Collins Aerospace and the USAF: A Parallel History in Evolving Aviation Technology

June 27, 2022

In the days before the Air Force was an independent service, when it was still part of the U.S. Army, companies like Collins, Goodrich, Hamilton, and Sundstrand filled the skies. That shared legacy still ties today’s U.S. Air Force to Collins Aerospace, a modern company built on a long historic legacy of shared innovation.

“We’ve provided electromechanical flight displays, autopilot systems, and flight directors in military cockpits dating back to WWII,” said Marc Ayala, senior director, customer capabilities and requirements for Military Avionics at Collins Aerospace. “Collins’ components supported USAF aircraft like the KC-135, B-52, and C-130 from World War II through the Cold War, with some still operating today.”

Collins delivers and upgrades aircraft avionics to sustain venerable USAF aircraft like the C-130.

“The C-130 has existed in various models from the 1950s to the current day J model,” Ayala said. “We’ve upgraded its flight director and autopilot in the 1970s, added military radios and advanced cockpit displays in the 1990s, and the C-130 AMP [Avionics Modernization Program] is retrofitting the H-model fleet going forward.”

Modernizing the C-130 is essential to the vital mission sets and theaters it serves.

“Inter-theater airlift has always been [the C-130’s] specialty and that capability has proven itself necessary over every major conflict since the birth of aviation,” Ayala said. “The C-130 excelled in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and throughout the Cold War. The need [for inter-theater airlift] is constant.”

Inter-theater airlift has long been a differentiating factor in military operations. It will continue to be in the future.

“The ability to move our Department of Defense assets and resources around the theater of operations in short order is a major capability discriminator for the U.S. Air Force,” Ayala said. “That capability separates us from our peers and adversaries, and [Collins] couldn’t be prouder to associate our name with that.”

Communications Technologies and Systems

Collins also develops and supports communication technologies and systems delivered to the USAF. Collins made communication possible during the Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury space programs including for the iconic Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.

In today’s modern geopolitical context, Collins’ systems enable communications between USAF and international partners.

“We need to communicate securely with our international partners and allies, and within our own forces as well,” Ayala said. “Our airborne communications systems, such as the ARC-210 V/UHF radio, are present in the vast majority of USAF platforms and those communication technologies help make USAF’s interoperability objectives a reality.”

Collins is leveraging its experience to ensure USAF communication capabilities are secure well into the future.

“The transmission of secure data in modern conflicts is more important than ever,” Ayala said. “The country that can transmit, process, and distribute data the fastest and most efficiently is the one that is going to prevail.”

Modular and Open Avionics Solutions

As Collins continues to innovate around USAF priorities and interests, the company has invested in development of Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) avionics solutions to better enable and more quickly integrate technology for the operator and the mission of tomorrow.

“Modular systems, open systems architecture, and the need to outpace the technical evolution of peer adversaries is vital to air dominance,” said Jeffry Howington, principal business development manager for Military Avionics at Collins Aerospace. “We need to keep aircraft relevant by upgrading their capability in days, if not hours, rather than the years it takes under traditional approaches.”

Collins has been utilizing open systems for decades. A prime example is Collins’ upgrades to the KC-135, which has been upgraded dramatically over the past 50 years. The tanker’s evolution is key to [the] Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), according to Howington.

“To compete with peer adversaries and the Joint Automated Command Control network of the future, that’s going to require additional upgrades using open systems,” he added.

Collins Aerospace has played an integral role in making key upgrades to the KC-135.

Collins is focused on developing software-centric capabilities that incorporate digital engineering and enable efficient flexibility and reuse of capabilities. That’s why, Howington says, up to 80 percent or more of avionics capabilities are already implemented in the software Collins provides.

“We’re seeing more software seamlessly integrate with cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and containerization methods,” Howington said. “Digital engineering and open architecture are easing implementation and integration times by providing a ‘digital testbed’ to the operator, so we can understand how any changes might affect an aircraft’s operations, performance, and capability before implementers physically touch the aircraft. That’s a huge win.”

