We’re Changing Our Name to Air & Space Forces Magazine

Sept. 2, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Air Force Magazine becomes Air & Space Forces Magazine with the release of our September issue.

The magazine’s digital address will change Sept. 8, when all the content will migrate to the new AirAndSpaceForces.com home page. All existing content and links will remain fully functional through this transition.

“Changing the title of a storied publication—and Association—is not something to be taken lightly,” said Air & Space Forces Magazine’s Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele in a news release announcing the change. “Changing a name that is even older than our Association itself, a publication created at the direction of Hap Arnold himself, meant turning a page. But just as flexibility is the key to air power, so it is in publishing, as well.”

Air Force Magazine launched as an official military publication in 1942, and ownership was transferred to the Air Force Association after its creation in 1946. At various times it also included a subtitle, making the publication Air Force Magazine and Space Digest.

AFA’s board of directors voted in March to change the association’s name to Air & Space Forces Association in an overt sign of its commitment to the Space Force as an equal component of the Armed Services and the Department of the Air Force. Changing the title of the magazine was a natural follow-on to that decision.

AFA President retired Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, who is also the magazine’s publisher, said the new title “reflects the new name of our storied Association and the reality that out of one Department of the Air force live two independent yet tightly linked military services. The breadth of that coverage is not new, but the name change makes that clearer to everyone. Seeing is believing, and we want our commitment to space to be right there for all to see.”

Lockheed Martin and USAF Stir the Secret Sauce of Innovation

Sept. 2, 2022 | By Christopher Prawdzik

Early morning, April 18, 1943. A formation of 16 P-38 Lightning aircraft cruises 50 feet above the Solomon Sea en route to a fixed point 400 miles northwest of Guadalcanal. Secrecy and detection avoidance demand complete radio silence and a roundabout route that adds 200 miles to the trip.

Operation Vengeance is underway. Its target: Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet.

Lockheed-built P-38s and their crews had a finite window of opportunity to intercept Yamamoto, who was traveling southeast at the end of a 315-mile leg from Rabaul to Bougainville in the South Pacific. Arriving precisely one minute ahead of plan, the four attack group pilots found and shot down Yamamoto’s transport bomber. It was a crucial morale builder as Allied forces continued their long journey toward Japan.

“It happened on the shoulders of giants, the men and women who built the planes and then operated them in the Army Air Corps,” said retired Air Force Gen. Gary North, vice president of customer requirements at Lockheed Martin. “You think about the P-38, the B-24—very successful in both theaters of operation. They helped lead us out of World War II and into the birth of our Air Force.”

Lockheed Aircraft Corporation was an early air power pioneer, part of an American industrial machine that ramped up wartime production on a scale unparalleled before or since. Lockheed’s ascendance as an exemplar of American aerospace ingenuity and, in the wake of its 1995 merger with Martin Marietta, to its position as the world’s preeminent supplier of advanced defense technology, from precision munitions and hypersonic missiles to radar-evading 5th Generation fighter aircraft.

Lockheed Martin’s collaboration with the Air Force evolved steadily over time as a closely integrated partnership, the result of a culture uniquely constructed to nurture the best innovators and rapidly adapt to changing threats and opportunities.

“You change things because the threat necessitates it, and we saw that in the Reagan years, which was the buildup that made us so successful in Desert Storm and beyond,” North said. “And then we saw an innovation of change in 9/11—these events, these shifting tectonic plates that forced you to be able to adapt at the speed of need.”

Foundational Relationship

Two months after Operation Vengeance, Lockheed experts were called in to the Army Tactical Service Command to help counter the growing threat from German jet fighters. Within a month, Lockheed engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson and his team conceived what would become the P-80 Shooting Star, the United States’ first operational jet. Without a contract in hand, Lockheed engineers began work with the goal of delivering their first prototype in 150 days. Johnson’s team did it in just 143.

Steeped in secrecy, the P-80 grew out of Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works® division. Even now, 85 percent of Skunk Works programs remain shrouded in secrecy, but its legacy is long and dazzling, including developments that led to the U-2, SR-71, F-117, F-22, F-35 and so much more.

Cold War Collaboration

Lockheed was on the forefront of a new era in which the U.S. found itself locked in a strategic competition and Cold War with the Soviet Union. Discretion and revolutionary design were essential to gain strategic advantage in the high-stakes competition playing out on the world stage.

“Coming out of World War II, leaders realized that the world was going to change in the strategic domain, particularly with the advent of the atomic age and nuclear weapons,” North said. “This generated some strategic thought.”

It was a natural fit for Lockheed and the Air Force, and they consistently worked together to leapfrog the international competition.

As the Cold War intensified, speed and performance were the focus, and Lockheed broke one barrier after another. Its X-7 ramjet test vehicle, which began development after World War II and continued into the 1950s, set records for air breathing flight, achieving speeds of more than 2,800 mph and reaching 106,000 feet in altitude. After scraping the edge of the atmosphere, Lockheed created its Missiles Division, now known as Lockheed Martin Space.

Lockheed’s three-stage X-17 solid-fuel rocket, developed in the 1950s, could achieve 9,000 mph, providing crucial data for better understanding the rigors of re-entering the atmosphere that helped shape the future of ICBM development.

Throughout the Cold War, the need to understand what adversaries were doing demanded its own technological advancements. Lockheed’s U-2 Dragon Lady flew so high—more than 70,000 feet—that it was believed to be beyond the reach of ground-based interceptors when it was introduced in 1955.

On Oct. 14, 1962, Maj. Richard Heyser completed a photo shoot exposing the establishment of Soviet nuclear missiles in San Cristobal, Cuba. The mission captured 928 photos that led to a showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union that put the two nations on the brink of nuclear war. Two weeks later, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, ending the Cuban missile crisis but proving the enduring value of irrefutable surveillance photography.

In the early 1960s, two schools of design thought emerged for dealing with adversary threats. One was fly fast at low level. That school produced the F-111, a deep strike aircraft that remained in the USAF inventory for three decades, from the Vietnam era to Operation Desert Storm, where it destroyed more targets and logged more missions than any other aircraft in the conflict.

The other design path was to fly high and go fast. Lockheed’s single-seat A-12 very high altitude reconnaissance aircraft reached Mach 3 in 1962, paving the way for the two-seat SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance jet, which had the advantage of extreme speed that the U-2 lacked.

