B-2 Crew Successfully Tested Long-Range Cruise Missile, Northrop Grumman Says

Aug. 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A B-2 bomber successfully released a long-range cruise missile during a weapons test in December 2021, contractor Northrop Grumman revealed Aug. 25, potentially giving the stealth bomber the ability to strike even deeper into contested areas.

The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or JASSM-ER, has a range of more than 500 miles and has been integrated onto the B-1B and B-52 bombers and F-15E and F-16 fighters, according to Pentagon budget documents.

The December test on the B-2, however, marks the first publicly known instance of the Air Force testing the JASSM-ER on a stealth aircraft—there are plans to integrate the missile onto the F-35A as well.

The B-2 has already completed testing with the missile’s shorter-range variant, the JASSM.

“The JASSM-ER further enhances the B-2’s ability to hit any target, anywhere,” Northrop Grumman’s press release states. “The integration of JASSM-ER enables the delivery of a low observable asset capable of traveling greater distances than its predecessor.”

The baseline version of JASSM has a range of roughly 200 miles. Not only can JASSM-ER fly more than twice that far, future versions will allow it to re-target midflight.

Northrop Grumman provided no other details as to where the test occurred or why it took so long to publicly announce it, and the Air Force did not immediately respond to queries from Air Force Magazine.

The successful JASSM-ER test was just one of three modernization efforts Northrop Grumman announced. The contractor also said it has integrated the new Radar Aided Targeting System onto the bomber.

The Air Force had previously announced a successful test of the system, which improves weapon guidance accuracy in a GPS-denied environment, in July. Northrop Grumman noted that the system allows the B-2 to fully use the B61 Mod 12, the latest version of the thermonuclear bomb.

Northrop Grumman also announced that it has installed modern cryptology on the B-2, giving the bomber more secure communications at “various high frequency transmissions.” The new cryptology was tested “earlier this year” in a flight from the contractor’s Oklahoma City facility.

How an Enterprise Approach Solves USAF’s Training Needs

Aug. 25, 2022 | By Scott King

Since 1999, the USAF has developed and evolved the most advanced and prolific high fidelity distributed training capability for aircrews (or “the warfighter”). USAF leadership is urging us all to “accelerate the transition from the force we have to the force required for a future high-end fight.” This will require rethinking our training approach as we look to integrate 5^th Gen platforms and merge test and training approaches.

In partnership with the Navy, HII developed and enhanced the resulting Navy Continuous Training Environment (NCTE) which was built on open standards and nonproprietary software, reducing costs and clearing away concerns about vendor-lock-in.

HII has been leveraging these proven methodologies to answer emerging Air Force training requirements on our growing USAF portfolio and range programs to prepare warfighters for joint all-domain operations.

Live, virtual, and constructive training allows warfighters to train as they fight in a distributed environment. Here’s how.

“The NCTE architecture integrates tools, standards, and a collaborative workforce to [create] a simulation network that enables the warfighter to train as they fight in a distributed environment,” said John Bell, technical director at HII’s Mission Technologies LVC Solutions Group. “It’s fully scalable, so we can train at every level, from single ships and small groups of aircraft to carrier strike groups with air wings and combatant commands. We bring live, virtual, and constructive simulation training systems together into a single integrated organization.”

Airmen might hear such a statement and imagine that ships and aircraft carriers aren’t their problem, but Bell says when it comes to simulation, it’s all computers and software. In the digital realm, the difference between a ship and a fighter jet is just ones and zeros. The cloud-enabled network hubs HII built for the Navy in Norfolk, San Diego, and Japan facilitate training in every domain, with every service, and even with coalition partners.

“Using our open standards approach, we can interoperate training systems in the same way that go-to-war systems operate. We can even connect to our coalition partners wherever their training systems are located,” Bell said.

That concept translates directly to Air Force requirements that aim to tie together the many different simulation and training systems owned and operated by Air Force major commands. Because HII’s enterprise approach is technology agnostic, it effectively bridges seemingly incompatible systems using multiple protocols. HII integrates systems by developing advanced Government-owned tools such as the Joint Simulation Bus (JBUS), which supports simulation and tactical protocols used by DoD training and tactical systems.

“JBUS is a gateway and protocol translation service,” Bell said. “It allows us to adapt different protocols, simulations and tactical systems to the same standards. The beauty of open standards is that everybody that implements to an open standard is capable of interoperating.”

