First F-16 Block 70 Emerges From Lockheed Martin’s New Factory—128 More on Order

First F-16 Block 70 Emerges From Lockheed Martin’s New Factory—128 More on Order

Nov. 22, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The first F-16 of the Block 70/72 configuration has rolled out of Lockheed Martin’s Greenville, S.C., facility in preparation for first flight early in 2023. The factory is geared up to build at least 128 more of the jets through the end of this decade.

The jet, destined for Bahrain, should be accepted by the U.S. government early in 2023 and will undergo flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., before it’s delivered under the Foreign Military Sales program. It completed final assembly and checkout (FACO) and painting at Greenville on Nov. 21.

The rate of work on Block 70s under construction at Greenville will “increase significantly” in fiscal 2023, building to a production rate of up to four aircraft per month, a company spokesperson said. Five countries are on contract for the Block 70/72: Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Taiwan, and “one other,” the company noted. Jordan has also signed a letter of offer and acceptance for eight aircraft; when awarded, that contract will bring the backlog to 136 aircraft. Bulgaria has also begun the process of buying additional aircraft. Greenville has “multiple other jets” in various stages of work, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson noted.

The company got an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract in January worth up to $64.3 billion for production of new F-16s for FMS customers as well as upgrades of 405 jets in foreign hands to the F-16V configuration, if all potential work materializes.

Lockheed Martin moved its F-16 production line to South Carolina from Fort Worth, Texas, in 2019 in order to free up space there for increasing F-35 production activities. In addition to producing new F-16s, the Greenville plant is performing modifications and refits on older F-16 models. Moroccan F-16s, for example, will get an upgrade to Block 70/72 configuration at the plant. The company said its backlog will ensure production of factory-new F-16s “through the mid-to-late 2020s.”

When Lockheed Martin moved to restart the F-16 line at Greenville, there was an “uptick” in FMS interest in the jet, Col. Anthony Walker, senior materiel leader, international division, at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, said in May. A number of countries requested “detailed information and requests for government sales,” he said.

The U.S. Air Force indicated last year that according to its “4+1” fighter roadmap, it plans to keep flying the F-16 well into the 2030s, assuring potential buyers of a strong pipeline for parts and support into the next decade. USAF has indicated it may retain as many as 600 F-16s into the 2030s. The service has also apparently deferred plans to seek a program for a new multirole fighter—not as sophisticated as the F-35—to be called the MR-F or MR-X. That aircraft was expected to have capabilities comparable to those of the F-16.

While Lockheed Martin has tooled for four aircraft a month, “we are always evaluating and looking at ways to increase production to meet customer needs,” the spokesperson said.

“New digital engineering technologies have been implemented into the production line to maximize efficiency and decrease span time. Additionally, we have added more suppliers for certain components, such as our Johnstown, Pennsylvania, facility, to allow us to meet current program needs and future opportunities for new production F-16s,” she said.

The Block 70 is being marketed to countries that either want to expand their existing F-16 fleets or are not customers for the more sophisticated and stealthy F-35 fighter.

The most advanced version of the F-16, the Block 70/72 mounts the APG-83 active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar, a new electronic warfare suite called Viper Shield, a more powerful mission computer, an updated cockpit with larger color displays—including zoom and the ability to rearrange displayed information—an uprated engine, capability for most modern weapons, conformal overwing fuel tanks and an infrared search-and-track system and targeting pod capability, improved data links, precision GPS navigation, and an automatic ground collision avoidance system (GCAS), among other improvements. The Block 70/72 also has a structural service life of 12,000 hours, about 50 percent longer than previous F-16s, meaning the type could stay in service until 2060 or so.

The U.S. Air Force bought its last new F-16, a Block 50 model, in 2005. Air Force F-16s are getting some of the improvements available in the Block 70, such as the AESA radar, but the service shifted its acquisition focus on new aircraft first to the F-22 and then the F-35. The service has said it will retire all its early-model, or “pre-block,” F-16s in the next few years.

Slovakia is planning to acquire 70 Block 70/72 F-16s, and that country has offered to give a dozen of its retiring MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine. However, sources have reported that Ukraine has sought to buy F-16s of its own. There has been discussion of providing F-16s from U.S. stocks to Ukraine, but no firm plans have been announced.

The F-16 has been in the U.S. Air Force operational inventory since 1978, when the F-16A entered service. The aircraft is a development of the YF-16 prototype fighter, which won the Lightweight Fighter Competition in 1974. More than 30 countries have since operated the F-16, and 25 are flying some version of the jet today.  More than 4,550 F-16s have been produced.

