Russia’s Troubled Invasion of Ukraine Shows ‘Value of Air Power,’ Brown Says

Sept. 16, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The ability to achieve air superiority and control airspace over a war zone is a key U.S. military strategy, and in some cases has been the primary means of achieving military objectives, such as when NATO intervened to stop Serbia’s war in Kosovo and the counter-ISIS campaign in Syria. But in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s failure to control the skies has provided a back-to-the-future moment highlighting the critical value of air power.

Russia’s air force is the second largest in the world, but has proven incapable of achieving air superiority against a much smaller foe. Ukraine has cleverly deployed air defenses, including shoot-and-scoot S-300 mobile systems and using man-portable Stinger missiles to attack low-flying aircraft seeking to evade air defense radar. Now, with the battle shifted to the vast expanse of eastern and southern Ukraine, it has become an artillery and infantry war.

“Neither side has air superiority,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. at the International Air Chiefs Conference in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16. “It’s turning into a complete land war, including with artillery. You can almost harken back to [a] World War I type of warfare, where it’s just moving things back and forth.”

The role of air power continues to be the subject of debate. Advanced, large air forces have rarely interacted, even in war. In Syria, where the U.S. and Russians are engaged in missions in support of different sides of the conflict, the two air forces operate a deconfliction line which is used daily, Ninth Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

In Ukraine, Ukraine is employing Turkish-made Bayraktar and off-the-shelf commercial drones to combat Russian armor, but not to police the sky. They are better suited to the kinds of roles aircraft were used for in WWI, such as reconnaissance and artillery spotting.

Russia’s inability to establish its will over a smaller nation has sparked some to question the conventional air superiority arguments, raising questions of how the U.S. would engage in a conflict against China, which like the United States, sees achieving air superiority as key to its military doctrine. Some commentators have even raised the heretical notion that air denial, rather than superiority, should be the objective.

“Typically, we think of superiority as a duality,” Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, said Sept 6. “We are going to use the space, and we’re going to deny its use to others. The barriers to entry for denial, for denying the use of airspace, are much, much lower these days than the barriers to entry for extending control and keeping control of the airspace.”

Hinote said the U.S. Air Force must prepare for a conflict in which denial, not control, is the objective.

Brown’s take on the topic: “You’ve also got to think about the doctrine and how our Western air forces are operating,” Brown said. “We have freedom on how we operate as part of the planning team.”

Instead of demonstrating the need for fundamental rethinking, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown “the value of air power [and] what it could and can do,” Brown said. Experts argue Russia’s failures in Ukraine are more directly tied to its failure to employ airpower effectively than to its smaller rival’s prowess.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:55 a.m. Eastern time Sept. 19 to clarify Brown’s remarks on denial of air superiority.

These Groups of Airmen Will See Changes to Special Duty Pay

Sept. 16, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen and Guardians in more than 30 communities across the Department of the Air Force will see their special duty pay reduced in the coming months.

All told, 22 groups have been tabbed for a reduction in Special Duty Assignment Pay, given to Airmen with extremely difficult duties that may involve an unusual degree of responsibility or military skill. Another 11 had SDAP cut entirely, though those Airmen will receive half of their usual SDAP through fiscal 2023 as a transition measure.

At the same time, 12 communities have been added to the SDAP program or seen their extra pay increase.

Six different levels of SDAP are given to Airmen and Guardians depending on factors such as skill level, assignment location, and special qualifications, Air Force spokesperson Laurel Falls told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The total amounts awarded can range from $75 to $450 per month.

The jobs affected by the cuts, which take effect Oct. 1, include a broad range of specialities across the Air Force, including:

Human Intelligence
Combat Controller
724th Special Tactics Group
Joint Special Operations Command
Aircraft Battle Damage Repair/Expeditionary Depot Maintenance
White House Communications Agency
Parachuting Instructor
Cyber Warfare
Recruiter
Weapons Directors
Army Support Weather Operators
White House Shelter Complex
Cyber Intelligence Analysis
Sensor Operator
844th Communications Squadron, Executive Communications Flight
Command and Control (C2) Operations
Nuclear Aircraft Maintenance
Security Forces Nuclear Support
Contracting
Cyberspace Mission Forces
Special Operations Surgical Team
Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System