Coding individual software solutions for every system would be prohibitive in cost and time. But with JBUS,” Bell said, “We allow these systems to connect to the NCTE easily so they can start training today.”

That kind of universal interface is exactly what the Air Force seems to be looking for, Bell said.

“The U.S. Air Force has many training platforms that are each built by their own vendor, which means they are not initially built to interoperate,” said Bell, who has spent more than two decades working these issues. “Our approach is a vendor neutral open system standard that any vendor can adapt to by using common tools and processes, so they can easily plug their systems into this common architecture. This open standards enterprise approach is the way of the future.”

HII proved the concept in the Navy’s Fleet Synthetic Training-Aviation exercises.

“Fleet Synthetic Training is the Navy’s premier training program—it is equivalent to the Air Force’s Distributed Mission Operations Training Program,” Bell said. “We integrate high-fidelity tactical trainers for aviation into the NCTE within a scalable training architecture.”

NCTE can support small-scale operations like one or two pilots and planes conducting maneuver drills, or massive exercises in which multiple airwings and carrier strike groups train with joint and coalition partners.

“Integrating live training systems with those high-fidelity tactical trainers gives us a lot of insights into how a fully-blended LVC environment would work for the Air Force,” Bell said. “Fifth Generation fighters require a lot more sophistication of tactics and capability,” he said. “We’re looking at the different ways we can integrate high-fidelity simulations for the Joint Strike Fighter for testing and training in a common synthetic environment, using some of the lessons learned in developing the NCTE.”

HII has experience working with the Air National Guard’s Distributed Training Operations Center, having integrated that support nationwide. “The insight we get from conducting [ANG’s] location-wide training missions on a single network and their network connectivity and interoperability with other USAF DMO networks including DMON and MAF DMO, gives us a lot of insight into how Air Force Distributed Mission Operations works,” Bell said. “So we understand what the Air Force’s challenges are in running large training networks and how the techniques and approaches we’ve developed for the Navy can be applied to the Air Force’s training needs.”

That understanding includes a commitment to continuous modernization and advancement.

“We’re investigating how we can use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to analyze training event data,” Bell said. The technology can help improve both after-action reporting and understanding, he added: “When were the targets detected? When did the bomb get dropped? How close was the bomb hit to the target? Why didn’t we detect the enemy at the appropriate range? From there, we can start comparing trends from one event to the next.”

HII is also using digital twin technology to help improve its digital models.

“For LVC training, digital twin technology allows us to build high-fidelity representations of weapon systems, which is critical because our modern weapons systems depend on communications with each other in a fused-sensor-centric environment. Injecting a digital twin into that environment allows us to train at a much higher degree of fidelity that we can do with traditional simulation technology today.”

HII, Bell said, is developing the training capabilities of the future today to better prepare warfighters to join the joint force fight.

“Joint all domain training capabilities are a major challenge for the Department of Defense today,” Bell said. But HII has been supporting joint training for years. “We built the Navy Continuous Training Environment alongside the government with the intent of supporting joint warfare,” he added. “Our enterprise approach, with its tools, open architecture, and standards, is very applicable to the Air Force for conducting their joint all domain training with the other services.”

Guard F-35 Unit Completes First Overseas Deployment to Europe

Aug. 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

After three months in Europe, Airmen from the Vermont Air National Guard and their F-35s returned home in early August, completing the first overseas deployment of the Guard’s first F-35 unit.

Eight F-35 fighters and more than 200 Airmen first deployed in late April and early May and operated out of Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.

Their presence in the region was needed to relieve F-35s from the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, that had arrived in Europe in February in response to Russia’s increasing aggression toward Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank.

“We’re here … because they needed us,” Lt. Col. John MacRae, commander of the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, said in a statement. “Hill was out here on their immediate response force, and they were at the end of their window, and we were available and ready to go.”

While in Europe, the Vermont ANG fighters flew more than 450 sorties and conducted missions and training over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia, among other countries, integrating with NATO allies as part of enhanced air policing and air shielding missions and practicing concepts such as agile combat employment.

The deployment came only a few months after the 158th Fighter Wing had been declared a fully operational F-35 unit.