PHOTOS: Kadena Lines Up Six Kinds of Aircraft for Elephant Walk

PHOTOS: Kadena Lines Up Six Kinds of Aircraft for Elephant Walk

Nov. 22, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Three dozen aircraft assembled on the flight line for an “elephant walk” at Kadena Air Base, Japan, on Nov. 22, in a show of air power. 

The capabilities demonstration included six different kinds of aircraft, all stationed at Kadena at the moment—F-15C Eagle and F-22 Raptor fighters, HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, a KC-135 Stratotanker, an E-3 Sentry, and an RC-135 Rivet Joint. 

According to images shared by Kadena, the exact breakdown of aircraft included in the elephant walk: 

  • 23 F-15Cs
  • Eight F-22s
  • Two HH-60Gs
  • One E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS)
  • One KC-135
  • One RC-135

All but the F-22s are part of the 18th Wing, Kadena’s host unit, which has roughly 80 aircraft total. The Raptors are from the 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and recently deployed to Kadena after the Air Force confirmed that it will be removing the base’s 48 F-15C/D Eagles over the next several years.

The service has said the F-15C/Ds will initially be replaced by a rotation of deployed fighters, while a permanent replacement has not yet been named, though it is likely to be the F-15EX. F-16s from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, are expected to follow the F-22s. 

The display of air power and capabilities at Kadena came on the same day U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met with his Chinese counterpart, Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe, in Cambodia. During that meeting, Austin called on China “to refrain from further destabilizing actions toward Taiwan,” according to a Pentagon readout.

Kadena, located on the island of Okinawa, is the Air Force’s closest land-based location to Taiwan, some 450 miles away. China considers Taiwan, a self-governed island, to be part of its territory, and tensions between the U.S. and China over Taiwan have been steadily growing as of late. 

A visit to the island by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier this year sparked a series of aggressive exercises by the Chinese around the island, and in June, Australia claimed that a Chinese fighter jet released chaff in front of an Australian P-8, a move the Australian government described as a “dangerous maneuver.” 

Austin raised similar concerns in his meeting with Wei, citing “the increasingly dangerous behavior demonstrated by [People’s Liberation Army] aircraft in the Indo-Pacific region that increases the risk of an accident.” 

In addition to the Nov. 22 capabilities demonstration, aircraft at Kadena recently participated in Keen Sword 23, a biennial exercise involving the U.S., Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom. 

Space Force Stands Up Its First Geographic Component Command, Prioritizing the Pacific

Space Force Stands Up Its First Geographic Component Command, Prioritizing the Pacific

Nov. 22, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Force and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command formalized a new chain of command for Guardians in the Pacific, activating a new service component command of the unified combatant command.

Establishing U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific gives the Space Force a seat “at the table” to plan for activities in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility, the service’s Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson told reporters the morning of the ceremony that created the new component-level command.

Now focused on mission analysis and how to best task the command’s existing Guardians, the new commander envisions command and control of space assets ultimately happening from INDOPACOM’s AOR. 

Space Force Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir assumed command of U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific. His most recent assignment was as special assistant to the deputy commander of the Space Force’s Space Operations Command.

Until the activation, Pacific Air Forces had responsibility for the space mission within the combatant command. Mastalir said the new command will continue to nurture its close ties to the air component but pledged at the ceremony to “double down” on incorporating space “across all components, all domains.”

In an interview with reporters the day before the ceremony, Mastalir said the ongoing mission analysis is to address whether the component has “the right Guardian, with the right skill set, in the right place, at the right time” while also ensuring “reach-back mechanisms” exist to coordinate with other organizations. Those include the likes of U.S. Space Command’s Joint Task Force-Space Operations and Joint Task Force-Space Defense, not to mention the Space Force’s Space Operations Command and Space Systems Command, along with commercial providers of space services.

The component’s Guardians are space operations enlisted members, officers, and civilians—Thompson placed the number at 21. Mastalir said they’re “really focused on integrating space into the operations plans, contingency plans—ensuring that other component commanders absolutely, without a doubt, maximize the combat effects available from the space capabilities this nation has.”

A priority of getting the right Guardians into the right roles involves ensuring that they’re “performing tasks that only Guardians can perform,” Mastalir said. Those include advising on satellite communications across the Pacific’s “tyranny of distance—it’s a real thing” and on fighting through “intentional interference” with communications and GPS. 

In an AOR with “a somewhat irresponsible actor … launching missiles,” Mastalir said “being able to understand … what those profiles look like, projected impact points, making sure that U.S. service members are safe—that’s something that a Guardian can bring a lot of expertise on.”

