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.

Afghanistan After Action Report Finished but Still Classified, Pentagon Says

Aug. 31, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Work on the Defense Department’s after action report on the war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal from Kabul is finished, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said Aug. 31—but when the public might get to read the report remains to be seen.

In the year since the final withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan, a number of public reports and analyses have chronicled the weeks, months, and years leading up to it.

There have also been a military investigation into the deadly suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghan civilians outside Hamid Karzai International Airport as well as an Air Force inspector general’s report on the erroneous drone strike following that bombing that killed 10 civilians.

However, it’s been a longer wait for the after-action report the department typically produces after conflicts, detailing timelines of events, observations, discussions, and recommendations for future actions, as part of the Joint Lessons Learned Program.

“The after action report is complete, it’s under review,” Ryder said in a press briefing at the Pentagon. “Right now, [Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III] is reviewing it. At this time, the report is classified. So at a point that we have more to provide on that, we certainly will.”

Ryder’s comments come a month after the Wall Street Journal reported that DOD leadership was reviewing the report and considering not releasing any portion of it.

Awards

While the after action report is still yet to come, Austin did announce Aug. 31 that all units involved in Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome, the two operations that rescued Afghan civilians fleeing the Taliban and helped resettle them in the U.S., will receive the Meritorious Unit Commendation or its equivalent.

The Air Force’s equivalent is the Meritorious Unit Award and is given “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding achievement or service in direct support of combat operations.

“The degree of achievement required is the same as that which would warrant award of the Legion of Merit,” the Air Force Personnel Center website states.

Austin also said he is directing the respective military departments to conduct an expedited review of all the units present at Hamid Karzai International Airport from Aug. 15 to Aug. 30, 2021—the final few days of the withdrawal as the Taliban seized control of Kabul—to determine if those units should receive the Presidential Unit Citation.

The PUC, first established in 1942, is reserved for units that “display such gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission as to set it apart from and above other units participating in the same campaign,” according to the AFPC website.

The degree of heroism is equivalent to the Air Force Cross for an individual, and Austin’s announcement specifies that the expedited review also include consideration for “appropriate individual awards.”

“This is a significant recognition for those who served in Afghanistan and participated in this very significant event. … From the Secretary’s standpoint, really the key message here is that it’s meant to express the gratitude of the Department of Defense and our nation for what it is that our men and women serving in Afghanistan during this very challenging time, what they accomplished,” Ryder said.

Lockheed Martin Says Its F-35 Sustainment Costs Have Fallen by Half—Another 35 Percent Coming

Aug. 31, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Lockheed Martin-controlled portion of the F-35 cost per flying hour, across all users, has fallen 50 percent in the past seven years and should go down another 35 percent in the next five years, assuming a performance-based logistics contract is forthcoming, program officials said.

Lockheed Martin’s vice president for F-35 sustainment Audrey Brady, in a briefing for defense reporters at the company’s Arlington, Va., offices, said the cost reductions—which only affect “the things that we at Lockheed control”—are due to a number of factors. Some have to do with Lockheed Martin investment “at its own risk” of striking long-term deals with vendors for parts and materials to get economic quantities and better prices. Others have to do process or material improvements, lower costs for parts, faster repair times for parts, and quicker cure times for low-observable materials, in some cases reducing the “waiting time” for a repair by eight hours or more, among others.

The cost decreases do not take into account engine expenses, depot costs, or other maintenance, officials said, as these are contracted and budgeted separately. Lockheed Martin controls “about 40 percent” of the factors affecting maintenance costs on the jet. Thus, the total operating costs have not been reduced by the quoted percentages—only Lockheed Martin’s portion. However, Brady said the company’s initiatives have generated savings of $1.2 billion. Some of that has already been realized, and some “is still to be,” said Mike Aylward, company F-35 sustainment strategy director.

Measured by the Air Force’s new preferred metric of “cost per tail per year,” there’s been a reduction of 37 percent over the same 2015-2021 period, officials said, and it will decline another 25 percent through 2026. They did not supply dollar figures because those amounts are counted in fiscal 2012 dollars and can be “misleading,” Brady said, and are also “competition sensitive.” However, she said Lockheed Martin’s percentage decreases were calculated using “the same figures the F-35 JPO (Joint Program Office) uses.” Lockheed Martin is required to report those costs to the JPO on a monthly basis, she said.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., in a streamed interview with the American Enterprise Institute Aug. 29, said operating costs on the F-35 are “something we are concerned about” and that the original estimates—made early in the two-decade-old program—had been “probably a bit optimistic.” He said the Air Force will be providing Congress “an updated” cost per tail per year in response to congressional demands for more insight into the program.

