space, and Boeing subsidiaries BI&A, Millennium, Insitu, Liquid Robotics, Spectrolab, Argon, and DRT.

Several executives will retire after assisting with the transitions: Tim Peters, the head of mobility and surveillance, and Cindy Gruensfelder, who has led missile and weapon systems. Jim Chilton, the senior vice president for space and launch, will continue to manage space exploration, launch programs, satellites, and Phantom Works space operations until February before moving to a senior adviser role with Colbert.

The reshuffle comes as part of a broader shakeup in BDS. Colbert appointed former bomber and fighters division head Steve Parker to take on a new position as chief operating officer at BDS to help turn its fortunes around, Reuters reported in October, which Boeing confirmed in its latest announcement.

“I am confident this reorganization will drive greater and more simplified integration and collaboration,” Colbert said.