The fighters and Airmen began returning to Vermont in early August, with their fifth-generation capabilities being succeeded by F-22s arriving in Europe from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

All in all, leaders termed the Guard’s first overseas deployment of F-35s a success.

“We volunteered to give up our summer in Vermont to generate and fly sorties to defend NATO’s Eastern Flank,” McRae said. “It was a rewarding three months and our small wing had a big strategic impact.”

Supply Chain, Workforce Worries Pose Risks to Modernization of Triad’s Sea Leg

Aug. 24, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Navy’s program executive officer for strategic submarines said his service’s leg of the nuclear triad is facing workforce and supply chain shortages like much of the rest of the defense industry.

Rear Adm. Scott W. Pappano spoke with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’ director of research retired Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem in a webinar Aug. 24.

Pappano is overseeing the procurement and sustainment of the Navy’s strategic submarines as the service transitions from Ohio-class to Columbia-class submarines at a time when the Navy will have ramped up shipbuilding fivefold in five years.

The upcoming Columbia class is “the biggest, and it’s the quietest and most capable nuclear submarine our nation will have ever produced,” Pappano said. “It’s really a fantastic machine. It brings the same stealth and survivability at a more advanced level than the Ohio brings.”

Disruptions to the manufacturing supply chain are “the biggest risk right now … on the ‘new’ side of the house” as well as “across a couple of different fronts,” Pappano said.

Likewise, attracting a skilled workforce continues to be a challenge, which Pappano attributed in part to the 1990s’ and 2000s’ emphasis on going to college over learning a trade.

“We need skilled trades feeding our industrial base right now,” Pappano said, arguing that the defense industrial base “is actually part of that integrated deterrence picture. … It ought to drive our ability to deter our peer adversaries.”

He hopes a whole-of-government effort to build regional training pipelines in “core concentration areas” will help to bolster the workforce and said a new additive manufacturing center of excellence will bring together experts from industry, academia, and national labs to try to “lower the barrier to entry” to making parts.

Nationally the U.S. needs to refocus on \skilled trades and engineering, Pappano said—“everything that we need to build back the manufacturing in the nation.”

Collaborative Combat Aircraft May Still Help Bombers, Experts Say

Aug. 24, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has backed off the idea of an unmanned bomber to pair with the B-21 Raider—but there could still be value in building low-cost, less sophisticated drones to accompany the B-21.

That was the key takeaway from a recent three-day workshop conducted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that gathered Air Force leaders, planners, and operators, along with industry partners, to study potential uses for what the Air Force is now calling “collaborative combat aircraft.”

In particular, the workshop focused on the long-range penetrating strike mission of the B-21—another session will be devoted to Next Generation Air Dominance later this year—and tasked three teams with designing unmanned aircraft to aid the bomber in strikes against an air base, a maritime threat, and a transporter erector launcher in a hypothetical conflict with China in 2030.

Adding an unmanned escort for the B-21 was one of seven operational imperatives Kendall introduced in late 2021, but this past July, he seemed to abandon the concept, telling Breaking Defense “the idea of a similar-range collaborative combat aircraft is not turning out to be cost-effective.”

But parsing out Kendall’s comments, there are still potential uses for shorter-range unmanned aircraft to work with the B-21, argued retired Col. Mark Gunzinger, the Mitchell Institute’s director of future concepts and capability assessments and one of the workshop leaders.

“Secretary Kendall did not impeach the idea of a long-range strike family of systems. The B-21 was designed from its outset as part of a family of systems that include unmanned systems, possibly some manned … weapons and sensors and so forth,” Gunzinger said. “So it really does need the rest of that family of systems to achieve the kind of long-range strike effects we need in highly contested threat environments.”

Indeed, while none of the teams in the workshop was prohibited from proposing a long-range escort, none did, said Caitlin Lee, senior fellow for the Mitchell Institute’s Center for Unmanned and Autonomous Systems and another workshop leader.

“Holding costs aside, the teams still preferred to build large numbers of UAVs with disaggregated capabilities,” Lee said. “And that was because they wanted mass, and there were a few different reasons for that.”

One of the key reasons was cost imposition—forcing an adversary to expend more rounds to take down separate platforms.

“If you can cause an enemy to run out of his best weapons, that increases your survivability, your effectiveness, attacking targets and doing other things significantly,” noted Gunzinger.

Other factors included increased complexity for adversaries and increased options for commanders, Lee and Gunzinger said.

