‘We’re Weird’: New Commander Details Life Inside Task Force 99

March 2, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Task Force 99, an Air Forces Central unit, has taken on outsize importance in U.S. Central Command’s efforts to promote itself as the most innovative and resourceful combatant command now that it can no longer draw the assets it had when the Middle East was America’s primary focus.

Now, after five months under the command of Lt. Col. Erin Brilla, the fledgling task force is shifting to Col. Robert Smoker.

“I want you to identify and break down barriers and unleash your members’ potential,” Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, AFCENT commander, said at the change of command ceremony Feb. 23 at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. “Let your team run until apprehended. We’re excited to see how you carry Task Force 99’s momentum into the future.”

Under Brilla, Task Force 99 was established in October 2022 as part of a broader CENTCOM push among the Army, Navy, and Air Force to promote innovation, unmanned systems, and digital technologies such as artificial intelligence. Task Force 99’s focus is on adapting commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to fit military requirements. It recently conducted its first operational test of a mapping drone, which was deemed a success. The unit is headquartered at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, so members cycle in and out based on their deployments.

That means a lot of turnover. Under Smoker, Task Force 99 will continue to try to cut through much of the typical red tape to fill positions and field new systems quickly.

“I personally, as the commander, work on taking away those blockers for people, and then everybody else just does what they’re supposed to be doing that day,” Smoker said. “We’re not hierarchical at all.”

The unit largely has no backup for individual roles. That is not entirely by design, as the team plans to double in the upcoming months. But currently with nine Airmen, including Smoker, the unit is one-deep in individual skills. Even when a member rotates out, the unit cannot fully replace those skills.

“We’re bringing people on to do the specific jobs,” Smoker said.

As for the colonel now in command, Smoker heard about the job from his perch at State College Air Station, Pa., where he most recently commanded the 193rd Air Intelligence Squadron. It was Smoker’s background that led him to the job.

Like Brilla, he learned about the opportunity to command the unit through the grapevine. Smoker served on Active Duty in the Air Force before moving to the civilian world and staying on in the Air National Guard. He is an Air Force Academy graduate who like many Airmen of his time had multiple deployments to CENTCOM previously in support of Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. After joining the private sector, Smoker worked for a startup company that was bought by a large defense contractor and worked on projects fielded by DARPA.

Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, 9th Air Force (Air Forces Central) commander, left, presides over a change-of-command ceremony in which Col. Robert G. Smoker succeeds Lt. Col. Erin K. Brilla as Task Force 99 commander during a ceremony at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, Feb. 23, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Javier Cruz

As someone with the civilian defense industry, from which Task Force 99 is intended to draw its commercial technology, Smoker says getting into Task Force 99 is somewhat similar to applying for a civilian job, with interviews and a questionnaire to complete.

“You can’t really tell, necessarily, based on someone’s military resume,” he said. “You need to know if they’re a good fit or not.”

Once they get the job, they’re expected to deliver, even it means asking for help from someone who previously would not been seen as a peer.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re a lieutenant colonel or an A1C,” he said, referring to an Airman First Class. “We’re weird. Everybody has their job to do and they do it.”

Top Pentagon Official: China’s Air Actions Are ‘Dangerous and Destabilizing’

March 2, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

China’s growing capabilities and recent boldness in the air domain represent “dangerous and destabilizing” behavior patterns, the Pentagon’s top official on the Indo-Pacific said March 2.

Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, discussed how China continues to prod the U.S. and challenge stability in region, even as the U.S. executes a number of cooperation initiatives, as part of a Hudson Institute forum.

“We are seeing a [People’s Liberation Army] that is growing more capable but … growing also more willing to take risk, more willing to use the military instrument of power in a way that we haven’t seen in previous eras,” Ratner said.

This has manifested itself in many recent air encounters between China and the U.S. and its allies, who were operating lawfully in international airspace. Ratner noted an encounter where an Australian aircraft flew through chaff released by a PLA fighter and another incident where the PLA aircraft harassed a Canadian aircraft.

“So here’s an ally of the United States on the other side of the world, helping to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions against North Korea—resolutions that China voted for—and the PLA is coming out and intercepting these aircraft in a dangerous way, and doing it multiple times,” he said. “And then, of course, you heard from [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] in December of a similar event of a PLA Navy aircraft coming within 20 feet of a U.S. aircraft, again, quite dangerous, and these aren’t isolated incidents.”

