US, Allies Pledge Improved Air Defenses for Ukraine

US, Allies Pledge Improved Air Defenses for Ukraine

Oct. 12, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The United States and allies will help Ukraine build a more comprehensive air defense system to protect key targets from Russian attacks by cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and aircraft, U.S. officials said Oct. 12.

“What Ukraine is asking for and what we think can be provided is an integrated air and missile defense system,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as representatives from about 50 nations met in Brussels. “That doesn’t control all the airspace over Ukraine. But they are designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect.”

Russia launched a barrage of missiles and air strikes against a variety of civilian targets in Ukrainian cities, including its capital, Kyiv, on Oct. 10 in retaliation for the bombing of a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean peninsula.

“These attacks killed and injured civilians and destroyed targets with no military purpose,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, calling the Russian strikes “utter brutality.”

Ukraine renewed its plea for better air defense systems to protect the population following the attacks, and the so-called Contact Group countries responded favorably.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said help will come soon. “The systems will be provided as fast as we can physically get them there,” Austin said at his news conference with Milley. “We’re going to do everything we can, as fast as we can to help the Ukrainian forces get the capability they need to protect the Ukrainian people. That’s very, very important to us.”

The allied officials did not say when such defenses might be put in place and acknowledged connecting different pieces from a myriad of nations would be a technical and logistical challenge and would require training of Ukrainian forces.

“The task will be to bring those together, get them deployed, get them trained because each of these systems is different,” Milley said.

Ukraine would also have to develop a detection and command and control system and link all the components together.

“It’s quite complicated from a technical standpoint,” Milley said. “It is achievable, and that’s what we’re aiming at.”

The U.S. leaders detailed several specific systems they said could help form the basis of Ukraine’s new air defenses, in addition to systems such as Soviet-era S-300 systems already in use that have “been very effective,” according to Milley. Advanced systems, such as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) are already in the pipeline but will take years to be fully deployed.

For example, Milley noted the I-HAWK, a legacy U.S. Army medium-range surface-to-air system which he said the Ukrainian government has specifically asked for. Milley and Austin also mentioned Germany’s InfraRed Imaging System Tail (IRIS-T) system, which is now being delivered. The possibility of U.S.-made Patriot batteries and Israeli defenses was floated by Milley, though he acknowledged such systems were among those that could be used rather than concrete offers from a particular country. Ukraine has repeatedly asked for Patriot systems and Israel’s Iron Dome.

Some experts cautioned that it would be difficult to build an exhaustive air defense system for Ukraine and that an ad-hoc system would have to be adopted in practice.

“It may be something closer to interoperability, or frankly, it may just be instead of integration, aggregation,” Tom Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said. “But it’s the right aspiration. The threat makes it necessary to think imaginatively about these things.”

Neither side has been able to control the skies over Ukraine with their air force, despite Russia’s overwhelming relative advantage as one of the world’s biggest air forces. U.S. leaders have noted that Ukraine’s ability to deny Russia air superiority has prevented Russia from making sweeping gains on the battlefield by taking out the Ukrainian military from the air and allowing Russian ground forces to operate unmolested.

Much of the world’s attention had shifted to the war of attrition occurring in the east and south of the country as Ukraine fights to regain control of its territory using artillery and ground forces.

Russia, however, possesses long-range weapons, primarily air-launched cruise missiles that it can fire from bombers inside Russian airspace, as well as ballistic missiles.

These missiles can make it through to targets inside Ukraine due to the lack of a comprehensive air defense system Ukraine’s allies now say they will work to help provide. Some defenses the U.S. supplied early in the war, such as man-portable Stinger missiles that can be fired at low-flying planes and helicopters, are useless in the face of the standoff weapons Russia is implementing. According to the U.S. and Ukraine, thousands of Iranian-made drones have also been ordered by Russia, though Ukraine has had better success against those weapons due to their slow speed and low attitude.

In the future, Ukraine wants a system that can defend against both planes and missiles at low, medium, and high attitude.

“It’s a mix of all these that deny the airspace,” Milley said. “You’re trying to create a defensive system.”

Pentagon Nominates New AFGSC Commander, New Deputy CSO for Operations

Pentagon Nominates New AFGSC Commander, New Deputy CSO for Operations

Oct. 12, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

President Joe Biden nominated a pair of Air Force and Space Force generals for promotion and assignment to critical new roles, the Pentagon announced Oct. 12.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere is nominated for a fourth star and to be the next commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, while Space Force Maj. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt is to receive a third star and take over as deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear.

If confirmed, Bussiere would replace Air Force Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, already confirmed by the Senate to become head of U.S. Strategic Command; Burt, if confirmed, would succeed Lt. Gen. Chance B. Saltzman, also already confirmed to become only the second Space Force Chief of Space Operations.

Bussiere has been deputy commander at U.S. STRATCOM since April 2020. A command pilot, he has flown F-15s, F-22s, B-1s, and B-2s, and commanded at the at Squadron, Group, Wing, and Numbered Air Force levels. He led bomber squadrons and the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the Eighth and Eleventh Air Forces, and U.S. Northern Command’s Alaska Command. He also has experience at AFGSC headquarters, having been special assistant to the commander and inspector general in two prior stints.

Burt is currently special assistant to Space Force Chief Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, who is to retire in November when Saltzman replaces him. But Burt moved to that post only recently, having previously commanded the Combined Force Space Component Command, a multi-national subordinate command of f U.S. Space Command, where she was dual-hatted as vice commander of Space Operations Command. She was succeeded in that post in August by Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess.

Burt’s prior commands include the 2nd Space Operations Squadron, the 460th Operations Group, and the 50th Space Wing, and she was director of operations and communications for Space Operations Command.

Should Burt be confirmed, she would join a small cadre of three-star generals in the Space Force’s ranks—there are currently six total. She would also join Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno as the only female three-stars in the service.

Biden’s National Security Strategy Aims to Prepare for ‘Decisive Decade’

Biden’s National Security Strategy Aims to Prepare for ‘Decisive Decade’

Oct. 12, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Biden administration’s long-awaited National Security Strategy predicts that the 2020s will be a “decisive decade,” requiring the U.S. to “outmaneuver” and compete with an aggressive, well-financed China and a “dangerous” Russia by investing in the American people and marshaling U.S. allies to cooperate for the advancement of democracy and free markets.

The strategy effectively abandons previous, unsuccessful attempts to bring Russia into a cooperative world order and pledges to hold Moscow accountable for its brutal invasion of Ukraine. It pledges to work with Europe to develop “energy independence” from Russia and threatens to further isolate Moscow if it continues to pursue an imperialistic strategy of adding territory by military means.

The strategy follows an “interim” version released in the spring of 2021. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced a series of rewrites as the President’s national security team sought to adapt to changing conditions.

The National Security Strategy is the umbrella document for the National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review, and Missile Defense Review. The release of the unclassified NSS suggests that an unclassified version of the other documents will be released soon.  

According to the new strategy, China is the only country possessing both the “intent” to reshape the world order and the economic and military means to potentially accomplish that. Beijing has “ambitions” of being the world’s greatest military power, the document states, and is using its considerable clout to expand its sphere of influence, its brand of authoritarianism, and to “mold global technology use and norms” to its own advantage.

China’s military is “growing in strength and reach globally … while seeking to erode U.S. alliances,” the NSS asserted. Beijing uses its economic power to “coerce” other countries and the openness of the global economy to expand its exports, even as it restricts access to its own domestic markets, with the aim of making the world more dependent on its goods and services.

In response, the U.S. must “invest in the foundations of our strength at home”—innovation, competitiveness, resilience, and democracy. The U.S. must also strengthen its ties to allies and friends, the NSS states, and “compete responsibly” with China to “defend our interests and build our vision for the future.”

Time is of the essence, the strategy states: “The next 10 years will be the decisive decade.” The U.S. faces an “inflection point … where the choices we make and the priorities we pursue today will set us on a course that determines our competitive position long into the future.”

The NSS lists various aggressions and broken promises from China in the Pacific region, including the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong and intimidation of Taiwan. The strategy pledges “prioritizing investments in a combat-credible military that deters aggression against our allies and partners in the region, and can help those allies and partners defend themselves.”

The U.S. strategy stats that the nation is committed to “maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and opposes any “unilateral change” in the status quo “from either side.” The United States will honor its commitments to “support Taiwan’s self-defense and to maintain our capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion against Taiwan.”

Despite the need to compete with China and Russia, though, the U.S. is willing to work with those countries if they are willing to do so in constructive ways, the strategy says. It also lays the blame for the Ukraine war squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin and makes an unsubtle pitch for regime change in that country.

It is the Russian people who must “determine Russia’s future as a major power capable of once more playing a constructive role” on the world stage.

Russia has made itself less of a long-term threat because of the Ukraine invasion, the NSS asserts.

Putin’s war “has profoundly diminished Russia’s status vis-a-vis China and other Asian powers such as India and Japan,” according to the NSS. “Moscow’s soft power and diplomatic influence have waned, while its efforts to weaponize energy have backfired. The historic global response to Russia’s war against Ukraine sends a resounding message that countries cannot enjoy the benefits of global integration while trampling on the core tenets of the UN Charter.”

The NSS asserts that Russia has been militarily weakened by its heavy losses of troops and equipment in Ukraine, and the strategy voices concern that Russia will increasingly make up for that deficit with nuclear threats.

“The United States will not allow Russia, or any power, to achieve its objectives through using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons,” the NSS states. “America retains an interest in preserving strategic stability and developing a more expansive, transparent, and verifiable arms control infrastructure to succeed New START and in rebuilding European security arrangements which, due to Russia’s actions, have fallen in to disrepair”—a reference to the conventional forces in Europe treaty and the intermediate nuclear forces agreement, which Russia pulled out of.

The U.S., with its allies and partners, is “helping to make Russia’s war on Ukraine a strategic failure,” the NSS said, by “constraining” that country’s strategic economic sectors, “including defense and aerospace, and we will continue to counter Russia’s attempts to weaken and destabilize sovereign nations and undermine multilateral institutions.”

NATO has been bolstered by its united front against Russia’s aggression and by the imminent admission of Finland and Sweden to the alliance, the NSS asserts, and it is stronger not only conventionally but also against “asymmetric threats” such as cyberattacks and Russia’s meddling in foreign elections.

