Pentagon Acquisition Czar ‘Hoping’ F-35 Deliveries Will Resume Soon

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Pentagon acquisition boss William LaPlante is optimistic that the pause in new F-35 fighter deliveries will not drag on for long—but the problem does highlight a “constant” issue with the supply chain, he told reporters Sept. 9.

The halt in deliveries, announced Sept. 7, came after Honeywell, a subcontractor for the F-35, informed Lockheed Martin that an alloy in a magnet in the jet’s turbomachine came from China.

LaPlante said the U.S. Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement mandates the pause until an investigation is completed.

“They’re moving pretty quickly,” LaPlante said of the investigation. “They’re looking at two things … impact on security, if any, and impact on airworthiness or safety, if any. Right now, so far, it doesn’t appear to be either of them, but I’m waiting for them to finish what they’re looking at and come to me. It’s likely, if in fact we find neither of those to be the case, we’ll be able to do a waiver and do the replacements and get the production line moving again. So I’m hoping this can be resolved pretty soon.”

Both Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office have said the magnet doesn’t transmit any information. It also doesn’t “harm the integrity of the aircraft, and there are no performance, quality, safety, or security risks associated with this issue,” according to a statement from JPO spokesman Russell Goemaere.

Goemaere also confirmed that flight operations for already delivered F-35s aren’t affected by the alloy issue, even though every F-35 delivered to date contains the Chinese material.

The Air Force became the first service to accept a production model F-35 in 2011, indicating the alloy issue dates back more than a decade—and that controlling the supply chain remains a challenge for the Pentagon and the defense industrial base, LaPlante said.

“I think there’s a bigger picture here, [on] which there is ongoing study a lot, which is called supply chain illumination. And that is the understanding of primes’ suppliers, of what is even in their supply chain,” LaPlante said.

Such a task is complicated by the fact that major defense contractors rely on massive, sprawling webs of suppliers—a recent DOD report cited an average of 200 “first tier” suppliers for American aerospace companies, with more than 12,000 suppliers in the second and third tier. The alloy provider was a fifth-tier supplier.

And even the contractors themselves don’t always have a full sense of all their suppliers.

“I had a CEO of a company tell me about two weeks ago that he thought he had 300 suppliers [and] he discovered, when he counted all of his suppliers, he probably had 3,000 suppliers,” LaPlante said. “And suppliers can change overnight. And so what this is becoming, and it’s been recognized for some time, [is] almost a real-time issue of tracking and making sure that there’s integrity in your supply chain.”

In fact, LaPlante said, “any company that says they know their supply chain is like a company saying they’ve never been hacked.”

Moving forward, though, the Pentagon hopes to leverage new technologies to work with contractors and help track their supply chains.

“The good news is there are tools coming out, using artificial intelligence and open source, that can dive in and maybe find some of these things,” LaPlante said. “But I think it’s going to be a constant issue for us, is understanding our supply chain.”

Turning the ABMS Strategy into a Reality

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Elaine Bitonti

The need to enable Joint All Domain Operations (JADO) to keep ahead of the adversary threat has been well-documented and studied, as has the Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) infrastructure needed to enable JADO. The Department of Defense’s focus is now on the transition from concept and planning to implementation and capability delivery. Industry has been working aspects of the problem with each of the individual services and brings a unique perspective on how to combine existing and new capabilities to solve the joint service gaps.

The recently released ABMS Digital Infrastructure Strategy provides insight into the USAF’s approach to build up the backbone of JADC2. This vision for a cloud-based battle management infrastructure providing secure and resilient data sharing from strategic centers to the tactical edge is supported by the core capabilities of connectivity, secure processing, and data management.

There are two major challenges to realizing the JADC2 vision. The first is finding ways to utilize existing assets in future solutions, and second is determining how best to apply the commercial cloud to military environments. Collins Aerospace is focused on addressing both challenges at the tactical edge.

By adapting and connecting current platforms, the USAF may be able to accelerate its timeline for adopting both ABMS and JADC2. Current connectivity solutions are comprised of various existing, purpose-built networks that aren’t easily connected, have limited data rates, and suffer from intermittent connectivity in contested environments. Finding ways to utilize and connect these disparate systems by creating a “network of networks” so each branch can talk to the others using intelligent gateways will accelerate integration and ensure those connections happen throughout the Joint Services and with Coalition Forces.