Without the advantages of those large numbers of collaborative combat aircraft, or CCAs, several teams said they didn’t think a mission commander would order their mission to go forward because of the risk involved. Even when the workshop leaders imposed cost restrictions, two of the teams were willing to sacrifice capabilities on their unmanned aircraft to buy larger numbers, Lee said.

And while Kendall has described a vision of five or so CCAs to pair with a fighter like NGAD, the workshop teams envisioned numbers in the “10s or 20s,” Lee said, depending on the functions of the drones.

Functions such as counter-air and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance were particularly important for teams.

“ISR is a huge gap in a China fight, and it appears that UAVs may be able to at least partially close that gap,” Lee said. “Another [takeaway] was counter-air UAVs may be able to at least partially close that gap. And another one was that, particularly for penetrating strike missions over the mainland of China, fifth-generation fighters probably don’t have the range required to support those penetrating strike missions. And UAVs may be an option to provide that escort.”

But rather than trying to have that escort fly with the B-21 for the entire mission, workshop participants chose to have their drones be “untethered” from the bomber, taking off from closer in and capable of linking up with—and peeling off from—the manned platform.

“I think we need to open our minds a little bit to think about how the CCAs can be optimized to support the mission, but not necessarily mirror image what the manned aircraft is doing,” Lee said.

In order for such a concept to work, though, the CCAs will likely have to have a level of autonomy—and that was one of the workshop’s most crucial takeaways, Lee said.

“Autonomy is really the long pole in the tent,” Lee said. “Specifically, if you wanted mass, then that mass is just a random herd of cats if it’s not all coordinated and optimized toward a single mission.”

Because of that, workshop participants largely agreed that investing in autonomy and artificial intelligence should take priority, a finding Lee said was “fascinating” given that it came from “a group of engineers who are all about designing airplanes.”

“They stepped back from this, and operators who want new capabilities to build quickly, they all sort of stepped back and said, ‘As much as we want these CCAs on the flight line tomorrow, they won’t be much good if we don’t know how we’re going to control them and optimize them to achieve the specific mission we want them to do,’” Lee said.

Beyond the specific takeaways for long-range strike, Gunzinger said the workshop also demonstrated vital collaboration as the Air Force considers how it wants to proceed with unmanned systems.

“Something I was thrilled to see … is how thrilled our players were,” Gunzinger said. “The operators who came from across the different Air Force communities, including AFRL, with industry, different industry [partners], they all worked together, and they were just pleased as hell that ‘Hey, we never do this. We got war fighters and the planners and the guys who make these aircraft together, thinking about different attributes, doing tradeoffs and costing and so forth.’ There was real value in doing that.”

Biden Directs $2.98 Billion Ukraine Defense Package to Build Future Force

Aug. 24, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

President Joe Biden is making a bet on Ukraine’s ability to withstand war and deter Russia for years to come, announcing on Ukraine’s independence day, Aug. 24, a $2.98 billion defense package that builds out a future force with high-end air defenses, radar, and counter-unmanned aerial systems that may take years to deliver. A defense official also said combat jets “remain on the table” but are not part of the new package.

The largest defense assistance package yet relies on a lengthier contracting process that buys targeted new weapons for Ukraine instead of drawing down existing U.S. stocks. It also refrains from the longer-range weapons Ukraine seeks to reach Russian supply lines as they adjust to greater stand-off distances.

The Pentagon said the new package will include six additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) with munitions to add to the two NASAMS promised by Biden in a July 1 announcement that have yet to be delivered.

The package also includes 24 counter-artillery radars; Puma unmanned aerial systems (UAS); support equipment for Scan Eagle UAS systems; the VAMPIRE counter-UAS that can shoot down UAS threats; laser-guided rocket systems; and hundreds of thousands of additional rounds of 155 mm artillery and 120 mm mortar ammunition. The package now pushes U.S. defense assistance to Ukraine to more than $13.5 billion since January 2021 and $15.5 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014.

“Vladimir Putin has not given up on his overall strategic objectives of seizing most of Ukraine, toppling the regime, reclaiming Ukraine as part of a new Russian Empire,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin H. Kahl said at an Aug. 24 Pentagon briefing.