Air incidents aren’t the only issues. Ratner also noted China’s maritime forces pointing a “military-grade laser” at Philippine vessel crews, sending forces to contested parts of the region, and “covert PRC maritime militia land reclamation in the South China Sea.”

He also pointed to the recent Chinese spy balloon incident, saying it was unambiguously meant for surveillance.

“It was equipment that’s inconsistent with weather balloons or whatever they were claiming it was,” Ratner said, noting that it was “part of a broader fleet” that China is utilizing. “We know that these balloons have flown … over more than 40 countries across five continents, so this was not just an isolated incident.”

Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific Security Chair for Hudson Institute, asked Ratner how to characterize China’s buildup and the threat of failure in the region.

Ratner pointed to the “strategy documents” released by the Biden administration that describe China as the only power capable of “overthrowing the international order … in a way that runs directly counter to vital U.S. national interests.” It’s China’s “power,” “intent,” and “ambition” that pose such a challenge, he said—though so far, the U.S. has worked with its partners and allies to make sure China’s aggression doesn’t succeed.

“As Deputy Secretary [of Defense Kathleen] Hicks said recently … that when leaders wake up in Beijing, they think today’s not the day,” Ratner said. “Our assessment is that that is true right now, that deterrence is real, deterrence is strong, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure it stays that way.”

Ratner also expressed guarded optimism the U.S. can make it through the 2020s without China invading Taiwan, but it’s a tough scenario. “The challenge is enormous; the capabilities are growing; the ambition is there,” he said. “What we’re doing is reinforcing that deterrence, ensuring that the costs of aggression remain unacceptably high to Beijing—and I think we have a pathway to do that.”

Cronin also introduced the challenge of working with countries in the region through agreements, as with the Philippines, while facing down the specter that the U.S. and China “could come to blows” over such agreements.

Deputy secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia Lindsey Ford said the Secretary of Defense and other leaders have addressed this.

“We don’t think that our partners in Southeast Asia, in South Asia, in the Indo-Pacific, have to choose at sort of the strategic level between having a relationship with the United States and having a relationship with China,” she said. “What we’ve focused on is making sure that they have the space to make the choices that they want to make and the ones that they think are in their own sovereign interest.”

Ford also emphasized the many multilateral initiatives undertaken in the region, including a growing trilateral relationship with Japan and Australia and the trilateral initiative with Japan and South Korea—an effort South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeo said March 1 was most important to countering North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

She particularly highlighted work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Emerging Leaders initiative.

“This is a way that we begin to bring together emerging leaders on the U.S. side with a lot of our ASEAN counterparts to really sort of strengthen that network going forward,” Ford said. “I think when you look at that all together, you should take away that the picture here is one in which the U.S. and other partners are creating a security architecture that is going to be a lot more resilient.”

Entire F-35 Fleet to Get Fix for Engine Vibration Issue

March 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak

The entire F-35 fleet is slated to get a retrofit its engine manufacturer and the U.S. military say will fix a problem that halted deliveries of the jet for two months. Engine maker Pratt & Whitney has identified the solution, but the move will affect hundreds of fighters globally.

The decision to make the fix to every fighter in the fleet comes even as both the F-35 Joint Program Office and Pratt say only a “small number” of fighters were actually affected by the problem of “harmonic resonance.”

The JPO confirmed the retrofits to Air & Space Forces Magazine in a March 2 statement, days after Pratt & Whitney officials told reporters they had identified a fix for the vibration issue identified after an F-35B crash at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility in December.

The crash, in which the aircraft suddenly pitched forward during a vertical descent and struck the runway, had far-reaching implications as the F-35 JPO stopped accepting deliveries of both the F-35 and its F135 engine and issued flight restrictions for some aircraft, though both the Air Force and the JPO repeatedly declined to specify how many.

That “small number” of fighters will have to get the retrofit done immediately under the Time Compliance Technical Directive issued by the JPO—once that happens, they’ll be cleared to fly again.

But it won’t just be that small group that will have to get the fix. The TCTD also directs retrofits for the entire fleet within 90 days, although none of the aircraft will be restricted from flying before getting the fix.