Over the past year, Collins has demonstrated connectivity and intelligent gateway solutions that integrate multiple existing airborne and ground networks used by the joint forces and coalition partners, including the USAF, U.S. Navy and Army, and the Marine Corps. We demonstrated these capabilities using modular open system architecture solutions, developed in partnership with the Air Force customer on programs like the Software Programmable Open Mission Systems Compliant (SPOC) program.

The second major challenge in realizing the JADC2 vision is addressing the unique processing requirements for operating in tactical environments. Today’s commercial infrastructure is built on large, fixed data centers, fixed networks, and 5G towers. Unfortunately, many of these do not exist in or are not functional in contested environments. Collins Aerospace has been militarizing these capabilities all the way to the tactical edge to provide secure processing capabilities that enable multi-level security access to the power of the cloud for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Once individual systems are connected, the data flowing back and forth is often at different security levels due to differing classifications. Ensuring that cross-domain solutions can resolve differences between and among both Joint and Coalition forces is another critical consideration. We not only connect these systems; we ensure they’re secure.

For example, Collins has already proven that existing assets and capabilities can be connected and remain secure via a recent demonstration conducted with our academic partner – the University of Iowa Operator Performance Labs. In this latest demo, intelligent edge applications that can autonomously find, fix, and engage a target using multi-service sensor integration was added to previously showcased intelligent gateway capabilities in support of the U.S. Army’s Project Convergence.

Delivering these integrated capabilities on the timeline needed to pace the threat requires adopting commercial Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approaches delivering a capability to the user and rapidly iterating new features. Our experimentation and demonstration activities span different operational use cases and joint services focus areas. While working with the Utah Air National Guard, for example, Collins demonstrated the ability of the KC-135 platform to be an intelligent gateway and interoperate with Air Force, Army and Navy networks. The demonstration was based on highly mature capabilities that could be quickly integrated into the platform via already planned technology insertions to deliver joint force connectivity.

These demonstrations – conducted under different operational scenarios – show that enabling JADC2 can be addressed incrementally. This allows combatant commanders to benefit from operationally relevant, leave-behind capability while building out solutions that will successfully enable cloud operations at the tactical edge. We’re ready to support the ongoing efforts that will turn ABMS from concept to reality for the benefit of our warfighters.

Learn More

Elaine Bitonti is the vice president of JADC2 Demonstration and Experimentation for Collins Aerospace.

AFSOC Commander Is on a ‘Jihad’ Against Centralization. Here’s Why

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife extolled the benefits of the service’s new force generation and deployment model when it comes to explaining and managing risk for AFSOC—and warned against the dangers of centralization for the same reason.

Speaking at an AFA Warfighters in Action event Sept. 7, Slife argued that risk is often a forgotten element in the balancing act between mission requirements and resources.

“If you tell me, ‘Hey, Jim, I need you to do more mission with no more resources,’ I can do that. It just comes with increased risk, right?” Slife said. “Or if you tell me, ‘You’re taking too much risk. I need you to reduce the level of risk you’re taking,’ I can do that. It either means I do less mission or I need more resources. So I mean, there’s a three-way relationship here, and what we have to be better at is articulating risk in ways that are understandable to people outside the bubble of the Air and Space Forces.”

Force Generation

That challenge of articulating risk is of particular importance when it comes to deployments, Slife said.

The Air Force has implemented a new force generation model in recent years centered on four six-month cycles—“available to commit,” “reset,” “prepare,” and “ready.” After years of heavy deployment tempos in the Middle East, the new model gives Airmen and their families more predictability, leaders said.

But the system isn’t just better for the average Airman, Slife said. It’s also useful for commanders who want to look after their people while getting the mission done.

There’s tension between mission risk and resources.

“When I was an ops group commander, we were kind of in the … ‘more ISR, more ISR, more ISR’ business, and we had a couple of squadrons of MQ-1s and MQ-9s. And the question was always, ‘Hey, can you fly one more combat line for us?’ Slife said. “And how do you answer that question? I actually have a crew here that’s available. And I actually have an airplane that’s available, and I have a ground control station. And so, I mean, the answer is, ‘Yes, I can.’ But what I’m unable to communicate is the pressure on the force, right? I’m unable to communicate … the risk or the opportunity cost.”

With more clearly defined cycles, communicating those costs has become easier.

