Air Force Strength Now ‘Very Weak,’ Heritage Foundation Report Says

Oct. 18, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s readiness has hit new lows due to pilot shortages, low flying hours, and aging aircraft, the Heritage Foundation’s 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength found—leading the conservative think tank to give the service its lowest possible rating of “very weak.”

The Space Force, meanwhile, still needs more assets to cope with rapid growth in the domain, the report found. That, coupled with a lack of publicly known offensive and defensive weapons systems and capabilities, led to a rating of “weak” for the second year in a row.

Overall, the U.S. military’s strength was rated as “weak” on a five-point scale of very weak to very strong, the lowest score Heritage has given the military since it began the index in 2015. Of the individual services, the Air Force scored the lowest, with only the Marine Corps and the overall nuclear enterprise getting ratings of “strong.”

“The common theme across the services and the U.S. nuclear enterprise is one of force degradation caused by many years of underinvestment, poor execution of modernization programs, and the negative effects of budget sequestration (cuts in funding) on readiness and capacity in spite of repeated efforts by Congress to provide relief from low budget ceilings imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011,” the index’s executive summary states.

Air Force

In Heritage’s inaugural 2015 index, the Air Force was the only service given a rating of “strong,” buoyed by positive marks in capacity and readiness.

For many years, the service maintained at least a “marginal” rating. That changed in the 2022 index as a continued decline in readiness led to its first-ever “weak” assessment, even as capacity and capability were still judged to be “marginal.”

That trend continued in the latest report, with capacity and capability holding steady but readiness declining even further in the authors’ eyes.

“Like a three legged stool, success or failure is determined by the weakest leg,” senior research fellow John Venable, a 25-year Air Force veteran, wrote in explaining the overall “very weak” grade.

Specifically, Venable cited the Air Force’s failure to reverse shortages of both pilots and flying time for those pilots.

“The summer of 2022 should have found the Air Force all but fully recovered from the effects of COVID-19. Readiness levels as measured by operational sortie rates and flying hours should have been well above the historic lows reached during the pandemic; instead, they have grown only marginally,” Venable wrote. “The service’s ability (or willingness) to fund and then generate sorties and flying hours for training has now spiraled well below the hollow-force days of the Carter administration with equally dismal readiness levels.”

The index cites the average flying hours per month for fighter pilots, which increased from 8.7 to 10 between 2020 and 2021, but is still well below prior years.

Broadly speaking, flying hours actually declined across the board from 2020 to 2021, according to Air Force data previously provided to Air & Space Forces Magazine, as airlift, bomber, and tanker pilots all got less time in the air.

Air Force leaders have acknowledged fewer flying hours for pilots is a problem. At a Heritage Foundation event in June, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he was “not happy with where we are” and noted the decline began with budget sequestration in 2011.

The Heritage index argued that “the current generation of fighter pilots, those who have been actively flying for the last seven years, has never experienced a healthy rate of operational flying.”

“Those numbers are so low in a high-performance fighter that pilot competence levels drop to the point where even excellent pilots begin to question their execution of very basic tasks and where the execution of complex mission tasks can become overwhelming,” Venable wrote.

The amount of flying hours is not the only issue that is hurting readiness. With mission capable rates declining, and fleets getting older, the overall numbers of combat-capable aircraft ready to rapidly deploy indicate the Air Force would “struggle to respond to a regional contingency, much less hold the readiness levels, competence, and confidence levels required to square off against a peer competitor,” Venable wrote. From a personnel standpoint, the service has yet to close a persistent shortage of pilots.

Space Force

The Heritage report praised the Space Force’s integration of units and assets from across the Department of Defense since its founding and the importance of the GPS satellite constellation. But analysts argued that the young service has yet to show improvement in capacity, capability, or readiness, giving each category a rating of “weak.”

In particular, the report dings the Space Force’s space situational awareness capabilities and capacity, warning that as private industry and other state actors build out their presence in space, the service will be challenged to keep track of bad actors.

When it comes to defensive and offensive weapon systems, the report acknowledged that it is limited because so many of the Space Force’s capabilities remain classified. But based on publicly available information, “there is little evidence that [the Space Force] is ready for the threat envisioned by Congress when it authorized creation of the Space Force,” the report states.

Future of F-35 Production Will Depend on US ‘Budget Priorities,’ Lockheed Martin CEO Says

Oct. 18, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

Lockheed Martin suggested the long-term sales prospects for its F-35 jet are uncertain amid worries the Department of Defense may begin to pivot away from the program. In the short term, new production of the F-35 will go down in 2023.

“The U.S. government’s got to kind of determine what its budget priorities are at the macro level going forward,” Lockheed Martin CEO James D. Taiclet said on a quarterly earnings call Oct. 17.

Much of the U.S. military’s focus is shifting towards strategic deterrence, Taiclet claimed—that means more of the defense budget will be spent on new Air Force programs such as the B-21 stealth bomber and the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile that will replace the Minuteman III.

“There’s going to be a significant amount of defense budget proportionally spent on the nuclear revitalization,” Taiclet said. However, Lockheed Martin’s boss said that should not come at the expense of tactical aircraft.

“The conventional threats have gotten worse instead of better,” Taiclet said. “As we look forward into the next two or three or four years, that’s going to be a budget issue for the U.S. government.”

The company put its short-term decreased F-35 production down to supply-chain issues and the need to fill outstanding orders.

“There will be a period of catch-up,” Chief Financial Officer Jay Malave said of the F-35. “Production will be down next year.” Malave said the company expected supply chain issues and other “headwinds” facing the program will “normalize heading into 2024.”