Throughout the Air Force’s 75-year history, Collins Aerospace has evolved alongside USAF to meet the technological demands of the day. It’s a partnership that, Ayala says, will continue to develop to meet the demands of the future.

“We provided precise navigation and control for USAF aircraft, which ultimately led to electromechanical instruments and flight management systems,” Ayala said. “That’s evolved into the digital infrastructure we have today, with glass and helmet-mounted displays, multi-core processors, and advanced networking, so the journey Collins has experienced embodies aviation itself.”

INDOPACOM Boss Wants the Air Force to Base Fifth-Gen Fighters Closer to China

June 24, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Air Force F-35s and F-22s regularly deploy deep into the Pacific region from Alaska, Utah, and Hawaii.

In the future, though, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command would like to see the Air Force permanently station fifth-generation aircraft west of the international date line—closer to China.

INDOPACOM’s commander Adm. John C. Aquilino also stressed the strategic importance of the island of Guam during an event hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on June 24.

The Marine Corps has stationed F-35Bs at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, and the Navy has moved aircraft carriers with F-35Cs into the Indo-Pacific. Japan, South Korea, and Australia all operate F-35s as well. But the Air Force thus far has kept its fifth-gen fighters east of the international date line, thousands of miles away. Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, has Pacific Air Forces’ only F-35s, and both Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, Alaska, and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, have F-22s.

When asked if he thought it would be reasonable for the Air Force to station fifth-generation aircraft west of the date line, closer to China, Aquilino indicated that he would be in favor of such a move.

“I would envision that capability is … well, it’s certainly desirable,” Aquilino said. “But we would like to get to that ability to, like I said, operate in contested space. Fifth-generation capabilities, whether they be F-22, F-35, are critically important to the ability to deliver deterrence.”

The Air Force currently maintains three air bases in Japan—Misawa Air Base, Kadena Air Base, and Yokota Air Base—and two in South Korea—Osan Air Base and Kunsan Air Base—as well as Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. A mix of F-16s, F-15s, and A-10s are currently stationed at some of those locations, but Aquilino noted that in drafting INDOPACOM’s investment priorities, he’s asked the Air Force for more advanced capabilities.

“Forward stationed, persistent, deep-penetrating capability is what I’ve asked for,” Aquilino said. “Additionally, the ability to be expeditionary and move around the theater in places that matter when needed, that’s what I’ve asked, and [PACAF commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach] has been tremendous.”

Aquilino did not specify whether he preferred the F-35 or F-22 or where the aircraft should go. But elsewhere in the conversation, he did highlight Guam as “absolutely a strategic location.”

“We will need to operate from Guam. We will need to both fight for and from Guam, and it will provide a variety of capabilities and support functions should we end up in some crisis situation,” Aquilino said. “So that’s extremely important, and … 125,000 United States citizens, it’s the homeland, who would expect to be defended and we treat it, obviously, as important as it is.”

Guam is also farther removed from China than the locations in Japan and Korea, but Aquilino was quick to note that the island is still very much within China’s range.

“The PLA rocket forces are clearly developing continuous advanced capabilities—longer range,” Aquilino said. “Guam has a 360-degree threat, so our ability to defend it and to be able to operate from there is absolutely critical. … I can see a continuous improvement and a continuous threat [from China], and what that leads me to do is to move with a sense of urgency in order to provide the capabilities that both defend and we can project power from Guam.”

Even in a region where the “tyranny of distance” is a frequent concern, “we expect to be attacked in that domain,” Aquilio added. And as part of that mindset, he would like to see Guam’s missile defenses built up. It’s an issue that has become increasingly emphasized in recent years, and the Pentagon has proposed an array of new defensive systems for the island as part of its 2023 budget.

“The key,” Aquilino said, “is to take the tremendous effort in the budget and then move forward to deliver that capability against all those threats, whether they be maneuvering, whether they be ballistic, whether they be cruise missiles. We have to be able to deliver that capability to protect the forces and the people against all those threats.”

Kendall: ‘Unrealistic’ for Air Force to Fight Two Wars While Modernizing

June 24, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

As Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall looks to modernize the force, he is calling for tough decisions that will shrink the size of the fleet and make the waging of two simultaneous wars “unrealistic,” he said at an AFA Leaders in Action event June 24.