“While only a small number of aircraft were impacted by the harmonic resonance, the plan is to retrofit the entire fleet, because the retrofit is inexpensive, non-intrusive and supports the JPO’s desire to maintain and manage a single configuration across the entire fleet,” JPO spokesman Russell Goemaere told Air & Space Forces Magazine in a statement.

Officials have declined to say what exactly the fix will entail. Both Pratt & Whitney and the JPO specified that it can take place at the operational level, outside of depots—but while a Pratt official claimed the fix only takes 30 minutes, Goemaere said in a statement that it takes between four and eight hours to complete.

F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin says it has delivered 890 F-35s over the course of the program, and it has more than 20 other fighters waiting in storage for deliveries to resume—while F135 engine deliveries have been cleared to resume, the fighter itself is still on hold.

Service Will Remain at Heart of King Aerospace No Matter How Aviation and Technology Change

March 2, 2023

Military aviation and technology are ever-changing, from the prevalence of drones to a shift to jets for special mission surveillance, once the province of propeller aircraft.

The creation of the U.S. Space Force in 2019 is, of course, a prime example of the evolving military and the changing defense needs of the nation, reflected in everything from the newest branch honing its mission to this magazine changing its name to the need to add another seat at the table aboard flying command posts.

King Aerospace, based in Addison, Texas, with major facilities in Oklahoma and Arkansas, has been evolving to meet the needs of military, government and business customers since it was founded in 1992.

Whether providing contractor logistics support (CLS) at bases across the country and globe, performing heavy maintenance, modifying and painting aircraft, or serving as a prime contractor or subcontractor, King Aerospace has focused on meeting and responding to the needs of the customer, whether a warfighter or a Boeing Business Jet operator. That focus will be part of the company’s future, no matter where aviation leads it, and is built upon cornerstone principles that include quality in everything (no excuses) and mutual respect.

“The tried and true values of serving the customer remain constant,” said Greg Mitchell, vice president of government services and a Navy aviation veteran. “Aircraft change and technology advances are happening all around us, but personalized responsiveness has been our calling card and that doesn’t change. We’ve built our reputation and our model on that.”

Skills Working Together for the Mission

The King Aerospace team is experienced with CLS and serving the military and government. From back left to foreground: President Jarid King, Vice President of Government Services Greg Mitchell, recently retired Dean Nelson and Steve Sawyer, general manager in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

King Aerospace began with a CLS program, maintaining and helping staff the U.S. Air Force’s E-9A surveillance program out of Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. Since then, CLS has been a tradition, including the C-9B program for the U.S. Navy and, currently, overseeing the U.S. Army’s SEMA program at over a dozen locations worldwide.

Across three decades, the privately held company has grown its capabilities to include maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO), modifications, paint and other services. Military derivatives of commercial aircraft, from King Airs to Boeing 737s, are a common denominator. That experience allows King Aerospace to leverage skills gained in one sector – like Boeing Business Jets – when working on military or government agency versions of the same aircraft, Boeing 737s. Similarly, the companies that make up King Aerospace – KAI for military, KACC for commercial customers and KACC Arkansas for widebody government special mission aircraft – support one another as needed.

“A lot of our CLS competitors don’t have the in-house capability for MRO services,” Mitchell says. “You truly do get one-stop shopping with us.”

“We’re not just a CLS company. We’re MRO facility. We’re a military modifications company,” said Keith Weaver, vice president-business development. “We have all these links and connections, and every King Aerospace company complements the others.”

*With contractor logistics support, the King Aerospace team manages parts, maintenance and other services that keep the mission and the aircraft running.*

Able to Handle What’s Next

With a deep bench of capabilities and a focus on the mission, King Aerospace and its leaders see a future rich in opportunities to continue serving and responding to the needs of military and government.

That could include unmanned aircraft, helicopters, expanded engineering services, a wider variety of CLS, basically anything involving aircraft and supporting the military.

“Our personnel have pretty varied backgrounds in different aircraft platforms that range from widebody aircraft to rotary wing aircraft,” says Mitchell, mentioning his own background in helicopters. “The fundamentals are the same as to how you take care of any aircraft from a program management standpoint.”

“Working on a drone is no different than working on an airplane. It’s just doesn’t have a pilot,” says Steve Sawyer, general manager of the company’s Ardmore, Oklahoma, facility, a Navy veteran and former manager of the SEMA program. “Somebody has to fly them and maintain them, so there’s still an infrastructure that can never be marginalized.”