Although the “trajectory” of the Ukraine war will determine some aspects of future U.S. policy, the NSS said the U.S. will “continue to support Ukraine in its fight for its freedom” and will help that country “recover economically.” The strategy encouraged Ukraine’s “regional integration with the European Union” but stopped short of advocating for its admission to NATO.

As Biden has previously said, the strategy pledges that the U.S. “will defend every inch of NATO territory and will continue to build and deepen a coalition with allies and partners to prevent Russia from causing further harm to European security, democracy, and institutions.”

The U.S. will also “deter and, as necessary, respond” to any Russian actions that threaten U.S. core interests, “including Russian attacks on our infrastructure and our democracy.”

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a press conference addressing the strategy that “We are not seeking to have competition tip over into confrontation or a new Cold War.”

But China and other autocracies are moving aggressively to undermine Democracy, he added, and the coming decade will “shape the future of the international order.”

The U.S. will compete economically, diplomatically, and militarily to shape the world, Sullivan said, but the administration will strive to prevent a costly era of proxy confrontations or new arms races.

Sullivan said the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review will be consistent with the NSS in setting a goal for “the reduction of the role of nuclear weapons in American strategy,” a point already made in the interim NSS released in March 2021, which he called one of the key “departures” from the Trump administration’s strategy.

The 47-page unclassified summary of the NSS concludes that the U.S, with its allies and partners, “is positioned to succeed in our pursuit of a free, open, prosperous and secure global order.” Besides out-competing autocratic challengers to that order, the U.S. will also tackle “shared challenges” such as “climate change, pandemic preparedness, and food security, that will define the next stage of human history.”

The U.S. will also seek to establish “fair rules of the road” for emerging technologies, cybersecurity, trade, and economics. It will do this by leveraging its considerable economic and military power and “our unparalleled coalition of allies and partners.”

The NSS says the U.S. will modernize its military, pursue advanced technologies, and invest in the defense workforce. By doing so, “we will have strengthened deterrence in an era of increasing geopolitical confrontation, and positioned America to defend our homeland, our allies, partners, and interests overseas, and our values across the globe.”

“We are motivated by a clear vision of what success looks like” at the end of the decade, the NSS states.

“By enhancing our industrial capacity, investing in our people, and strengthening our democracy, we will have strengthened the foundation of our economy, bolstered our national resilience, enhanced our credibility on the world stage, and ensured our competitive advantages.”

Regionally, the NSS says the U.S. will work to “reinforce” Turkey’s ties to NATO and the West, after that nation has drawn closer to Russia in recent years.

In the Middle East, there’s little change in the U.S. position on Israel and its neighbors, encouraging Arab nations that have not yet done so to normalize relations with Israel; and maintaining support for a two-state resolution to the Palestinian issue.

Despite Russian and Chinese moves to have a greater presence and role in the Arctic, the NSS seems to downplay this, saying the U.S. will increase its presence there “as required” while striving to “prevent unnecessary escalation.”

The NSS says the U.S. will work to counter “coercion” of South American states by China, Russia, and Iran.

The new strategy also pledges that the U.S. will “stand up for freedom of navigation and overflight” because the world depends on free access to the global commons for its security and prosperity.

The U.S. will “stand up to threats” to that access.

It will also “support environmental protection, and uphold destructive distant fishing practices by upholding international laws and norms … including” the U.N.’s laws of the sea. It will also work to preserve Antarctica’s status “as a continent reserved for peace and science.”

The U.S. also plans to “maintain our position as the world’s leader in space” but to work with the international community “to ensure the domain’s sustainability, safety, stability, and security.” The U.S. plans to lead in “updating space governance,” including traffic systems and a “path for future space norms and arms control.” It will work to improve the “resilience” of its space systems, protect U.S. interests in space, “avoid destabilizing arms races, and responsibly steward the environment.”

Cruise Missile Defense of North America is a ‘Picket Fence,’ NORAD Commander Says

Cruise Missile Defense of North America is a ‘Picket Fence,’ NORAD Commander Says

Oct. 11, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The top general in charge of the defense of North America delivered a sobering account of Russian and Chinese threats and described his command’s ability to detect and defend against a cruise missile attack as little more than a “picket fence.”

The U.S. homeland is under the most significant threat since the end of the Cold War, the head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck said Oct. 11.

“For the first time in our nation’s history, [we have] two strategic peers, both nuclear-armed, that we need to deal with,” VanHerck said at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, D.C. “While we were focused on violent extremists for last 20-plus years, they were developing capabilities to hold our homeland at risk.”

More concretely, Russia possesses a large arsenal of cruise missiles and platforms to fire them with little warning to the United States.

That is an issue for the North Warning System (NWS), the early-warning radar system the U.S. and Canada use to defend North America. It came online in the late 1980s when Cold War-era intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers were the primary means of conducting a long-range strike.

“Their cruise missiles that they’ve developed that can be employed from land, air, subsea, sea, are very low radar cross-section now,” VanHerck said. “They make our North Warning System look like a picket fence. It was designed for a 36,000-foot bomber back in the 70s and 80s timeframe, and now they can know where all those radars are and circumnavigate those.”

Russia is currently launching cruise missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. In response to questions from reporters Oct. 11 about pleas for air defense systems by the Ukrainian government, White House National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby noted that Russia uses long-range cruise missiles fired from bombers flying inside of Russian airspace, making the threat hard to address through air defense systems.

But that threat might exist for the United States as well.

“They can take off over Russian air bases today and launch their cruise missiles from over Russia and attack almost all of North America, including the United States of America,” VanHerck said.

The risk of undetected strikes is increasing from above and below as waters around the U.S. become more permissible due to melting ice caused by climate change. In addition, China and Russia have increased their presence in the Arctic. The White House has recognized its growing importance to national security with a new plan for the region with defense as the top priority, which VanHereck has previously championed.

“It’s the closest route to the homeland if you’re going to attack,” VanHerck said, referring to the route submarines could take over the North Pole, which “significantly reduces our decision space and timeline.”

That threat also exists outside the Arctic due to Russia’s sizeable nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

“That will be a persistent proximate threat capable of carrying a significant number of land attack cruise missiles that can threaten our homeland today,” VanHerck said.

Ultimately, the United States will always attempt to defend its territory. Deterring an attack on America is the main reason the U.S. has spent billions building a nuclear triad.

A July 2022 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued that America lacked sufficient cruise missile defense and relied too much on the U.S. nuclear deterrent, creating “a vulnerability that near-peer adversaries are seeking to exploit.”

In the National Defense Strategy, China is defined as the “pacing” threat and Russia is an “acute” threat. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a flagrant example of Moscow’s willingness to take military action to achieve its aims. But Russia has long violated international norms and laws, from using chemical weapons to poison opponents abroad to interfering in other countries’ democratic elections.

While China’s rapidly growing military capabilities and increasingly aggressive international posture concern VanHerck, Russia is front of mind.

“I fought really hard to get the Russians in there candidly,” VanHerck said of the National Defense Strategy. “This was before their acts of Feb. 24” when the invasion of Ukraine began.

“They are a now threat to the homeland,” VanHerck added of Russia, repeating a theme he has tried to hammer home to policymakers. “They are the primary military threat to the homeland today when it comes to kinetic capabilities, and also non-kinetic.”

Russia already took action against the U.S. homeland by interfering in American elections, using various cyber means such as hacking and bots to influence outcomes or at least sow discord. Russia has also been blamed for conducting more aggressive cyber attacks against other countries’ infrastructure, including shutting down power grids.

“We’re under attack, folks, if you haven’t figured that out. What you see in social media—what you see fanned the flames of internal discord, whether it be politics or not,” VanHerck said.

If a nation launches weapons against the United States, conventional or nuclear,  VanHerck said global security could quickly spiral out of control if America cannot assess threats quickly and accurately.

“If you can’t detect a threat, I can’t provide continuity of government warning—I can’t provide warning to our nuclear force posture,” VanHerck said. “So you have to start making some assumptions. And those are significant threats, as well.”

“If we’re shooting down cruise missiles over Washington, D.C., or Ottawa, I think I’ve failed,” he added.

KC-135s Set Record With 72-Hour Endurance Mission

KC-135s Set Record With 72-Hour Endurance Mission

Oct. 11, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A pair of KC-135s from Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., continuously operated for 72 hours, landing only to swap crews, refuel, and service engine oil while keeping at least one engine running at all times.

The mission, which took place from Oct. 4 to 7 and covered more than 36,000 miles—roughly one and a half times around the Earth. It set a new endurance record for the aircraft, far surpassing the previous mark of 40 hours, according to a press release from the 92nd Air Refueling Wing.

The KC-135s and crews that conducted the mission are part of the 92nd ARW, but they received help from Airmen in the 141st Air Refueling Wing, also at Fairchild; the 452nd Air Mobility Wing at March Air Reserve Base, Calif.; and the 134th Air Refueling Wing at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, Tenn.

Over the course of those 72 hours, the tankers refueled B-2 and B-52 bombers, as well an E-3 Sentry and an E-6B Mercury. When they landed, crews conducted hot-pit refueling, and aircrews swapped out while maintenance Airmen conducted engine oil servicing.

By continuously operating for so long, the Airmen were able to practice techniques related to agile combat employment, the operational concept in which small teams move quickly and operate out of remote or austere locations.

“This was the first continuously operating 72-hour endurance mission for the KC-135,” Col. Chad Cisewski, 92nd Operations Group commander, said in a statement. “Part of the ACE concept is that aircraft will continue forward while spending minimal time on the ground. This mission is one example of Airmen utilizing ACE concepts the way they could be employed in the Pacific. I’m extremely proud of both our operations and maintenance team for their tireless work on this.”

Air Mobility Command, which oversees the tanker fleet, has increasingly emphasized both ACE and operations in the Indo-Pacific in its training missions. In May, a KC-46 from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing flew for more than 24 hours straight, setting an AMC record.

At AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference in September, AMC commander Gen. Mike Minihan laid out his “Mobility Manifesto,” pledging to push those efforts even further. His stated goals include studying the idea of reduced “skeleton” crews for the KC-46 and other aircraft and having the KC-46 fly 30-hour and 36-hour sorties. 