The Blackbird exemplified the speed of the times, exceeding 2,000 mph. And it could sustain flight well above 80,000 feet. If detected, it could outrun any aircraft or missile that tried to catch it. After logging 53,490 hours—11,675 of those more than Mach 3—the SR-71 retired in 1998, concluding its 30-plus-year history with speed and altitude records that remain unchallenged to this day.

In 1990, an SR-71 left Los Angeles headed for retirement at Washington, D.C.’s Air and Space Museum. Along the way, the aircraft set four speed records, including making the transnational flight of 2,299 miles in just 64 minutes, 20 seconds—an average of 2,144.8 mph.

But again the threat advanced and something completely different was required. “Most people don’t know this, but the SR-71 was generally recognized as the first marginally stealth airplane, because some parts of the platform had nascent technology and coatings on it,” North said.

The next phase of stealth had little similarity to the long, sleek, and powerful SR-71’s iconic design. Lockheed’s F-117 Nighthawk was a Skunk Works special, drawing from numerous other aircraft and featuring a stunningly unique design with angled facets and an otherworldly look.

Science magazines hinted at stealth, but little was known about the aircraft. The Nighthawk’s combat debut came in Operation Just Cause over Panama in 1989, with a curtain call in which it provided the opening fireworks for Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Lockheed Martin took stealth to a new level with the development of the F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter and, later, the multi-role, multi-national F-35 Lightning II.

Timeless Innovation

Lockheed wasn’t all about speed and stealth, however. Its C-130 Hercules remains a workhorse of the fleet nearly 70 years after its original introduction. The aircraft has been reinvented multiple times over the decades, and its timely utility makes it the longest produced military aircraft in history, flown by air forces around the world. Its variations range from special operations AC-130s to cargo aircraft and specialized versions fitted for various intelligence and electronic warfare applications.

Its massive sibling, Lockheed’s C-5 Galaxy, remains the largest airlifter in the Air Force inventory 52 years after its introduction. Its payload capacity is twice that of any other USAF cargo aircraft.

During Operation Allied Force over Serbia in 1999, Air Force aircrews flying Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters helped recover pilots down behind enemy lines. Many more were recovered during Operations Enduring Freedom in 2001 and Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Peacetime utilization of the HH-60s was also high. After Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, more than 20 Pave Hawk crews flew in and around New Orleans to save more than 4,300 Americans.

Following the Pave Hawk is today’s HH-60W Jolly Green Giant II Combat Rescue Helicopter. With greater range, integrated avionics and enhanced digital connectivity, these helicopters provide Air Force rescue crews with new tools for their noble mission—That Others May Live.

These successes and many more are part of a larger evolving process—scaling innovative solutions through the development of critical, breakthrough technologies that ensure those who serve get in front of emerging threats and disasters.

21st Century Security Solutions

The dynamic threat landscape is driving innovation in stealth, information sharing, command and control, and hypersonic missile technology. Accelerating the integration of digital technology and delivery of advanced capabilities brings faster decision-making to the defense arena. Ensuring networked security is vital.

Hypersonics, first pioneered with the X-7 and X-17, are seen as the future of warfare. In March 2022, Lockheed Martin, in partnership with The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Research Lab and Aerojet Rocketdyne, successfully demonstrated its Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC). This historic flight reached speeds in excess of Mach 5—3,800 mph, altitudes greater than 65,000 feet and helped further understanding of operations in the high-speed flight regime. Just two months later, Lockheed Martin tested the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), and in July a second ARRW demonstration achieved speeds greater than Mach 5.

Lockheed Martin engineers demonstrated their multi-domain prowess in July 2022, employing the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 Lightning II as an aerial sensor to help a Lockheed Martin MIM-104 PATRIOT Advanced Capability missile intercept a cruise missile in a successful test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

The F-35’s versatility as a flying sensor and communications suite is unparalleled the world over. Combining radar-evading stealth with the most advanced integrated avionics suite, it is the centerpiece of the U.S. Air Force’s fighter modernization strategy and the choice of U.S. allies on four continents. The Air Force is building out F-35 capacity and capability, bringing up operational squadrons in the continental United States, Alaska, and the U.K., and operating seamlessly with allies.

The Lightning II built on Lockheed Martin’s record of innovation, including the earlier 5th Generation experience with the F-22 Raptor and on the demonstrated success of the ubiquitous F-16 Fighting Falcon.

First flown in 1976 and operational with the USAF since 1978—and the first of more than 25 Allied countries shortly after— the F-16 remains a marvel of innovation, North said. Having flown more than 3,700 hours in the airplane, he said he never doubted its remarkable design and production quality. “Every upgrade added to its capability, a demonstration of the teamwork between the military and Lockheed Martin in continually improving on a superior airplane.”

Today, Lockheed Martin is still at it, leveraging the “secret sauce” of its Skunk Works division, North said. “The secret is the incredible relationship between the government, the program managers and the labs that we work with, and our ability to recruit, retain and develop talent,” he said.

The mutually supporting partnership between Lockheed Martin engineers and Air Force engineers and Airmen fuels a continuous striving for the next evolution of aviation technology. This partnership is rooted in a deep understanding and a shared commitment to the mission ahead, and the desire to stay “ahead of ready” in the needs of the warfighters.

“The thing that really drives the relationship is a desire to always match to the needs of the mission,” North said. “Lockheed Martin does that better than any other company in the world.”

Lockheed & USAF: A Long-Term Partnership

Lockheed Martin’s history with the Air Force dates back long before USAF was an independent military branch. Here are just a few highlights from the past 75 years.

September 18, 1947: As Stuart Symington is sworn in as the first Secretary of the Air Force, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, a year before being redesignated F-80, is America’s first jet-powered operational aircraft. Sikorsky’s H-5 Hoverfly is USAF’s rescue helicopter and six Lockheed aircraft types are in development or test and numerous WWII aircraft remain in the inventory, including Lockheed C-69 Constellation transports and approximately 200 P-38J/L Lightning fighters.

April 12, 1953: After Air Force ace Capt. Joseph McConnell claims his eighth MiG kill over Korea, his F-86 Sabre suffers mechanical difficulties and ejects over the Yellow Sea. Two Sikorsky H-19s from the 3rd Air Rescue Squadron recover him minutes after he hits the water.