*King Aerospace supports U.S. military programs across the country and around the globe, including in South Korea.*

“There are still bad guys. There are still conflicts. Whatever shape and form that takes in aircraft, they still have to be supported,” Sawyer says.

“We do an incredible job at adapting to an environment where the government says, ‘We need to go here and do this.’ We figure it out. That’s what we do,” Sawyer says.

With over 400 employees, King Aerospace is not a small company but between its size and streamlined management, it’s responsive in ways that many competitors are not.

“A customer can pick up the phone and get a hold of real people who can solve their problems instead of it being run through layers and layers,” Mitchell says.

It’s an approach valued by top leadership – its owners – as well as customers.

“We’re flexible; we’re rapid to respond,” says Jarid King, president. “Decisions take moments, not days, weeks or months. That’s what sets us apart.”

Learn more about King Aerospace here.

US Set Up Afghans for Failure, With a Force Too Complex to Maintain, IG Says

March 1, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. created an Afghan air force that was too technologically advanced for its native country to sustain, then pulled the rug out from under it, according to a U.S. government inspector general report.

A blistering 148-page document by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that Afghan security forces were too heavily reliant on U.S. forces for airstrikes and on American maintenance contractors to keep Afghan aircraft flying. When the Biden administration abruptly withdrew its forces in 2021, following the agreement the Trump administration made with the Taliban in 2020, Afghan National Security Forces (ANDSF) were unable to sustain themselves.

The SIGAR report found decisions the U.S. made regarding Afghanistan’s air force particularly confounding.

The U.S. didn’t expect the Afghan Air Force (AAF) to be self-sufficient when the U.S. withdrew. Aghan forces were heavily reliant on aircraft to move about the country because of Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain and the Taliban’s large areas of control.

“Afghans were familiar with the Soviet-made Mi-17 helicopter that was a core AAF component at the start of the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, and they were able to do most of the maintenance on those aircraft,” SIGAR said.

Afghanistan might have been able to sustain its Soviet aircraft with its own maintainers by 2019, SIGAR said, if only the U.S. military had not begun transitioning the AAF to U.S.-made platforms.

“The shift from Mi-17s to UH-60s moved the date for AAF self-sufficiency back to at least 2030,” the SIGAR report said. Leaving in 2021 put the AAF in an untenable bind.

In 2020, a year before the U.S. withdrawal, Afghan maintainers could only conduct around 40 percent of the work themselves, according to SIGAR. Then, in March 2021, the Biden administration decided to pull civilian contract aircraft maintainers out of Afghanistan.

“Resolute Support commander Gen. [Austin S.] Miller warned that the U.S. withdrawal could leave the ANDSF without vital air support and maintenance,” the SIGAR report said. “That is exactly what happened.”

As some aircraft went down for maintenance, other aircraft were flown harder and farther between maintenance intervals, accelerating the problem. The AAF had enough trained pilots but too few skilled maintainers.

“In a matter of months, 60 percent of the Black Hawks were grounded, with no Afghan or U.S. government plan to bring them back to life,” Sami Sadat, a former Afghan general now in exile, told SIGAR.

That left the rest of the Afghan forces in increasingly dire straits. “Afghan soldiers in isolated bases were running out of ammunition or dying for lack of medical evacuation capabilities,” SIGAR said. “Without air mobility, ANDSF bases remained isolated and vulnerable to being cut off and overrun.”

By August 2021, the entire Afghan government collapsed, leading to the chaotic withdrawal and evacuation by the U.S. Air Force of tens of thousands of military and civilians from Kabul.

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder declined to comment on specific aspects of the SIGAR report but said DOD had provided its input.

Asked if the Department of Defense planned to publicly explain what went wrong, Ryder said DOD had conducted its own classified “lessons learned report,” but could not say if portions of that document will ever be released to the public.

SIGAR reported that “the United States employed a ‘mirror imaging’ approach with the ANDSF—the practice of teaching other countries to fight the U.S. way, with ground troops protected by massive air support.” But when the U.S. prepared to go, the Afghans couldn’t sustain their fight on their own.

The report concluded with a quote from a South Vietnamese Army officer reflecting on the collapse of South Vietnam nearly 50 years earlier: “They taught us to fight like rich men, even though we were living as poor men.”