The teams that won’t get SDAP at all after 2023 include:

Cryptologic Language Analyst
Enlisted Professional Military Education Instructors
Defense Threat Reduction Agency
Flying Crew Chiefs for the C-146
Defense Courier
Flight Attendant
National Airborne Ops Support
Airborne Mission Operators
Presidential Logistics Squadron
NAOC-Super High Frequency Operators
Diagnostic Medical Sonography

The groups added to the SDAP program include:

Electronic Security System Maintenance
31st Communications Squadron/39th Communications Squadron Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications
52nd Munitions Maintenance Group Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications
International Enlisted Engagements Manager
Senior Enlisted Leaders—Space Force
Radar Weather Systems
Casualty Cell
Fire protection
341st Training Squadron Military Working Dog Handlers

The cuts to special duty pay come amid high inflation rates and concerns about the impact on rank-and-file troops, leading some service members to express frustration—and Air Force leaders to publicly acknowledge the seeming contrast.

“It’s tough to look at the Airmen and say, ‘Yes, we have tough economic times, but I’m going to cut your pay anyway.’ It is true that in the context of building the budget, sometimes you do lose touch, you lose some connection,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said during a recent Facebook livestream event with Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass. “And when we look at that, sometimes it’s framed, unfortunately, in terms of, ‘Well, do we want to be able to have the force we need in the future?’ And so we carve out little bits of money here and there to afford that next F-35 or to be able to do that development and testing. But that doesn’t resonate very well.”

In a later Facebook post, Bass sought to clarify reports about the cuts, noting that for 51 communities within the Air Force, SDAP will remain the same, and a few others will actually receive increases.

Bass also wrote that the Air Force will distribute $90.8 million in SDAP in 2023—the Air Force’s budget documents put the figure at $90.2 million, spread across 30,845 Airmen. Falls could not immediately account for the difference in the numbers.

Regardless, it will be a reduction from the $91.6 million estimate for 2022 included in the service’s budget documents, covering 31,334 Airmen.

Vietnam Ace DeBellevue Credits Teamwork in His Six Aerial Kills

Sept. 15, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Air combat is “a real team sport” requiring agile thinking, persistence, and a willingness to sometimes disregard the rules, retired Col. Charles B. DeBellevue, the highest-scoring Air Force Vietnam ace, said at a seminar held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his last air-to-air kills.

Speaking at a Sept. 8 event in Oklahoma organized by the Air & Space Forces Association Gerrity Chapter, the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission, and the Oklahoma Defense Industrial Association, DeBellevue, the last ace on Active duty, a weapons systems officer, credited the “real-time support of a lot of people” from crew chiefs and maintainers to cooks and “supply guys” for making the F-4 Phantom effective in battle.

“It takes a lot of people to make it work,” he said. The F-4, in which DeBellevue scored all his kills, “breaks all the time. In fact, you could put an F-4 on the ramp, let it sit there, and not do anything to it—it’ll break.”

He walked the audience through his six kills, earned in 96 missions over North Vietnam out of 220 combat sorties and 550 combat hours during the war, resulting in decorations that included three Silver Stars and six awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross. All of DeBellevue’s combat victories were scored from May to September 1972, shortly after Operation Linebacker began.

DeBellevue revealed that F-4 pilots in that period were discouraged from dogfighting because “the powers that be said, if you get into a dogfight” while flying the F-4 against lighter, more nimble enemy fighters, “you’re probably going to lose the airplane. So we weren’t allowed to do that. We weren’t trained” in close-in, air-to-air maneuvering, he said.

“The first time I saw a dissimilar aircraft” in a dogfight, it was “a Mig-21, behind me,” he said.

The F-4 crews were directed instead toward shooting enemy aircraft with missiles at longer range, but that rarely worked against small, hard-to-see enemy fighters launched from airfields close to the action. Most of the kills scored by DeBellevue and the various pilots he flew with were at close range. In the two-seat F-4, back-seaters received equal credit with pilots for air-to-air victories.