July 23, 1953: Martin chief test pilot O.E. “Pat” Tibbs makes the first flight of the first Martin-built B-57A Canberra medium bomber. When B-57 production ended in 1959, USAF had acquired a total of 403 Canberras.

March 4, 1954: The Lockheed XF-104, supersonic superiority fighter makes its first flight. On May 18, 1958, an F-104A sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph, and on December 14, 1959, an F104C sets a world altitude record of 103,395 feet. The Starfighter was the first aircraft to hold simultaneous official world records for speed, altitude, and time-to-climb.

August 23, 1954: Lockheed’s YC-130 Hercules tactical transport prototype flies from the Lockheed plant in Burbank, Calif., to nearby Edwards AFB, setting the stage for the ubiquitous aircraft. Today, there are more than 2,600 C-130 variants in the skies, including five major production models, and more than 70 variants—the longest, continuous, active military aircraft production line in history.

August 1, 1955: Article 341, prototype for Lockheed’s U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft makes an inadvertent first flight during a high-speed taxi test at Groom Lake, Nevada. The Dragon Lady still flies today.

June 11, 1957: The first test launch of the Lockheed Martin legacy company Convair B-65 Atlas (later redesignated SM-65; later still, designated HGM-16) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is carried out from Cape Canaveral AFB, Fla. The Atlas, America’s first ICBM was declared operational and served for six years.

February 6, 1959: The first test launch of the Martin SM-68 (later HGM-25) Titan I intercontinental ballistic missile lifts off from Cape Canaveral AFS, Florida. Entering operational service in 1962, Titan I was the United States’ first multistage ICBM, providing an additional nuclear deterrent to complement the U.S. Air Force’s Atlas missile.

July 20, 1960: The last of about 100 flights by a Lockheed X-7 ramjet test vehicle is completed. Lockheed built The 26 X-7s and set multiple speed and altitude records for air breathing vehicles, topping out at Mach 4.31 and, on a different flight, an altitude of 106,000 feet.

June 17, 1963: The first Sikorsky S-61 prototype flies. A variant of the Navy SH-3 Sea King antisubmarine warfare helicopter, it will evolve into the CH-3C utility, and HH-3E Jolly Green Giant, the workhorse rescue helicopter of the Vietnam era.

August 19, 1960: The reentry vehicle containing film images, captured by a classified Lockheed Missile and Space Company KH-1 reconnaissance satellite, is recovered in mid-air over the Pacific by a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar—the first usable intelligence images from the Corona satellite family.

April 26, 1962: Company test pilot Lou Schalk makes the first true flight of the Lockheed A-12 high altitude, high speed reconnaissance aircraft at Groom Lake, Nev. Developed by the Lockheed Skunk Works—the A-12 is the forerunner to the YF-12 interceptor and SR-71 Blackbird.

December 21, 1964: Company test pilots Dick Johnson and Val Prahl make the first flight of the variable geometry, or swing-wing, F-111 deep strike aircraft from Carswell AFB, Texas, next to the company’s plant in Fort Worth. A total of 562 F-111s were built.

August 28, 1967: Company test pilot Bill Park makes the first flight of the Lockheed U-2R Dragon Lady high altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Although similar in appearance to the early model U-2s, the U-2R is about one-third larger and powered by a much more powerful J57 engine. About 50 U-2Rs were built, later upgraded with an F118 turbofan engine and other improvements and redesignated U-2S.

June 30, 1968: The Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, then the world’s largest aircraft is flown for the first time Five years later, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, battle tanks flown directly to Tel Aviv on the C-5s were on the front lines within 90 minutes. Two recently completed upgrade programs will keep what’s now designated the C-5M Super Galaxy flying until at least the 2040s.

January 20, 1974: Company test pilot Phil Oestricher takes the General Dynamics YF-16 prototype out on a high-speed taxi test at Edwards AFB, Calif., but the aircraft makes an unplanned and unofficial first flight. Today, about 3,000 of 4,588 F-16s produce are in service today in 25 countries.

June 18, 1981: Company test pilot Hal Farley makes the first flight of the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, the world’s first production stealth aircraft. First used during capture of the Panamanian strong man Manuel Noriega in 1989, F-117 pilots would carry out the first strikes against Baghdad on the opening night of operation Desert Storm in 1991.

September 30, 1983: Officials at the Air Force’s Rome Air Development Center at Rome, New York approve the AN/FPS-117 built by legacy Lockheed Martin GE Aerospace. Developed under a program called Seek Igloo, this low power, long-range, phased array, 3D air search radar that operates in the D-Band modernized the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line series of radar stations across the Arctic, from Alaska through Canada over Greenland to Iceland. The FPS-117 reached full operational capability later in 1983.

June 17, 1983: Air Force Systems Command Ballistic Missile Office, the 6595th Missile Test Group, and a contractor launch team carry out the first test launch of the Martin Marietta (a legacy Lockheed Martin company) LGM-118 Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The missile travels 4,800 miles to strike successfully in the Kwajalein Test Range in the Pacific.

1985: Launched in the heat of Santa Barbara California’s “Infrared Valley,” Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control’s Santa Barbara Focalplane facility is established.

September 29, 1990: Lockheed test pilot Dave Ferguson makes the first flight of the Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics YF-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) prototype . It is the forebear of the F-22 Raptor.

April 5, 1996: The new Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules transport takes its first flight. Now with more than 500 aircraft built, the C-130J (as of 2022) is today flown by 26 operators worldwide, including the Active-duty U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve Command.

September 7, 1997: The first flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter is made, six years after Lockheed won the competition in 1991. On May 12, 2005, the first combat-capable Raptor was delivered to the Air Force at Langley AFB, Va.

1997-2009: Twenty GPS IIR and GPS IIR-M satellites built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Air Force are launched, adding new capabilities, signals, and anti-jamming to the GPS constellation.

December 15, 2006: The first flight of the first F-35 Lightning II multivariant, multirole, multinational fighter includes a military power takeoff and a series of maneuvers to demonstrate the handling qualities of the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant.

May 7, 2011: The first Lockheed Martin-built Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous Earth orbit satellite for the U.S. Air Force is launched from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla. Follow-on space vehicles will form an orbiting Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) missile warning constellation equipped with powerful scanning and staring surveillance sensors.