“In the end, the officer said that he cannibalized several helicopters for spare parts, commandeered one that was still airworthy, and took as many men as he could with him to sanctuary in a nearby country,” the report said. “It was a decision mirrored by Afghan pilots 46 years later in the summer of 2021.”

With NDS as a Guide, DOD Pursues Stronger Partnerships

March 1, 2023 | By Christopher Prawdzik

The U.S. must strengthen its ties to allies, especially now as Russia and China seem to be moving closer together, said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategies, Plans, and Capabilities at a March 1 forum focused on the 2022 National Defense Strategy at the Center for a New American Security.

Echoing the strategy itself and its conclusion that China is the primary military, economic, technological, and diplomatic competitor to the U.S., while Russia is still an “acute threat, one that is immediate and sharp,” she noted the challenge of dealing with Russia and China as partners.

“We can’t help but watch the Russian alignment with the People’s Republic of China,” Karlin said. “Both seem to favor a world in which they can trample over the sovereignty of their smaller neighbors and have a free hand in their self-declared spheres of influence.”

With the NDS as “the department’s North Star,” Karlin said the Pentagon is pursuing a “wraparound strategy” to ensure the NDS “is infused in the department’s day-to-day business.” For example, she cited the simultaneous release of the NDS, Missile Defense Review, and the Nuclear Posture Review last fall.

“The concept of deterrence is not new whatsoever,” she said. “But we’re really trying to evolve our approach to it because it is just growing ever more important. We’re working hard to invest in a combat credible force, investing in critical capabilities across domains, especially cyber and space, and to ensure that our forces are able to do what is asked.”

Karlin highlighted the AUKUS security pact, which draws Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. into alignment as an example of an integrated approach. Australia will receive nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines, and the three nations will share advanced capabilities in a wide-ranging defense partnership.

“The countries are going to develop and exercise and join advanced military capabilities,” she said. “We’re accelerating the advancement of a bunch of different capabilities across areas as wide-ranging as artificial intelligence and autonomy and cyber.”

A second integrated deterrence example, she said, was the expansion of Pacific exercises, such as the 14-nation Garuda Shield exercise in Indonesia last August.

“What we’re really trying to do is change and enhance the size, scope, scale, and character of these exercises,” Karlin said. “We’ve seen joint maritime drills with Canada, Japan, the United States, and Australia in the South China Sea, really showing how our different countries can knit together our capabilities and employ our forces together.”

Karlin said the united front NATO and other allies showed in support of Ukraine is another integrated example, and she credited close relationships with European allies and partners for that success. “For us to be able to work together at every stage of defense planning is crucial,” Karlin said. “That means we … will have to address long-standing institutional barriers that inhibit collective planning, interoperability, and mutually beneficial procurement.”

Air Force Separated 610 Airmen For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

March 1, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force separated 610 Airmen for declining the COVID-19 vaccination during the time it was required, from the fall of 2021 through late 2022, Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones told the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 28. In all, 40 Airmen resigned and 14 officers retired.

Congress rescinded the COVID-19 vaccination mandate in the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, and the services are required to clear the records of unvaccinated service members still in uniform.

Ortiz Jones said 98 percent of the Department of the Air Force’s Total Force was vaccinated. That includes roughly 500,000 Active-duty Air Force and Space Force members, along with those in the Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve. Among Active duty Airmen and Guardians, 99 percent are vaccinated, compared with 94.3 percent for the Air National Guard, and 95.9 percent for the Air Force Reserve.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall on Feb. 24 officially halted adverse actions against Airmen and Guardians who declined the vaccine. In a memo to the force, he said personnel records would be changed to remove or redact penalties and negative actions taken solely as a result of their refusal to accept the vaccines.

These changes require no action from the Airmen, he said, so long as the official file contains a request for a waiver. Unvaccinated Airmen who never submitted an accommodation request for exemption from the vaccine must have to initiate the process to have the record considered for review.

“If you are currently serving and submitted an accommodation request, and if the adverse action is tied solely to your refusal of the vaccine, then the Air Force Personnel Center is taking steps now to remove that adverse paperwork from your file,” Ortiz Jones said.

She noted, however, if the refusals coincided with other misconduct, only the vaccine-related actions would be set aside. Discipline for other behavior will not be removed.

“I want to be clear about the caveat,” she said. “If there are aggravating factors, other misconduct, then that’ll have to be reviewed for what may be appropriate.”