“We’ve been unable to talk about our capacity in a way that resonates with the Joint Force. It becomes too technical and complicated. And so when we migrated to a four-cycle force generation model, it allows us to have these conversations very unemotionally and very fact-based and allows us to articulate risk and capacity in a way that has really eluded us,” Slife said.

As an example, Slife cited last summer’s Afghanistan evacuation. As Kabul fell to the Taliban and the U.S. raced to evacuate Americans and threatened Afghans, Pentagon and U.S. Central Command leaders turned to AFSOC to provide AC-130J gunships to protect the forces and the aircraft flying in and out.

Using the force generation model, Slife explained that he could surge capacity, but that it would change the deployment cycles for Airmen and have effects on their schedules down the line. Leaders agreed to accept those effects.

“So we sent some more gunships to Afghanistan last summer. Two of those crews won the Mackay Trophy last year, did fantastic work,” Slife said. “But the key thing is, in October of last year, for the first time in 20 years, there were no gunships in CENTCOM.”

‘Jihad’ on Centralization

Mission requirements aren’t the only drivers of risk, though. A lack of resources can also cause issues, and Slife has no interest in trying to hide those gaps.

“I’m really on a kind of a jihad here against centralization inside of AFSOC—one of the evils of centralization is it masks your shortages,” Slife said.

When the Air Force or major commands consolidate all of one capability into one unit, it may seem that there is enough capacity to go around, Slife said. But when “maximum effort and deploying” are required, the shortfall becomes clear.

Instead of organizing units around capabilities, Slife wants to organize around mission sets, which “[highlights] the shortages we have,” he said.

In particular, Slife highlighted tactical communications equipment as an area where AFSOC needs to spend more.

“While we have had enough to operate out of fixed bases, where there’s already infrastructure in place, and all you’ve got to do is plug in, all the equipment’s already there, that’s not what the future environment looks like,” Slife said. “And so what we’re realizing is we’ve got some significant investments that we need to make in tactical communications, and I would tell you kind of the key area that we’re looking for there is software-defined capabilities.”

Slife’s focus on communications outside of fixed bases is in line with the Air Force’s embrace of agile combat employment, the operating concept whereby small teams of Airmen operate in remote or austere environments and move quickly.

Indeed, AFSOC has combined the concepts of ACE with mission-oriented units in its Mission Sustainment Teams, groups of Airmen with different speciality codes who can support themselves and other units anywhere in the field.

The MSTs have quickly become “in demand across our force,” Slife said. “Everybody wants to deploy with their own mission sustainment team. It’s pretty interesting.”

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Tech. Sgt. Jennifer G. Thomas

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 19 to 21 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each weekday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Tech. Sgt. Jennifer G. Thomas, the vehicle deployment manager for the 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

Thomas’ VSCO squadron at Langley-Eustis is the headquarters for her career field. When Air Force vehicles are needed to support an operation—particularly one on a humanitarian scale—her unit is the first call. So when the news first surfaced that thousands of Afghan evacuees were arriving in the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome, Thomas knew she needed to get involved promptly.

“When I heard what was going on, I reached out to my supervision leadership to see what I could do to help,” she said. “We needed to find out quickly what the requirements were.”

That rapid response and eagerness would be crucial in supporting and transporting 15,000 Afghan evacuees who were already en route to the U.S. The scope of the mission and its asset requirements came in last-minute, so Thomas had very little time to assemble a vehicle package that could support such a large number of evacuees.

By contacting fleet managers at bases around the country, Thomas developed a 57-vehicle package comprising buses, fire trucks, tractors, and trailers.

“Within a week, we were able to gather [about] half of the requirements,” she said. “A lot of the vehicles came from across the country, from Texas and California.”

Operation Allies Welcome wouldn’t be the first time Thomas’ expertise would prove imperative to a humanitarian effort. In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security reached out to Thomas’ squadron to help support 3,000 Haitian evacuees who were trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. They needed a place to stay, with less than 48 hours to make it happen.

“We were able to house them at Laughlin Air Force Base,” Thomas said, after securing and deploying assets to the border in less than 24 hours.

Thomas’ acumen within her unit is not only saving lives, but also making humanitarian efforts more efficient across the Air Force. She led Air Forces Central Command’s mission drawdown by redistributing 680 vehicles throughout 18 locations, ultimately saving $35 million in acquisition costs.