June 26, 2014: The Air Force awards Sikorsky the contract for the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH), the follow on aircraft to the HH-60G Pave Hawk. The HH-60W takes its first flight five years later, on May 17, 2019, and is dubbed the Jolly Green Giant II.

June 24, 2016: The fifth of five Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) secure, narrow band communications satellites is launched from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla. Originally built for the U.S. Navy, MUOS was transferred to the U.S. Space Force in 2022.

April 14, 2018: Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) are used in combat for the first time. The U.S. Air Force deployed B-1 bombers and launched 19 JASSM missiles at the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons production facility.

September 26, 2019: The U.S. Air Force declares Initial Operational Acceptance for the ground control system of the Lockheed Martin Space-developed Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS).

March 28, 2020: The newly created United States Space Force (USSF) declares operational acceptance and initial operational capability of the Space Fence S-band radar on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Space Fence, now the world’s most advanced radar, provides uncued detection, tracking, and accurate measurement of space objects, including satellites and orbital debris, primarily in low-earth orbit (LEO).

September 21, 2021: The first demonstration of air-launched palletized munitions from a mobility aircraft (a Lockheed Martin C-130) is carried out.

May 14, 2022: U.S. Air Force Armament Directorate and Lockheed Martin conduct the first successful hypersonic-boosted flight test of the AGM-183 AGM-Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). Launched from a B-52H Stratofortress based at Edwards AFB, Calif., the test demonstrates the system’s ability to attain hypersonic speed—in excess of Mach 5. ARRW is the first air-launched hypersonic weapon for the Air Force.

Chiefs, Part 2: A Quest for Stability, A Last Stand on Integrity

Sept. 1, 2022 | By Tobias Naegele

In its 75-year history, 22 Airmen have led the Air Force as Chief of Staff. Each came to the post shaped by the experiences—and sometimes scar tissue—developed over three decades of service. Each inherited an Air Force formed by the decisions of those who came before, who bequeathed to posterity the results of decisions and compromises made over the course of their time in office. Each left his own unique stamp on the institution. As part of Air Force Magazine’s commemoration of the Air Force’s 75th anniversary, Sept. 18, 2022, we set out to interview all of the living former Chiefs of Staff, ultimately interviewing Chiefs from 1990 to the present.

Gen. Ronald Fogleman, CSAF No. 15 (1994-’97)

When Gen. Ron Fogleman became Chief of staff in 1994, the Post-Cold War drawdown was well underway, and the military was embroiled in social issues. The Navy’s Tailhook scandal had fueled a rethink of women’s roles in the military, and in aviation in particular. President Bill Clinton, the first Baby Boomer to become president, was also the first since Franklin Delano Roosevelt not to have served in the military, and had campaigned to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

Fogleman was not the first choice; having already been told he was not going to get the job in May of 1994, he was contemplating retirement when, in August, McPeak called to tell him he would be the next Chief. He had barely two months to prepare.

“The Air Force had been through all this turbulence—restructure, drawdown, all kinds of events had occurred that were causing angst within the Air Force,” Fogleman said. “At the same time, we had been given sort of a Northern Star, this thing called Global Reach, Global Power … which gave the blueprint for what the Air Force was going to look like.” Fogleman asked his fellow four-stars what the Air Force needed, and answered his own question: Stability.

That may have been his focus, but it wasn’t to be his legacy. Every Chief sees his areas of interest collide with the reality of the present day. Seven months after Fogleman took office, a B-52 Stratofortress crashed at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., during a practice flight for an air show the next day. The crash, which was caught on video and ended in a fiery collision with the runway, killing all four Airmen aboard, was blamed on the pilot’s recklessness and on a culture of permissiveness that had failed to challenge the pilot’s documented pattern of behavior.

Then came the bombing of Khobar Towers, in which 19 Airmen died, and the controversial case of Kelly Flinn, the Air Force’s first female B-52 pilot, whose case set off media and congressional fireworks about double standards for men and women in uniform. Flinn had engaged in an affair with the husband of an enlisted Airman and ignored warnings to end the matter. Eventually, she was charged with the crime of adultery, a matter few in the public realized was a crime under military law. Flinn claimed she was the victim of a double standard; the Air Force argued the opposite. When details of the investigation spilled out in the media, the case drew congressional interest.

All this played out at just about the same time as another famous adultery case: President Clinton’s affair with White House Intern Monica Lewinsky. Flinn, who was about the same age as Lewinsky, was cast as a victim in the media, but as the perpetrator in the case brought against her. When Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall floated the idea of granting her an honorable discharge, Fogleman said that if she did so she would have to start looking for a new Chief. Her behavior, he would say later, didn’t merit that honor. It was, he told an interviewer in 1997, the only time he made such a move, but it foreshadowed Fogleman’s ultimate decision to retire early, rather than live out his full four-year tour.

“It’s a tour, not a sentence,” he would say more than once. He was free to go when he chose, and he remained true to that promise.

The Flinn and B-52 cases, among others, convinced Fogleman that what the Air Force needed more than stability was more basic: It needed to hew to its own values.

“It became obvious to me that while the Air Force was going through some things, it might have lost sight of its real values,” Fogleman said. “And so I began to try and send the message of what it was we did—deter, and if deterrence fails, we fight and win America’s wars. That’s why we’re here. We’re not a social organization. We’re not an employment agency. We’re here to fight and win America’s wars. So if you sign up with the Air Force, that’s what you expect. And, oh by the way, we have some values and some standards, which have got to be universally known—everybody’s got to know what they are—and they’ve got to be uniformly applied, so that whatever applies to an enlisted troop applies to an officer.”

Fogleman, who had taught history at the U.S. Air Force Academy, launched onto the lecture circuit. He set out to speak with all of them, making stops in Nebraska, the Pacific, and in Europe. Adopting the Academy’s Core Values—Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence in All We Do—he shared his view of what Airman should stands for. “I’m very proud of that,” he said. “It’s the only thing I know of in the United States Air Force that was adopted basically 25 years ago and which is still there today. And that’s the way it ought to be: You need some stability in a force.”

But the 1990s did not deliver stability. Small-scale contingencies followed one after the other. Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. No-fly-zone enforcement over Iraq continued nonstop. Budgets declined as the nation sought its post-Cold War “peace dividend.” Culture wars took root. Each of the services fought for relevance to match its capabilities to a changing world order, but instead of unity, there was infighting.