If a service member was already separated, that individual must go to the discharge review board for any military record changes.

The rest of the military is following a process similar to the Air Force. Other services’ senior leaders who appeared alongside Ortiz Jones said there are very few former service members they are aware of that want to return to the service now that the vaccine mandate has ended.

Almost all of the Air Force’s COVID-19 vaccine-related separations were general discharges, according to service officials. Those individuals can appeal to the Board for the Correction of Military Records to have their discharges upgraded.

Airmen who wish to rejoin now that the mandate is lifted can reapply. They would have to first appeal to a review board to have their records revised, and then apply through existing recruiting channels.

As part of a class-action lawsuit, a federal court ordered the Air Force to stop kicking Airmen out if they were denied their exemption request or had an unsettled religious exemption in July 2022. Plaintiffs in the suit say 10,000 Airmen and Guardians were negatively impacted by the mandate.

In his memo, Kendall encouraged all members to get vaccinated even without the mandate. The U.S. military still requires other vaccines, and service members must get an exemption to decline them. Unvaccinated status can impact assignments and deployments, especially to countries that place restrictions on unvaccinated individuals.

DOD and the Air Force continue to say being unvaccinated undermines readiness.

“The decision to immunize was the right decision at the time, and in fact, the only choice given the criticality of our mission,” Ortiz Jones said in her opening statement. “Vaccination was essential in allowing us to deploy, rotate our forces to countries that mandated vaccination, and most importantly, keep the men, women, and dependents of the DAF healthy. As they have for decades, the vast majority of our Airmen and Guardians complied with the lawful order to vaccinate.”

Department of the Air Force show that 16 Airmen and Guardians had died from COVID-19 as of October 2022. Air Force civilians and contractors, an older population, were more significantly affected, with about 150 total COVID-19 deaths of that population plus family members.

Testing Underway for New B-52 Engines

March 1, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Testing is underway of two Rolls-Royce F130 engines to confirm how they perform close together and to test new digital engine controls. Rolls is conducting the tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Miss., the company said.

“We want to be wrapped up by the middle of the year with this testing … because confirming that we’ve got the right inlet paces a lot of things, in terms of finalizing what the nacelle is going to look like,” Rolls-Royce B-52/F130 program director Scott Ames said in an interview.

The program is “marching toward” a critical design review in early 2024, he said. These tests will ensure “we’re ready to go with the next phase of the development program, [and] flight testing, etc.,” Ames said. “We want to make sure we get this locked in.”

The two-engine nacelle test was “a part of the Rolls-Royce proposal from the get-go,” he said. “Coming to a decision finalizing what the inlet mold lines look like for the nacelle by the middle of the year is our overarching objective.”

Ames said the two F130s were “fired up” in December at Stennis, and testing aims to measure airflow around the inlets to inform the final design of new two-engine nacelle that will house the engines on the B-52. Each B-52 will have eight F130 engines in four two-engine nacelles.

The nacelles had to be redesigned because the F130 is sized differently from the TF33 engines they will replace, and they will be positioned differently under the B-52’s wing.

Rolls won a $2.6 billion contract to re-engine the B-52 in September 2021 and will build up to 650 F130 engines to power 75 B-52 bombers, including spares. The Air Force has said the program will pay for itself long before the B-52 retires, now planned for the 2050s.

Boeing is the integrator of the project, and Ames said the two companies are anxious to see whose digital performance predictions of airflow around the inlets prove most accurate. “They’re really the experts when it comes to some of those interactions, to our aero performance,” Ames said. “Our folks work very closely with theirs and compare models and predictions on how we think the inlet … is going to behave, and what the air is going to look like coming into the engines.”

Despite different analysis tools, both companies have come up with very similar “analytical, predictive results,” Ames said. “And now we get to test all that out in the real-world environment down at Stennis.”

The current round of testing emphasizes crosswind performance, Ames said, which will be performed outside as wind is blown at the running engines from an enormous box fan mounted on tracks to simulate crosswinds up to 30 mph.

Initial tests will include a metallic shroud over the back end of the nacelle to “make sure you’ve gotten good, representative exhaust flow lines,” Ames noted, but the full nacelle will be substituted “in a production environment.” The back end of the nacelle is known as the “boat tail,” he said.