“What he has done is lengthened his timeline in recognition [that] he’s off plan,” he added. The new package is not for the current fight. “It’s not relevant to the fight today, tomorrow, next week. It is relevant to the ability of Ukraine to defend itself and to deter further aggression a year from now, two years from now.

The assistance package is expected to arrive to the battlefield within one to two years, demonstrating the bureaucratic hurdles that are required for the contracting and delivery process versus presidential drawdowns. The NASAMS Biden promised in July are expected to arrive in September.

Ukraine ‘Reassured’ as Air Raid Sirens Ring Out

A Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine by phone from Kyiv that the defense package is welcome news but that assistance is needed urgently to defend territory and retake lost ground.

“Everybody is grateful, excited, and reassured—reassured that the military aid to Ukraine from the U.S. will continue,” said Yuriy Sak, adviser to Ukraine’s minister of defense. “It is equipping the Ukrainian army with the means that we need to, first of all, protect our land; and second of all, to begin planning the de-occupation counter-offensives.”

On Ukraine’s Independence day, Sak said air raid sirens rang all day in the capital, with Russian missile strikes detected at civilian targets across the country, including in the regions of Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia.

“We are having too many air raid sirens today. I mean, they keep ringing out. There is one right now in Kyiv,” Sak said at approximately 7:45 p.m. local time Aug. 24. “It’s independence day, but everybody’s on high alert.”

In several areas, Ukrainian air defense systems were able to shoot down Russian missiles or drones, he said. The NASAMS, the same system used to defend Washington, D.C., would help protect civilian populations and vital military assets, once delivered.

Sak also said that while the new aid package helps Ukraine’s transformation to Western, NATO-standard weaponry, some key battlefield needs remain unanswered.

“We have reached the stage of this war where we need a longer firing range of these weapon systems,” he said, noting that High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) given by the United States include precision artillery Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) with a range of 80 km or about 50 miles.

“Even with this firing range, we were able to destroy the ammunition depots of our enemy, to destroy the so-called command and control systems of the enemy, but they are also learning from the battlefield experience,” he said.

Russia has begun to move its supply chains and logistical hubs beyond 80 km.

“Which means right now we need more sophisticated weaponry to be more efficient,” Sak said, describing a Ukrainian request for the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which can fire surface-to-surface missiles up to 300 km, or 190 miles.

“ATACM missiles are something that are very firmly on our wish list, and we will continue to speak to our partners, to the U.S., with a view to getting them,” he said.

Asked by Air Force Magazine why the Pentagon did not include ATACMS missiles in the package, Kahl said DOD had assessed that they were not needed.

“It’s our assessment that they don’t currently require ATACMS to service targets that are directly relevant to the current fight,” he said.

Kahl said DOD has provided hundreds of precision Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) for use with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

“We consulted very closely with Ukrainians about the types of targets they need to prosecute inside Ukrainian territory,” he explained. “The vast majority of those targets were rangeable by HIMARS using GMLRS as opposed to the much-longer-range ATACMS.”

Kahl did not respond to a question about Russia moving back its forces beyond the reach of the HIMARS.

‘Fighter Aircraft Remain on the Table’

As to the lengthy timeframe for delivery of the new systems, Sak pointed to a $775 million presidential drawdown package Aug. 19 that includes additional high-precision HIMARS ammunition.

Sak also said the introduction of AGM-88 High Speed Anti Radiation missiles (HARM), which can be mounted on Ukrainian Air Force MiG 29s, has helped to suppress enemy air defenses.

“Well, they’ve been used very efficiently … to suppress their defense systems in those areas where the intense fighting is going on,” he said.

Sak, however, lamented that the U.S. government has yet to make the political decision to provide Western aircraft or pilot training to better contest advanced Russian fighters and bombers.

“We understand that the political decisions to provide Ukraine with combat aircraft is still in the making, and it’s not an easy one,” he said.

Kahl said DOD’s current aviation priority is assuring that Ukraine can use its Air Force effectively in the current conflict, such as adapting HARM missiles to fire from MiG-29s.

“Fighter aircraft remain on the table, just no final decisions have been made about that,” he said.

Kahl said as it relates to future aircraft, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III tasked his staff to work with the Joint Staff and U.S. European Command on a “future forces picture” for Ukraine’s force for the mid- to long term in consultation with Ukraine.