The company expects a Lot 16 F-35 order worth more than $8 billion to be completed by the end of 2022. In August, the Pentagon awarded a $7.6 billion Lot 15 contract to Lockheed Martin for up to 129 aircraft with 49 F-35As bound for the Air Force.

In the future, Lockheed Martin sees strong demand for the F-35 abroad but some tepidness for the plane at home. In light of Russia’s aggression, European militaries have bolstered their defense spending, including F-35s. In September, the Swiss government signed a contract for 36 F-35As—Denmark, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K all already operate the fighter, and Belgium, Finland, Germany, and Poland have all officially selected it. Greece and the Czech Republic are also seeking to buy.

The DOD, however, has been less keen on new aircraft purchases. The Air Force requested just 33 F-35As in its 2023 budget, which has yet to be passed by Congress.

Lockheed has set a long-term objective to produce 156 F-35s a year.

“It takes about 80 U.S. aircraft to make that happen per year with another 75 or so coming from international,” Taiclet said. “We see the international demand. It’s going to be up to the U.S. government to try to support that number.”

Some U.S. uncertainty stems from outstanding issues regarding what capabilities future F-35s will have, not just budget concerns.

The services are awaiting Lockheed Martin’s long-planned Block 4 and Technical Refresh 3 improvements to the jet and DOD’s own decision on the powerplant for Block 4 fighters. If a newly-designed, more expensive option from the Adaptive Engine Transition Program is chosen, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has suggested the service will be forced to buy fewer F-35As.

Lockheed’s executives acknowledged that America’s yearly F-35 buys would result from not just the DOD’s future budget priorities but what Congress ultimately decides to put into law. In the case of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2023 budget, that hasn’t happened yet.

“The defense budget is expected to go above and beyond what the President’s original submission was,” Taiclet said, adding the final bill “probably would benefit” the F-35.

For now, Lockheed Martin’s goal of 156 F-35s per year still stands.

“We hope for that,” Taiclet said. “We expect it because that’s the need, and that’s where we think the F-35 program is going to go.”

Jim McDivitt, USAF Fighter Pilot, Test Pilot, and Apollo Astronaut, dies at 93

Oct. 18, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Brig. Gen. James A. McDivitt, a fighter pilot in the Korean War and Air Force test pilot and astronaut in both the Gemini and Apollo program who later managed the Apollo lunar landing program and became a business executive, died Oct. 13 at the age of 93.

McDivitt’s 1969 Apollo 9 mission, the first test of all the vehicles and gear to be used in reaching the moon, paved the way for the Apollo 11 lunar landing four months later.

Born in Chicago, Ill. in 1929, McDivitt entered the Air Force as an aviation cadet in 1951 and earned his wings and commission a year later. He trained in the F-80 and in late 1952 was assigned to the Korean theater, where he flew 145 combat missions in the F-80 and F-86, twice receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Returning to the U.S., McDivitt served at McGuire and Tyndall Air Force Bases as an interceptor pilot. In 1959, he was first in his class completing his undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering through the University of Michigan and the Air Force Institute of Technology.

That same year, he applied to, and was accepted by, the Air Force test pilot school. He graduated from that course as well as the first class of the Aerospace Research Pilot School. He then worked on a number of developmental aircraft—including as a chase pilot on the X-15 program—and he was due to head the F-4 Phantom test program when in 1962 he was selected by NASA for the second group of astronauts.

McDivitt was assigned to command Gemini IV, the most ambitious U.S. spaceflight up to that point. He flew the four-day mission in 1966 with fellow astronaut Edward White; it was the first Gemini flight to be commanded by a space rookie. During the 66-orbit mission, White made the first spacewalk by an American, and the pair conducted a dozen other scientific and medical experiments, although an attempt to rendezvous with the Titan rocket’s spent upper stage did not succeed, due in part to NASA’s still nascent understanding or orbital rendezvous techniques. A computer failure forced McDivitt to improvise an unplanned and unrehearsed method of re-entry, all the while struggling with a stuck thruster, but the capsule made a safe landing just 50 miles from its target.

Three years later, McDivitt commanded the three-man Apollo 9—flying with lunar module pilot David Scott and command module pilot Russell Schweickart—which was the first space test of both the Apollo command/service module (CSM) and lunar landing vehicle, both together and separately.

The shakeout flight also marked the first transfer of crew from one spacecraft to another, and the second docking of two crewed spacecraft. McDivitt and Scott flew the lunar module 100 miles away from the CSM to test its handling and systems. Schweickart also tested the backpack to be worn on the moon, in a two-person spacewalk with Scott. McDivitt successfully re-docked with the CSM, jettisoned the lunar module as planned and made a safe return to earth.

The successful mission cleared the way for the Apollo 10 dress rehearsal of the moon landing in lunar orbit two months later, and the Apollo 11 landing just two months after that.

Although offered command of a later moon landing mission, McDivitt opted instead to become manager of lunar landing operations in the Apollo Spacecraft Office, and later head of the Apollo Spacecraft Program, responsible for planning Apollos 11-16 and overseeing a redesign of the lunar module to allow longer stays on the moon.

McDivitt stayed in the Air Force through his astronaut career, and was promoted to brigadier general in early 1972. A disagreement with NASA leaders on crew selection for Apollo 17 prompted McDivitt to resign from the program a few months later, however. He retired from NASA and the Air Force soon afterward, before the last Apollo moon mission at the end of that year.