Instrumentation at the front end of the engines will “confirm we’ve got all the harmonic zones mapped, and we can stay away from those during … takeoff and in normal operation of the aircraft, up and away,” Ames noted. “We’ve got blade-tip timing, and we’ve got telemetry systems set up. … Really, the main focus of this test is right there at the front end of the engine.”

Rolls won’t be doing planned one-engine shutdowns to see what happens, he said.

“Really, we want to see both engines operating at the same time to see how … those air flows interact, if at all,” Ames said. “To make sure we’ve got that splitter and the rest of the inlet design” right.

Once complete, the next step for Rolls-Royce will be to take the engines to Arnold Engineering Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., for “altitude and freezing fog testing,” Ames said. Meanwhile, development testing at the Rolls-Royce factory in Indianapolis will test electronic engine control operations to confirm “some of the finer points on how we want to control the engine in concert with the aircraft and avionics.”

Two more engines will be available by then, and that additional testing will occupy most of 2024, Ames said. “The first of those engines for next year just showed up last week,” he added.

The final nacelle will be tested in 2025, Ames said. There are no plans to test multiple nacelles with engines until they are mounted on the first B-52 test aircraft.

Having two engines situated side by side in a representative nacelle means visiting Air Force’s “engineering leadership” has been able to “get up on a platform around this twin pod setup and open different doors and take a look at how maintenance would occur.” Prior to that, they could only imagine how it might work by “looking at a computer screen … in design reviews.”

Ames said seeing things in person made a difference. “Being able to see it physically, and … touch where that oil access point is going to be … gave them … a better appreciation for what these engines are going to look like sitting next to each other.”

A new maintenance feature enables maintainers to replace fan blades that become damaged or notched without removing the engine from the wing or even the edge of the engine. Another new feature: “Left-hand” engines can be swapped for “right-hand” engines without much trouble, because the wiring is designed to support either position.

Ames said inflation hasn’t slowed the program. “We are on schedule and on budget right now,” he said, and his customer has reported being “quite happy with how things are progressing from a programmatic standpoint, as well as the technical.”

The F130 is “still on the same schedule” set when the contract was awarded, he said, having completed the Preliminary Design Review on schedule last June and the Critical Design Review on schedule for the first quarter of 2024.

Airpower is the Key to Victory in Ukraine

Feb. 28, 2023 | By Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, USAF (Ret.)

The United States has invested more than $45 billion so far in military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. Allies have chipped in billions more.

Yet among all the advanced weapons provided for the conflict, NATO members have drawn the line at airpower, refusing to provide the advanced jets Ukraine needs to turn the tide in its favor. In effect, we’ve chosen to prolong the war and the suffering of the Ukrainian people by withholding the tools of victory.

It’s not for lack of interest. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought advanced airpower, U.S. lawmakers have asked about it, and airpower advocates have argued for it. The President, however, has refused.

Ukraine “doesn’t need F-16s now,” President Joe Biden told ABC News in an interview broadcast Feb. 24. “There is no basis upon which there is a rationale, according to our military, now, to provide F-16s.”

Perhaps the President isn’t talking to the right military people. Biden says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “needs tanks, he needs artillery, he needs air defense, including another HIMARS.” And there’s no doubt he does.

But he also needs attack aircraft with long-range precision weapons that can challenge Russia’s ability to attack Ukraine, destroy Russian air defense systems near the borders, and kill Russian tanks, artillery, and dug-in positions in the Eastern part of Ukraine.

As a combat veteran F-16 pilot and commander, I know this firsthand: Russian surface-to-air missile sites can be lucrative targets for the Viper.

Now, the Biden administration cites three reasons for saying no to providing Ukraine with multirole F-16s—or Swedish Gripens, which have also been discussed: First, the President and his team have said it would take too long to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, and too long as well to set up the needed maintenance and logistics train for the aircraft. Second, it says other short-term needs trump the longer-term advantage the jets would provide; third, it argues Ukraine needs to fight Russians inside Ukraine, rather than the long-distance attack capabilities represented by modern fighter aircraft.

Undersecretary of defense for policy Colin Kahl, responding to questions from lawmakers during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, cited the long lead times for acquiring and training as the major hurdles, arguing that training now in anticipation of getting F-16s later is misguided: “It doesn’t make sense to start to train them on a system they may never get,” he said. Ground-based artillery systems are therefore more appropriate.