Kahl said that even if fourth-generation aircraft were promised now, they would not arrive for years, and it is unclear whether Ukraine would be able to sustain the force without international assistance.

Still, news of the new package is reverberating to other partner nations, Sak said. United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in Kyiv for Independence Day, announced a 54 million British pound, or $63.7 million, defense package to Ukraine.

“The U.S. is taking the lead in assisting the Ukraine militarily,” Sak said. “It kind of encourages other countries to as well come forward and follow suit and provide Ukraine with more military assistance.”

Bearded Airmen and Guardians? Leaked Proposal for Air Force Test Program Would Make It Real

Aug. 23, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Male Airmen and Guardians dreaming of one day sporting a beard in uniform got a boost of hope recently, as documents for a proposed study of “inclusive male grooming” standards leaked on social media.

But don’t put away those razors just yet. The service says the proposal is still in a draft phase and has not been approved.

The images posted on the popular unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page detail a pilot program in which selected service members can grow facial hair up to a 1/4 inch in length, as long as it is “neat in appearance, shaped appropriately, and not faddish.” Failure to do so would result in ejection from the program. Service members would also be required to provide feedback, photos, and documentation throughout the program.

The results of the program and the “impacts of male facial hair” would then be presented to the Secretary of Defense.

“The screenshots reflect a volunteer’s recommendation for how to proceed if a proposal for a pilot program is approved,” an Air Force spokesperson told Air Force Magazine in a statement. “The proposal is being discussed within the Black/African American Employment Strategy Team, one of the Department of the Air Force Barrier Analysis Working Groups, but has not been approved.”

A proposed start date is included in the images—Sept. 1, 2022—but there is no actual timeline for when the program could begin, as the proposal has not been formally submitted. When it is, it will first go to the Department of the Air Force’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

One of the documents shown on social media includes the signature block of Brig. Gen. Devin R. Pepper, the Space Force’s deputy director for strategy, plans, and policy. Pepper is one of three Black men who are general officers in the Space Force, and he is a member of the Black/African American Employment Strategy Team (BEST).

The issue of shaving is of particular interest for that team because Black men often deal with painful razor bumps, caused by ingrown hairs, at a higher rate than other racial groups.

The Air Force has cited razor bumps in the past when making changes to its grooming policy. In 2020, the department extended shaving waivers for those diagnosed with razor bumps from one year to five years.

But advocates argue that more sweeping changes are needed, in part because shaving waivers are often misunderstood and hurt Airmen’s careers.

In May, a slide deck presentation from BEST circulated on the unofficial Air Force Reddit page. Dated Feb. 13, the presentation noted that promotion, retention, and special opportunities are all negatively affected by shaving waivers and that Black Airmen make up the majority of waiver recipients.

The presentation’s proposed solution is to revise Air Force dress and appearance regulations to allow for beards between 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch long. The revised regulation would require Airmen to pass a “mask seal fit test for a mask/respirator, if actively required for occupational duties.” If they fail that fit test, they must either be shaved or disqualified from that duty. Commanders would also be able to temporarily restrict the wearing of beards “to meet safety and operational requirements.”

The presentation is “pre-decisional” and has been “circulating internally” among BEST, an Air Force spokesperson said when asked by Air Force Magazine if the document has been formally presented.

Air Force leadership has generally seemed reluctant to allow beards across the board, however. In April 2021, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass indicated that they were more inclined to clarify the waiver process, as opposed to changing grooming regulations.

That approach resulted in another 2020 change when the department expanded its grooming policy to allow for Airmen to apply for waivers to wear beards for religious reasons.

Still, many Airmen, especially younger ones, continue to push for a broader change in regulations, so much so that Bass made reference to it in a panel discussion at the AFA Warfare Symposium in March.

“Our Airmen and Guardians are more talented, smarter, innovative, ready to get after it. They have information at their fingertips. In this information age we’re in, many have an attention span of eight seconds. And many just want to have beards,” Bass noted.

Kendall: Australian Ghost Bat Drone Could Pair With NGAD

Aug. 23, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall indicated that the Air Force could incorporate the Australian-made Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone into the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) family of systems, according to media reports. Citing China’s technological superiority and aggressive acts in the region, Kendall also said the U.S. may be willing to cooperate with Australia on long-range strike capability.