He described the frustration of launching multiple missiles that didn’t connect with their targets, until finding greater success with the AIM-9J Sidewinder, which was rushed to operational units even before it went through operational testing.

After one encounter with two MiG-21s, after he and his pilot had already accumulated several kills, DeBellevue said intelligence later revealed that the enemy pilots “knew who we were” and had been sent specifically to kill USAF’s leading aviators.

“They practiced every day for us,” he said. “They knew who they were fighting.” Intelligence also had color-coded enemy pilots as inexperienced or skilled, and those sent after DeBellevue were coded green, meaning “aces,” he said.

Program host retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, head of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, noted that shortly after this period the Air Force instituted the “Red Baron” studies showing that pilot survivability in combat rose significantly after they had accumulated 10 real-world missions. The later “Red Flag” exercises were designed to realistically give pilots those first 10 missions, so that the first time they experienced air combat, they would already be comfortable with the sounds and sensations of a real battle. The success of Red Flag was borne out in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when Air Force pilots thoroughly dominated the skies.

DeBellevue said “we had to learn the book” way of doing things; then the way their senior officers wanted things done; and then he figured out “my idea of how things should be.”

In the Vietnam battles, DeBellevue said he believed his task was to watch aircraft systems, look for enemies, operate weapons, and keep up a running commentary for the pilot. In one engagement in which he was flying with fellow ace Steve Ritchie, DeBellevue said this approach worked well—so that Ritchie could always “keep his eyes outside” rather than having to look inside the cockpit at displays and status. In such engagements, which could last just a couple of minutes, a pilot taking his eyes off the target meant he could lose sight of “that little speck against a cloud” at the very edge of visible range, which was a potentially fatal situation, despite the F-4’s sensors.

DeBellevue said he was a desirable weapon systems officer because he could also perform some pilot tasks, having gone through some pilot training. He said he could fly the aircraft during an aerial refueling and could “get it on the ground” safely if necessary. In the early days of the F-4 in Vietnam, crews were two pilots, which meant that the back seat had throttle and stick controls like the forward cockpit, he noted.

Danger was ever-present, DeBellevue said, noting that on the mission where he and Ritchie scored their first kill, another F-4 in the fight was shot down. Maj. Robert Lodge was killed, and Capt. Roger Locher, the WSO, survived the crash but made a harrowing three-week march without food or supplies to a rescue site. A tremendous effort was expended to find, cover and recover Locher, DeBellevue said, and his commander was criticized for using so much equipment and risking so many lives in the effort.

But in war, “you fight for your buddy,” he said.

“I was willing to die for my country,” DeBellevue said, but spending time in a prisoner of war camp “was not on my bucket list.” Consequently, he said, he made sure “I was very good at what I did.” He joked darkly that the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp “didn’t give points” for long stays.

DeBellevue said Ritchie was the “most experienced guy” in the 555th squadron, and on the ground, DeBellevue was his assistant.

“We worked well together,” he said. Ritchie was the pilot in four of DeBellevue’s six kills. In most of those encounters, he said they were heavily assisted by EC-121 “Disco” AWACS-type aircraft.

In the first kill they achieved together, on May 10, 1972, part of the MiG-21 they destroyed with a pair of AIM-7 Sparrow missiles lodged in their aircraft as they flew through the fireball. “The crew chief found it,” he said. The F-4 “didn’t care” that it was carrying a chunk of scrap metal, he said. On that first day he got a kill, USAF and Navy pilots together scored 11 kills, he noted.

In several engagements, DeBellevue said they exceeded the aircraft’s hard limit of 700 knots at low altitude by 100 knots, because it was the right thing to do in the situation, he said, but there was concern that the canopy, which was an issue on the F-4, would tear off.

Time was so much of the essence—and enemy radio technicians were listening—that there would be no announcement if a fighter had spotted and was pursuing an enemy fighter. The lead fighter would drop its fuel tanks, light its afterburner and others in the flight had to spot this behavior and “play catch me if you can,” DeBellevue related.

The E-model of the F-4 had a gun for close encounters, with 550 rounds. In one engagement, Ritchie fired a solid 3-second uninterrupted burst which exhausted the magazine; the maintenance technicians had to replace the overcooked gun barrels later, DeBellevue related.