Such long flights and missions, covering massive distances, may be needed in the Indo-Pacific region, a vast area known for its “tyranny of distance.” The Air Force and the broader Pentagon have increasingly emphasized the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility as part of a pivot toward competition with China, and Minihan has said AMC’s Mobility Guardian 23 exercise will take place over the Pacific.

Col. Chesley Dycus, 92nd ARW commander, made reference to that upcoming exercise in detailing the benefits of the KC-135 endurance mission. 

“This took tenacity and exceptional teamwork to accomplish,” Dycus said in a statement. “The lessons learned here, and our readiness will only improve the wing’s ability to support AMC’s ‘crown jewel of mobility exercises’ Mobility Guardian in 2023 and demonstrate our critical capabilities in the Pacific.”

Dozens of Lawmakers Urge Pentagon to Move Forward With Adaptive Engines

Dozens of Lawmakers Urge Pentagon to Move Forward With Adaptive Engines

Oct. 11, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Nearly 50 members of Congress have urged Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to fund a new phase of development for advanced fighter engines in the fiscal 2024 budget, sending a letter to the Pentagon on Oct. 7.

The letter, signed by 49 lawmakers from both the House and Senate, specifically requests that the Defense Department “fund adaptive propulsion engineering and manufacturing development in the FY24 budget submission and deliver adaptive technology to the services as quickly as possible.”

The Air Force has taken the lead in researching and testing adaptive engines through its Adaptive Engine Transition Program. Enginemakers GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney have developed three-stream prototypes that companies and USAF officials say could produce generational advances in propulsion. With the ability to maximize for thrust in combat situations and fuel efficiency in cruising conditions, such engines could increase range, acceleration, and thermal management.

The future of the program and the prototypes that came from it, however, are in doubt, tied to the controversy over the future of F-35 propulsion.

GE Aerospace has pitched its engine, the XA100, as a replacement for the F-35’s current engine, the F135, which has suffered from sustainment issues.

Pratt & Whitney, on the other hand, has pushed instead for an incremental “Enhanced Engine Package” upgrade to the F135, saying that the adaptive engines should be introduced with the service’s Next Generation Air Dominance fighter.

While some officials have touted the capabilities of the adaptive engines for the F-35, other observers have argued that the cost of installing them could be prohibitive, especially given that they will not fit on F-35Bs and the F-35 program is structured so that customers have to “pay to be different,” meaning the Air Force would not be able to share costs.

Congress, for its part, included language in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act calling for AETP engines to be installed in F-35As starting in 2027, a move that would put pressure on the Air Force to shift AETP from a research, development, test, and evaluation phase into an engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) one.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has seemingly indicated that the service will make a decision on an EMD phase—or ending the program completely—in the near future. On two occasions in recent months, he predicted a decision in the 2024 budget, at one point saying he doesn’t want to “limp along,” continuing to spend money on research and development for AETP.

“The Department of Defense has to make a decision overall about engine modifications and upgrades for the F-35. I expect that process to take place over the next few months as we build the [fiscal 2024] budget,” Kendall told lawmakers in May. “What the Air Force has funded is continuing the AETP technology development, but we’re going to need to have a decision at a higher level about the overall program for F-35 engine modifications and upgrades.”

That continuing technology development is seemingly nearing its end. In September, GE Aerospace announced that the XA100 had completed its final testing milestone as part of AETP, with the company saying in a press release that it was “ready to transition to an Engineering and Manufacturing Development program.”

In the letter to Austin, the bipartisan group of lawmakers don’t tip their hand in favor of either GE’s XA100 or Pratt & Whitney’s XA101. Instead, they ask that DOD include factors such as “capability and the cost of failure” in its budget analysis, hinting that monetary cost shouldn’t be the determining factor in a choice.

The lawmakers also link the future development of adaptive engines to the Defense Department’s top priority of competing with and deterring China.

“To support the administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, we must continue to develop and field advanced propulsion systems which will enable our service members to fly into the theater of operation, complete their mission and return home safely,” the lawmakers wrote.

In closing, the legislators also echo comments made in August by John Sneden, director of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s propulsion directorate, who warned that the U.S. was “starting to lose our lead” in propulsion.

“If we do not continue to pursue advanced propulsion systems for our fighter aircraft, we risk opening the door for U.S. adversaries to overtake our advantages in fielded engine technology,” the lawmakers wrote.

Among the 49 members of Congress who signed the letter are three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee—Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.); and the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

Six members of the House Armed Services Committee signed on as well—Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), Rep. Robert Wittman (R-Va.), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.), Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.).

With Pentagon Waiver, Deliveries Resume of New F-35s With Chinese Magnets

With Pentagon Waiver, Deliveries Resume of New F-35s With Chinese Magnets

Oct. 11, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Deliveries of new F-35 fighters have resumed after halting in September following the discovery that a Chinese-sourced material was used in building the aircraft. The resumption of deliveries, ordered by Pentagon acquisition chief William A. LaPlante, went into effect Oct. 8 and extends through delivery of Lot 14, or about the next 126 of the fighters. However, parts without the Chinese material will be installed on F-35s as early as November.

The part involved was a magnet in a turbomachinery element supplied to F-35 builder Lockheed Martin by Honeywell. It contained a magnet made of cobalt and samarium, an alloy sourced from China, prohibited under acquisition regulations. The Pentagon previously said the part is incapable of transmitting any data about the F-35, nor does it endanger aircraft already delivered with the alloy. Aircraft already delivered will not have to have their magnets replaced.

The turbomachine “integrates the functionality of an auxiliary power unit [APU] and an air cycle machine into a single piece of equipment,” Lockheed Martin said when the improperly-sourced material came to light.

When the part acts as an APU “it provides electrical power for ground maintenance, main engine start, and emergency power. It also provides compressed air for the thermal management system during ground maintenance,” the company said.

Through a spokesperson, LaPlante said he had signed a National Security Waiver “that allows DoD to accept Lot 13 and Lot 14 F-35 aircraft containing non-compliant specialty metals” in the Honeywell mechanism.

Acceptance of F-35s is necessary due to “national security interests,” LaPlante said, and the waiver applies to “a total of 126 F-35 aircraft awaiting delivery or to be delivered under the Lot 12-14 production contract.” The last airplane under the Lot 12-14 buy is to be delivered by Oct. 31, 2023.

Despite the lack of danger, the DOD decided in September to stop accepting the airplanes because of a possible violation of the DFAR, the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation that prohibits parts critical for major weapon systems to be sourced from potentially hostile nations. LaPlante’s waiver clears that potential hurdle. He telegraphed the move in a Sept. 9 discussion with reporters.

Lockheed Martin, in an Oct. 8 statement, reiterated that the magnet “does not provide any visibility or access to sensitive program information” and poses no safety of flight issue. Honeywell has identified a different source for the material, and the new vendor’s alloy will be installed on aircraft beginning next month.

During the delivery pause, 18 airplanes were held up, and Lockheed Martin expects they will have their DD-250 official acceptance forms signed this week.

“Prior to the pause, we had delivered 88 aircraft of our scheduled 148-153 F-35s to be delivered in 2022,” the company said.

The company noted that it manages a supplier base of more than 1,700 contractors, “with an annual domestic economic impact of approximately $72 billion.” The company said it’s “committed to supplier standards and contractual requirements” in delivering the F-35.

Government sources said they did not expect the situation to interfere with contracts in the Lot 15-17 acquisition of F-35s.

Coincidentally, the first—and only—cobalt mine in the U.S. opened Oct. 7 near Salmon, Idaho. Operated by the Jervois Global company, based in Australia, the new entirely underground mine is near an abandoned open-pit cobalt mine which has not produced in decades. Assembled dignitaries at the opening said the mine would create an American source for cobalt, necessary for a wide variety of applications, such as electric car batteries.

Watch, Read: ‘Standards and Digital Engineering’

Watch, Read: ‘Standards and Digital Engineering’

Oct. 11, 2022

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei, program executive officer for Weapons, led a discussion on “Standards and Digital Engineering” with Naveed Hussain of Boeing, Layne Merritt of Elbit Systems of America, and Alan England of L3Harris Technologies, Sept. 19, 2022, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, welcome everybody to the afternoon session on digital engineering. We’re really excited to have you here and we’ve got a great panel for you. I know this morning when I heard from the secretary and the chief, it was very motivating words, and I think we’re really blessed to have forward leaning chief and secretary really, really inspiring us to accelerate change in the future. This topic that we’re going to talk about today, I think is one of the most exciting areas, particularly in the world of the industry military partnership. And that is our digital transformation. We’ve got a really great panel of leading experts and thinkers.

Starting first year with Layne Merritt from Albert Systems America. He’s Vice President of Technology and Innovation. Dr. Naveed Hussain, Vice President and Chief Engineer for Boeing Defense Space and Security, and Dr. Allen England, L3 Harris Director, Strategic Programs, Advanced Systems Technology, Agile Development Group. Sometimes when we get medals, we have long titles in the military, and I see that nothing’s different in industry. Now we just wrapped up my fantasy draft, and so I thought maybe we have a little snake question here where we’ll go through the panel and ask some questions in the spirit of fantasy football.

I thought maybe I would start at the end with you, Dr. England. I think my question begins with, from your perspective in the entire panel, where exactly are we today on the road towards our digital future? Do you see us at the beginning? Are we in the middle state here, or are we an end game? Where do you place us?

Dr. Alan England:

Thanks for the question yeah. I see us as not at the very beginning, but transitioning from the beginning to the middle. We understand what digital engineering means now. 10, 15 years ago, maybe not, but as I was preparing for this, it surprised me to learn that SysML actually started back in 2000, and then in 2007 was when MBSE 2020 was actually published by INCOSE. So digital engineering has been growing, it’s been evolving, but I think we’ve gotten to that point where we’re at the knee and the curve where it’s starting to really take off.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Great. Dr. Hussain, any thoughts from your perspective in Boeing?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah, I just to add on to my colleague, I think we’re in the middle if we zoom out on the S-curve of model-based system engineering in an integrated digital environment, we have been working with digital models, physics-based digital models for decades. That is how we’ve optimized our designs, that’s how we’ve optimized the way we think about test, and that’s how we’ve thought about optimizing across the life cycle. I think what’s accelerating now as we are in that middle of the S-curve is how all these models interconnect and how we think about not just the platform, but the production system and the sustainment system altogether.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Oh, excellent. Any thoughts from Albert?