“We are starting to see some of that cost come down” as more aircraft enter the inventory, Brown said, and as the program achieves greater savings from volume. The metric of cost per tail per year is more useful to the Air Force than cost per flying hour because it gives the service a better handle on the “cost of ownership” of the airplane and budgeting, he said. He has previously explained that the per-flying-hour metric is misleading when the F-35 flies more hours than planned.

The most recent all-inclusive cost per tail per year for the F-35—fiscal 2021—was $4.1 million for the A model, which the Air Force uses; $6.8 million for the F-35B short takeoff vertical landing version; and $7.5 million for the carrier-capable F-35C model. The most recent estimate for the F-35A model’s cost per flying hour was $33,000, in 2012 dollars. The Air Force has pursued a goal of getting that cost to $25,000 by 2025, also in 2012 dollars.

Lockheed has been pushing the services toward a performance-based logistics (PBL) contract for the F-35 fleet, in which the company would warrant a pre-set price for a certain number of operating hours, but Congress and the DOD have balked. Instead, the company is working toward two logistics contracts, Brady said: one for supply and the other “for everything else.”

Under language in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, a PBL can’t be awarded unless the performance achieved in fiscal 2022-2023 is better than has been achieved in previous years, Brady noted. If it is, a contract could be awarded “January 1, 2024,” she said.

Aylward showed a chart indicating that F-35 reliability has increased substantially in the last few lots of aircraft, thanks to more aircraft and parts being of a common configuration and parts being of better initial quality. In Low-Rate Initial Production Lots 11-13, mean time between failure of aircraft has been 11.1, 14.3. and 14. 1 hours, respectively, vice a requirement of 5.9 hours.

Company charts said that in 2021 Air Force deployments, the F-35 achieved an 80 percent full mission capable rate. In the same year, foreign military sales operators of the jet recorded a 90 percent mission capable rate and a 65 percent full mission capable rate. “Full mission capable” means the jet can perform any of its various missions, while mission capable means it is ready to perform at least some of them, as opposed to being down for maintenance. In the most recent Red Flag exercise, out of 250 planned F-35 sorties, none were lost due to maintenance issues, the company reported.

“More than 90 percent of our parts are performing better than expected,” Aylward said.

For operating cost comparisons, Aylward also said the services should assess the reliability of fifth-generation aircraft—the F-22 and F-35—in an “apples to apples” way with fourth-generation airplanes. Whereas fourth-generation aircraft typically are assessed for operating cost without external podded capabilities such as electronic warfare, electro-optical systems, mission planning, and targeting, those features are built into fifth-generation aircraft. Assessing fourth-generation types with all those needed externals included would give a fairer comparison and one that would show that the F-35 is a solid performer, he said.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Senior Master Sgt. Megan A. Harper

Aug. 31, 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 Senior Master Sgt. Megan A. Harper, a security forces manager for the 701st Munitions Support Squadron at the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium.

On Aug. 16, 2021, Harper received a call that a C-17 aircraft had been hostilely taken at Hamid Karzai International Airport and was en route to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar with an unknown number of passengers. At the time, Harper was the operations superintendent at Al Udeid, home to the largest expeditionary wing in the Air Force, where she led 372 Total Force defenders in full-spectrum force protection intelligence and base defense operations.

After alerting her commander, Harper initiated a squadron recall to bring off-duty staff and defenders back to prepare for the arrival of the hijacked plane. Roughly 45 minutes later, the C-17’s crew landed securely with the aid of tactical vehicles, and the 47-member team created a human barrier to prevent any of the passengers from breaking through after disembarking the aircraft. Armed passengers were known to be on board, but their emotions and intent were still a mystery.

“They dropped the ladder, and literally the first passenger to come off was a 5-year-old child with her mother,” Harper said. “What we thought was 450 to 620 ended up being 827 passengers.”

Harper explained that in their panic, the evacuees had used weapons merely as a “ticket” to secure passage out of Kabul to Qatar. They had no ill intentions toward the aircraft’s crew or the response team.

Senior Master Sgt. Megan A. Harper, a security forces manager for the 701st Munitions Support Squadron, is one of 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022. Air Force photo.

Harper’s reaction time and her team’s efficient emergency preparedness helped to secure the C-17’s aircrew and all 827 passengers without further incident. That flight, of course, marked only the first of hundreds of evacuations from Kabul during the next two weeks.

“I think we received an aircraft every three-and-a-half minutes over the course of the next five days,” Harper said.