On his last combat mission, DeBellevue said his flight was low on fuel, and, fearing they would not make a rendezvous with a tanker, opted to head directly for home base. They climbed to 47,000 feet, to obtain the best possible cruise with the F-4, which burned a minimum of 100 pounds of fuel per minute.

“We thought we could just barely make it…80 miles.” The F-4’s glide ratio is two miles for every 1,000 feet of altitude lost, he noted.

“We were not supposed to fly over Laos,” which was in the direct path, he said, adding, “I’m sorry.” The group kept gear up until the last possible minute, then dropped the gear and landed almost at flameout.

“That was my last combat mission,” DeBellevue said, adding that he would like to have made it an even 100 missions over the North—he had 96—but “the (pilots) that were supporting us had a chance to move up,” and so it was not to be, but “I would have enjoyed four more.”

Space Traffic at Turning Point as US Seeks ASAT Ban, Pentagon to Hand Off Tracking

Sept. 15, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The Biden administration is proposing new actions designed to confront the proliferation of space traffic and debris as Earth orbit becomes increasingly congested and contested.

The government launched two efforts that it hopes will lead to a safer environment for the nation’s military and commercial satellites.

On Sept. 9, Vice President Kamala Harris confirmed at a meeting of the National Space Council at Johnson Space Center in Houston that the United States would not conduct direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missile tests, a commitment she first outlined in April. At the same time, the Department of Commerce and Department of Defense announced that they had signed a “memorandum of agreement” (MOA) to transfer tracking responsibilities currently provided by the military to a civilian authority. The document says space situational awareness (SSA) and space traffic management (STM) services will move to the Commerce Department. It did not specify when this would occur or what responsibilities the military would still control for U.S. national security.

The agreement is a first step in the interagency effort, and military leaders have not delved into what responsibilities will remain as part of DOD. For example, the agreement did not mention some capabilities, such as the Space Fence surveillance system operated by Space Force. But other capabilities, akin to running traffic lights on a road network rather than conducting more advanced tracking, are set to change hands.

“We need to transition to space traffic management being managed by someone other than the Department of Defense,” said Lt. Gen. John E. Shaw on Sept. 15 during a webinar hosted by the Atlantic Council. “It’s actually a wonderful thing. It’s wonderful that we, as a society and as a planet, have gotten to the point where space utilization is so great across our society that we’ve reached this tipping point.”

The groundwork for a transition to civilian management was laid out in a Space Policy Directive issued during the Trump administration.

In addition to managing space traffic, debris is a growing concern, particularly from ASATs. In November 2021, Russia destroyed one of its satellites with a missile, causing thousands of pieces of rubble to scatter in Earth’s orbit. The occupants of the International Space Station, including two Russian cosmonauts, had to shelter in their spacecraft when the ISS was put in the possible path of fragments from the blast.

“Later this month, the United States will introduce a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly to call on other nations to make the same commitment,” Harris said. ASAT tests are not prohibited by current international space treaties. A U.N. working group on “reducing space threats” began meeting this year.

The U.S. government says it will not use direct-ascent kinetic-energy weapons, which launch from Earth to destroy a target on impact, creating debris. However, the U.S. has not promised it will not develop ASATs. Satellites could also be disabled via other means, such as radio jamming, laser interference, or co-orbital satellites that collide with or somehow capture another satellite.

Harris and U.S. military leaders have pointed the finger at China and Russia for conducting hazardous ASAT tests and have said America’s unilateral commitment is unlikely to gain traction among its main foes. The U.S. has conducted ASAT missions in the past. In 2008, it destroyed what it said was a malfunctioning spy satellite with a ship-launched missile, just one year after criticizing China for an ASAT test. While debris from that Chinese launch is still in orbit, the U.S. debris had all burned up in the atmosphere just over a year and a half later, according to the Secure World Foundation’s annual Global Counterspace Capabilities Report. Commander of U.S. Space Command Army Gen. James H. Dickinson has said the debris from Russia’s 2021 test will pose a threat to satellites for “years to come.”