“I’m talking to my Australian counterparts in general about the NGAD family of systems and how they might be able to participate,” Kendall said about the Ghost Bat drone, formerly the “Loyal Wingman,” the first aircraft to be made in Australia in a half century.

Kendall told Breaking Defense that the United States and Australia are “having preliminary discussions” about buying the MQ-28 Ghost Bat “as a risk reduction mechanism” for NGAD’s drone capability.

“I think there’s a lot of mutual interest in working together. And we’re going to be sorting out the details over the next few weeks,” Kendall said after meeting with newly minted Royal Australian Air Force chief Air Marshal Robert Chipman on Aug. 22.

Australia and the United States, alongside the United Kingdom, deepened their defense relationship in 2021 when President Joe Biden announced the “AUKUS” partnership to share military technology, beginning with nuclear-powered submarines.

In public comments in Canberra, both Kendall and Chipman described China’s air superiority and aggressive actions, including a dangerous Chinese J-16 fighter intercept that damaged an Australian surveillance P-8 over the South China Sea. During the encounter, the Chinese aircraft ejected aluminum chaff that entered the P-8’s engines and damaged its exterior.

“They are as formidable a strategic opponent as I have seen. We are in what I consider to be a race for military technological superiority with the Chinese,” Kendall said, according to local media.

Chipman affirmed that China’s aggression would not deter his Air Force from flying over international airspace.

In a June 9 interview, U.S. Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach told Air Force Magazine that the Chinese encounter with the Australian P-8, and a similar encounter with Canadian aircraft, were dangerous.

“That’s not only unprofessional. It’s definitely dangerous and unsafe,” Wilsbach said at PACAF headquarters at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

“I call on the Chinese Air Force to step up and be professional,” he added. “The Australians and the Canadians, as well as the U.S. were, are, and do fly in international airspace. They have every right to do that in accordance with international law. And the Chinese don’t have the right to damage an aircraft that is operating in accordance with international law.”

But China doesn’t see it that way.

China believes the airspace over the Taiwan Straits to be its sovereign territory in addition to swaths of airspace over the South and East China seas, where it claims waters in territorial disputes with the Philippines and Vietnam.

Kendall’s trip echoes an August two-week trip across Pacific air bases and meetings with allies and partners made by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. Kendall’s visit will not include visits to new partners but instead includes stops at Air Force bases in Guam and Alaska and air bases in Australia and Japan.

Kendall said China’s militarization of the South China Sea has implications for Australian national security. China has also signed a basing agreement with the Solomon Islands, east of Sydney, creating a new strategic dilemma for the U.S. ally.

In a September 2021 “2+2 meeting” between the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense and their Australian counterparts in Washington, D.C., Australian defense minister Peter Dutton responded to a question from Air Force Magazine, saying the U.S. and Australian air forces would have “greater and more frequent engagement.”

In July, B-2s deployed to the Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley for a bomber task force mission. In Canberra, Kendall signaled that the United States would be willing to cooperate with Australia, should it require an indigent long-range strike capability.

“If I saw you had a requirement for long-range strike [capability], then we’d be willing to have a conversation with [Australia] about that,” Kendall said, according to local media. The comments extended to potential joint development on the long-range B-21 stealth bomber.

“I don’t think that there’s any fundamental limitation on the areas in which we can cooperate,” Kendall added.

Air Force to Expand Synthetic Environment for Mission Rehearsal, Testing, and Training

Aug. 23, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Aircraft simulators must evolve to meet the adversary threat, leaders from the 53rd Wing told Air Force Magazine. Once mainly used for initial qualification training, the Air Force is moving toward a paradigm of simulator training known as the “common synthetic environment” that will create non-proprietary, interchangeable training devices and environments for aircrews to train, conduct mission rehearsals, and even test new weapons and other capabilities in a virtual environment.

The development is in the initial stages, with a building constructed to house the Virtual Test and Training Center (VTTC) at the Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and approximately $20 million dollars slated per year through fiscal 2028 for software and new simulators.

The VTTC is expected to be fully operational by 2027, but partnerships with Air Force Material Command and Naval Air Systems Command could advance the timeline, a 53rd Wing public affairs spokesperson said.

Originally slated to begin in fiscal 2024, the Air Force is counting on fiscal 2023 funding to connect the newest platforms to the Joint Simulation Environment, or JSE, a government-owned, non-proprietary modeling and simulation environment.