As the operations superintendent, Harper directed 588 Joint Force protection Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines as they ensured the safe passage of 57,000 Afghan evacuees through Al Udeid.

She was also the recipient of the Distinguished Graduate, Academic Achievement, and Commandant Awards at the Senior Noncommissioned Officer Academy and established Al Udeid’s first female defender mentorship group. The latter was an especially important organization at Al Udeid, where about 78 percent of the rotation at the time had never been deployed—meaning they had never been to Afghanistan where female culture is so starkly different from the West’s. Harper’s mentorship group provided those defenders with not only guidance, but also cultural training.

The result of her leadership was a cohesive, communicative team at Al Udeid. At the same time, that leadership is a result of her teams.

“I’ve been blessed with just having the absolute best people to stand shoulder to shoulder with,” Harper said. “That’s really what my drive is.”

Google Public Sector: An Innovative Technology Partner for the Future

Aug. 31, 2022 | By Scott King

Born in the early dawn of the Information Age, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) has established a reputation and culture of embracing technological advancements to propel the service forward. Its newly formed sister service, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) is a product of that culture and reflects a vision for national defense that seeks to address the challenges in the cyber and space domains. As the Department of Defense (DoD) pursues its digital modernization strategy, the services are not waiting – pursuing the implementation of their CloudOne strategy, which seeks to enable the USAF and USSF to maintain at the cutting-edge of the best technology available today. Google Public Sector was created specifically to support the U.S. government’s needs, is emerging as an important strategic partner and enabler for the USAF and USSF to realize their Force Design 2030 visions. Specifically, Google Public Sector is helping the services establish capabilities leveraging Google Cloud’s commercial solutions that eclipse antiquated “government cloud,” or “gov cloud” offerings, which have shown to be less secure, less resilient, and less future-proof.

Indeed, government clouds were originally designed because the U.S. government was choking on the operational inefficiencies and costs of maintaining thousands of siloed and disparate data centers. In 2010, the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), intended to save the taxpayers between $5 billion and $8 billion annually by consolidating U.S. government data on a gov cloud. This was expressly created for U.S. federal, state, and local governments to meet the U.S. government’s thorough security and compliance regulations. However, like constructing castles with a single moat around them, gov clouds were by design intended to provide a perimeter defense around U.S. government information—ultimately creating a single pane of attack for cyberattackers to lay siege to (not to mention in the event an attacker was able to breach their defenses).

Since gov clouds were initially conceived and pursued, the internet, and the data riding on it, has grown exponentially. Today, the internet is a virtual superhighway of data transport. Gov clouds have not kept pace, requiring traffic to be routed through a boundary cloud access point (BCAP) that ostensibly forces all of the traffic from that virtual superhighway to use a single lane exit. This requirement has created latency issues, degraded the user experience, and is largely antithetical to the expectations of today’s Airmen and Guardians. As the USAF and USSF look to the future, they are seeing the limits of gov cloud solutions that struggle to provide them the support they need at the speed of relevance.

Google Cloud experienced firsthand what happens to a cloud that uses a perimeter defense. In early 2010, in the wake of a nation-state-sponsored cyber attack, called “Operation Aurora,” which targeted more than 20 technology companies, Google Cloud found itself a victim and recognized that it needed to go beyond the perimeter-defense approach of gov clouds. Making a strategic decision to design and implement a 21st century enterprise network, Google Cloud’s pioneering approach to security could be summarized in two words: zero trust. Instead of creating moats that attackers could infiltrate over time, Google Cloud assumed that bad actors were already on the network and started building controls to manage that risk from within.

Google Cloud created an equivalent software that meets the BCAP security outcomes, without being constrained by the same hardware or physical infrastructure limitations of gov clouds. Intentionally keeping the needs and pain points of their commercial and public sector customers in focus, Google Cloud sought to keep their customers in the fast lane of the digital highway and not be constrained by a suboptimal or bespoke solutions that could not scale or survive in a dynamic and ever-changing landscape. Google Cloud developed methods of encryption, including encryption keys, to provide a defense-in-depth approach to protecting data—even when the data is at rest.

In addition to encryption, Google Cloud is very deliberate in where it builds global infrastructure and data centers, and allows its customers to direct the geographic distribution of data. Google Cloud has fourteen data centers in the United States – all across the country, from Oregon to Georgia. Google Cloud’s data centers are also globally located throughout Europe, South America, and Asia and ready to support the Guardian or Airman where they are located to provide the best and fastest response to their needs. These are just a few examples of how Google Cloud actively seeks to proactively reduce the surfaces of attack, across the entire network, that could otherwise be exploited by bad actors.