She credits her daily motivation to her husband, her unit, and the wing 5/6 for which she is the Vice President. The 5/6 takes care of Airmen at Langley by way of organizing events, game nights, and concerts as well as remodeling recreational rooms. The members also recognize their fellow Airmen for outstanding performance with a “Strive for Five” award.

Thomas is also the group Combined Federal Campaign representative and the squadron booster club president, overseeing 12 committees. She has coordinated 27 volunteer events for her units in her personal time that have raised $121,000 and led her unit to win the Volunteer Unit of the Year Award.

Thomas said helping people isn’t so much a choice as it is part of her nature—it’s just something she’s always loved doing.

“I think I get it from my mom and my dad,” she said. “I don’t know. It just makes me feel good.”

Indeed, taking care of others is Thomas’ M.O.—especially others in her unit, because her unit has taken care of her, too. She said they are what truly what make any of her success possible to begin with.

“I want to thank my unit,” Thomas said. “Last year was a challenging year for me and my family. My unit gave me a family-like environment. They took care of us from the very beginning.”

Meet the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year in 2022 below:    

Austin Cites ‘Long Haul’ Support for Ukraine, Growth of Defense Industrial Bases

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Senior U.S. officials emphasized the long-term security of Ukraine and other European allies Sept. 8, announcing a new $2.2 billion aid package and plans to bolster their respective defense industrial bases.

The Department of Defense also announced another $675 million drawdown of security assistance for Ukraine, including more artillery, munitions, and High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs) for the fight against Russia.

That drawdown, the 20th authorized by President Joe Biden’s administration, brings the total security assistance authorized since Russia’s invasion began at around $14.5 billion. The full list of equipment and weapons in the package include:

Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
Four 105mm Howitzers and 36,000 105mm artillery rounds
Additional High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM)
100 Armored High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV)
1.5 million rounds of small arms ammunition
More than 5,000 anti-armor systems
1,000 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems
Additional grenade launchers and small arms
50 armored medical treatment vehicles
Night vision devices and other field equipment.

The bigger chunk of funds allocated Sept. 8, however, came when the State Department announced it will make $2.2 billion available for long-term investments under Foreign Military Financing—roughly half for Ukraine and half for 18 other nations in the region.

Those countries—Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia—include “many of our NATO Allies, as well as other regional security partners potentially at risk of future Russian aggression,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a statement.

At the same time, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley traveled to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, where they met with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 countries. In the group’s fifth meeting, the emphasis was on supporting Ukraine “over the long haul,” Austin said in a press briefing.

Six months after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, many countries “continue to dig deep and provide equipment out of their own military stocks,” Austin noted. In particular, Austin praised the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia for “reinvigorating their industrial bases to meet Ukraine self defense needs.”

But with more than a dozen other countries also slated to get long-term investments and other European nations looking to ramp up their defense spending as well, Austin said planning is underway to coordinate how different countries’ defense industrial bases can work together.

“In the next few weeks in coordination with NATO, the United States will host a special session under the auspices of this contact group to bring together our senior national armaments directors, and they will discuss how our defense industrial bases can best equip Ukraine’s future forces with the capabilities that they need,” he said.

Not only will Ukraine’s future needs be considered, Austin added. Members of the Contact Group want to ensure their own stockpiles remain robust as they support Ukraine. For the U.S., in particular, senior leaders have insisted for months the aid given to Ukraine won’t deplete the Pentagon’s stockpiles. A recent report from the Wall Street Journal, however, indicated there is some concern within DOD about the levels of some munitions.

“We all believe that working together, we can better streamline things—we can shorten acquisition times, perhaps work on supply chain issues, learn from each other,” Austin said of the Contact Group.

And not only will Ukraine benefit from that cooperation and increased investment, Austin argued—“NATO writ large” will benefit if leaders can increase interoperability down to the industrial base level, he said.

While the focus of the contact group meeting was on Ukraine’s long-term future, the conflict continues to grind. Recently, the Ukrainians launched a counter-offensive meant to push Russia out of occupied territory in the east and south of the country, Milley confirmed.

That counter-offensive’s movement has been slow but steady, according to observers, and Milley pushed back when a reporter asked if progress has been modest or moderate.

“I would characterize it as a very deliberate offensive operation that is calibrated to set conditions and then seize their objectives,” Milley said. “We think at this point that their progress—you mentioned the word modest or moderate—their progress is steady, and it’s deliberate.”

AFRL Test Proves New Method of Air Base Defense With NASAMS Canister

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

An experiment for the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Office resulted in three different missile types being fired from one open-architecture National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System.