“They’re already moving legacy devices out of old facilities to make room for new devices that will plug into JSE,” said Lt. Col. David R. Clementi, commander of the 29th Training Systems Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

“What we’re seeing now is a drastic shift in the paradigm of the importance of the synthetic environment, equal to if not in some areas eclipsing the importance of lifelike missions when it comes to mission rehearsal, and some training aspects and test aspects,” he added in a video interview with Air Force Magazine.

The Nellis campus is building out a capability for fourth-generation-plus fighter aircraft from the F-15EX forward to bombers such as the B-21 and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft such as the Air Force’s newly selected E-7 Wedgetail.

“The synthetic environment has been a huge afterthought,” Clementi said. “When you just talk generically about a common synthetic training environment, we are talking about one environment that is built with the ability to host multiple different devices.”

The VTTC campus at Nellis, under the command of 31st Combat Training Squadron leader Lt. Col. J. Chris Duncan, hosts a variety of simulators that allow pilots and crew to “fly” together in a non-distributed environment, meaning each simulator is located no more than a few thousand feet from each other. The VTTC is also exploring technologies for blending synthetic scenarios with live flying at the Nevada Test and Training Range.

The “vision” is for all of the Air Force’s latest-generation aircraft to have a device that connects to the VTTC campus, running the same software, so the aircraft can train, rehearse missions, and test together, Clementi said.

An Urgent Shift

The urgency of the shift to the synthetic environment has three roots: adversary observation, current range limits, and the need to integrate multiple platforms.

Adversary observation means everything from weapons testing to new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) can now be seen, particularly by Chinese and Russian satellites passing overhead.

“When you talk about adversary exploitation, I think the unclassified number out there for collection capability is in the minutes that we have a window available to execute without being observed from some sort of collection entity,” said Clementi.

Furthermore, the commander said the Air Force no longer has the technological capability to replicate the sophistication of the adversary threat.

“The [U.S.] aircraft are so sophisticated that they that they know that what is being replicated is not the actual thing,” Clementi said, describing how the F-35 can detect when artificial targets are trying to replicate Russian SA-15 and SA-20 surface-to-air missiles.

The same is true for air targets.

“When you talk a Chinese J-20, we can do our best now with what the 64th Aggressors are standing up, using fifth-gen fighters, using F-35s, to kind of replicate, but it’s still not the same thing,” he said.

Current ranges are also too limited for modern air warfare.

“The standoff that’s required exceeds the capability of the ranges, of the airspace that we have,” Clementi said, describing rehearsals with multiple aircraft and standoff distances in hundreds of miles. “And then, being able to put all of those assets together in one piece of sky is almost impossible.”

Finally, proprietary simulators, each created by the manufacturer of the platform itself, make it expensive and time-consuming to link together multiple platforms and test new threat paradigms.

“Every platform, every device had a different environment,” Clementi explained, giving the example of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and its simulator.

“So, if you just take one example about an air-to-air threat model, it is built by Lockheed for Lockheed, for that one device,” he said. “Over time, we saw the need to start linking devices together so that they could fly in a synthetic environment.”

Those devices had been connected by the Distributed Mission Operations Center (DMOC), formerly a proprietary system operated by Lockheed Martin. The DMOC hosts the Air Force’s hub for remote combat training exercises, testing, and experimentation. But Clementi said modeling, security, and latency limitations exist for simulators operating at Nellis and Eglin.

“In the last five years, we’ve realized that the requirement has now eclipsed the ability of executing,” Clementi said. “When you pair all of those together, you’re almost left with no choice but to start executing some of this high-end, advanced test, training, and tactics development in the synthetic environment.”

The Air Force Warfare Center has already built some facilities with a desire to incorporate partner and allied nations. Strategic messaging has also begun to get the word out and generate widespread understanding and buy-in.

Clementi said Air Combat Command is even considering re-designating the 29th Training Systems Squadron as a test and evaluation squadron to acknowledge its new role.

“The important part is that the Air Force, ACC, and the Warfare Center—they have finally seen the need to make the synthetic environment a primary focus area,” he said. “Everybody realizes that the future of mission rehearsal and test and training—it’s going to happen in the synthetic environment.”

This story was updated at 11:51 a.m. Aug. 25 to clarify the role of the Distributed Mission Operations Center (DMOC).