Layne Merritt:

Sure. So I think we’re in the middle or in the beginning to middle transition. I think the new thing now, as you said, we’ve been doing digital models for a long time. Functional models, right? We could do thermal analysis, structural analysis, system dynamics, but putting those together, connecting them to the requirement and be able to simulate the entire system as we’ve never done before, is going to be the game changer.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Fantastic. Dr. Hussain, in the same spirit, in my first engagement with the secretary right after he became SecAF, we gave him an update. One of the questions he asked me, I’ll ask you is, do you see what’s happening as an evolutionary change or a revolutionary change for how it is that we’re doing what we do?

Naveed Hussain:

I think it’s revolutionary. While pieces of it might look evolutionary when we think about how we optimize at the platform level, interconnecting various digital models, I think it’s revolutionary as we move from these digital system models for the platform to interconnecting those models to the production and the sustainment system, and then evolving from digital system models for design development and test and integration to digital twins to sustain the fleet. And that opens up a whole new category of innovation and I think, a game changing, a revolutionary capability for our customer.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Layne, any thoughts on revolutionary versus revolutionary?

Layne Merritt:

Sure. I think it’s revolutionary. I think what we’re going to be able to do, connecting the various models that we had before, the interaction that we can have between not only the customer and the OEM, but the OEM and the lower system suppliers is going to really change the game and bringing this into the production line and the supply chain is really a big game changer.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Great. How about you, Dr. England?

Dr. Alan England:

I agree with them. It’s a revolutionary way of doing engineering. It’s a revolutionary in that the amount of data that is available to the engineers as we start making these systems and analyzing these systems and looking at alternatives, that data that’s available through the model is data that’s never been available in the quantity and the interaction that we can get when we put the data in the model and interact with it in the model environment.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

I had the opportunity to go to the UK and see how F1 does their business. It was interesting that if you look at their journey, they started their journeys about eight to nine years ago, and they’re to the point now where they are making improvements to their Formula One cars every 20 minutes, 365 days a year. I really think that Dr. Hussain your comments about what does it mean for the fabrication and the production and the sustainment is really thought-provoking. I’d be interested to say, are there any areas that you see as revolutionary that we’re not talking enough about currently? And maybe Mr. Merritt, why don’t you start lane and maybe say your thoughts on that and then we’ll go through.

Layne Merritt:

I think there’s two things from the Albert America perspective. First, the subsystem suppliers, and we do a lot of mission systems, black boxes, sensors and things like that. We don’t have to wait for the OEMs to finish their design or to get fairly well down the road in their design before we start designing. If the customer publishes and architectural framework, all the interfaces, the performance requirements, they’re all defined. How that happens in the end as part of the competitive nature of business. The other thing is how this fits into the industrialization process. We talk so much about the design and then the operational use stages.

For industry, how we industrialize that, how we manufacture it, and how we manage the supply chain can make or break a program. Digital engineering, the models of the system flow right into the production process, the manufacturing floor, and then to the supply chain process, and it’s going to make us much more effective.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Yeah. Dr. Hussain?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah. One of the things that I think we should talk more about is the experience at the desk of the engineer. At this point, an engineer at her desk has the ability to think about the trades that she’s making in the work that she’s doing at her section of the life cycle, whether it’s design or integration or sustainment or production, and how that decision affects the entire life cycle and the trades that, that unlocks between performance and producibility and the value engineering that, that will unlock for the customer. The knobs that can be turned at the desk of an engineer, as Will Roper says, they’re sort of a godlike power. I think there’s an important story here that we need to talk more about to inspire the early generation, the early career engineer, and even the students on why they should come into our industry and the capability that they’re going to have to change the world.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Dr. England?

Dr. Alan England:

I agree with that a lot. The people that I interact and work with a lot, I tell this story that I’ll share with you, and it’s about back when I was a young engineer and you wanted to go start evaluating at change, you had two or three systems engineers on a program, but one of them knew the requirements really well. You would go talk to him or her and you would say something about, “What’s going to happen if I change… Fill in the blank.” this person either looks at the ground or looks at the ceiling, depending on if they’re introvert or extrovert, and they say something like, “And what’s going on?” As they’re going through the Rolodex of requirements in their minds. And they say, “Well, you need to go check on 26, 27, 33, 198 and 227.”

Those are the requirements that they have been tracking through the whole life of the program. Now, that’s one example of what you get to do as my colleague next to me was saying that the engineer gets to do on their desk. That happens inside the model in realtime. So as things are changed, you start to see across the full system of how those requirements are being met or maybe one is not being met now and it’s unbelievably powerful.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, it’s an anecdote. I remember pulling one of the chief engineers aside in the last couple years and asking him 40 years of experience, done everything. I said, “What do you think?” His response to me was, “I like it. I love it.” He said to me that in his 40 years, he would ask his engineers a question and he’d have in his mind, to your point, Dr. England about it, might take him a two weeks before they get back to me on an answer. Because I know what they would have to do to get that. Their engineers are coming back in a day and saying, “Hey chief, we’re ready. Let’s talk about what we learned.” And he’s just blown away at how quickly his young engineers are able to come to him and show him what’s going on.

That speed has some huge benefits, but I have a feeling to really, the bridge you made for us, Dr. Hussain, is there’s something in the human terrain that we need to talk about. I guess Dr. England, could you talk us a little bit from just the human terrain of your company, organization, culture, process. What is digital? What is it meaning for your company and how you’re leading? Are there things that you’re having to think differently about?

Dr. Alan England:

I think the main thing that we’re thinking differently about is the interaction between all the team members through the life cycle of the program. We are more interconnected now across disciplines than we’ve ever been. So I don’t think it takes away from the humans experience at all. I actually think digital engineering enhances the human experience. Because, engineers can focus on what they do best, and that is to engineer. The tools and the model and the systems that are capturing the design enable them to be better engineers. Dr. Hussain?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah, just to add on to that, which is right on. When we think about digital engineering, model based systems engineering, this is not a corporate initiative, not there’s anything wrong with corporate initiatives, but this is how we work, this is how we learn by doing. I think we huddle… It takes courage of our engineers to go do this, and we’re asking them to, rather than huddling up around PowerPoint, let’s huddle up around a digital model and interrogate the model in real time. That’s not open to interpretation, it’s the model. And talk about trades, move sliders around and see what happens. I think that that is how we inspire the culture that we seek.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Absolutely. Mr. Merritt, any thoughts on that?

Layne Merritt:

Sure. I think this helps the functional engineers connect to the entire system. It should make designing a system more fun. You don’t have to send it to somebody via EMR or leave it on the server somewhere for the other functional engineering team to take a look at. You can do it together, right? And you can actually sit there live and work on the same model, even if you’re not in the same location. I think it makes this the whole design thing more fun and it certainly will make it more accurate.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

I’m curious if the experience in your companies are similar to some of the things that we’re seeing, The commercial world, non-defense sector. Again, we mentioned the Mercedes F One team or John Deere or perhaps Tesla and some of the others. One of the things that you see is that they’re introducing organizational models more agile, more scaled, agile approaches for how it is that they’re integrating. In fact, that was one of the key themes from the chief today was integrating better, which is fundamentally a leadership challenge. I guess I’m curious, what is happening in your digital agile journeys in your companies? Are you seeing that your companies are having to transform a little bit of how you work with these tools? Or is it very similar to what you would’ve seen 20 years ago? Can you talk a little bit about that? Any thoughts on that, Dr. Hussain?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah, that’s a great question. Couple points. We build roadmaps around our digital environment, around our digital tools and our process. We’ve had some learning in this. We had ambitions to converge on one roadmap. We build commercial airplanes and we build a whole host of defense products and services at Boeing. Of course we have an ambition to be on one enterprise digital roadmap, and we found that point where we all come together is sliding to the right. Because of unique tools and needs because of sometimes unique customer requirements, unique interface and environment connections into various suppliers or to various customers. It’s important to have an ambition to all come together at an enterprise level, but it’s also, we got to be realistic and face into these challenges on sometimes you do need a few lanes on this roadmap, before you all converge.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Great. How about you, Dr. England? I mean, Agile is in the title of your position description. So yeah, any thoughts about agile transformation and what that means for digital?

Dr. Alan England:

Yes. Agile is in the name of our organization and we are very agile group and digital supports that and embraces that and enables us to be agile. It allows us to make changes quickly and to be confident in those changes if need be on the early end. It also allows us to develop a system that can be fielded today to meet requirements today, but also be able to be rapidly upgraded when a new capability can come in. That’s all supported by the digital model in the digital ecosystem.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Excellent. Great. Shifting gears, Mr. Merritt, we’ve got several really [inaudible 00:16:55] and senior leaders from the government side in this session. I think I’d like to ask each of you, and starting with Mr. Merritt, what could we as the department of Air Force and Space Force do to accelerate change in this domain? I’m thinking specifically about standards, tools, environments. Certainly there are things that we could do to be better partners, and I think that several of the leaders here would love to hear your thoughts.

Layne Merritt:

Sure. It’s a two way street and you need some infrastructure. You don’t have to go crazy with standards, but you have to have data formats and architectural standards such that we can communicate digitally, if we’re talking about digital. I think the challenges with reform are very deep. Right? You have to start with requirements, generation, design processes, approvals, contracting, everybody along the way, the operational testers, the airworthiness people have to embrace the change. So a lot of these folks do what they’re told. Right? If the regulations say, “Do it this way, they’ll do it that way.” So we have to start addressing the policy and the guidance that allows this new concept to be used every day.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Excellent. Dr. Hussain, any others?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah, and I’ll just add on, because clearly standards, we are all spending a lot of energy and really great thought on the whole stakeholder community on standards. I don’t necessarily think I need to emphasize that anymore. But, one thing that we’ve been thinking about is the old adage of you get what you measure. How do we think about benchmarks? How do we think about measuring our progress from the value proposition to the war fighter, ultimately? As these systems and the requirements of these systems grow ever more complex where relative measurement becomes difficult?

So thinking about benchmarks, thinking about whether it’s speed, whether it’s performance on these programs, I think that would be a great discussion on how do we measure how we’re all interfacing so that we continue to get better.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Excellent. Dr. England?