The “layered” test showed how the existing NASAMS system could defend air bases against cruise missiles at varying distances. Raytheon Missile & Defense announced the results of the test Sept. 7, when company officials took questions on a call with reporters.

The AFRL wanted to evaluate “low-cost, high technology readiness level capabilities that could provide near-term air base air defense capability,” said Jim Simonds, the lab’s program manager for the experiment, in a statement. The test came together in only 10 months. Simonds concluded that the “layered defense solution could provide immediate defensive capability.”

The test incorporated the AIM-9X Sidewinder as its shortest-range option; the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) for the mid range; and the AMRAAM-Extended as the longest-range option.

The contract to completed the test predated the war in Ukraine and was unrelated, the official said. The U.S. had included eight NASAMS systems in its assistance to the country as of Sept. 8, according to a fact sheet.

Raytheon and its partner in building the NASAMS, the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, performed the test at Norway’s Andoya Air Station, north of the Arctic Circle.

An “explosion of threat capabilities in that medium-range threat set” has drawn customers to NASAMS to date, including rotary-wing aircraft, fixed-wing aircraft, cruise missiles, and uncrewed aerial systems, said Joe DeAntona, Raytheon’s vice president of requirements and capabilities for land warfare and air defense.

Twelve countries already use NASAMS, and “time and time again, regardless of whether we’re in Europe, the Middle East, or somewhere out there in [the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility], this solution marries itself up very nicely for the threats the those particular customers are facing,” DeAntona said.

Without disclosing the type or types of radars that detected the cruise missiles in the test, John Norman, Raytheon’s vice president of requirements and capabilities for air power, told reporters it proved that forces could “operate globally with a variety of sensors.” The system’s open architecture “allows us to bring in not just the current, existing sensors, but all future sensors and future [command and control].”

Receiving targeting information from Army radars, the two contractors and AFRL “first passed targeting information” to the Air Force’s already fielded Battle Space Command and Control Center—described as a “capability”—then “relayed key data” to a Kongsberg Fire Distribution Center (FDC) “for threat evaluation and weapon assignment,” according to Raytheon’s news release about the test. “The operator in the FDC used that information to close the kill chain by selecting and firing the most effective missile from the NASAMS multi-missile canister launcher.”

Norman described the significance of the test as providing “an operationally relevant example of how you use an open architecture system that exists today … to provide that medium-range defense against the cruise missile.”

Considering the problem from the Air Force’s perspective, it’s “got to be able to protect these airfields,” Norman said. “We can’t pick up and move them. We can disperse forces, and we can play that shell game to a point, but we truly have to have the ability to protect our bases because the supply chain will go through there.”

He framed the test as a modest success.

“It gives them a persistent capability,” Norman said. “I don’t think it’s the ultimate asset they’re going to look for, but I think it’s part of the total solution that they’re going to be looking for.”

AFGSC Launches Second Minuteman III Test in Three Weeks

Sept. 7, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Global Strike Command launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Sept. 7—its second test launch in three weeks.

The ICBM launched at 1:13 a.m. Pacific time with three test re-entry vehicles, according to an AFGSC release. The vehicles traveled some 4,200 miles before landing in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

That’s the same location where the previous test launch, which took place Aug. 16, landed.

This latest launch was overseen by the 576th Flight Test Squadron, stationed at Vandenberg, with support from Airmen from the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., and 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D. Space Force Col. Bryan Titus, vice commander of Space Launch Delta 30, was the launch decision authority.

“We have had a busy test schedule just in the past few months and I am in awe of the way our team has performed during each mission,” Col. Christopher Cruise, 576th Flight Test Squadron commander, said in a statement. “Today’s launch sends a visible message of assurance to our allies, and I couldn’t be more proud of the mission of continued deterrence this launch represents.”

The two tests come more than a year after the last publicly announced test launch in August 2021. Previously scheduled tests were either canceled or postponed by President Joe Biden’s administration in an effort to avoid potential miscommunication and escalation with Russia and China.

The first instance, in March, came in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Russian President Vladimir Putin raised tensions by putting his nuclear forces on high alert. The second, in early August, came as China launched military exercises around Taiwan in retaliation for Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), leading a Congressional delegation on a visit to the island.

AFGSC has repeatedly emphasized that any test launch “is not the result of current world events.” The command has conducted tests in quick succession before. In May 2019, AFGSC launched two Minuteman IIIs in the span of less tha n two weeks.