Unfortunately, the comparative cost is only part of the equation; the comparative effects of air-delivered weapons are not equal. There’s nothing like the morale-killing nature of air-delivered weapons to destroy an enemy’s will to fight.

It’s now 32 years since I led the 614th Fighter Squadron in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. At a recent reunion, we gathered to relive some of that past and pay tribute to those in other squadrons who did not make it home. Like Ukrainian Airmen today, my squadron mates were warriors—whether they served in the air or took care of planes on the ground. All were passionately and personally committed to their squadron mates and to the mission at hand, ruthless in their collective ability to seek out and destroy the enemy.

Over the 43 days of Operation Desert Storm, we accomplished that with stunning and sobering success. Some things have changed in the three decades since. Russian air defenses have grown more sophisticated. But so, too, have the systems on board the F-16. Fighter pilots and their spirit of attack still have the advantage over the SAM operators in both lethality and maneuverability, and they possess integrated electronic warfare defense systems for self-protection, plus the availability of new long-range air-delivered precision weapons. Equipping the F-16 with the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and its extended-range variant would make them even more deadly and effective against Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems.

The comparison that comes to mind in Ukraine, however, is not America’s overwhelming victory in Iraq, born largely on dominant airpower, but rather Vietnam, where self-imposed limits on airpower undermined the war effort and ultimately led to failure.

In Desert Storm, our Air Force was empowered with appropriate rules of engagement developed by our combined forces air commander Gen. Chuck Horner and my AFA colleague, then Lt. Col. (and now retired Lt. Gen.) David A. Deptula, who led the planning efforts. Our AGM-88 HARM missiles were highly effective against Iraqi SAM sites. While we suffered our share of losses—my squadron saw two very fine squadron mates shot down—we still had the ability, capacity, and authority to destroy targets wherever we saw them. The shoot-downs hardened us and made us even more determined to fight, win, and bring our squadron compatriots home alive. And we did.

That was not the case in Vietnam, where artificial limits on where and how our aircraft could attack failed to leverage the full strength and capability of U.S. airpower. Constant constraints, poor organization, and a failure to understand how to use airpower effectively needlessly put our Airmen at risk and neglectfully extended the war.

Haunted by the Korean War experience where swift U.S. successes following the Battle of Inchon set off a face-to-face conflict with China, American leaders wanted to avoid escalating the conflict in Vietnam into a direct fight with China or Russia, both of which backed North Vietnam. That fear effectively deterred us from ever fully committing to a South Vietnamese victory. Instead, we fought for a draw—an end to hostilities—and not for any semblance of victory.

In Ukraine we again seem deterred by our fear of wider conflict with Russia, even a weakened Russia that has failed miserably in its attempt to shatter a much smaller and weaker foe. To be sure, U.S. and allied support is helping Ukraine to stand up to Russia. But we should not be satisfied with helping Ukraine fight to a draw, especially as Russia occupies a swath of Eastern Ukraine. To do so is to expect future fights and future wars over the same territory again, as soon as Russia regains its military strength.

Rather, we should help Ukraine defeat Putin’s menace and ensure all adversaries know and understand the shared commitment of the U.S. and NATO to the principles of the rules-based order.

“Russia has a substantial number of aircraft in its inventory and a lot of capability left,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said Feb. 14 during NATO meetings in Brussels. “We need to do everything that we can to get Ukraine as much air defense capability as we possibly can.”

What the Secretary is missing is how important a good offense is to effective defense. The relative asymmetric killing power of fighter pilots in F-16s would empower Ukraine even more than the remarkable HIMARS precision ground fires. The reason is the speed, maneuverability, and effectiveness airpower can unleash from above. Doing so could put an end to the inhumanity of the Russian assault.

Putin understands power and seeks to exploit weakness. Our failure to deliver airpower to Ukraine empowers his approach, even as his ill-trained forces struggle on the ground.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict must not continue in a framework of extended debates about escalation, retaliation, or illogical justification for Western-made artillery systems. The Russians must stop now and go home. Only the fighter pilot Spirit of Attack and the overwhelming, persuasive, lethality of integrated air and space power from above will quickly send them there.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright is President/CEO of the Air & Space Forces Association, and a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. His last assignment was as commander, U.S. Forces Japan, and commander, 5th Air Force, Yokota Air Base, Japan.