Kendall sat down with AFA’s president, retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright, for an in-person discussion attended by a hundred air power professionals and enthusiasts at the Air and Space Forces Association’s headquarters in Arlington, Va. Kendall addressed topics ranging from threats posed by China and Russia to the ongoing congressional funding decisions that he said are necessary to keep pace with China’s heavy technological investments.

“I think it’s quite frankly unrealistic to think that we can have a force that will fight two major wars at the same time,” he said. He also said he did not believe any nation was capable of immediately ramping up from a peacetime force to engage in a prolonged, conventional war.

Kendall demurred when asked how many combat squadrons the Air Force should maintain, but he was clear in his commitment to take on the risk of a smaller Air Force flying fewer hours in order to make big investments in the short term.

“The critical thing is to get to the next-generation capabilities as quickly as we can,” he said. “Do we maintain current capability, keep the platforms that we have, or do we shrink down a little bit in order to get to the future? I think those are the trade-offs that we’re going to have to face.”

The Air Force currently has 55 operational combat squadrons, 32 in the Active duty and 23 in the Guard or Reserve, according to a Heritage Foundation study. And according to data provided to Air Force Magazine by the Air Force, fighter pilot hours declined 16 percent from 2020 to 2021, to an average of just 6.8 hours per month per pilot.

Kendall said it would be “hard” to get pilot hours back up, but he still called the force “healthy.”

“We’ve got to think carefully about the balance,” he said. “We’ve got to do it in a way which maintains a healthy force, while we’re doing this, as well as keeps pace with the technological competition.”

To continue to deter and defeat adversaries, Kendall called for leveraging “integrated deterrence,” or the flexing of allies’ and partners’ military and non-military capabilities, while the U.S. catches up to China’s decades of heavy military investment.

Kendall has been pounding the pavement on Capitol Hill, he said, taking a classified threat briefing to the committees of Congress in order to help convince members of the importance of modernization over fleet size.

“Our average aircraft is 30 years old, and we have some aircraft that are not tailored to the high-end fight at all,” he said. “The people who manage and operate those aircraft do a fantastic job—I’m real proud of them. But we’re going to have to get to the next generation.”

This article was updated at 11:43 a.m. on June 25, 2022, to clarify the number of flying hours flown by fighter pilots in 2020 and 2021.

Kendall Dispenses With Roper’s Quick NGAD Rhythm; System is Too Complex

June 24, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The crewed, central platform of the Next Generation Air Dominance system won’t follow early timetables that called for new versions to be fielded about every five years because it’s simply too complex, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall revealed. And while the program has entered formal development, it is still in competition, he said.

Speaking at an AFA “Leaders in Action” event, Kendall noted that the NGAD started in 2014 and got under contract the following year, with the goal of producing “X-planes—demonstrators.” That phase of the program was carried out “in a reasonable timeframe for that kind of program,” he said.

But “the NGAD that we’re working on now … is going to take longer. It’s a more complicated operation to have a manned aircraft” that will be the follow-on to the F-22.

“It’s not a simple design,” he emphasized.

Former Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper envisioned an NGAD program on a rapid rhythm of yielding a new core platform every five years or so, with production runs of up to just 100 airplanes, giving the industry regular and frequent opportunities to propose and build cutting-edge aircraft. When one entered production, the next one would already be in development, under Roper’s vision.

But while Kendall said, “I have a lot of respect for Will Roper. I’ve worked with him a lot, [and] I think he has some really interesting ideas … I think you have to be careful about where you apply those ideas.”

It’s a “long, hard job to build” an aircraft like the F-35 that represents “a whole generation of better capability” than the aircraft it replaces, Kendall asserted.

That is a “different animal entirely” from quick-turnaround programs with “some base functionality” that are upgraded with modular improvements, Kendall said.

The latter approach will be taken with the uncrewed aircraft that will comprise the rest of the NGAD “family” of systems, which Kendall said would be a “formation” of up to five additional, autonomous aircraft in addition to the crewed central platform.