Almost immediately, McDivitt took up the position of executive vice president of the Consumers Power Company in his home state of Michigan. Three years later, he joined the Pullman, Inc. railroad company as an executive vice president and director, and later that year became president of the Pullman Standard Division.

In 1981, McDivitt joined the Rockwell International aerospace company, as senior vice president for government operations and international. He worked at Rockwell for 14 years until his retirement in 1995.

Among his Air Force decorations, McDivitt received the Distinguished Service Medal, three awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross, four Air Medals and Air Force Astronaut wings. He also received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Seton Hall University and Miami University of Ohio.

McDivitt was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Tau Beta Pi engineering honors society, the Phi Kappa Phi honors society, and the Atlantic Council on Foreign Diplomacy. He logged more than 4,500 hours of flying time, with more than 3,500 in jet aircraft.

Astronaut James A. McDivitt, shown here in his official 1971 portrait, died Oct. 13, 2022. McDivitt commanded Gemini IV, the second crewed Gemini flight, and Apollo 9, which tested the first lunar module in Earth orbit. McDivitt joined the U.S. Air Force in 1951 and was selected to be an astronaut in 1962. As commander of Gemini IV in 1965, McDivitt stayed in the capsule while crewmate Ed White became the first American to walk in space. The 1969 flight of Apollo 9 was the first to test all the hardware needed to land astronauts on the Moon, including the lunar module. McDivitt was the Apollo program manager for the Apollo 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 missions. He left NASA in June 1972. NASA

TRANSCOM Unveils More Agile Strategy to Deter China, Defend Logistics

Oct. 17, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The United States can longer assume its logistics are safe from harm and must develop a more agile approach to contend with China’s growing ability to disrupt American and allied shipping and airlift, the head of U.S. Transportation Command Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost said Oct. 17.

“None of us want logistics to cause failure on the battlefield,” Van Ovost said. “We cannot do things the same way.”

Van Ovost presented the new plan for TRANSCOM in a speech to the National Defense Transportation Association in St. Louis. It reflects the new approach for dealing with future adversaries that will be soon be rolled out in the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy.

“The ability to generate and sustain operational momentum in compressed timelines, to more destinations, with a limited capacity will be an imperative,” Van Ovost said.

Van Ovost said the vastness of the Pacific and China’s long-range strike capabilities has prompted the new approach. In the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. built up its forces for months before driving Iraqi troops out of Kuwait at a time of its choosing. In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, TRANSCOM could airlift massive amounts of troops and materiel without any interference.

In the new age of conflict, the enemy will get a vote on when and where U.S. forces operate, possibly risking their ability even to leave the homeland, Van Ovost said.

“Over 85 percent of the joint force is stationed in the United States, and our competitors are on a trajectory that will present persistent threats across multiple domains including throughout North America,” the TRANSCOM strategy reads. “If these threats are left unresolved, our power projection capability will be put at risk and will force us to “fight to get to the fight.’”

TRANSCOM has already been forced to adjust to rapidly changing events. During the U.S. withdrawal of Afghanistan in late summer of 2021, Air Mobility Command, part of TRANSCOM, evacuated over 100,000 people from the country with little notice and planning as part of Operation Allies Refuge. Since the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine, TRANSCOM has delivered billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance to Europe, as well as U.S. forces, including the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

Those operations, while successful, exposed weaknesses in handling data that slowed the effort, according to Van Ovost.

“Change is hard,” she said.

TRANSCOM’s efforts in Europe and Afghanistan pale in comparison to the effort that might be required to support a U.S. military operation in the Pacific, such as a defense of Taiwan. In the future, and especially in the Pacific, TRANSCOM will need to anticipate threats before they arise.

Van Ovost wants to use commercial planes and ships more to fill gaps in the U.S. military’s fleet. In Europe, two-thirds of TRANSCOM’s airlifts of aid to Ukraine have been operated by contracted airlines, not military aircraft and crews. Part of TRANSCOM’s new strategy entails building the capability to operate more nimbly by employing commercial assets, drawing on increased overflight access, and using a wider array of seaports, railways, and airfields.

“We must expand and strengthen our global transportation networks to facilitate our ability to aggregate force packages to fight and then disaggregate to survive during brief periods of domain superiority,” states TRANSCOM’s strategy.

“We must adopt the mentality that challenge is not synonymous with impossible and contested is not the same as impenetrable,” Van Ovost said.

Security Forces Airman Gets Bronze Star with Valor for Fighting Off Terrorist Attack in Kenya

Oct. 17, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

An Air Force security forces squadron flight sergeant received the Bronze Star Medal with Valor on Oct. 12 in recognition of his heroism in defending against a terrorist ground attack in Kenya in 2020.

Tech. Sgt. Jordan Locke, now a member of the 51st Security Forces Squadron at Osan Air Base in South Korea, engaged in an hours-long fight with the terrorists as they attacked Cooperative Security Location-Manda Bay, according to an Air Force press release.

Holding his ground under fire, Locke helped to conduct overwatch security, which allowed other service members to continue the fight, the release added.

“That fight had lasted four to five hours, and within those four to five hours, we were fired upon multiple times,” Locke said in a statement. “Bullets were impacting right next to me.”

Al-Shabab terrorists launched the attack on Manda Bay on Jan. 5, 2020, killing a U.S. Soldier and two American contractors in the terrorist group’s first ever attack on a U.S. military base in Kenya. However, U.S. and Kenyan forces were able to repel the terrorists and secure the base.

In the aftermath of the attack, service members were “so mentally and physically exhausted,” Locke said, leading him to check on his teammates.