“It’s a commitment to not conduct destructive ASAT missile tests, which is currently the most dangerous thing to U.S. space capabilities in the form of what the Chinese and the Russians are doing,” Space Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the nominee to be the next Chief of Space Operations, said at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 13. “I am always concerned about debris. We’re committed to making sure that we lead and model responsible behaviors in space.”

‘Bona Fide’ Chinese Nuclear Triad Means STRATCOM Has Work to Do, Cotton Says

Sept. 15, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Chinese boast a “bona fide” nuclear triad and have ascended to the status of nuclear near-peer adversary, Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, head of Air Force Global Strike Command and nominee to head U.S. Strategic Command, told lawmakers Sept. 15.

Cotton told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his nomination hearing, one of his top priorities if confirmed will be to move forward STRATCOM’s efforts to study China’s nuclear strategy and reconsider the U.S.’s own doctrines and strategies in a tri-polar nuclear world.

“Minimum deterrence was what we thought of when we talked of China as recently as 2018,” Cotton said. “We have seen the incredible expansiveness of what they’re doing with their nuclear force, which does not, in my opinion, reflect minimal deterrence. They have a bonafide triad now. So we’re going to have to understand more deeply the Chinese nuclear strategy.”

Cotton’s comments mark the latest warning about China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear capabilities. As recently as November 2021, the Pentagon’s report on Chinese military power described its nuclear triad as “nascent,” and officials pointed out that even revised predictions had the U.S. possessing far more nuclear warheads.

At the same time, leaders have also sounded the alarm about the rate at which China is growing its capabilities. In mid-2021, satellite imagery revealed hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missile silos under construction. The Chinese have also recently added to the air leg of its triad with a “nuclear air-launched ballistic missile,” and rumors continue to swirl regarding the secretive, still-in-development stealth bomber, the H-20.

Adm. Charles “Chas” A. Richard, whom Cotton would succeed as head of STRATCOM, described China’s progress as “breathtaking” and a “strategic breakout.” And Cotton, for his part, put the developments in historic terms.

“For the first time since 1945, the first time for us as a nation, we have two near-peer adversaries,” Cotton said of China and Russia. “We have always put together a nuclear defense strategy that has one nuclear peer. We are going to have to roll up our sleeves to ensure that we are doing everything we can strategy-wise within … STRATCOM to ensure that we’re meeting the objectives to be able to have and take care of two near peers. First time in history that we’ve ever seen that.”

Work on that front has already begun, Cotton acknowledged—Richard said in August that STRATCOM is “furiously” rewriting its theories of deterrence to account for a tri-polar nuclear world. But with China and Russia seemingly forging a closer relationship as of late, Cotton said he still wants to conduct a deep dive on the topic.

“If confirmed, that is one of the first things that we’ll dive into, where I can get a better understanding … of what does it look like when you have two near-peer adversaries that act differently?” Cotton said. “They might work together, they might not work together, but we still need to understand, how do you execute against that threat?”

Hypersonics

While China has made considerable progress with its ICBMs, it has also demonstrated new capabilities in hypersonics. Last October, the Pentagon confirmed that the Chinese had launched a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle into space, part of a suspected orbital bombardment system.

Given that progress, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) asked Cotton if he considered hypersonic weapons, which can fly at five times the speed of sound, to be a strategic challenge for the U.S.

“I do, and I see it as a warning challenge,” Cotton said. “I think as far as when we have a conversation, if confirmed, I think my fellow combatant commanders, we’ll have to have a discussion and understand how to … relook [at] missile defense, relook [at] missile warning, understand what a sensor layer looks like that can achieve those effects to give time, because I need to give decision space to the decision-maker.”

Bomber Task Forces

In 2020, Air Force Global Strike Command shifted away from continuous bomber presence missions to bomber task forces—rotations of bombers deploying across the globe to work and fly with allies and partners.

Those task forces have taken bombers everywhere from Australia to Norway, and most recently off the coast of Ecuador. And Cotton offered a strong endorsement of their impact.