“The 1990s was a period, from my perspective, where the United States of America missed an opportunity,” Fogleman says. “We had a chance to demobilize. After every major war we had demobilized—even after the Second World War. The Cold War required us to have generally larger standing forces than we’d ever had before. But at the end of the Cold War, we had a chance to demobilize and invest in smart things. Getting ready for the future.”

Instead, Fogleman said, the nation got caught up in pursuing a strategy built on a perceived need to fight two major regional contingencies at the same time. “We literally wasted tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars maintaining an army force structure that, when 9/11 came, was the wrong Army—and then they had to rebuild it anyway,” he said.

That decision to “glom on to these two major regional contingencies” as a force-sizing construct was the central error of the era, Fogleman said. “We had never been able to do that. During the Second World War … we made a decision to fight in Europe and then go to the Pacific. … Folks had lost sight of that. And so instead they decided to try and keep this large standing military force in peacetime and just wasted hundreds of billions of dollars doing that.”

Fogleman had wanted to think harder about the future, to invest in the kinds of technologies that had been used to such devastating effect in ousting Iraq’s occupying army from Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. But the leading strategy makers at the time had an Army bent, and that colored the strategy they developed, undervaluing air power. They saw small wars and peacekeeping as central missions in the 1990s, and reasoned that the United States could afford to delay weapons modernization by skipping a generation of technology. Fogleman saw that as folly.

“Anybody who had watched what was going on could see that after the first Gulf War, the Chinese went to work studying what we had done,” Fogleman said. “And they began, back in the 1990s, trying to build the capability to negate our combat capability—or emulate it.”

Fogleman’s predecessor, Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, had likewise viewed this as an error, but he says it was not surprising. “Victory is a poor teacher,” McPeak said. “And we were victorious. Defeat isn’t even a good teacher, because the tendency is to do tomorrow what you did today.” Changing course, making a dynamic and bold commitment to break with the past and move in new directions, was the harder course to take, but it required greater imagination and determination. “There are too many rice bowls that have to be broken, too much furniture has been bought,” McPeak said. He offered an example: “You can’t tell the Marines that they’re never going to use vertical takeoff in combat, that you cannot logistically support operations off the beach—you can’t get the bombs there or the fuel there, so they’re not going to operate off the beach.” But the decision to build as much commonality as possible into the F-35 while offering Air Force, Navy, and Marine variants required compromises in performance, capacity, and range that affected all of those planes, not just some.

The Marine version “sized the profile of the F-35,” McPeak said. “And while the F-35 looks like it’s going to be a pretty good airplane, it is never going to be as good as it could have been if it was not sized by the big fan.”

Similarly, the two-MRC [major regional contingencies]strategy cost more to sustain and left less money to invest in next-generation technology. In an interview with Richard Kohn conducted in December 1997 and published in the Spring 2001 edition of Aerospace Power Journal, Fogleman recalled being visited by a two-star Army general representing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili. The officer sat on the couch in Fogleman’s office and said, “I have a message from the Chairman.” The message, he explained to Fogleman, was that the Chairman wanted the Quadrennial Defense Review to “maintain as close to the status quo as we can.” In fact, he went on, “the Chairman says we don’t need any Billy Mitchells during this process.”

Fogleman was stunned. But that was just the beginning. He had a modernization program in place, but as the QDR unfolded, it became clear it would be a budget-driven review, rather than strategy driven. The F-22 had been fully funded to that point, but now as the Department sought to find $60 billion in cuts, it began to draw attention. Fogleman saw it as the most revolutionary program the Pentagon was pursuing, combining stealth, super cruise, and integrated avionics: “a quantum jump” in capability that would be critical “in such situations as the Taiwan Strait crisis … we need that airplane.”

Fogleman fought for it, but did not sense his advice was valued by Defense Secretary Cohen, a former senator, who had succeeded William Perry in early 1997. By then, he was growing increasingly frustrated in his role. But the last straw was not about airplanes, but about people and accountability. It went back to the values message he had been delivering throughout his tour as Chief. On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded at an Air Force housing complex called Khobar Towers. The explosion killed 19 Airmen and wounded close to 500 others. It was one in a string of such attacks that dated back to 1983 when a Marine barracks in Beirut exploded, killing 241 Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers.

The Americans at Khobar Towers were responsible for Operation Southern Watch, the southern no-fly zone over Iraq. The facility was known to be a target and threats had already been received when the attack took place. To Fogleman, it was clear America was at war. But in the aftermath of the attack, he became convinced that the Intelligence Community had failed the Airmen at Khobar Towers—that they had the warnings but failed to understand the risk. When some time later Brig Gen. Terryl J. Schwalier, the commander at Khobar, was selected for promotion to major general, the issue became a political matter.

“I had a commander who had done everything in his power, and he was in the field in wartime conditions and was struck by an enemy,” Fogleman said. “You either support the commander or you make a scapegoat out of him. And I was not about to make a scapegoat.”

Defense Secretary William Cohen disagreed. “So then it became clear that my military advice was not valued,” Fogleman said. “If the people above you don’t value that advice, then it’s time to get out of the way and allow somebody else to come in and provide military advice for your service. From my perspective, it was in the best interest of the Air Force that I depart and that they get somebody else.”

In his brief public statement, Fogleman wrote: “My values and sense of loyalty to our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and especially our Airmen led me to the conclusion that I may be out of step with the times and some of the thinking of the establishment. This puts me in an awkward position. If I were to continue to serve as Chief of Staff of the Air Force and speak out, I could be seen as a divisive force and not a team player. I do not want the Air Force to suffer for my judgment and convictions.”

Looking back now, he acknowledges that had he stayed in place another year, some of what he’d done “would have become institutionalized. Instead, they were allowed to die.” The Battle Labs he established did not survive—six labs designed to create new capability rapidly in specific areas. “Does that sound like something we have today, something they had to reinvent? Yes.” Likewise, he established information operations squadrons. Those too did not survive, but were later recreated.

“That last year is when you can institutionalize things,” he said. “And so in that context, I failed the force by leaving early.” Fogleman retired early, he says. He did not resign. He was not protesting anything. But he felt it important that he announce his retirement before Cohen made his final determination on Schwalier, perhaps because it might change his mind, but in any event so that the retirement would not be seen as a response to that decision. The story played out in the media as a protest regardless. Fogleman has been trying to set the record straight ever since.