“There’s a huge difference between saying, ‘Are you OK?’ and actually sitting down and having that conversation with them to make sure that they’re OK and to see if there’s anything that I can do on my end to help them,” Locke said.

Locke is just the latest of several Airmen to earn decorations for their actions during the attack. Master Sgt. Mathue B. Snow, now at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., was recognized with a Bronze Star medal earlier this month, and Senior Master Sgt. Jeremy D. Mapalo received a Bronze Star with Valor in August. Both Snow and Mapalo are also security forces Airmen.

Staff Sgt. Colleen F. Mitchell, an aerospace medical technician, was recognized as one of the Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year in 2021 for her actions during the attack. She helped establish a casualty collection point and activated and led a team of four augmented medical personnel to provide immediate triage and assessment; and provided emergent prolonged field care for more than 16 hours.

Three Kenyan service members were also recognized by U.S. Africa Command and given U.S. Joint Service Commendation Medals.

According to the Air Force, roughly three percent of Bronze Star medals are awarded with valor—given when the service member is in direct combat and demonstrates heroism “above what is normally expected while engaged in direct combat with an enemy of the United States, or an opposing foreign or armed force, with exposure to enemy hostilities and personal risk.”

Image of New B-52 Cockpit Shows a Cleaner Layout

Oct. 17, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

A new Boeing image shows the B-52 cockpit will take on a cleaner, more streamlined appearance after the bomber completes a program of some of the most substantive changes in its 60-year history.

The image is still considered notional but will likely be close to the final version of how the BUFF’s “front office” will look, starting in the middle of this decade.

The digital image, released by Boeing to Air & Space Forces Magazine, shows a layout with many new “glass cockpit” color displays, but retaining some of the “steam gauges” and analog-style displays from the B-52H’s six decades of service.

Dominating the dashboard will be four large color multifunction displays which will present a variety of flight status information, as well as imagery from the B-52’s new radar system—derived from the F/A-18’s AN/APG-79 radar—as well as presentations of the new B-52 datalink and imagery from Sniper or Litening optical/infrared targeting pods.

The displays may also play a role in employment of the B-52’s new hypersonic weapons—the bomber will be the initial platform for the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW—as well as its new nuclear weapon, the Long-Range Stand-Off missile, or LRSO.

The center console will also feature an updated throttle station, to control the B-52’s eight new Rolls Royce F130 engines, which will be digitally managed.

A Boeing statement accompanying the image said it shows off “new 8 x 10 digital displays, hybrid mechanical-to-digital throttle system, new data concentrators units (2x), new engine fault maintenance recorder, new engine air data system (and) modified system panels, as well as structural, electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic updates associated with this modernization effort.”

The Air Force opted to change out the B-52’s eight Pratt & Whitney TF-33 powerplants with eight new engine—rather than consolidate to four larger turbofans—for a variety of reasons, most having to do with the limited takeoff clearance of larger-diameter engines; the need for a more radical redesign of the engine/wing/pylon interface and a desire for simplicity in the conversion, and to avoid risk that could delay or derail the program. Continuing with eight engines is also expected to make for an easier transition of B-52 pilots to the upgraded aircraft.

Air Force officials have said they are contemplating re-naming the B-52H the B-52I or B-52J after it receives new radars and engines, because the aircraft will be substantially different enough after the upgrades to warrant a new designator and to keep clearer records of maintenance and pilot hours.

Boeing is the integrator for the various upgrades being installed on the B-52, and will perform much of the internal reconfiguration of control systems and wiring on the initial B-52s at its San Antonio, Texas facilities. Later work will be done at the B-52 depot at the Oklahoma Air Logistics Complex in Oklahoma City.

Roper, Former Joint Chiefs Chair Join Defense Innovation Board for First Meeting in Two Years

Oct. 17, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Former Air Force acquisition czar Will Roper, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, and Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman were among the seven new members of the Defense Innovation Board introduced Oct. 17, as the influential civilian advisory board held its first meeting under new chair Michael R. Bloomberg.

The DIB, composed of academics, technologists, and others experts, consults with the Secretary of Defense and offers recommendations on how the Pentagon can become more innovative and technology-friendly.

The Oct. 17 meeting, held mostly behind closed doors, marks the board’s first gathering in more than two years. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III temporarily halted the work of more than 40 civilian advisory boards and their subcommittees in January 2021, before approving the DIB and several others to resume this past February.

At the same time, Austin announced his pick of Bloomberg, media magnate and former mayor of New York City, as the new chair.

In public remarks after the first meeting, Bloomberg emphasized the need for the board to push the Defense Department to keep rapidly experimenting.

“Innovation isn’t only about science and technology. Innovation starts with people. And it requires building an organizational culture that can develop new ideas, take a few big swings, live with the inevitable misses, and then scale up the ideas that show the most promise,” Bloomberg said. “Fostering that kind of culture is where we can play a helpful role, and we are building from a very strong foundation.”

The seven new members of the board introduced include:

William Roper Jr., distinguished professor at Georgia Tech, senior adviser at McKinsey and Company, and former assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics.
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, co-founder of Inflection AI, and partner at Greylock.
Adm. Michael Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Naval Operations
Gilda Barabino, president at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.
Susan Gordon, Board of Directors member at CACI International, Avantus Federal, MITRE, and BlackSky.
Ryan Swann, chief data analytics officer at Vanguard.
William “Mac” Thornberry, former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and member of Board of Directors at CAE.