With the help of Google Cloud, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Rapid Sustainment Office is optimizing aircraft operations and sustainment using data to ensure global strategic advantage. Photo by Rick Goodfriend/USAF,

With the creation of Google Public Sector in June 2022, Google has signaled it is now prepared to bring its comparative advantage and paradigm-shifting approach to meet the U.S. government’s digital transformation requirements. Rather than create and certify a bespoke gov cloud that is inherently limited, Google has invested in certifying its entire network to meet the U.S. government’s thorough security and compliance regulations. At the same time, Google Cloud has worked to ensure its products can be used on any cloud service provider platform. Building in these characteristics from the beginning, Google Cloud is demonstrating a commitment to driving an open approach that encourages competition through multi-vendor, multicloud, and hybrid cloud solutions. Rather than endorsing a winner-take-all approach, Google Cloud is putting the customers’ needs first and has intentionally structured its cloud to be adaptable, flexible, and anti-vendor lock-in. Over the past several years, Google Cloud has invested considerable time, money, and human capital to demonstrate how the same services it provides to the public sector either meet or exceed the security and compliance regulations of the private sector.

USAF and USSF visionaries, who have also been looking over the horizon to identify the requirements of the future and seeking the best-in-class commercial solutions can be brought online, are seeing the value Google Public Sector provides. Some of the most innovative units within the Department of the Air Force, like the Air Force Research Lab, are using Google Workspace to drive collaboration within their ranks and among academia and our allied partner nations. Google Cloud is the platform of choice for a range of solutions, like simulation training for pilots, predictive maintenance, and combating cyber threats. For example, with the help of Google Cloud, the Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO) within Air Force Lifecycle Management Center (AFLCMC) is optimizing aircraft sustainment and operations to ensure global strategic advantage, especially in an increasingly complicated security environment.

The way the USAF and USSF have viewed their digital transformations has evolved over time as well, due to their partnership with Google Cloud, and now Google Public Sector. The USAF pivoted from its plan to take a “lift-and-shift” approach to its transition to the cloud; recognizing the move to the cloud had significant implications beyond simply realizing cost-savings. Instead, the USAF appears poised to embrace the opportunity to fundamentally transform the way it approaches its mission through the use of cutting-edge technology. Similarly, the USSF continues to establish a force that can win in both cyber and space domains and is deliberately pursuing solutions that can operate at the speed and scale it requires. Though much work remains, both services see their respective digital transitions to the cloud as a defining moment. Partnering with cloud service providers that keep pace with the strategic imperatives of today, while simultaneously enabling integration that avoids vendor lock out, and investing in the development of future capabilities that anticipate future service requirements, is critical.

Google Cloud is the platform of choice for a range of solutions, like simulation training for pilots, predictive maintenance, and combating cyber threats. U.S. Air Force Second Lt. Charles Keller, left, and Airman First Class Tyler Haselden, Pilot Training Next students, train on a virtual reality flight simulator at the Armed Forces Reserve Center in Austin, Texas, June 21, 2018. PTN is an Air Education and Training Command initiative to explore and potentially prototype a training environment that integrates various technologies to produce pilots in an accelerated, cost-efficient, learning-focused manner. The six-month program leans on a variety of technologies, to include virtual and augmented reality, advanced biometrics, artificial intelligence and data analytics. Photo by Sean Worrell/USAF.

So What Does This Mean for Our Airmen and Guardians?

The paradigm shift away from gov clouds is happening and the digital transformation of the USAF and USSF has begun. Google Public Sector is providing solutions that help Airmen and Guardians perform tasks faster, more efficiently, and more effectively. As important, Airmen and Guardians are starting to explore new and innovative ways to use information–exploring the “art of the possible” in ways they have never enjoyed. At the same time, Google Public Sector is emerging as a strategic partner and thought leader that is committed to providing the best of their battle-tested and validated commercial solutions to the USAF and USSF—ensuring they can operate at the speed of relevance.

As with any change, implementation and adoption take time. However, the Airmen and Guardians in the ranks of the USAF and USSF, both today and in the future, should be more optimistic than ever that their voices are being heard and that their leaders are demanding they have the tools needed to focus on their mission.

The Importance of an Open Systems Approach

Bringing Open and Networked Capabilities to Next-Generation Fighters

MosarcTM Delivers Modular, Open, Scalable and Secure Architectures

Awards

So What Does This Mean for Our Airmen and Guardians?

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