He also wants space-oriented learning objectives built into Tier 1 exercises, describing support for exercises as a “huge growth area” for the new command. He foresees the possibility of intelligence and cyber Guardians joining the component’s space operators down the road.

While U.S. Space Command already had a Space Force component command, Thompson said the choice to stand up INDOPACOM’s first among the geographically organized combatant commands was no accident.

“Every day, Secretary Austin reminds us of the pacing challenge, and that’s China,” Thompson said, referring to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.

“Secretary Kendall has a little different way of saying it,” Thompson added, referring to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. “He just comes in and says, ‘China, China, China.’ And so we very deliberately chose INDOPACOM first because we want the nation, the Department of Defense, that combatant command, and anyone who might wish us harm in that region, to understand that’s our [priority].” 

Thompson characterized the significance of space activities in INDOPACOM’s AOR:

“Do you want to navigate with confidence? Do you want to be able to communicate anywhere in the Indo-Pacific, whether it’s in the middle of an ocean, in the middle of a … continent that’s barren? Do you want to communicate all the way down to individual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines? Do you want to do strategic command and control for nuclear forces?” he said. “Do you want to understand threats, especially from China, that might come from ballistic missiles or hypersonics or other things?”

After INDOPACOM, U.S. Forces Korea and U.S. Central Command will receive their Space Force component commands—not necessarily in that order, Thompson said—with U.S. European Command to follow.

Whereas generals may lead the other services’ components within the combatant commands, aside from Mastalir’s job at INDOPACOM—seen in part as making a statement about the department’s priorities—Thompson said the rest of the Space Force’s component commanders will be colonels. 

“We’re not big enough,” Thompson said. “That kind of overhead is not something that we can afford.” 

Therefore, “those future component commanders” will need to “punch above their weight,” Thompson said. “You’re going to have to sit at the table with everybody else, and you’re going to have to deliver just like the rest of those people. So it’ll be a challenge to them.” 

Speaking at the ceremony, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said the new component command represents “an important step as we normalize space integration into the joint force.” 

“And given today’s multi-domain character of war,” Saltzman continued, “space must be deeply integrated with the rest of the joint team. This is never more true than in this AOR where we find ourselves competing against a thinking adversary who continues to field counterspace systems as well as their own exquisite space-based support systems for their increasingly capable terrestrial forces.”

Mastalir addressed “all the blue-threads in the audience,” referring to the Space Force members:

“As of today, you are the Guardians of INDOPACOM. You are outranked and outnumbered by every other component here—I don’t care. I expect you to be confident and bold” with “courage to explore the new and innovative ways we will need to integrate your expertise into this fight.”

Tobias Naegele contributed to this report.

Air Force C-37 Carrying National Guard Chief Forced to Land After Bird Strike

Air Force C-37 Carrying National Guard Chief Forced to Land After Bird Strike

Nov. 22, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

An Air Force C-37 carrying Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson was forced to land after striking birds Nov. 21 as it departed from Chicago Midway International Airport, the Air Force and National Guard Bureau said.

A video from a streaming website showed the plane taxiing to the runway and lifting off. As the C-37 began its ascent and raised its landing gear, the plane struck a flock of birds. Hokanson is one of the highest-ranking military leaders and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

StreamTime Live operates a camera near Midway International Airport, providing a video feed of airport operations, and captured the incident.

In a statement, the 89th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Andrews, Md., said one of its C-37s was involved in the incident.

The aircraft “struck several birds” as it was taking off from Chicago Midway International Airport, a spokesperson said. In the video, sparks are visible shooting out of an engine.

The C-37 is a modified Gulfstream business jet that transports high-ranking military leaders and civilians. The aircraft involved in the incident, tail code 70400, bears the Air Force’s iconic light blue and white livery used by some executive transport aircraft. Joint Base Andrews’s C-37s are assigned to the 99th Airlift Squadron, part of the 89th Airlift Wing.

Flight tracking data from the website ADS-B Exchange showed that the aircraft arrived in Chicago from Joint Base Andrews earlier in the day Nov. 21. As it attempted to take off that evening, the bird strike occurred, and the aircraft returned to the airport.

The National Guard Bureau said Hokanson was in the Chicago area to meet with business executives, attend an ROTC event at Chicago State University, and conduct media engagements. The details of Hokanson’s visit were first reported by WGN TV.

The passengers and crew were not in any serious danger, according to the 89th Airlift Wing’s statement.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the crew safely returned to the airport,” the statement said. “All members on board are safe, and the incident is under investigation.”

Helicopter videos from local CBS News and Fox News affiliates showed the C-37 stopped on the tarmac surrounded by emergency vehicles as ground personnel examined the aircraft.

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

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

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

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

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

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.”