Chiefs, Part 1: Discordant Visionary

Chiefs, Part 2: A Quest for Stability, A Last Stand on Integrity

Chiefs, Part 3: Like Father, Like Son

Chiefs, Part 4: ‘I Tried to Always Make Things Better’

Chiefs, Part 5: ‘Buzz Was Right’

Chiefs, Part 6: ‘The Accidental Chief’

Chiefs, Part 7: ‘Surviving the Budget Control Act Debacle’

Chiefs, Part 8: The ‘Joint’ Chief

Chiefs, Part 9: ‘Last of the Cold War Chiefs’

Chiefs, Part 10: ‘The Invisible Chief’

F-22 Flies With Third-Party Apps, New Open Software Architecture

Sept. 1, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

F-22 fighters at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., ran third-party software during a test flight Aug. 24, a first for the Air Force’s fifth-generation fighters and a key milestone in the service’s quest to acquire and rapidly deploy cutting-edge technologies.

The announcement from Air Combat Command also noted that the test flight demonstrated the first in-flight use of “open-source container orchestration software” on any of its fighter aircraft. Container orchestration software helps automate the process by which apps can be configured, deployed, and run on different host operating systems.

In order to run the third-party software, the ACC Federal Laboratory and software developers from the 309th Software Engineering Group developed an Open Systems Enclave, a government-owned software architecture that can integrate new apps “from first line of code to flight in less than 60 days,” the press release states. It did not specify what or how many third-party software programs ACC has flight tested, and ACC did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Air Force Magazine.

Still, the deployment of any third-party apps on an F-22 has the potential to shake up how the Air Force fields upgrades and capabilities for its most advanced fighters.

Traditionally, platforms such as the F-35 and F-22 have required software designed specifically for that aircraft, and updates have often been tied to hardware upgrades that can take years to develop.

An open architecture and software that allows apps to run across different systems, however, “fundamentally changes how we can deliver combat capability to the warfighter,” Maj. Allen Black, F-22 test pilot and project co-lead, said in a statement. “We’ve proven the ability to rapidly evaluate and integrate next-generation technologies developed by experts in government, industry, and academia at a lower cost with software portability across defense platforms.”

Black has been pursuing the idea of portable third-party software for fifth-generation fighters for some time—his “Project FoX (Fighter Optimization Experiment)” was selected as a finalist in the Air Force’s annual Spark Tank competition in October 2021.

Project FoX envisioned a so-called “Pentagon App Store,” whereby developers could create software to run on any number of platforms, and operators could download and run those apps on a commercial off-the-shelf tablet data-secured to the aircraft.

Ahead of the final ceremony in February 2022, Black said his team’s goal was to demonstrate the new approach in the next few months, using an app developed and tested on the F-35 that assists with the evasion of enemy surface-to-air missiles on an F-22, with no redevelopment.

Separating software and hardware development for fighters allows for new programs to develop and deploy quickly, which has been a goal of DOD leaders and software developers for years now. Critics say the Pentagon’s lengthy acquisition process means software systems are frequently outdated by the time they’re finally fielded and that the process needs to be more streamlined and iterative to allow for regular updates.

The success on board the F-22 is already leading to changes. The chief of F-22 requirements has established a formal requirement for the establishment of the open systems enclave on the fighter, and the team behind the test is evaluating “several candidate combat capabilities as cross-platform solutions,” the release states.

“We must build an enduring advantage for our force,” Gen. Mark D. Kelly, ACC commander, said in a statement. “This ‘bring the future faster’ initiative allows us to rapidly discover and iterate on combat capabilities and stay relevant with cutting-edge technology and affordably accelerate change in delivering combat Air Force capabilities as an enterprise.”

Air Force Looking for New Stand-off Attack Weapon

Sept. 1, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is looking for a new, generic weapon, produced by multiple vendors, to affordably attack targets at standoff ranges, with a capability as soon as 2030, according to a service solicitation to the defense industry.

The sam.gov announcement from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center said the Armament Directorate’s “Disruptive Futures” division is conducting market research for a Stand-off Attack Weapon (SoAW) analysis of alternatives. The Air Force wants to assess the industrial base’s ability to “produce a material solution to this operational objective” with the idea of establishing “a single design for all concepts, with appropriate data rights for the government to potentially distribute the digital design to multiple vendors for production.”

Under the Aug. 23 solicitation, the Air Force wants vendors to submit their ideas in time to discuss the program at an industry day to be held Sept. 27 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., where the AFLCMC’s armament division is headquartered.

Prototyping and demonstration activities will likely start in fiscal 2025, with initial fielding “by FY 2030 or FY 2033, as applicable, depending on the associated tech maturity,” USAF said.

Potential vendors are to submit a notional schedule for development and testing, platform integration, and flight testing. The Air Force also wants respondents to quote a notional average unit production price for the weapon, “assuming a production quantity of 500, 1,000 and 1,500 units.”

Responses should include all the particulars of the proposed solution, including the physical size of the proposed weapon, along with sensors, propulsion type, warhead, controls and actuators, maneuverability, datalink, frequencies used by the sensors, interfaces with aircraft, and how much work has been done already and how much is yet to be done “to support a full scale operational concept.” The weapon will have to be designed using digital methods and have an open architecture permitting any offeror to design software and hardware upgrades.

The service said that if companies don’t respond to this request for information, they won’t be disqualified from competing for the work later.

The solicitation did not disclose a minimum or maximum range for the weapon. The Air Force already fields the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and a variant called the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, both made by Lockheed Martin, which have a range of nearly 600 miles. The stealthy JASSM is expensive, however, and various studies have pointed out that for a Pacific campaign with thousands of aimpoints, individual standoff munitions with multimillion-dollar price tags will be unaffordable and unsustainable. Standoff weapons offer the advantage of striking key targets without entering the lethal range of the enemy’s air defenses.

The Air Force has in the last two decades pursued a strategy of addressing heavily defended targets with a mixture of single-use standoff weapons and inexpensive, stand-in weapons delivered by survivable/stealthy aircraft that can re-attack many times.

The solicitation follows the Air Force’s award of exploration contracts for a Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW) to L3 Harris, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman in late May. Those contracts were for 90 days, but USAF didn’t say how that program would advance after that period, which expired Aug. 25.