Dr. Alan England:

Just to add to that, I would suggest that we also start broadening the thoughts of what and who is the consumer of the digital model. There’s no reason that we can’t let contracts have a spot in the model or the acquisition side so that we can all get around this same tool. All of the documents that… Or the artifacts, I’ll call them, not even documents, but the artifacts are captured in the model, and then creating the standards or the processes so that you can also deliver content artifacts in the model. Then the model becomes truly the single source of truth across the whole program.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, that’s a really tangible way, and I know Dr. Hussain, we were talking earlier about having a partner in the government that would be actually willing and having the courage to work in the models with industry rather than the classic data artifacts that we’ve seen forever. I’d be interested if you and the others have any thoughts about some practical things that we might consider.

Naveed Hussain:

If I may, I think we all on this panel have seen this work where we have enabled unprecedented development speed going from a concept to first flight, for instance, using digital engineering. It’s like in any, I don’t know, value stream map, if you will. When you’re thinking about the new way you’re going to do something, it’s important to not just think about all the things you’re going to do, but the things that you’re no longer going to do. What are you going to stop? Because, if you’re going to just keep adding to the process, it’s probably going to take longer. So in this journey, thinking about interrogating a model as a new kind of designer review, thinking about data in a cloud as a new way of exchange, thinking about the ways that we interface between many times in these complex engineering models, we break it down and we define the interfaces. Then when we think about value engineering, could we do those requirements reviews in cameo? I’ve seen, we have seen this work.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, I’ll tell you, my first view of a recent weapon system that I was involved in was a six-hour deep dive with a single briefer in cameo that showed me from message receipt to contact exactly how the system designed was designed. It was quite incredible to see the mass of traditional artifacts that would’ve had to have been generated, that was solved by just having that open dialogue. So I think that that is a really interesting thought. In the spirit of General Brown talking about commander’s intent, one of the questions that I have, or at least from where I sit as the PEO weapons, is my intent is more certification-ready designs, designs where I’m pulling tests farther and farther to the left so we can learn and avoid rework cycles, cyber-ready designs.

I’m even looking for innovation friendly designs where we can innovate more quickly. I guess my question maybe for you, Mr. Merritt and the whole panel is how could we clearly define intent to where we could really get an airworthiness ready design at CDR or a cyber certifiable design at a CDR? I think digital can get us there, but we’d need to work together. Any thoughts on that?

Layne Merritt:

Sure. I think right away when the program’s established that those kinds of goals need to be stated. If you want to make a source selection based off of the operational model, state it right up front and we’ll respond to that, right? We’ll optimize our processes and designs and the information we present to meet that.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Dr. England, any thoughts about using digital in our partnerships to actually create more pace and speed in some areas that we really have problems?

Dr. Alan England:

No, I agree. If we stayed up front the intent, commander’s intent up front and then create a partnership, a government industry partnership where we’re looking and reviewing the content of the model, regularly rather than generating some separate artifact that took somebody a lot of time to do when it’s there in the model and then interacting in the model in a partnership type of way and bringing cyber in and bringing tests in and bringing them in early, so that if there is a concern, we resolve that concern early. But if there’s not a concern, we built a relationship together through the course of the development so that when we get to the end, everybody’s on the same page.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Dr. Hussain, anything that you would say about?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah, just to add on, I think that operating in these kinds of digital environments, there’s a form of transparency that’s built in. It’s a high trust collaborative environment enabled by a digital thread and just like in multidisciplinary design analysis and optimization, sometimes your configuration’s non-intuitive. You’re like, “Whoa, I didn’t think it was going to end up there.” I think at the system level across a life cycle, we could end up with that same kind of magic when we unlock this digital thread.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Oh great. Great feedback. I guess what feedback are you getting from your government partners? Each of you all have customers, and I think we heard from you all that you’re very sensitive to the sorts of things that you’re asking. Are they staying ahead of you? Are they just keeping up or are there some legitimate frustrations where they’re behind? You can not answer the last part if you don’t want, if they’re in the room, but if you don’t mind, Mr. Merritt, any thoughts, how would you assess where your customers are and what could they do to catch up?

Layne Merritt:

Sure. Well, we’re all learning here. Right? Our customers want to ask, will admit they have to establish some infrastructure, some training. We all have to do that. If we agree to work together, we can all learn together and we can get where we want to go.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Okay. Boeing?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah. I think that our customer interactions have shown ambition probably ahead in terms of, this is where we want to go and we need to work together on how to get there. So we’re seeing that ambition, the vision and ambition, that’s very much there. I think that as was stated, some of those standards defining the digital environment that we’re going to be working in. Then the trades around, the more we prescribe these environments, sometimes the less we can optimize inside our own company. Because we want to comply, we have to comply. So could we end up being less prescriptive but still get to those goals?

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Very good. Dr. England?

Dr. Alan England:

Yeah. The customers that I interact with on a regular basis, I think it’s fair to say that we’re at about the same level. I think that for them to stay at that same level, they’re going to have to get staff in the program offices that are digital engineering savvy, that understand SysML and it’s going to become a new element to the program office is, there’s going to be a digital engineer or somebody that understands the digital engineering side of it. They have the systems engineers, they have the subsystem engineers, but getting into the model and getting the data out of the model is going to be a place where the government’s going to have to probably go get the right staff to be able to address that.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, I’d like to pivot to the subject of data. Set the table for that. How many times in our careers have we thought, “Boy, I wish we had collected data on that because if we had, we would’ve been able to figure something out.” But now in the digital as we digitize the development cycle, the product development cycle of systems engineering, I wonder that if we don’t think about where we want to be in our data future, we may fall short. I guess, I’m curious to see what your thoughts are about just what kind of data we can be collecting, what does that mean for what we could do in production and sustainment and future development, if we really get in front of it and think about it? I’ll start with Boeing. Dr Hussain, what are your thoughts about data? And maybe share with us where you see the future.

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah. In terms of data, I’ll give you an example. I asked my team to do a three-week sprint on a predictive analytics project around fleet maintenance, health management of a structure. And we had some data. We’ve pulled off various platforms in our fleet. On that three week sprint, I sort of checked in and I hadn’t heard. So I checked in two weeks going, “Hey, how’s it going?” I expected to see some pretty advanced neural nets being developed and folks showing me the big parameters and the partial derivatives, if you will, on what they were learning.

Instead, they were like, “We finally got all the data.” So on a three week machine learning project, we spent two weeks just wrangling data. That speaks to the need for architectures, data architectures. It speaks to the need for configuration control. It speaks to the need for secure data in the cloud that’s accessible, that’s trusted. When we think about the future, it also speaks to the need of collecting data ahead of opportunity, collecting the data that we need to train the AI of the future.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Yeah. Absolutely. Any thoughts Dr. England about that?

Dr. Alan England:

Well, it’s not only the data, and I agree with everything that was said about the data. You got to have the data. But we also have to think about how does the model parse data access data across security boundaries?

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Yeah.

Dr. Alan England:

Because a lot of times when we get the data, we know we have the data, but the data, it’s in a container somewhere. That’s not where the model is. Or the model’s in a container somewhere. That’s not where the data is. So you got to go figure out how to work through the boundaries that are put on us by security. We have thoughts on how to do that, but that’s a struggle.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Yeah. Mr. Merritt, any additions?

Dr. Alan England:

Yeah, data is both the power and the big challenge with digital. All right. Then just to add something different onto this, the way you analyze it and the way you apply algorithms to help you make decisions about your system is going to be really important, as important as the data itself, I think.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, Dr. Hussain brought up AI machine learning and we’ve heard for several years an appetite to have a more AI machine learning friendly force writ large. I wonder if the kernels of AI and machine learning don’t start inside the programs and the weapon systems that we’re building a priority. I’m not sure we’re actually thinking that far ahead, particularly in the realm of sustainment and how we can connect those systems with the other systems. I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind elaborating some more, gentlemen, on if we wanted machine learning and AI-friendly systems, do you see a connection between what you’re doing in early acquisition in the middle and how we might be able to take advantage of that, Dr. Hussain?

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah, absolutely. Colonel, you hit it right on the nail on the head there. When we think about the power of a structural prognostics algorithm, for instance, the actual technology around the neural net, whether you’re going to use TensorFlow or PyTorch or any of those tools. That actually, we pull that right off at GitLab. That’s available to each and every one of us. I mean, sometimes if you have high school students, they’re using this today, frankly, and the differentiator, the power of that algorithm actually is the data. So preparing for that now, sometimes instrumenting platforms now, even if you don’t need a sensor in a particular way, thinking about, “Well, should we should instrument in a way that prepares us for a future in which an AI or an algorithm could be helping us and allowing us to manage our fleet?”

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Any thoughts from the other two on that subject?

Layne Merritt:

Definitely, you can start collecting data and then have way too much of it. You have to find a place to store it. But I think we need to do that, because you just don’t know today what data you might want, and the key there will be now architecting and organizing the data so you can get to it. Because the algorithms, if you talk about AI and machine learning, they need lots of data. You have to feed them, they have insatiable appetite and we use synthetic data as well, early on in the system to help us shape how the designs are going to go and what kind of decisions we’re going to make. But over time, you’re going to start collecting operational data and you need to have it available.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, so the idea of data as a sensor and the sort of data we’d require to train, the time nature of that means that you have to think about it far earlier than most people are thinking about it. That’s I think a really fruitful area for where digital’s going. Which leads me to my last series of questions, really focused on the latter half of the systems engineering be. I think digital engineering as we currently talk about it, is so much more than just affecting our engineers. It really is affecting our lobbies, it’s affecting our finance-oriented people, our contracting officers, et cetera. I guess I’d like to talk a little bit about a few of these things. One thing we’re seeing is that the ability to fabricate the barriers are becoming easier and easier.

The machines that make machines are getting less expensive, they’re getting more capable. We’re starting to see that the Ford assembly line is not really the future. In fact, we’re starting to see smaller batches. We’re able to see flexible manufacturing that really I think is enabled by digital, but very different than what we’ve seen in historic development. Could you start share with your thoughts on where you see us going in fabrication and manufacturing? Maybe start in the middle.

Naveed Hussain:

Yeah. And that’s a great question and this gets to what does the factory, the future look like?

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Yeah.