Roper’s return to the Pentagon comes roughly 20 months after his tenure as the Air Force’s top acquisition official ended. Within the department, he earned a reputation as an innovator eager to push boundaries and pursue cutting-edge technology. Since he left, he had a brief tenure as CEO of drone-maker Volansi and has advised or joined the boards of several other startups.

Having experience inside and out of the Pentagon, Roper said he is hopeful “to try to bring both of those worlds together on the Defense Innovation Board.”

“I certainly know how challenging innovation is inside of the Pentagon and the services, so I plan to treat every recommendation as if I had to implement it myself,” Roper added. “And hopefully we’ll be able to help move the ball forward for those who are serving right now in government.”

In reconvening the board, Austin asked officials to look at two issues in particular, according to Bloomberg—the Pentagon’s relationship with investment capital, and input for the department’s National Defense Science and Technology Strategy.

Roper highlighted that first area as a particularly important issue and a way for the Pentagon to establish new ties with industry.

“I see huge potential for innovation in the private sector,” Roper said. “It’s a way that we can help counterbalance the consolidation that we’ve had in the defense industrial base—not the fault of those companies, it’s the way we’ve done business that’s forced that consolidation. Allowing companies that are a little bit of .com, a little bit of a .gov, be able to work successfully in national security on their path towards commercial success, global success, can be a winning formula for the U.S.”

Such an approach would also be beneficial to the Pentagon, Gordon added, as the two have become increasingly linked.

“Right now we have a much clearer picture that there is a shared value proposition between the department and private sector,” said Gordon, the former principal deputy director of National Intelligence. “We don’t totally know how to prosecute it yet. But I don’t think it’s ever been clearer that their fates are tied together, that … the national security decision-makers, the department depends on the energy in that sector.

Roper agreed, but also noted that the Pentagon should look to be strategic in its own investments and avoid duplicating efforts in the private sector.

“Not everything needs to be a huge priority, because the private sector is going to move a lot of technology along—and shame on this building if it doesn’t leverage it—but it’s not going to move everything along at the pace that the warfighters will need,” Roper said. “So I think it’ll be different today than it would have been, say, 15 years ago doing this. So there will have to be a proper dissection of what technology will be moved because of private investment for commercial means that can be leveraged, and this building needs to be a fast adopter of it, and then what technologies will not be, and this building needs to be the investor and the accelerator itself. And if it gets that right, it gets the best of both worlds.”

Watch, Read: Gen. Lance Lord (Ret.) on ‘The Spirit of Space Power’

Oct. 16, 2022

Retired Gen. Lance Lord delivered a keynote speech on “The Spirit of Space Power,” Sept. 20, 2022, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible by the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

If your firewall blocks YouTube, try this link instead.

Voiceover:

Airman and guardians. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 14th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force. AFA Chairman of the board, Gerald Murray.

Gerald Murray:

Good Morning. Good morning everyone. Well, we certainly got off to a great start yesterday. What a great day. I certainly hope you felt the same way. And then to be able to see so many of you down in the exhibit area with our industry partners there in the evening. And of course, I hope your evening was great as well for those of us that attended and celebrated the 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year last night. It was really, really a special evening and with just the great Airmen that represent our United States Air Force.

Well, thank you again for being with us today. And as I said yesterday, space is now our middle name. But the Air and Space Forces Association has always been committed to the power of air and space and has always seen them as intimately connected. We begin today with an inspirational message from a giant of Air Force space history. Over 37 years of… Over his 37 year career, he held numerous positions including leadership at the Air University and as commander of the Air Force Space Command. Ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed my honor this morning to introduce to you and bring forward General Lance Lord. General Lord, please.

General Lord:

Good morning.

Audience:

Morning.

General Lord:

Let’s hear a little audience participation here, not precipitation. I’m from Colorado. We need precipitation. Okay, good morning.

Audience:

Morning.

General Lord:

Okay, the clock started here and CSO, I’ve got 10 minutes to do my warmup for you, so hopefully you’ll support that. And Molly and I know the chief and Jim Brown as well as Secretary. Thank you and to all for being here today and thanks to the Air Force and Space Forces Association, I think that’s a tremendous thing. So I want to talk just a couple minutes about the art of space, but in a way that you probably wouldn’t predict, which is kind of like the way I like to do business. It’d be a little unpredictable, but stay on message throughout that. And Mr. Secretary, I’ve read the reports from your statements, etc. over the last couple days. You’ve got a lot of issues that’s on your plate, I know.

And hopefully as we move in the days ahead, we’ll be able to help you solve some of those and even get better as part of the process. But true to my space background in the launch business, I mean, I’m not a rocket scientist, that’s for sure, but I do know a lot about the rocket business. So what we’ve got today is really what we call in the rocket business a hypergolic situation. Take energetic fuel, energetic oxidizer, you mix them together in the combustion chamber and what do you get? You get an explosion. And a real effort is to manage that explosion in a way that it goes out the right side of the rocket, then the rocket escapes gravity. It’s tough to do that, but with enough thrust you can fly anything. You even fly this building with enough thrust, but you know, you might not know where it going without some kind of guidance set, but that’ll be good.

But with that in mind, in a hypergolic situation, the hypergolic situation we find ourselves in right now, and you all do, is you got a retired general officer and an audience. That’s hypergolic. So I’ll do my best to manage that explosion that we can move on from there. But when you talk about the art of space, how could we define that? It’s not the what, because I know what you all are. What I really want to know is who you are, who you are as you’re part of the Air and Space Forces moving forward. So let’s focus on that for a minute.