For the uncrewed combat aircraft, “the concept is to have a more modular design, much less expensive,” and certainly lacking “all the systems a manned aircraft needs to have to support the operator.” It will have “just those things it needs for whatever we’re asking it to do.”

There’s “a suite of sensors; there’s a suite of weapons; there’s connectivity between them; there’s connectivity to the weapons; there’s offboard support that will provide targeting and situational awareness information to that operator who’s trying to control this formation,” Kendall explained.

“That operator will need a lot of … automated help to do his job effectively, but I think it’s going to be a very powerful concept,” he insisted.

Kendall said that for “both kinds of platforms, I think we can do a much quicker refresh, technologically. And I think we should.”

But doing that quick-refresh is “much harder to do … for something that has the complexity … [and] requirements” of the F-22 or F-35, for example, Kendall said.

Recently, Kendall revealed that the NGAD has entered the engineering and manufacturing development phase. When asked if that means a single contractor has been chosen to build the NGAD airplane, Kendall said, “it’s a classified program” but “we still have competition.” That suggests that at least two contractors have been brought forward into development to further reduce risk. In some recent programs, two contractors were carried to the point of critical design review.

Expanding on the NGAD concept, Kendall said the crewed aircraft will be the “play caller, the quarterback,” while the others will perform tailored missions using modular sensors, with all the platforms, and their weapons, connected and functioning as a team.

“You have an interesting virtue with that kind of formation in that you’re willing to put at high risk some elements of the formation because you don’t have people in them,” Kendall said. “And that opens up a suite of tactics that, today, would be unthinkable.”

Kendall said he is convinced “this is going to happen. I have no doubt this is going to happen, and somebody’s going to get there first, and somebody’s not. I want [the Air Force] to be first.”

The uncrewed aircraft will rely on further development of the Skyborg unmanned aircraft piloting system as well as further advances in artificial intelligence and software, Kendall said, acknowledging that “software … is hard.”

Nevertheless, “I think we can get to a meaningful level of initial capability. And then we’ll build on that. And we’ll have a foundation on which to build.”

He said the development of the AI as applied to these new uncrewed airplanes will be “exciting to watch” as these systems mature in the next few years.

Kendall reiterated that the program is going ahead toward actual, deployable hardware as swiftly as possible.

“I’m not doing this as an experiment. I’m doing it as a real program. We’ve done an awful lot of experimentation, prototyping, and virtual planes and so on, over the last few years … I’m all about real capability. I’m all about putting meaningful capability in the hands of warfighters as quickly I can.”

Shift to Air Defense War in Ukraine Prompts US to Rethink Aid

June 24, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The attempt by Ukraine to hold the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk ended June 23 as the Biden administration announced another $450 million in military aid, including four additional HIMARS rocket systems, to help strike Russian artillery as unmanned aerial systems have grown ineffective against Russian air defenses.

“Air defense is a key area that we’re very much focused on,” a senior defense official said at a June 24 Pentagon press briefing meant to highlight new security assistance authorized by President Joe Biden.

“Initially, it was that short-range air defense that we were providing in in massive quantities. But we quickly shifted our focus to seeing how we could bolster and enhance Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities,” the official said. “We are still looking at how we can continue to help the Ukrainians build out those systems. And it is it is a priority area.”

Early in the Russia-Ukraine war, United States and allies flooded the country with Stinger short-range air defense systems most effective against slow-moving targets. After making trips to the region, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III also helped facilitate the transfer of Soviet-era S-300 missile defense systems from Slovakia while the United States and allies backfilled the country with Patriot missile defenses.

Despite Russia’s superior numbers and more sophisticated jets, Ukraine used the air defense systems to prevent Russia from taking control of the skies.

“Even though there is that substantial Russian threat, Ukraine has denied Russia air superiority,” the DOD official said. “The Ukrainians have been remarkably skilled in operating their air defense systems.”

At an AFA event June 24, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall went further, saying Russia’s Air Force has been “absent” in the Ukraine war.