Mark Gunzinger, a fellow with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, has written on the importance of munitions affordability and the right mix of stand-in and stand-off weapons. (See, “Stand-In, Stand-Off,” Air Force Magazine, July, 2020). Gunzinger said the new program is a bit mysterious “but I suspect it could be a mid-range weapon in the SiAW class” for penetrating strikes.

Gunzinger noted that “The need for these mid-range weapons that are survivable and can be carried in greater numbers internally by stealthy aircraft was one insight developed during the Air Force’s ‘operational imperative’ work.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has set seven “operational imperatives” of systems the Air Force must develop to stay ahead of China. They range from elaborate sensor-to-shooter networks to space capabilities to uncrewed combat aircraft.

The SoAW may also be aimed at something “more affordable than a JASSM-ER,” Gunzinger speculated. “The Air Force needs precision strike ‘affordable mass.’”

At the industry day, USAF said it will conduct “an open forum presentation and question and answer session on SoAW requirements, initial trade space analysis planning, and notional considerations for a follow-on acquisition program.” This will be followed by one-on-one sessions with individual contractors “desiring further clarification and to address any specific questions relevant to their proposed concepts/ approach.” Those answers will be “shared with all contractors,” USAF said.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Master Sgt. Brandon S. Blake

Sept. 1, 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 Master Sgt. Brandon S. Blake, a detachment superintendent for the 720th Operations Support Squadron in Birmingham, Ala.

Blake, a respiratory therapist, was the team sergeant for a six-member special operations surgical team (SOST) that also included a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, a surgical technician, a critical care nurse, and a medicine physician. The six Airmen have worked together before, so when they were short-notice tasked out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham to deploy for Operation Allies Refuge, the team didn’t take long to assemble.

“We were out the door within a couple of days,” Blake said. “The awesome part about our team and our team construct is that everything we do, we do together. So we already knew what we wanted to pack and take with us.”

The team spent the next two weeks supporting 5,100 U.S. personnel, treating 71 wounded, and enabling seven surgeries during the Air Force’s largest mass casualty event in 10 years and the largest evacuation in U.S. history.

“We never ‘want’ to do our job,” Blake said. “We’re like 9-11 for 9-11. When something bad happens, [and you need] a special operations surgical team, it’s probably the worst absolute day of a mission of anybody’s life. So we already kind of prepared for that. We’ve trained for it.”

After establishing casualty collection points (CCPs) and doing recon during security breakdowns on the last day of the operation, Blake’s team was one of the final three medical teams on the last flight out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

Both the 82nd Airborne Division commander and the Marine Corps Commandant lauded his performance in Afghanistan, but Blake said the “unmatched flexibility” of his SOST and their kinetic relationship is what made their response so exceptional.

“When it’s time to go, you don’t need to talk,” he said. “Nobody needs to say anything. You just know exactly where you need to be and who needs what. That dynamic with this team in particular was spot on. I mean, I couldn’t have gone with a better team.”

That responsiveness kicks in while on American soil and out of uniform, too. While off duty in Birmingham, Blake witnessed a car accident in which a civilian’s vehicle, a few cars ahead of his own, flipped while going about 70 miles per hour. Blake pulled over and evaluated the driver’s trauma while directing another “good Samaritan” to alert 9-11. He kept the patient stabilized until emergency responders arrived.

When asked about the source of his calm leadership and habitual preparedness, Blake attributed it to his father, who retired as a chief master sergeant after 30 years in the Air Force. He also credited Lt. Col. Mark Northern, his former detachment commander whose “humble leadership” continues to inspire Blake’s own leadership roles today. He said these individuals “highlight how I want to be and what I want to … grow to. I’ve had some really good role models and mentors throughout my life.”

As he prepares to travel to National Harbor for his recognition as an Outstanding Airman of the Year at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Blake emphasized that the honor isn’t his alone.

“It took a team, you know,” he said. “This isn’t a ‘me’ win. This is a team win. I’m just proud to represent the respiratory therapy community and SOST.”

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

Senior Master Sgt. Megan A. Harper

Space Force Looks to ‘Engineer’ Culture, Gets First Civilian Direct Commission, Raymond Says

Sept. 1, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

More than two and a half years in, and with its basic building blocks largely in place, the Space Force is planning work to fine tune and “engineer” its own distinctive culture, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond said Aug. 31.

Speaking in a livestreamed fireside chat with the Wilson Center, Raymond highlighted three priorities for the Space Force culture he wants.

“One, we want to have a warfighting culture. Two, we want to have a culture that is bold and innovative and can move at speed. Three, we want to have a culture that is a connected culture,” Raymond said.

The service has sought to define that culture with the release of its personnel strategy, “The Guardian Ideal,” and orientation courses. But Raymond acknowledged that he wasn’t sure “if we have it right yet” and instead emphasized that it will be a continuing process in the months and years ahead.

“It’s not something that just materializes. It’s not something that you can order on Amazon Prime and get it overnight,” Raymond said.

And it’s not something that Raymond wants to leave alone to develop as it will. Instead, he emphasized a deliberate approach that will take aspects from each of the services and “mold this culture for us.”

That approach includes work at an upcoming conference in October, he said, where Space Force leaders will meet and focus their efforts.

“Now that we’ve got the teams assembled and all the major muscle movements in place, and we know some of the first principles that we want to get after, now we’re going to look at how do you engineer that culture?” Raymond said. “What types of steps can we take to make sure that we just don’t put this on autopilot and we arrive somewhere, that we purposely move in that direction, figure out what’s important and then figure out how to engineer it.”

But while the USSF considers the mechanics of how to merge disparate cultures from across different services, it will also have personnel coming in from the civilian world with far different experiences.

That fact was highlighted during the fireside chat when Raymond spoke of the service’s very first direct commission of a civilian to become an officer.

“We just had our first ever direct accession from industry, where we brought a young officer … into the Space Force, going through OTS right now,” Raymond said. “And we brought her in as a first lieutenant based on experience that she had in industry. We have identified five others that will come in, everything from a first lieutenant all the way up to a lieutenant colonel, and so we’re going to do more of that as we progress forward as well.”