Naveed Hussain:

We think it looks kind of like a big empty room. And with technologies like additive manufacturing and full size determined assembly, precision assembly, the aircraft becomes the tooling itself and batch sizes get smaller and parts are produced additively. Frankly, when we build a 787 fuselage with composite tape, that’s additive manufacturing. I’ve been in some of these factories, the T-7 factory is one where we assemble the aft and forward fuselage in 30 minutes and it feels different. You can almost play classical music. I mean, it feels quiet. Parts are coming together and holes are lining up.

So how we think about data [inaudible 00:36:24], how we work with our supply chain in these technologies and manufacturing processes and the design that’s done to the left of all of this up front for producibility and the trades that are involved in that. Sometimes, it’s a heavier part that enables these kinds of builds. This is the factory of the future in our view and it’s enabled by this digital thread.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, we’re going to do a little rapid fire. This is the last minute for each of you. From your perspective, starting with Dr. England, if you could share with us what do you think the next big digital thing is going to be. When you look in your crystal ball, each one of you, what are we going to be talking about next year at this time or later, that we’re not talking about today? Over to you Dr. England.

Dr. Alan England:

I’d like to see us talking about essentially, a digital, an environment where we have established contracting through delivery inside a digital model. Where everything’s captured in the model and the model is the single source of truth from contract award or maybe even from RFP through contract award through C deliveries to product delivery.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

PEO Weapons will take that one on. All right, doctor?

Dr. Alan England:

Yeah.

Naveed Hussain:

For me, I think many times we think about the digital thread going in one direction. The other part of the digital thread is the feedback loops that it allows. The feedback from your production system and the feedback from your fleet that’s being sustained. I think as we employ and enable digital twins for our customers, we’re going to be talking a lot about feedback loops.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Fantastic.

Layne Merritt:

Those are both great answers and I think the tools that we use to do this across the life cycle and across the system are still under development. I don’t think that they’re as mature as they need to be. I hope that next year we’ll be able to talk about at least two full system lifecycle tools that really enable the digital engineering model that we’re talking about.

Brig. Gen. Jason Bartolomei:

Well, this is the toughest time block, day one after lunch. Look at the room grew and I noticed that we hardly lost one person, so let’s give these guys a round of applause for their great answers. Thank you all for your time today at this important subject and we hope you have a great AFA. Thanks everybody.

Watch, Read: ‘The Art of the Startup: Creating Something From Nothing’

Watch, Read: ‘The Art of the Startup: Creating Something From Nothing’

Oct. 11, 2022

Dave Harden, CEO of Outpost, led a discussion on “The Art of the Startup: Creating Something From Nothing” with Col. Nathan P. Diller of AFWERX, Lt. Col. Walter McMillan of SpaceWERX, Trevor Smith of Atomic-6, and Diem Salmon of Anduril, Sept. 19, 2022, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Dave Harden:

Good morning, National Harbor. How you guys doing today?

Audience:

Woo.

Dave Harden:

Good? All right. Woo. Get ruckus a little bit. It was hard to get into some of those earlier sessions, wasn’t it? It was packed out. It’s great to see you. So many familiar faces. It’s an honor to be here. I’m Dave Harden, managing partner and founder for Outpost and Outpost Ventures. Shout out to the Outpost Ventures crew here in the audience today. So great to see you guys. Great to have the team out here. So many familiar faces out there. Some of you, we might have crossed paths. Previously, a co-founder for AFWERX. We might have crossed paths as a host for Spark Tank. If you guys are familiar with Spark Tank, an amazing show of innovation from our Airmen. I’m always moved every year to see it. It was an honor to be able to help start it. To have people like Mark Cuban, George Steinbrenner’s, previous judges.

More importantly had a Airman come up to me last year literally with a tear in his eye and he said, “Spark Tank changed my life. For the first time I was able to take an idea and it was heard by the Air Force. I was able to transform it into something.” The very first year we had Spark Tank, the winner went on to implement it within 18 months across 440 aircraft. Unheard of. And so it’s great to see that culture change. It’s great to see it being continued today and so excited to be here with you all.

We might have crossed paths in other ways. I see a few great clients out there, Docker and Duralock, couple other folks. I see some portfolio companies we invested in like Hyper Giant AI and it’s been an honor to be part of this innovation ecosystem out there trying to make a difference, to do good, to change the landscape that we have today. And startups can really get into the exhilaration of getting into the DOD. It’s super exciting. You get some of your first contracts. Things are really rolling, but then there’s a heartbreak, a heartbreak of failure. And it’s been a rough year for me personally because some people say I look like Alec Baldwin. And I got to admit, Alec hasn’t been doing me any favors this year. Body double bookings have gone down significantly and the guy’s just got to stop shooting people. So, that’s my shout out to Alec to kind of bring it down a notch. He’s really hurting my street cred.

But on a serious note, we wind up with the Pentagon really interested in this innovation thing, right? In fact, last year 1,635 companies received over $1.5 billion of US input. And despite the Pentagon’s new enthusiasm for innovation, startups in the defense market continue to encounter longstanding obstacles. We effectively call it what the Valley of Death, right? Most companies face uncertainty when trying to bridge prototyping awards with more permanent follow on contracts. When you talk about today’s budget, you talk about fiscal year 25, that’s like a lifetime for a startup. And so as they try to push their product and get revenue, it can be frustrating.

And so while earning that first million dollars is so sweet, the success is so sweet. The most difficult part is earning that next $10 million. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today is the art of the startup. Because it’s not easy. And we have amazing talented people who have been in the trenches, who are out there doing it today on our panel. And I can’t wait to hear what they have to share with us today.

Maybe unlike other panels, we like involvement. We’re going to get to Q&A pretty quick, but we want to talk about some stuff first, if that’s okay with you all? And most importantly, I want you guys to be involved and maybe be a bit little bit loud. So every time I introduce a panelist, it’s got to get a little loud in here. It’s got to get a little ruckus, all right? So up first we’re going to start down at my far left. The one the only, let’s get our hands together. Colonel Nate Diller. Done an amazing job carrying the torch. More importantly, he leads strategy execution for over a billion dollars for our air force and our space force. And I think he’s got some big announcements too today, right? Couple big announcements later? All right, we got some big announcements later. Amazing, amazing.

We’ll stick with the Air Force theme here for a second. I want you guys to get your hands together for Lieutenant Colonel Walter the Rock MicMillian, let’s go. This guy’s a USC guy. If you guys are hailing or following any of your football stuff, an amazing individual. I’ve got to see him make a huge impact and he manages over $300 million of innovation input to our space force. An amazing human and amazing innovator.

We got folks from industry today. And so I want to introduce to my left, right here, put your hands together, the CEO of Atomic-6, Mr. Trevor Smith. This guy’s a passionate and focused entrepreneur. He’s breaking the mold on manufacturing and trying to make it happen for our nation. It’s great to see his work out there, it’s amazing. And he kind of jokes because he said I should be a PhD but I’m just a guy who turned my real estate finance degree into something good. So Trevor, thanks for being here with us today. Appreciate it.

Last but not least, the very talented, the amazing, put your hands together for Diem Salmon. We luckily have Diem here today. She’s the senior director for business development for Anduril. So many amazing things to talk about her. She is trying to change the way we do Autonomy. So she leads Autonomy at the Anduril force. And fun fact, she was the chairman of McCain’s campaign for over five years and his staff. So if you want to talk politics, meet her after for a little political chat.

We are super honored to have amazing people here and so we’re going to get into it. We kind of talked about, we had a lot of great conversations. We said, “Hey, we want to get some tips out there, we want to get some strategies, talk some stories.” And so that’s what we want to do today. What are the lessons learned from the hard knocks that these folks have experienced? And so, one of the things we talked about was it’s really hard to get customer feedback. It’s hard to get some feedback on how to get this thing to the next stage. And so I think that’s a great tee up for you, Trevor, to really kind of dive in. You’ve experienced this journey, right? Talk to us a little bit, get some tips and tricks out to the crowd on. “Hey, how do we deal with this market input, end user input? How do we gather that intel?”

Trevor Smith:

Yeah, absolutely. So thanks Dave. As Dave said, I’m Trevor Smith, president and CEO of Atomic-6. And the mold pun was great because we have a proprietary mold technology that answers the question that the composites industry has tried to solve for the past 50, 60 years, which is, “How do we get high performance at high volume for low cost?” That’s what we’ve addressed. So using the SIBR and STTR programs have a few tips for the small business folks out there and then the Air and Space Force folks who want to work with us. One is you can be the smartest inventor in the world, but unless you identify demand, you’re dead in the water.

So I want to thank the AFA for introducing me to Rock over here. About a year and a half ago I was working out of my house, didn’t have an office, didn’t have a customer. I flew out to LA. COVID wouldn’t let us meet in person. So we Zoomed called about a mile away from each other, but he spent an hour of his time. Rock MicMillan spending an hour his time with someone he didn’t know at all. But he took the time and saw the value in what we’re working with and pointed us in a couple directions. And so I brought a piece with me today that phase one turned into a phase two and we’re working with AFRL Space Vehicles ate to manufacture NextGen composite structures for things like the Rollout Solar Array on the International Space Station. So we’re making low cost radiation hardened redeployable structures which are going to be critical for all space emissions in the future.

Using that development has led us to working with companies like Red Wire and big deployable space systems. We’ve gotten a lot of attention. And it was like, “We want to track this. Let us know how your phase two works out?” And so Rock explained to me what a Phase I, II, III, TACFI, STRATFI, all the acronyms. It was great. So thank you for that.

The second is you should always, being the real estate guy, you want to leverage your assets and align incentives for a one plus one equals four situation. So we just submitted a phase two for hypersonic weapons research. And I do this with every proposal. I use that as a way to outreach for commercialization for private companies. Like, “Hey, if we’re going to do this proposal, what would be of interest to you? And if it is of interest, would you actually have interest in supporting the effort at a minimum with a letter of support or actually diving in with us and showing us some of the materials you’ve used in the past and best practices?” So we got Beyond Gravity, one of the largest space structure manufacturers in the world to support our hypersonic phase two submission. So it’s really great.