“The Russian Air Force has been absent from the war to a large extent, and it’s because they’ve been intimidated by the … air defenses the Ukrainians have been able to use tactically pretty successfully,” Kendall said.

The result has been more than 100 days of contested air space.

U.S. and partner assistance to Ukraine has shifted of late, to include artillery for the ground battle grinding out in the flat, Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Defense packages now worth more than $6.8 billion have included 126 155 mm howitzers and artillery rounds. The long-delayed approval of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) has led to eight systems donated so far, four of which are being used by Ukraine in the fight. The new systems are expected by mid-July.

But for as little as the Russian gains have been in recent weeks—as little as a few kilometers a day—reports indicate that Ukraine’s effectiveness has also diminished.

“Reinforced Russian air-defense systems in eastern Ukraine are increasingly limiting the effectiveness of Ukrainian drones, undermining a key Ukrainian capability in the war,” read a June 22 assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, which has closely tracked the conflict since it began Feb. 24.

Ukraine made sizable purchases of Turkish Bayraktar drones prior to the conflict.

The 30-foot-wingspan Bayraktar has destroyed Russian artillery and tanks with laser-guided bombs.

To supplement Ukraine’s effective unmanned air strategy, DOD has transferred 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems, Puma UASs, and 121 of the Air Force’s Phoenix Ghost UASs. To strengthen the air picture, DOD transferred 22 counter-artillery radars, four counter-mortar radars, and four air surveillance radars.

But Russia has begun to stymie Ukraine’s UAS advantage by beefing up its S-300 and S-400 air defenses on the Russian side of the border, reports Foreign Policy Magazine.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the UAS report, and a Ukrainian defense official did not immediately respond to inquiries from Air Force Magazine.

The DOD official who briefed media called Ukraine’s retreat from Sievierodonetsk a “managed retrograde” to a better defensive position after more than 90 percent of the city had been destroyed by Russian artillery.

“When you look at the sweep of the past four months, obviously, we’ve seen Russia having to completely recalibrate its plan,” the defense official said, referring to Russia’s failed multi-pronged attack on Kyiv that was later reduced to a full assault of the eastern Donbas.

Russia’s concentration on eastern Ukraine has slowly garnered it 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, with strikes now beginning again in northern Ukraine along the Belarusian border.

“It’s important to reflect on the cost that Russia has paid for this very small, very incremental gain,” the Pentagon official said. “What we see is they have these gains around the edges, and you have a fierce Ukraine that is fighting back with the world by its side.”

72 Air National Guard F-16s Upgraded With ‘Fifth-Gen’ Radars

June 24, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Seventy-two F-16s across the Air National Guard have been upgraded with fifth-generation radars, giving the fighters the ability to track more targets at longer ranges with greater precision, the Air Force and Northrop Grumman announced this month.

The completion of the upgrades concludes a five-year process that started in 2017 when the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth $243 million to update the radars on the F-16. That was in response to an urgent request from U.S. Northern Command, which said it needed the fighters outfitted with the radars to track “small cross-section threats,” such as cruise missiles.

The new Active Electronically Scanned Array radars derive from the radars that Northrop Grumman has put in the F-22 and F-35, the contractor said, and provide “earlier and longer range target detections and tracking.”

The F-16’s previous mechanical APG-68 fire control radar could track no more than two objects at a time, Lt. Col. Michael Trujillo, the D.C. Air National Guard’s 113th Aerospace Control Alert Detachment commander, said in a release. Now, he said, “I can target more things than I can shoot.”

The old radars also had “near-zero capability” against cruise missiles, the release states, a particularly worrisome issue given the proliferation and development of such missiles in recent years.

“The completion of these deliveries highlights Northrop Grumman’s continued commitment to rapidly field fifth-generation radar capability to the fleet to counter and defeat increasingly sophisticated threats to our nation and its allies,” said Mark Rossi, director of SABR programs for Northrop Grumman, in a company press release.

The Air Force celebrated the final installations of the new radars with a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on June 9. The 113th Wing, the first unit to start getting the new radars, began receiving them in 2020, boosting its ability to provide defense of the national capital region—the 113th ACA is among the most active alert fighter air defense units in the nation.