“It’s been incredible because what it shows—it shows why we’re the most powerful military on the face of the Earth. And that’s because we have allies and partners. And what it shows is using conventional forces, what strategic deterrence is all about,” Cotton said in response to a question from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

“And there is nothing more gratifying than seeing an ally or partner come up on a wing of a B-52 that’s doing an integrated mission over a COCOM area, and seeing the [public] sentiment, if you will, come back from the adversaries on how that mission went. So it’s a win-win for ourselves as well as our allies and partners that participate in those missions that we’re doing constantly across the globe.”

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Senior Airman Caden A. Soper

Sept. 15, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 19 to 21 in National Harbor, Md. Air & Space Forces Magazine is highlighting one each weekday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Senior Airman Caden A. Soper, an F-15 avionics journeyman for the 48th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and 48th Maintenance Group at RAF Lakenheath in England.

Soper was previously assigned to the 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, where he worked on the Installation Dorm Council. The IDC is tasked with keeping up the morale and quality of life in the dorms at Kadena that housed 194 junior enlisted Airmen—most were between 18 and 24 years old and had never been overseas.

“I know what it’s like to be on your own for the first time. I’m from the middle of nowhere, Kansas,” said the 21-year-old Soper. “So to be on your own for the first time overseas on a subtropical island—it’s hard for a lot of those guys.”

Soper’s efforts with the IDC helped his fellow Airmen at Kadena be comfortable both on and off duty. The IDC organized quarterly barbecues and social events on holidays such as Christmas and Fourth of July to facilitate a feeling of community while deployed in a foreign country. Soper also helped organize monthly beach cleanups, giving the Airmen an opportunity to connect with one another while being good stewards of their local area.

“It’s not just us out here having fun,” Soper said. “We actually had an opportunity to go out and make an impact in the community that we lived in. And that was probably one of the coolest parts about doing that.”

His dedication to the Dorm Council was lauded by the wing’s command chief master sergeant, but Soper said it’s what he would have done anyway. Community participation, whether at home in Kansas or overseas in Okinawa, is something he can’t help.

“I started coaching football when I was 16,” he said. “Getting involved in the community, making an impact on people, I’ve always done that. That’s just what I enjoy.”

In fact, Soper’s commitment to being involved extends to his career field within the Air Force as an F-15 avionics journeyman. In addition to encouraging and inviting his fellow specialists to go on runs with him to improve their physical fitness, Soper was also noted by his leader for going out of his way to mentor and support his team on the diagnostics and repair of the F-15 avionics systems at Kadena. That loyalty is all part of his objective to help his squadron enjoy coming to work while being the best they can be.

“Everybody has different skill sets that they can add to the team so we’re successful,” Soper said. “My main goal while I was there was to make sure that those younger Airmen who came in knew exactly how they could fit into the organization and how to succeed within an organization.”

Soper emphasized that he doesn’t consider the Outstanding Airman of Year award to be an individual award. His involvement with his communities—in Kansas, in Okinawa, and now at Lakenheath—is merely his way of paying forward the time and love people have invested in him over the years. The award “represents the outstanding individuals who I have been blessed to have in my life the past few years,” he said.

“Everybody asks me all the time, ‘Would you say the Air Force changed you?’ And I say absolutely not—the Air Force gave me the opportunity to be the individual I could be,” Soper said. “I don’t believe that I could be the man that I am today if … God [hadn’t] put those things in front me.”

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

Skunk Works to Test Expendable ‘Speed Racer’ Collaborative Vehicle With Sub-$2M Price

Sept. 14, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin will soon begin a campaign of flight tests of its “Speed Racer” uncrewed air vehicle, aiming for an expendable, modular, multipurpose vehicle that will cooperate with the F-35 and cost well below $2 million a copy, the director of the company’s Skunk Works division John Clark said Sept. 14.

Lockheed Martin has invested some $100 million in related technologies, collectively known internally as “Project Carrera,” meaning “race,” in part to imply a speedy program.

Speaking from Skunk Works’ Palmdale, Calif., headquarters on a call with defense reporters, Clark said flight testing will begin “in the near future”—tests in which the Speed Racer will be captive-carried at first; then, in later tests, released from an unnamed mothership. Clark anticipated multiple flight tests before the end of 2022. He emphasized that none of the flights will be a one-off “stunt” but instead one in a series of tests that will each demonstrate aspects of the concept, to be followed not by similar-level flights but by leaps in capability.