Video by Farrah Kaufmann, Space Launch Delta 30 Public Affairs

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Tech. Sgt. Alexander W. Messinger

Sept. 7, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 19 to 21 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each weekday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Tech. Sgt. Alexander W. Messinger, the noncommissioned officer in charge of standardization evaluation at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

Messinger’s guidance provided security validation in direct support of the President’s humanitarian border mission, ensuring that quick response capabilities (QRCs) and valid procedures were in place before the arrival of more than 1,000 migrant children from the U.S.-Mexico border to Lackland.

“Lackland is a beast because it has so many different mission sets,” said Messinger. “So anytime there’s [one of] these big humanitarian efforts … Lackland [needs to be ready] for it.”

And that’s exactly what Messinger’s responsibility is: ensuring readiness. Security validation and QRCs of this nature are only part of his role as NCO in charge of standardization evaluation at Lackland. He oversees program managers and makes sure their programs are in compliance with functional area inspection standards.

So while the base was preparing to house and relocate the migrants, he and his four-member quality assurance team were also racing to bring all of the programs up to code before a Vertical Inspection and Unit Effective Inspection—a process that usually involves 10 months of prep time before the inspection.

But Messinger’s team prepared the programs in a short two months, ultimately overseeing 396 evaluations and 829 field exercises for 462 military and civilian personnel. His unit passed the UEI while Messinger was managing 33 programs and 65 checklists, earning the squadron two “Highly Effective” ratings with zero discrepancies, five strengths, and 26 Professional Performers awards. He was selected as the unit’s sole Superior Performer and as the Air Force Security Forces Support Staff NCO of the Year.

“We’re lucky to get the team that we had,” Messinger said. “They’re just a bunch of go-getters and super hard workers. I just can’t thank my team enough for doing what they did to help.”

Messinger was also the only NCO selected for a Flight Commander training course, in which his leadership propelled his team to winning seven annual awards at various levels. He credits his section chief for giving him the opportunities along the way to evolve into a leader in his own right.

“One of the qualities I think a great leader has is that they know where to put their people to make them grow,” he said. “[My section chief] would always find ways for me to grow. I just hope that I can pay it forward and just follow him, take his mentorship, and provide it to others.”

Messinger also gave a callout to his wife of four years, a Blue Rope military training instructor who “holds everything together” for him while inspiring him to improve daily.

“I remember meeting her and her just picking me up and motivating me to do my best,” Messinger said. “I couldn’t do it without her.”

Meet the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year in 2022 below:   

DOD Stops Deliveries of New F-35s Over Material Sourced from China

Sept. 7, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Lockheed Martin said it is “developing mitigation plans” after the F-35 Joint Program Office announced Sept. 7 that it has stopped delivery of new fighters upon learning that a component relies on material from China.

The material in question is an alloy in a magnet in the F-35’s turbomachine. The turbomachine “integrates the functionality of an auxiliary power unit (APU) and an air cycle machine (ACM) into a single piece of equipment,” according to Lockheed Martin. “When the turbomachine acts as an APU (combusted mode), 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.”

Lockheed Martin said three F-35s are ready for delivery but on hold. Its spokesperson did not name the airplanes’ customers.

Sourcing the Chinese material is “potentially in non-compliance” with the U.S. Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement, according to a statement by the Defense Department’s F-35 Joint Program Office.

Honeywell, the turbomachine’s maker, notified Lockheed Martin that it had been “informed by their lube pump supplier for the turbomachine that one of their suppliers has been using alloy sourced from China in their magnets,” according to Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed Martin and the JPO said the magnet doesn’t transmit any information. It doesn’t “harm the integrity of the aircraft, and there are no performance, quality, safety, or security risks associated with this issue,” according to the JPO. The F-35s already in service will “continue as normal.”

The JPO said it “temporarily paused acceptance” of new F-35s after learning that the contractors had found a U.S. source to replace the Chinese alloy.

Lockheed Martin said it’s “doing everything possible to gather the facts” on the source of the material, and the JPO said “investigation is underway” into “causal factors … and to establish corrective action.”

The Defense Department’s use of Chinese materials for key technologies and acquisition programs has become an increasing source of concern and legislation in recent years. And in 2019, U.K. media outlets reported that a Chinese-owned company was making circuit boards for the F-35.