And then the last I want to talk about a case study. We’re in the middle of a Phase II, we’re making a bulkhead. So the initial proposal was to make a metal mold and a 3D printed mold. So we have a proprietary mold technology and AFRL wanted to see a cost analysis and performance comparison. So the initial piece was we did cost analysis on the metal and 3D printing tool. The 3D printing tool is way too expensive. So I talked to my technical point of contact and I said, “What do we do with the rest of this contract? It would be pointless to do this 3D printed tool.”

So again, going back to that commercialization and reaching out to industry, I reached out to one of the defense primes who’s been down selected to potentially make this unmanned airframe. And I said, “We’ve got an opportunity to present value to the Air Force to compare two different style bulkheads and two different technologies. Would you have interest in supporting this through materials and testing and all that stuff?”

So it’s a win across the board for the AFRL. So they get to see different technologies. It’s a win for us because we get to demonstrate our technology with two different bulkheads and geometries. And it helps us get that customer buy in and support from a massive defense prime, letting us skip over that Valley of Death that you talked about, which is critical for small businesses. So, we got that first million, we all partied, we’re accelerated and it’s so important to get that commercialization pull through so you don’t get stuck in that Valley of Death.

Dave Harden:

Awesome. Well congrats on all your successes to date.

Trevor Smith:

Thanks.

Dave Harden:

And no, I mean I think the message is loud and clear. That’s about persistence. I think that’s why I would take away from your thought and persistence and then matchmaking. And this was kind of a good transition over to Rock because you kind of got referenced in Trevor’s answer there.

Trevor Smith:

Thanks again buddy.

Dave Harden:

Yeah, so nice lead in. It was a good tee up. So Rock, you’re out there, you’re trying to make this matchmaking happen for hundreds of millions of dollars, a bunch of companies. And so what are you seeing in terms of what companies need to think about to scale. You get in the door, you start getting some traction, What does that matchmaking look like? What does that scale up look like? Let’s talk about that a little bit.

Lt. Col. Walter MicMillan:

Right, so first step for the company is really to understand your value proposition, understand what problem you’re getting after. A lot of times when a company come to me, they jump right into the check. I had one company they were getting after space nuclear power and they’re like, “Are you nuclear engineer?” I’m like, “No.” So normally first tip for a company is when you approach a potential customer first, understand what their mission is and what potential challenges they have. If you start there, then you understand how you can possibly solve their problem. And if you don’t start with a strong problem statement, a strong value proposition, then you don’t have the foundation that’s needed to truly scale and transition your capability into the military architecture.

And then for my fellow Airmen and guardians out there, this is a portfolio where you can go and explore for solutions to some of your toughest problems. So if we’re paying companies, like Trevor said, we gave him his first millie. If we’re paying companies phase two contracts on average 750K, that 750k, that’s coming out of my pocket, criminal dealer’s pocket for you to explore solutions to some of your toughest problems. And then guess what? If you sign an MOA, that’s not money coming out of your unit again, it’s coming out of our portfolio. So this is really all of your portfolio to be able to come and explore for solutions, help these companies understand what their value propositions are, get after what some of your toughest problems are, and then explore what that solution will look like for you and your unit.

And then if you sign a let over support, trust me, you’re not going to be the one that’s getting called by the three star, it’s going to be me, “Rock, what are you doing on this SIBR?” And that’s fine, I’ll take the heat for it. But I want you all to realize that this portfolio is empowered for you all to really explore for solutions to some of your toughest problems. So when you have a small business startup that approaches you with a SIBR Phase I, have that conversation with them. Later on today when you make your way down to the exhibit hall and you see a startup, small business with cool technology that you want to get after, it’s as easy as telling that small business, “Look for the next SBIR open topic and apply to that SBIR open topic and I’ll meet you on the other side.”

So it’s just that simple to get after some of your toughest challenges. And I’ve seen it plenty of times as referenced by Trevor so I don’t have to be the one taking all of the meetings with the startup small businesses. This portfolio is really for all of us to explore for solutions to our toughest problems.

Dave Harden:

Awesome Rock. Thank you. So try to maybe just summarize what you said and I think you threw out a gauntlet. I think you said everyone in this room can be an innovator. Everyone in this room’s challenged to be an innovator because there’s great programs. You run a great program. Colonel Diller has run great program. So if you have a problem but you don’t have budget, bring it through Spark, bring it through SpaceWERX, bring through AFWERX. Everyone here should not be frustrated in your day to day job. That’s what I got from your message. Thanks man, that was awesome.

So as we all know, I think Anduril’s probably like the poster child for the non Boeing Lockheed kind of story. So if you get any press clip, Anduril’s hit this ceiling, they want to get into the big contracts, they’re trying to scale up, trying to make it happen. And so we see that conversation a lot played out in the media. And so I think as businesses get going, they’re scaling up that maybe they get over that initial hump, get that Phase II, maybe get a few more million dollars. What do the big contracts look like? How do you get make a big capability impact for the Air Force and for the nation?

So can you maybe give some words, I think, since you’ve been through that experience Diem, can you really talk to maybe some tips for the crowd on how do you scale up? You’ve been through that roll up your sleeve sausage making, how do we make it happen? How do we scale up? How do we make it happen?

Diem Salmon:

Absolutely. And sum it up, it’s really, really hard and it takes years and years of work. So what happens when you’ve won your SIBR Phase II and you have around $750,000 and you have a good idea. And that’s when the actual work starts. Because at that point there’s really two key things. It’s one, you need to have a transition partner and you have to have a very dedicated transition partner that believes in you. Who not only knows the things that you’re working on, whether that’s in SIBR or at AFWERX, SpaceWERX or any other kind of the DIU innovation type efforts. But they need to believe in the technology that you’re building and that it’s actually going to help them as the end user.

And that transition partner actually very much needs to be willing to pull you through all of the knot holes that’s required to actually get to the point that scales. And this is a very long process. This is a two to three year process. One of the worst things that a startup can hear is, “I love it, I love your technology. I’m going to palm for it.” And then you’re waiting for two to three years, maybe the money will come and you have no idea where your company’s actually going to be at that point.So the only way this works though, the only way to transition is you just need to get ahead of it. And so you need to start that transition process the moment you start any kind of, as soon as you get a toll hold, basically.

And then the second piece is, especially for startups, when you get to the larger programs, the department is typically going to favor known mediocre performance over completely unknown. And so what do you do over those two years, those three years that you’re waiting for that RFP or for that program to start? It’s just you have to prove your capability. You should be going out there, you should be demonstrating constantly. You should be trying to get in field experience and proving that your technology actually works and in many ways getting ahead of your competitors. By that time that RFP drops, you should have been working with the transition partner already and they should have complete belief that the technology that you’re proposing actually works. Because you’re just not going to be given as much of a, well, you’re not going to be given any benefit of the doubt.

This is exactly what we did on Counter-UAS. We started with a very small DIU shoot-off. It was, show up the range, see if you can intercept small drones. We did very well. That’s when we started building relationships with SOCOM and matured that over the next two years. We did combat validations, we worked very closely with them on understanding what their actual needs were, how to actually build out the capabilities that they would need in the field. And after all of that work, two years later, that’s when we actually got the SOCOM SIP award, which was about $1 billion.

Dave Harden:

Awesome. Great insights. Make sure you come up and get more answers because Diem is someone who’s been through the ringer and understands the business. And so super, super helpful. Thank you. And the beautiful thing is AFWERX has tried to put together some transition programs. Many of you’ve heard of the strategic matching program within AF Ventures, so it’s kind of a TACFI, STRATFI Trevor alluded to that earlier. How do you transition? And there’s been some big wins but there’s been some hold back too. And I think sometimes a lot of the clients we talk to, the companies that we’re trying to help in this dual use tech space, they wind up trying to figure out, “How do I balance this commercial market?” My investors are kind of like, “Hey, I got to get my ROI. You got to get some return, we got to get some revenue. We got to get the projects going, I need some momentum.”

And at the same time the defenses might be like, “Hey, I really like your stuff. Let’s talk in two years when I can get you some scratch.” So it’s this weird dynamic that happens. Super frustrating sometimes for companies and businesses. So Nate, this question is really for you. You’ve had an amazing experience. You’ve been building out this great and continuing the journey AFWERX. So super proud what we see and the impact that you’ve made. Tell us how you can get some tips and tricks out there for folks to think about, “How do I balance this commercial thing but also align these needs that I have that are coming from real war fighter needs in the Air Force?”

Col. Nathan P. Diller:

Yeah, absolutely. Dave, first, huge thanks to you, the founders of AFWERX for creating this tool. Guys like you, guys like Glass Gordon in the trenches at the beginning, the frozen middle layer that was not frozen, the notch or two above that really allowed us to launch. And most importantly, huge thanks to our Airmen and our guardians who’ve been out there and created new concepts to bring in these new technologies. Because as was discussed earlier this morning, it’s not just the technologies. And so what are a couple of tips? Well one, I think if we have been successful in AFWERX, it’s because we have created these teams, right? Teams of teams across a multitude of different stakeholders, in particular as you’re seeing that merger.

So tip one is if you’re a company that’s out there, great, really go look for that feedback from those Airmen and those guardians out there. Because what we’ve found is that while we certainly bring money forward, maybe the most useful thing in many instances is the great ideas of our Airmen and guardians who not only unlock a military use case that may be unconsidered, but in many instances start to unlock some of those commercial use cases. So listening to them, fighting for those opportunities to engage with what truly is the core of our innovation engine in the department of the Air Force with those Airmen guardians.

The second tip I would recommend is provide feedback. As you look at AFWERX, if you look at the evolution, Dave, since you were here, we do not see ourselves as a static institution. And so we saw kind of the AFWERX 1.0 that opened up culture in a different way that we are looking at problem, a level of humility that there are great ideas out there if we change our structures a little bit. AFWERX’s 2.0 was then really, “How do we go and implement these tools, $1 billion of funds and get it out to the right people at the right time at the right scale with a level of rigor that’s expected for using taxpayer dollars?”

As we start to evolve then, into this AFWERX 3.0, we’re looking to wait feedback that we’ve had. We’ve talk clearly about the Valley of Death. We talk about what are those other emergent technologies that are out there that we could really launch? And so a couple of specific examples where that feedback loop closely between the innovators inside and outside the Air Force, a couple of new initiatives that we’re launching. The first is Autonomy. Obviously we’ve seen some great effects that in Autonomy, again, both inside and outside the Air Force, we cannot afford to lose commercially this race for autonomy or militarily. And so today we’re launching our Autonomy Prime Effort in the same spirit of our Agility Prime, our Orbital Prime Efforts that really create now this conversation and a way to be more deliberate about bridging the Valley of Death.