Now I have, and I’ve tried to instruct my two sons and their brides and our five grandchildren by the way, as we get together on the East Coast to celebrate our oldest son’s 50th birthday, we’ve got the family together and with five grandchildren and all the adults, you got all this variety that it’s created. You got gluten free, you got dairy free, you got all these things. Trying to find a restaurant that will handle all this variation is really difficult. The only thing that, when we sit down for dinner for this big birthday dinner that everybody would agree on was guess what? Who gets to pay? Yeah.

But the variation of the kinds of things that people bring to this business as we talk about the who of the art of space is really important. My oldest granddaughter, Abby Lord. High School senior. Allstate basketball player. I posed the question to Abby. I said, Abby, who are you? She said, Well, Oppa, it depends. And I said, Okay, let me ask the question again. Who are you, Abby? She says, Well, if you’re recruiting me to play basketball, I’m six feet tall, but if you want to date, I’m 5’10. So, that girl’s going to go a long way. But remember the variation of that. So the who of what we are, who are you? We’re all here because in deference to Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha who said, The only way to make money is to learn how to say no, we’re all here because we said yes.

And you want to say yes as you look at the possibilities of what we can do with this organization and what we can do with the Air and Space Forces as we move forward. We’re all here because we said yes, not because we said no, we said yes, whether we’re an Airman or a Guardian, we said we want to be part of this. We took an oath, oath of enlistment or an officer oath, but that separates us from every other business you can be involved in and in the civilians in the community who also provide the industry and the push to help the secretary and the chiefs get things done that we need to. They took an oath too really, to do the best they could to bring forth the products and services that support this business. So the who of this business is you. Every one of us are part of the who.

So who are you? How much do you know about what we need to do? How are you improving yourself to make sure that you can contribute to the art of space? Now how do we, that’s point number one and true to my academic background in the last four minutes and 32 seconds, I better hurry up here. Three main points. We talked about the who. Now we got to talk about the framework for making the who work. And lastly, we got to talk about what are the next steps and how do we launch forward? Well, I would argue, and I know you’ve all heard this from many times, is the technological imperative that kind of drove the Air Force and the who’s of those days were able to take that and exploit it. Well that kind of framework is how we all grew up and that framework is good for us in the future.

Let me run right back to base basketball for a minute. Abby would permit me to say this, but you know the great basketball coaches and the strategists of the time, Tex Winter who used to support Phil Jackson when he was a coach of the Lakers, the guy that sat next to him and when Michael Jordan was playing, his really commitment was to develop what’s called the triangle offense. And I saw him in Los Angeles and I said, Coach Winter, I really wanted to compliment you on your strategy. He says General, it’s a good strategy, but you know what, it only works if you run it.

So remember the framework we’re in. The total force framework that we developed in the Air Force, Guard Reserve, active duty, civilians, the community of industrial professionals as well as the civilian component makes things really work together. And there’s no reason why that can’t continue to move forward in the future as we talk about how we’re going to make the next steps as a Air and Space Force and leading to really taking advantage of the capabilities we have as Air Force and Space Force together.

So don’t abandon that framework, continue to work inside that operation and then move on to what are the next steps. How do we really operationalize that? As I said, having the strategy is only good if you follow it and you have to adapt along the way. There’s no doubt about it. But I know the CSO and also, the Chief of Staff, the Air Force have adapted that kind of framework. And Mr. Secretary, I’d commit to you that that’s going to be the help that you need to solve the joint all domain command and control issue, which you spoke about yesterday. And those are thorny issues for sure. And how you integrate across that, those domains and make sure we take advantage of that. Those are tough problems, but I think we can stand up to that. We need to understand, and I’m sure John Jumper who’s talked yesterday, if he didn’t say it, I would be embarrassed because he drilled it into my head.

You got to have a concept of operations that you follow in this business. So the framework we operate in, the total force, bringing the best technology together is going to pay off for us. So the steps forward are really to take a look at how do we harness all this intellectual capital, the people, the great people that we have, the who’s who make the spirit of space work every day. How do we move forward? Well, I encourage you to read a couple books if you haven’t already, by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr, the Hayden Planetarium. I know General Raymond spent time with him. I really think he’s one of the brightest minds to talk about. How astrophysics fits with what we’re doing in the military. And then understand that there are several books that you should read. One of them is Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

That’s important to understand. The other is Letters from an Astrophysicist because he gets letters all the time from young people especially saying, well, one of them was why did you cut Pluto out of the Lineage of Planets. You know, kids in school learn the planets from in order from the Earth to outwards Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. And now no Pluto. He said, I’ve got rafts of letters from angry third graders. Why’d you take Pluto out of the thing? But the relationship is really, really important to think about. We’ve got one more from Dr. Tyson we’ll talk about, but one I want you to think about too, if you can find a copy of this by Stafford Beer called Platforms and Change. It’s about how organizations adapt and run and are able to operate in uncertain and unpredictable times. This is goes way back, it’s a cybernetic view of an organization input, output process in the middle and the feedback.

Why do organizations react to how they do that? And sir, Mr. Secretary, I know that that’s going to be part of the solution set for what’s going to happen in JADC2 is really how do we work these organizational issues together? I know that that’s something will be important. So do that. Who? You’re the who. We know where we’ve been, now, where we’re going is our ability to kind of harness our understanding, be able to maximize the operation utility of space as General Raymond and I know General Sussmann’s had his hearing and I think that went well. And I know our friend Tammy Cotton is going to be the strategic commander as well. All out of that same mold of people who think about the future in exciting and interesting ways and taking care of the people in the process. The framework we have treats everybody with dignity and respect.