All told, the new radars were installed in F-16s spread across 12 ANG units at nine bases.

“This has not been without a lot of labor, without a lot of advocacy, and without a lot of people saying, ‘I don’t have another dollar to spend on an old F-16,’” Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh, director of the Air National Guard, said at the ceremony.

These 72 F-16s won’t be the only ones to get the fifth-gen radars, though—hundreds more are slated to get a combined upgrade package in the coming years, one that will include AESA radars.

Looser Marijuana Rules Added to House Panel’s NDAA—But No Changes to Vaccine Mandate

June 24, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Service members facing potential discharges for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine received little relief from the House Armed Services Committee as it marked up the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act on June 22, with a series of provisions challenging the vaccine mandate getting voted down.

Troops hoping for changes to the Pentagon’s approach to marijuana, however, were buoyed by a pair of amendments included in the committee’s version of the NDAA that was approved in a bipartisan 57-1 vote.

COVID-19

Several thousand service members have now been discharged from the military for refusing the COVID vaccine—the Air Force in particular has separated 583 Airmen, according to the latest data, fewest among the services. Thousands more may still be booted, as the services process thousands of requests for religious, administrative, and medical exemptions, while multiple lawsuits on the issue are still ongoing.

Republican lawmakers on the HASC introduced seven amendments aimed at either ending, modifying, or mitigating the Pentagon’s vaccine requirement throughout the markup process. Proposals ranged from ending the requirement within 30 days, to creating accommodations for “natural immunity,” to blocking punishment for Cadets and Midshipmen at service academies.

In pushing for the proposals, the lawmakers argued that the mandate would create a readiness issue by forcing out service members and discouraging recruits from joining, that the young, healthy population that makes up the bulk of the military is at a low risk of complications from COVID, and that the long-term effects of the vaccine are still unknown.

On the other side of the issue, Democratic lawmakers pointed to the list of other vaccines that service members must get, the regulatory approval and scientific consensus behind the vaccines, and the readiness issues that a COVID-19 outbreak can cause.

Ultimately, two of the amendments related to the COVID-19 vaccine were adopted—one introduced by Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) that suspends any COVID-19 vaccine requirements for DOD contractors until the comptroller general releases a study on the potential impacts of such a requirement; and one from Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) that removes any time limit on the requirement that service members discharged over the vaccine receive no less than a general discharge under honorable conditions, a provision included in the 2022 NDAA.

The rest were voted down along party lines.

Marijuana

While more and more states across the country have opened up their laws surrounding medical and recreational marijuana, the Pentagon still has a firm zero-tolerance policy. According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, possession of less than 30 grams of cannabis can result in dishonorable discharge and up to two years of confinement.

But a pair of amendments approved by voice vote would take steps towards loosening the DOD’s rules.

The first, introduced by Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) calls for the Military Justice Review Panel to draft recommendations for new sentencing guidelines in the UCMJ for possession and use of cannabis, specifically directing the panel to compare those guidelines “to the sentences typically imposed for other comparable offenses, such as offenses involving the misuse of alcohol.”

Punishments for the misuse of alcohol in the military can vary, depending on whether the service member is on duty, but typically even at their worst include a bad misconduct discharge, lighter than a dishonorable one.

The second cannabis-related amendment came from Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who proposed requiring the Pentagon to conduct a study on the use of medical marijuana instead of prescription opioids for service members on terminal leave before separation or retirement.

The study would track service members diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, or other conditions with severe pain who might otherwise be prescribed opioids. The amendment also includes a provision to protect those service members’ other benefits despite their marijuana use.

“I know a lot of service members who have been really unfairly treated by the system … and I know a lot of veterans who actually choose to use cannabis so that they don’t become addicted to the opioids, which is what the VA regularly prescribes,” said Moulton, who is a veteran, as is Brown. “We need to look at this more carefully, and we need to push DOD to do so.”

Changes Coming to the Commissary?

Another amendment that was also approved as part of the HASC markup came from Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), and it could carry major implications for service members’ shopping.