The Space Force’s direct commissioning program started this past spring with a Cyber Constructive Service Credit Board. More than 400 civilians applied, the service said in a press release, with 10 accepting commissions. However, only six spots were authorized to attend officer training school this year.

Open, Networked, and Secure Avionics Are Enabling the Next Generation of Air Dominance

Sept. 1, 2022 | By Thad Zeglen

Sixth-generation fighter platforms, their pilots and the future of allied air dominance will face more challenges than ever before, including a complex international security environment, rapidly evolving technologies, and scale from near-peer threats.

The fight of tomorrow demands a more open, scalable and tailorable approach to aircraft upgrades to stay ahead of emergent threats at the speed of relevance. It is critical that the United States and its allies maintain a competitive edge against adversaries by leveraging enabling technologies that accommodate the need for enhanced mission flexibility, rapid prototyping, capability integration and deployment.

The Importance of an Open Systems Approach

In response to that challenge, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been working to accelerate the development of and upgrades to its weapons and vehicles to ensure mission readiness while lowering the lifecycle costs to maintain and evolve them. This process has involved a strong focus on moving away from purpose-built systems created for a single aircraft or vehicle platform to reusable components and systems integrated in a modular and severable fashion.

To facilitate this process, the DoD is requiring its industry partners to embrace an open systems approach – creating systems that can quickly integrate capabilities from a variety of vendors into new or enduring platforms to enable the warfighter to stay ahead of a next-generation adversary that is rapidly evolving its capability with scale in both manned and un-manned assets.

A Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) is a viable method for developing the same systems or software repeatedly for multiple platforms without having to pay for them separately or reinvent the wheel each time the military builds a new aircraft, ground vehicle, or other weapons system. MOSA systems also better enable the rapid addition of new functionality and capabilities into legacy and enduring platforms at a low cost to the military, thereby providing more budget allowances for emerging mission capabilities needed for future conflicts.

Finally, this open systems approach, and the standardization parameters it entails for aircraft integration, eliminates the common situation known as “vendor lock” in which only one or two companies can develop or integrate new capabilities and systems for an aircraft. In effect, fighter fleet owners are empowered to make changes to the systems and aircraft with enabling software and hardware tools for easy parts interchange. This means that open systems can effectively increase competition as more suppliers compete for business – leading to lower costs and driving innovation.

Bringing Open and Networked Capabilities to Next-Generation Fighters

So how will these new MOSA capabilities impact future operations and the U.S.’s ability to achieve air dominance? By implementing an agile and adaptable suite of avionics and mission solutions, future fighter fleets will be more reliant on software upgrade packages that can be delivered enroute to the mission compared with traditional, timely and expensive aircraft and fleet upgrade cycles. Consequently, enduring and next generation aggressor fleets will remain tailorable, relevant and dominant in the missions of tomorrow.

At Collins Aerospace, the company’s modern operational expertise and commitment to innovation are driving its development of next-generation systems for fighter aircraft. With its decades of experience in emerging network technologies and standards, Collins is taking an operations focus to developing robust, open and networked capabilities across existing and sixth-generation fighter aircraft to address future threats and provide air superiority in-theater.

Mosarc^TM Delivers Modular, Open, Scalable and Secure Architectures

Known as Mosarc™, Collins’ modular, open, scalable, and secure avionics and platform architecture will help ensure an agile and flexible sixth-generation fighter by providing whatever capability is needed based on mission demands. This will be accomplished through Mosarc’s revolutionary digital backbone that meets open systems standards and ensures the separation of air vehicle and mission system equipment while managing the exchange of information between the two. The operational benefit manifests in increased performance (e.g., data throughput), safety, cybersecurity and the intelligent prioritization of aircraft data transfer while performing complex and contested mission sets.

Leveraging Collins’ Mosarc solutions and MOSA compliant design, future fighter fleets will be enabled to:

Rapidly field mission critical capability to provide innovation at the speed of relevance
Maximize mission and platform flexibility while reducing integration time and aircraft lifecycle costs
Reduce supply chain risk and protect previous investments

In addition, Collins remains committed to defining, designing and evolving its Mosarc open system capabilities in alignment with emerging standards (e.g., OMS, HOST, FACE™, SOSA™) for rapid integration between mission and flight deck systems.

With 30 years of experience in developing and integrating open systems avionics in military and commercial cockpits, Collins Aerospace closely aligns its investment and research roadmaps with the evolving needs of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-generation fighter aircraft operators. It remains the industry leader in developing and certifying safety critical systems while ensuring rapid capability deployment and continued air dominance of the DoD and its allies.

More information is available here.

Boeing Gets $3.1 Billion to Build KC-46s for USAF and Israel

Aug. 31, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force has awarded a pair of contracts to Boeing potentially worth more than $3.1 billion combined for 19 KC-46s—four for Israel—the Pentagon announced Aug. 31.

The larger of the two deals is worth roughly $2.2 billion and will go toward the KC-46’s Production Lot 8, made up of 15 of the aerial refuelers, the contract award states. Work will take place in Boeing’s Seattle facility and is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, 2025.

While those jets will go to the U.S. Air Force, the other contract calls for four tankers to be delivered to Israel. The cost cannot exceed $927 million.

That cost also covers “the non-recurring engineering design and test for the Remote Vision System 2.0 and the Air Refueling Operator Station 2.0 mission equipment and installation, pre-delivery integrated logistics support, and technical publications,” the contract award states.

Work will also take place in Seattle and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026.

Israel’s interest in the KC-46 dates back years. The State Department approved the sale of up to eight of the tankers to Israel in March 2020, and in late 2021, the Israeli Defense Ministry signed a deal.

Delays in getting the contract finalized, however, had caused some concern among U.S. and Israeli observers.

For the USAF, the latest lot of KC-46s will come as the service continues to work with Boeing for a solution to the troubled Remote Vision System. Blackouts and washouts on the tanker’s video displays, caused by shadows or direct sunlight, have raised the possibility of the boom scraping a receiving aircraft and have prevented the KC-46 from being cleared for combat operations.

The Air Force and Boeing have been working on a replacement, dubbed RVS 2.0, for several years now. The final design was approved in April 2022, with Boeing agreeing to pay for upgrades, but installation isn’t scheduled to begin until 2024.

The contract for Lot 8 comes nearly 20 months after the award for Lot 7 in January 2021. That production lot, also comprising 15 aircraft, cost $2.12 billion.