“It will be a … systematic build-up” of capabilities demonstrated on each test, he said.

The $100 million invested in various enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomy, low-cost manufacturing, and other disciplines form the foundation for a production program. Clark said the goal is a vehicle costing “considerably less” than $2 million a copy but going beyond the Modular Air-Launched Decoy system in that it could serve both as an extension of the F-35’s sensors— performing sensing, electronic warfare, or other missions—as well as a decoy. He would not be more specific due to the competitive nature of the program.

Lockheed Martin has paid particular attention to human interaction with collaborative vehicles, building a series of programs that account for the variables in how humans interact with such machines, Clark reported.

The concept also builds on the Rapid Dragon experiments in which the Air Force dropped a pallet of autonomous air vehicles out of the back end of a C-130 or similar aircraft, creating an airborne network of sensors and shooters, Clark said.

In later tests of Speed Racer, multiple vehicles could fly at once. Clark mentioned a four-ship collaborative formation as one concept being studied.

To keep costs down—not only acquisition costs but operations and sustainment—the Speed Racer vehicles are not meant to be recovered, but if the modular nose is carrying a particularly valuable sensor, that one could be retrieved with a parachute system, Clark said, “so, ‘optionally recoverable.’”

The aim is to populate the “long-range kill web,” Clark said.

The Air Force has been briefed on Project Carrera and has offered the company suggestions about where the service is going on manned-unmanned teaming, Clark reported. The service has asked that whatever the company comes up with in terms of operational analysis of such systems, that it share with the Air Force and some of its key suppliers, Clark said.

He reiterated some of the points he made in a presentation in August, emphasizing that Lockheed Martin’s analysis concludes that a vehicle that simply flies alongside or near an F-35—sometimes called a “loyal wingman”—doesn’t provide much operational value and is not “cheap,” he said. Flying well ahead of or away from the F-35 and performing related autonomous missions is more effective, he said. It also allows the expendable craft to carry lower-cost sensors and meet the desired price point. Some Speed Racer-type vehicles could undertake roles such as electronic warfare as part of the collaborative formation, he said.

“You may see some other vehicles” participating in the test flights, Clark noted. He said the tests will not take place at Palmdale.

Lockheed Martin has released promotional videos showing Speed Racer as a squat vehicle with pop-out wings and conformal air intakes, with an overall impression of low observability considerations.

The company released an infographic saying that of its $100 million investment, $20 million was oriented toward manned/unmanned aircraft teaming, including sensors, manufacturing processes, digital engineering, modular payloads, stealth, and penetrating technologies. Another $42 million has gone into “teaming enablers” such as artificial intelligence, open architectures, open mission systems, waveforms, and rapid demonstrations, while $38 million has gone into JADO (joint all-domain operations) battle space multipliers, such as low Earth orbit reconnaissance, forward/penetrating sensors on survivable platforms, software-defined architecture, and “bi-directional data communications with command and control nodes.”

Clark also said the operating system for Speed Racer will be “open mission system compliant … I’m an open mission systems zealot,” he said.

The company may allow press coverage of test flights “when the time is right,” Clark said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 1:52 p.m. Sept. 15, 2022, to clarify the origin of the name “Project Carrera.”

Brown Adds to Leadership Library for USAF’s 75th Anniversary

Sept. 14, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

With the 75th Anniversary of the Air Force just days away—highlighted by plans for flyovers of current and historic aircraft and other festivities—Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. added two books and two podcasts to his “Leadership Library” on Sept. 14.

Brown intends for his Leadership Library, launched in March 2021, to “spark conversations for you with fellow Airmen, with your family, and with your friends,” he has written to Airmen. Thus far, 36 books, movies, and podcasts have been added.