Under Green’s amendment, no commissary or military exchange would be allowed to sell any goods manufactured, assembled, or imported from China. The amendment was adopted by voice vote, but not before critics warned that it could carry major implications for junior service members.

“At least half, if not more, of the products sold in the PX or the commissary, where I’ve been to and continue to go to, are made in China,” said Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.). “So I just point that out, because in essence, although it sounds great … it would have the adverse effect for our military families. We would in essence make them go out into the civilian world to purchase many of the goods that they rely on.”

Proponents, however, said the military stores could use products manufactured from anywhere else in the world and predicted that service members would be willing to sacrifice some to combat China’s economic power.

Processes May Matter More Than Technology in ABMS Creation, Generals Say

June 23, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Improving the processes and culture already inherent in battle management command and control could make a bigger difference in the success of the Advanced Battle Management System than any new technology. Some new processes are already being fielded, said leaders who are coordinating ABMS for the Department of the Air Force and the Space Force.

Air Force Brig. Gens. Jeffrey D. Valenzia, the DAF’s ABMS cross-functional team lead, and John M. Olson, the Space Force’s joint all-domain command and control and ABMS lead, talked about the vision for the ABMS—the DAF’s portion of the broader JADC2 concept—in a live-streamed conversation June 23 with retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Steps will include figuring out how to separate command from control; how to aggregate sensing data from all platforms; and how to distribute communications, including via a space-based data transport layer.

The militaries the U.S. needs to be able to contend with already take advantage of slow battle management by employing “shoot-and-scoot technologies [with which] they can expose themselves in order to engage us and very quickly disappear before we can close the kill chain,” Valenzia said—the kill chain ostensibly taking as long as hours to close that “in some cases needs to be in seconds.”

“If I’m looking at defending a force that’s in the field,” he said, “what I can’t do is create a system where a commander is making a play-by-play decision as we are executing. I need a control apparatus who simply can execute. … We need to decouple it, and we need to distribute it.”

Doing so would make battle management C2 less vulnerable.

“Today we take sensors, information, communications, and the people who make these decisions, and we like to put them in a tent, or we put them in an airplane—put them in extraordinarily vulnerable positions—and then we tell them, do the best with what you have, which is oftentimes insufficient,” Valenzia said.

Olson named the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) as no longer sufficient, “and you might even say the traditional air operations center is no longer viable in the modern contested environment,” he said.

On the other hand, “technology,” Valenzia said, “has allowed us now to imagine a world where we don’t have to rely on the sensor that’s sitting on top of my airplane anymore. In fact, I can start to aggregate sensing data from multiple sources. We also are starting to develop the technology that my communications can be more distributed—I can start using space-based communications. Now I don’t need a direct-line-of sight tie.”

But technology made a smaller difference than the services expected when they modeled the effectiveness of today’s command and control processes as though all intelligence data were available ubiquitously.

“We saw a one-third improvement in our kill chain,” Valenzia said—the actual target time is classified and “much shorter than hours.” Next, modeling more stress on the C2 system with “a target reported every couple minutes for a 24-hour period … we saw less than a 10 percent improvement—actually reverse what we expected. We expected to see a compounding improvement with technology.

“And so what you find when you do the hyper analytics is that our process is killing us. So ABMS is not just looking at technical solutions” but also “process improvements, which forces us to come to terms with some old paradigms.”

Meanwhile, “real joint progress that we’re fielding now with our joint partners” means the DAF is “already operationalizing this idea of a reimagined battle management every day,” Valenzia said.

However, a new digital infrastructure to underlie the system of systems can’t be avoided.

Olson envisioned a systems engineering approach to ABMS:

“You break a large problem down into functional pieces, manageable pieces, and you systematically tackle that. And I think that’s absolutely the approach that’s been taken, but I think we’re going to accelerate that to warp speed, if you will, on this.”

House Proposes ‘National Hypersonic Initiative’ to Boost Coordination, Testing, Industry Expansion

June 23, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

To increase coordination and resources for hypersonic weapons development, the House Armed Services Committee included a “National Hypersonic Initiative” in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act. The House panel wants the Pentagon to produce a report, due early in 2023, on how it will build up the hypersonics industrial base and testing infrastructure and what the effort will cost over five years.