And remember, we can’t do anything as we move forward without that hallmark of the issue. It’s going to be tough, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be things we need to do. And the red light’s on. So I give you four stanzas from my favorite poem, Invictus by William Ernest Henley, British author, and mid 18 hundreds. The last four lines are important: “No matter how straight the gate are charged with punishment to stroll, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” You got it. We got it. We got to do it. So I’m proud that you’ll do that and I look forward to hearing from General Raymond. Thank you very much.

Gerald Murray:

General. Wow, General Lord, sir we can’t thank you enough. And I just took the opportunity to be able to thank General Lord by handing the 75th anniversary commemorative coin. But sir, we have a little something else to be able to add to that. And so I want to thank General Raymond for joining me on stage. And gentlemen, if we might and if General Lord, if you’ll take center stage between General Raymond and me.

Voiceover:

AFA Lifetime Achievement Award. General Lance W Lord was commander of Air Force Space Command from 2002 to 2006, at which time he retired. He was responsible for the development, acquisition, and operation of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems. He oversaw a global network of satellite command and control communications, missile warning and ICBM launch facilities, and ensured the combat readiness of America’s entire intercontinental ballistic missile force. The General held senior positions at the wing and numbered Air Force levels, as well as serving as the commander of Air University. General Lord is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of L2 Aerospace. Prior to this, Lord served as Chief Executive Officer of Astrotech Space Operations, where he led the execution of expanding core services from spacecraft processing support to a comprehensive line of end to end mission assurance services. He also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for Boneal Aerospace, a role he has held since 2015. The Air and Space Forces Association proudly presents a lifetime achievement award to General Lance W Lord.

General Lord:

Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate this. Real quick story about when I was first commander of Air Force Base Command in 2002, I came to the Air Force Association meeting and they had a big sign says, Check your membership status. So I got in line, I got all the way up to the front and I said, I’m Lance Lord, could you tell me when my membership expires? And they went through the roster, they got to the L’s and they said, Well General Lord, you’re a lifetime member. And I said, I just want to know if you know something I don’t. And now I know you do. So thank you very much.

Watch, Read: Gen. John P. Jumper (Ret.) on ‘The Spirit of Air Power’

Oct. 16, 2022

Retired Gen. John P. Jumper delivered a keynote speech on “The Spirit of Air Power,” Sept. 19, 2022, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible by the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Gerald Murray:

Ladies and gentlemen, we are off to a great start this morning. One of the things that we wanted to do at this conference was celebrate our heritage and the spirit of air power. When I think about that spirit of air power I can’t help thinking about my old boss, the 17th Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General John P. Jumper. Ladies and gentlemen, I had the opportunity over the past month to take and spend time with boss again as we completed what we called a legacy tour across eight bases of air and our space bases across our nation.

How good to be back with him to hear the stories and many others that we were with. Boss, thank you. Thank you for being here. It is an absolute honor. Ladies and gentlemen, the 17th Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General John Jumper.

Gen. John P. Jumper (Ret.):

Thank you, Chief Murray, my wingman, and thank you Secretary Kendall, Chief of Staff of the Air Force number 22, C. Q. Brown, Chief of Space Operations number one, Jay Raymond, our manage comm commanders and senior enlisted leadership joining us today. And thank you, AFA, for the honor of addressing this generation of Airmen and Guardians about the past, the present and the future as we celebrate this 75th anniversary of the United States Air Force.

I have the right to claim some expertise here, because some of us here in this room were alive at the birth of the Air Force. I was only two years old at the time, so nobody cared much about what I had to say, but my dad was a World War II fighter pilot and his career in the Air Force was shared with the pioneers of air and space power. These pioneers used to hang around my house. I met Robin Olds when I was in kindergarten. I met Chuck Yeager when I was 12 years old, and the Mercury Seven astronauts lived on my street at Langley Air Force Base in the early ’60s. I was 16 years old.

Later, as an instructor and commander at Nellis Air Force Base we hosted the Tuskegee Airmen, the Flying Tigers and members of the Doolittle Raiders, and listened to these humble heroes tell stories of unbelievable courage and selfless call to duty. That’s when I learned that the spirit of these Airmen, these heroes who helped save the world in World War II, the real spirit of air power is not merely seeking the thrill of higher, faster, farther. They were possessed with that warrior spirit thrust into the souls of those who simply would not allow our nation to lose.

These heroes of that era are mostly gone now, their duty done, their commitment fulfilled. But that warrior spirit must live on in us, the Airmen and Guardians assembled here and on guard around the world today.

For decades our Air Force has been deployed around the world and fought against persistent terrorist threats. That fight continues. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan does not mean that we can excuse ourselves from the battle against terrorism, against an enemy that is as committed as ever before to our destruction. That fight continues.

Our present and future are now complicated by the return of peer adversaries eager and ready to compete for primacy on the global stage. China speaks of the demise of the United States and our form of government. They mock our internal strife, our democracy and our national values. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was largely based on assumptions of America’s weakness and lack of commitment.

So how do we address these future Airmen and Guardians? How do we address these issues? Do we still possess that warrior spirit that has always leveraged aerospace and cyber power to reassure the American people who depend on our courage, our commitment, our integrity?

Our secretary, Mr. Frank Kendall, and our Chief of Staff, General C. Q. Brown have given directions for all of us to follow into the future, clear instructions that we must accelerate change or lose, a focused list of seven operational imperatives; not operational initiatives, not operational suggestions, not seven tasks to be abandoned because they’re hard to do, but imperatives as we as an Air Force, a space force, and a nation require to compete with the real world that confronts us.