This is what Brown had to say about each new selection:

Veterans Chronicles: In Their Own Words, by Radio America

“We honor the Air Force’s 75th birthday by celebrating our service’s rich past and evoking the gallantry of Airmen who rose to the challenges of their respective eras. In [this podcast], Brig. Gen. Charles McGee reflects on his remarkable 30-year career as one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. Although Gen. McGee passed away in January at the age of 102 after ‘a life well lived,’ his courage and embodiment of the core values continue to buoy us into the future.“

Warriors in Their Own Words, by The Honor Project

“This past July, I had the incredible honor of meeting Colonel ‘Bud’ Anderson, America’s last living triple fighter ace, at the annual Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin. Colonel Anderson’s autobiographical account in the Warriors in Their Own Words podcast is another enthralling and heroic personification of Airmen rising to the challenge to meet seemingly impossible tasks and defeat the enemies of their time.”

Managing Generation Z: How to Recruit, Onboard, Develop, and Retain the Newest Generation in the Workplace, by Robin Paggi and Kat Clowes

“Galvanizing the rich legacies of Airmen like Brig. Gen. McGee and Col. Anderson requires us to continue building an enlisted and officer corps that represents the best the nation has to offer. [This book] is a practical guide for leaders at all echelons to understand, recruit, train, and lead the next generation of professional Airmen.”

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein

“Tomorrow’s Airmen face renewed 21st-century challenges of managing deterrence, preparing for near-peer conflict, and innovating an updated force design. [This book] illustrates how to reframe these wicked problems by using ‘nudges’ to avoid bias and recognize subtle cues to modify how we make decisions.”

Dyess B-1Bs Conduct Missions and Training in Alaska, South America

Sept. 14, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

B-1B bombers from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, were everywhere from south of the equator to just outside the Arctic circle last week as they flew missions and training exercises across the Western hemisphere.

On Sept. 7, two Lancers flew from Dyess to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, according to the 12th Air Force. While there, the bombers linked up with USAF tankers over the Caribbean Sea, integrated with partner nations Ecuador and Panama, and “countered illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing operations off the coast of Ecuador in the vicinity of the Galapagos Islands,” according to a 7th Bomb Wing press release.

Such a mission might seem far removed from the B-1’s purpose of long-range strike, but the bomber has actually conducted similar missions in SOUTHCOM before. Over about the past decade, the platform has been used multiple times to detect and monitor drug trafficking, with its synthetic aperture radar to track and target moving vehicles in the air and at sea, according to a 2016 release.

All told, the B-1 has assisted with the seizure of thousands of kilograms of drugs, specifically cocaine.

This most recent effort was part of a bomber task force mission, the fourth the 7th Bomb Wing has participated in this year and the third that involved flying to and from the continental U.S. in one go. In June, two B-1s flew from Dyess to West Africa and back, and in January, two flew to Japan.

“There are certain things that only Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen can do, and this is one of them. Based on the Airmen we have in this room, we can fly this mission and then turn around and regenerate in a matter of hours—we make it look easy, but it’s tough work,” Col. John C. McClung, 7th Operations Group commander, said in a statement.

Just a few days after the mission to SOUTHCOM, two more B-1s and roughly 50 Airmen from Dyess flew to Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Sept. 9-10 to take part in an agile combat employment exercise, “Baked Alaskan.”

While at Eielson, just a few miles from the Arctic circle, the Airmen “tested new technology, [and] simulated joint tactics and long-range strike capabilities with fighter aircraft,” according to another release.

As part of that training, the B-1s integrated with F-35s, F-16s, F-15Cs, E-3Gs, and KC-46s from across the joint force.

Agile combat employment is the Air Force’s operating concept whereby small teams of Airmen operate out of remote or austere locations, fulfill multiple roles as needed, and move quickly. For Baked Alaskan, in particular, a goal of the exercise was to “operationalize the ACE concept by sending Dyess Airmen to a different region,” the release states.

Not only did 7th Bomb Wing Airmen take part in the exercise. Reserve service members, including those from the 7th Bomb Wing’s Reserve associate unit, the 489th Bomb Group, came along as well.

“This exercise showcased the seamless integration of our traditional reservists with their Active-duty counterparts,” said Col. David Martinez, 489th Bomb Group commander, in a statement. “Deliberate planning, training, and inclusion ensures Reserve readiness and accessibility, and preserves the combat power of the Total force.”