In its markup of the fiscal 2023 NDAA, the House committee “notes the multiple programs and efforts” in hypersonics across the armed services and defense agencies but also the “limited industrial base and workforce with the requisite knowledge and infrastructure” needed to develop and test these systems. The HASC is “interested in the potential of an initiative to address current gaps” in the hypersonics development infrastructure “as well as to accelerate production and fielding.” Besides the Air Force, the Navy and Army are pursuing hypersonics programs, as are the Missile Defense Agency and NASA.

Pentagon and industry officials welcomed the attention to hypersonics but said much of what the language calls for is already happening.

The HASC version of the NDAA directed the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to the committee by Feb. 1, 2023, “on potential options to establish” a National Hypersonic Initiative, which will specify:

“Innovative solutions” to create “leap-ahead technologies” for accelerating and increasing production capacity of hypersonic systems “across the current programs of record within the military services,” to include the potential use of government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) facilities.
Ways to strengthen partnerships with academia and the private sector “with regards to [the] technology and producibility” of hypersonic weapon systems.
Areas in which the Pentagon can “collaborate across the interagency” to improve hypersonic development and testing capabilities.
Allies who are interested in collaborating on hypersonic technologies and who are able to make a substantive contribution to the knowledge base or actually co-develop or co-produce some systems.
“Other relevant lines of effort or work areas” determined by the Secretary of Defense.

An amendment offered by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) would specifically direct the Secretary of the Air Force to “upgrade the air-breathing test facilities” of the service “to support critical hypersonics development.” Lamborn wants the Air Force to complete any such upgrades within two years after starting them.

In a press statement, Lamborn also said the language provides $600 million “to accelerate testing” and development of hypersonic systems, including advanced defensive capabilities.

“The top-line amendment … will put important funding behind this effort and will go a long way toward helping us catch up with Russia and China on hypersonics.”

During a House Appropriations hearing, there was discussion of restoring funds withdrawn from the hypersonic AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon program (ARRW), but the panel voted not to do so.

An industry source said the House’s sense that there needs to be national coordination on hypersonics echoes a report from the Government Accountability Office in 2021 “that said the same thing … It’s been an ongoing theme, and there’s some truth there.”

Mark Lewis, head of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute and former Pentagon director of research and engineering, said, “I’m all for” a national hypersonics initiative, but “it’s kind of what we were doing in the last administration.”

The initiatives spelled out by the House match those put forward by Michael White, the Pentagon’s principal director for hypersonics, said Lewis, a hypersonics expert.

“Congress set up the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office,” he said, “and its job was exactly this, to coordinate across the department.” However, he said, “It’s still a work in progress … we can always have better coordination.”

Lewis applauded the House’s attention to hypersonic test capability, noting that, despite recent efforts, there’s still a shortage of both wind tunnels and live-fly range space.

“We need to do both,” he said, but of the two, Lewis said live-fly should get priority.

“We need to be flying more often,” he said. “We need to get into the air; that’s the ultimate test … We need infrastructure that gets us into the air routinely, not doing these … one or two flights a year. To the extent that the folks in the House can help with that, I think is actually very significant.”

Lewis noted that in the days of the X-15, a well established infrastructure conducted routine hypersonic testing with a recoverable vehicle, which could fly in a designated, over-land hypersonic test corridor.

“We don’t have that anymore,” he said, and restoring such a capability would be a huge boost to hypersonics research.

The reference to allies certainly includes Australia, he said, because Australia’s hypersonic development capabilities “are really quite good” and “they have that beautiful Woomera range,” which is an over-land hypersonic test area.

Overall, though, Lewis offered “hearty applause” for the language.

“This needs to be a national priority,” he said, and the fact that it is bipartisan language indicates “they’ve gotten the message, that hypersonics is an important future military capability. And they’ve also gotten the message that we are in a race that we’re currently losing, to deploy this technology.” Lewis also applauded the “setting of a timescale” because peer competitors “already have it, and we don’t.”