The second initiative is this AFWERX Nexus approach. Again, in an AFWERX 2.0, what we’ve seen is some amazing tools. We’ve talked about STRATFI, talked about the open topic, talked about obviously some of the specific approaches, the Prime programs that have been out there, the AFWERX challenge. What we’re now able to do is bring those together in a coherent way. A couple years ago, the Air Force corporate process, right, again, if I’m not sounding very innovative, I forgot my flip flops and t-shirt today. This whole effort was seen as innovation theater.

Today it’s seen very much as a core part of our Air Force corporate process to bring in talent that exists outside of our traditional channels and to bring in actually capital. That we believe there’s a path where if effectively executed, we can increase the effective toe-up for the department of the Air Force by multiple percentage points, leveraging the amazing capital out there, and building this larger team across industry, across our Airmen that really gets to a whole nation approach to attack the problems that we’ve had. So huge thanks to you Dave, and really excited to continue that feedback loop to try to institutionalize, that’s a naughty word in an innovation board, but to get rid of some of those pain points that we’ve seen as we start to move forward in this innovation process.

Dave Harden:

Awesome. Thank you Nate, you got a couple big announcements too. You want to hit them?

Col. Nathan P. Diller:

Number one, Autonomy Prime. Go out to our webpage today, AFWERX.com. And this other one is this AFWERX Nexus program where that bridge across the Valley of Death, those events that AFWERX challenging program did amazing things in terms of really bringing together and curating the problem, bringing folks together. What it was potentially missing that led to multiple calls from across the river and from CEOs is, “What’s that follow through? How do I take this from cool innovation theater to, hey, here’s real contract.” And scaling that relationship that we’re going to continue to put out 1000s of contracts at the 1000 a year of Phase I contracts. We’re going to go make 300 companies, $1 million companies in a year through the phase two and we’re going to go pick the handful of those that are those STRATFIs.

But most importantly, the beginning of that process, as you heard General Brown say today, making a decision that, “Hey, we are going to invest in autonomy. We’re going to invest in these next generation technologies where there is,” we’re not going to go build the next Stealth aircraft most likely in AFWERX, right? But when we look at those technologies that are out there that have this dual use capability, this becomes now the form to bring those in and move across that Valley of Death in ways we haven’t before.

Dave Harden:

Super helpful. Awesome. Well we like to keep this stuff interactive. We got to hear from amazing panelists, but we want to hear from you all too. So I can ask some more questions of the panel, but it’d be great to hear what’s on your mind if we don’t have someone going around with a mic, shout it out. I’ll bring the mic to you. We’ll figure it out. But let’s have a convo. So we got a mic over there. Someone’s got to have some question on their mind. Well, we’re going this way. Let’s go. Keeping it moving.

Lt. Col. Sarah Forton:

Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Forton, tech commander of the OSS at Fort Bragg. Listening to this all pan out in the Air Force WERX. I’m actually new to this. I’m here because of my Spark sale. Draco Spark sale team has invited me to see what they’re doing and it’s fantastic. And I hear about all these awards of contracts and several million dollars. So my question is essentially awarding startup contracts, what are the safety nets in place to hold these contractors accountable along the way?

Dave Harden:

Okay, awesome. We’ll get to the heart of it. Hey, we put this contract out there. Some of it’s to see if we can work things out, but we want to make sure that certain things are being held to a standard. Panel?

Col. Nathan P. Diller:

So the big thing is we’re not going to go drop a $30 million contract. These are companies in many instances have never worked with the federal government before. In fact, we’ve been told by some CEOs they had to hide from their board of directors because of the horrors they had heard of SIBRs before. And so part of it starts with those initial $50,000 contracts. Are they delivering something? And then we’re scaling that relationship and we are really counting on those technical points of contact to make sure that there’s rigor in those deliverables. The other piece that we’re going to do that comes in this AFWERX 3.0 model is under Spark, we’ve seen a lot of the bottoms up innovation. As we start to take some of these top down innovation efforts that come through our primes really being deliberate about curating the DOTMLPF-P so that when it goes back out to the wings, there’s this iterative process to keep the contractor.

We’re not expecting someone who’s never worked in government before to immediately hack the system. And so through this grown relationship, we have a path with Spark that now actually Spark is curating that problem. We’re not imposing an innovation tax on the wings, but rather we are creating that relationship early to build out, “What is the doctrine, how are we going to use this, what is the policy that can be used?” And as we’re checking each of those pieces, the training pieces, can that contractor actually deliver over this kind of two year cycle? That ideally within a year we can take a company. And we’ve done this in many instances of $50,000 to $50 million in a year. So it is a piece of learning that keeps us relevant in industry and it keeps us relevant strategically against the adversary that we’re there to meet.

Dave Harden:

And I think the more we can add processes to bolster that up, we can look at other things like foreign influencer companies, et cetera, cetera. So I think there’s some well-documented stuff and when you go fast, things fall through the cracks. But my sense is that we can continue to shore that up as an air force here moving forward. I saw lots of other hands going up. Let’s try to get as many questions as we can. You get to run with the mic now instead of me, so that’s good.

Jade Baransk:

Thank you so much to the panel. My name is Jade Baranksi, I’m the CEO of Vision, one of those SIBR companies. Very happy to be here. And I have a question, I don’t exactly know who it’s best for. So I’m just curious about your thoughts on transitioning from the Air Force, which we’ve already done, right? We’re in a couple other branches. But any tips or tricks on how to have that conversation? Specifically what you spoke to ma’am about those transition partners? Because as soon as you go talk to the Navy, they’re like, “We do things differently.” Which is great, but now we’ve never worked with them. So just really curious about any thoughts on that.

Lt. Col. Walter MicMillan:

So if you have a product that’s great for not just the Air Force but the Navy as well and it’s at a point where it can scale. Normally what I tell companies is our STRATFI program and our TACFI program, we don’t discriminate by the dollars that’s coming through that pipeline. So if it’s Air Force dollars, if it’s Navy dollars, that’s a good program for multiple services to converge upon scaling a product and understanding what a scale product for the department looks like. So, that’s one piece.

So yeah, if you’re at that point where you’re at the end of a SBIR Phase II, the Navy’s interested. I have a couple of Space Force companies like that right now where they’re at a STRATFI, the IC community is interested. The IC community is contributing funding to that STRATFI so it’s not a total Air Force bill. So, that’s one convergence point that you can look into.

Diem Salmon:

Yeah, I would just add that, yes, they’re very different. The Navy’s different. The Army’s even more different. And sometimes you feel like you’re just going to build the same thing three times over. But especially in some of the more innovative technology areas, I’ll use Autonomy as an example. It’s actually a pretty small community and they all talk to each other. So if you can find a way to break into that group and you can have those conversations with all of those folks, they’re sharing ideas, they’re paying attention to what they’re each other are doing and they’re using that to compare notes. And so it’s never going to be one for one. It’s going to be a little bit unique, but for the most part I think, especially if you can get into one service, it will really help you move into others just because there’s a little bit more of that validation occurring.

Dave Harden:

Great inputs, appreciate it. Even greater questions and love it coming from the audience. Who’s up next? We’ll go up front.

Robie Samanta Roy:

All right, thank you Dave. Good morning, Robie Samanta Roy with a company Electra.aero, that is funded by Agility Prime. Question I have for the panel is one of the big elephants in the room right now. And Diem, I’m giving you a past experience. SBIR reauthorization, this is a big elephant in the room that’s going to hold up funding for the next cycle. Any thoughts and comments on where we stand and the way going forward?

Col. Nathan P. Diller:

So I’ve had the great opportunity to brief staffers on a regular basis for several months now. I think there is progress being made. Certainly, I think it’s been some appreciation for things that we’ve really pushed in particular in AFWERX, things like due diligence, things like building out a team of operators, acquirers, and that war fighter right at the beginning that helps accelerate the transition across the Valley of Death.

Obviously for others to decide. I think there’s also been a little bit follow up to the previous question Naval X recently, they’re looking at taking the SIBR budget and putting that under Naval X. So you’re seeing kind of a multiplication across the services and a collaboration across agencies to create a little more common model that’s create data sharing. And so I think that’s given some confidence in areas where maybe there was some concern about reauthorization. But you probably know better than I do, Trevor.

Trevor Smith:

And I’ll speak to that from a very small business, it’s the lifeblood for especially a material science manufacturing company to get off the ground, we have a lot of expensive assets to put into place. So this is critical for us to get that commercialization interest and that flywheel has to start somewhere. And the SIBR and STTR programs have allowed us to do that. But I’ve told our team, we’re not going to keep doing Phase IIs and Phase Is. We need to drive in and get into commercialization and ultimately not rely on that program at all because it’s baby formula. And if you want to grow your company, you have to start eating meat and potatoes.

So the program is designed to help companies grow out of that and get over the Valley of Death. I use the baby formula because I’m going to have a kid in about a day. But from my viewpoint, that’s how it should be viewed. We’re all in the same team here. We shouldn’t be taking advantage of the program from a small business perspective. And you should really drill into what’s getting traction within the Air and Space Force or whatever branch it is.

Dave Harden:

Awesome, thanks. The art of the startup is really about businesses and the DOD kind of coming together. And everyone in here, each of you has a chance to be an innovation superhero. If you have a problem in your workplace, a challenge. If you’re an Airman or Guardian, bring it up, fight for it, search for solution, connect with other people. If you’re a small business and you’re agile, you’re innovative, fight to bring your good works, your good team to our nation because we need it. We need it at this time in history more than any time in history. And I know for myself, I do not want my grandchildren speaking Chinese, not by choice, Russian not by choice. And so my plea for us is to band together to continue to solve problems and to kind of find the innovation superhero within each of us. That’s my challenge to you.

It’s been a great honor today to be part of this panel, to be able to moderate it, but more importantly, to have far more smarter people than myself. So if we could put our hands together, Trevor, Rock, Diem, Nate, thank you so much. Thank you to the great staff supporting this. AFA and all of you that came out today have a great rest of the conference. It was an honor to be with you today. See you.