We’ve also heard General Jay Raymond, our Chief of Space Operations, state his imperative that space capabilities must be operationalized and delivered at the speed of relevance rather than the speed of committee, or the speed of over-classification, or the speed of typing. The speed of relevance should be much closer to the speed of light.

Can we do these things? Yes, we can. Over the past few weeks I’ve been on the road with several others of the older generation of Airmen. We’ve been on a tour of air and space force bases called the legends’ tour. If you’re old you get to be called a legend, by the way.

My fellow legends were General Dick Myers, General John Hyten, General Fig Newton, General Lorie Robinson, General Larry Spencer, General Suzanne Vautrinot, former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Jim Finch, and my wing man, Gerald Murray, and Chief Master Sergeant Gerardo Tapia.

We visited several thousand Airmen and Guardians and we saw them working on acceleration and doing their part pursuing the seven imperatives. We saw space warriors on the front range of Colorado who are operationalizing space and creating that speed of relevance, information flow to warriors on the surface and in the air.

Progress is being made and momentum is building, but there is more to do. Emerging doctrine for the employment of aerospace and cyber power will require proficiency and disbursed base operations, and the ability to deploy, set up, sustain operations, and rapid relocate as threats emerge. This is a degree of operational agility that exceeds any previous demands on Air Force expeditionary proficiency.

Pre-deployment preparation, base security inside and outside the fence, sortie generation, engineering skills to build, sustain, tear down and relocate, other essential capabilities like ground based air defense, combat medicine, new concepts of combat search and rescue, new ways to think about tactical airlift, rapid staging of command and control, cyber and space links, and importantly the training of a new generation of installation commanders who think, train and exercise disbursed base operations every day, these are our tasks.

Many needed changes are already underway. Technologies to improve our standoff and precision are constantly improving. Accelerating the kill chain is embedded in the operational imperatives. On the ground or battlefield Airmen in units like the 820, our Security Forces Squadron, our contingency response groups, and work being done by Special Operations all address the tough issues of expeditionary warfare, but they must scale to deliver the combat power necessary to deter and engage a large, well equipped enemy.

Air combat commands, agile combat employment operational concepts, along with the Air Force’s fourth generation concept, shows us the emerging organizations and Force presentation, but the execution of these concepts are in the hands of the Airmen, Guardians and cyber warriors who know how to train for these needs, who know how training needs to be adjusted and what new and modified equipment is needed to deliver these capabilities at scale.

Airmen and Guardians on staff, who are just as much warriors as the people in the field, must work to realign resources and policies to rapidly facilitate leadership’s directions and enable those in the field who have heard the chief and the secretary to strive to comply with their directions. As in every generation, when we place the concept in the hands of our Airmen they will make it better than the concept developers ever imagined. I’m thankful to General Kelly, General Manahan, our manage comm commanders. They get it, and they’re doing the work that the nation needs.

What I’ve seen at our bases during the legend tour has reminded me of every generation of Airmen during my nearly 40 years of service and beyond. The questions that we were asked by our Airmen were not self-serving questions, but about the mission, about how to make things better. We have always lived with frustrations that divert our attention away from the mission, but there has never been a greater need for our Airmen and Guardians to facilitate that accelerated change that General Brown has directed.

If any one of you in uniform doubt the importance of what you are doing listen to this ancient Airman when I tell you that there is nothing more important you could be doing with your life than you are doing for your country today. You are fulfilling the greatest, the least recognized ingredient of human satisfaction, and that is that you are a part of something bigger than yourself. When you look back on your life you will see that it will be hard to match the contributions that you are making now to the greater good of our nation.

As we set about to reinvent ourselves we do so with obstacles. It’s hard to accelerate change as we live through a decade of budget disruption and continuing resolutions and the uncertainty of the threats of government shutdown. The reality of our disruptive and dangerous world demands that the United States remain the beacon of hope and justice, and we rank our ability to deter the fight above the partisan political divides that diverts the nation’s focus and masks the reality of external dangers.

We need and are thankful for focused support from our elected representatives who equip our warriors with the tools they need to fight and win. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary there’s no better symbol to demonstrate that than this star I wear on my lapel today. The star was given to me by General Russ Dougherty, the former Commander of the Strategic Air Command and former President of the Air Force Association.

The star was given to General Dougherty by General Ira Eaker, who is the architect of the bomber offensive in World War II. The star was given to General Eaker by General Hap Arnold, the Air Force’s only five star general in World War II and the leader most responsible for the creation of the modern Air Force. On this coming November 6th I will pin this star on my daughter, Catherine, who will become the third generation of general officer in the Jumper family.

Another big anniversary on the horizon is the 250th anniversary of our nation. We should take time to reflect on our own history and we should celebrate our form of government that through the centuries has always been self-correcting, even as we endured crises, political, financial and social, more severe than we are experiencing today.

As Airmen and Guardians, we took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear to a ruler or political party, but to our Constitution and to the rule of law. By virtue of this common oath we wear the uniform we wear, we dedicate ourselves to our mission and our fellow Airmen and Guardians. All these things we know are part of something bigger than ourselves and essential for us to sustain our way of life and the security of our families and fellow Americans.

The spirit of air and space power is bound in the hearts of the warrior. It is the spirit of the nation, the spirit of air power, the spirit of the warrior, the spirit of the nation, the spirit of America. I leave you with the warriors that I think of often when I recall my days at Nellis Air Force Base, with huge numbers of airplanes in the sky ready against one another and the aggressors start inbound and the mission leader pushes the mic button and utters the words, “Fight’s on. Fight’s on.” Thank you.