Kendall: Air Force Has an ‘Affordability Problem’ As It Tries to Meet Capability Gap

June 1, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said lower-cost unmanned platforms are key to closing any capacity gaps created by reducing the fleet in the near-term while the service invests in capabilities that will enable it to compete with peer adversary China in the long-term.

“To have an affordable Air Force of a reasonable size, we’ve got to introduce some lower cost platforms,” Kendall said June 1 at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

That means acquiring low-cost unmanned platforms, including uncrewed fighters and bombers to fly in tandem with crewed aircraft.

“All the things we have to be buying right now and that we’re thinking about buying in the future, the unmanned platforms, they’re very expensive,” he said.

The Air Force is planning to cut 250 aircraft in fiscal year 2023, and acquire just 82, including 33 F-35s and 24 F-15EXs. The plan would maintain an Air Force half the size of the force it had during the Cold War.

Kendall said that both the F-35 and F-15EX cost over $80 million each; its follow-on, Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) would cost “quite a bit more”; and the B-21 bomber costs is “multiple hundreds of millions” of dollars.

“We have an affordability problem for sure, and the way to get at that is to start to buy some things that cost less,” Kendall said.

The unmanned platforms would work in unison with the F-35, NGAD, and the B-21 bomber.

Heritage Foundation senior research fellow John Venable argued that the Air Force stands at 2,056 platforms, less than half the 4,406 it had at the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, and yet the challenge China poses is more formidable than the Soviet Union by virtue of its economy, investment, and manufacturing capacity.

Kendall said keeping the force structure small is required to build the right kind of Air Force for the China challenge, because the service must free up funding for the development of future, higher-end platforms.

“We have to worry about capabilities, and what we need to do is get to the next generation,” said Kendall.

Intelligence about China’s plans for countering the United States militarily motivate Kendall’s decision-making.

“What I’m seeing in the intelligence I get is that they’re not just worried about what we have now, what is clearly in our pipeline,” he said. “They’re thinking about how they’re going to defeat the thing after that.”

The Air Force is asking Congress to approve its highest research, development, testing, and evaluation budget ever at $49.2 billion.

But Venable argued the development of the F-35 took 17 years, far too long to wait for NGAD to come online. Kendall responded by saying that the F-35’s development time represents a “dramatic outlier,” and the average acquisition program takes seven years, promising that NGAD would be ready by the end of the decade.

Still, Venable argued that some 400 fighters would be retired in the next five years, according to current Air Force plans, further reducing America’s combat power.

Kendall, in return, said divestments in legacy aircraft and decisions to purchase less F 35s this year are part of building a more capable force for the future.

“There’s a perception that we’re creating a gap; the gap exists today,” between the capabilities the Air Force has and those its adversaries field, Kendall admitted.

“By having more of the things that aren’t adequate today, and using resources for those as opposed to getting on to the things we need to close that gap, that would be a mistake,” Kendall said. “We’ve got to get to the future.”

Editor’s Note: This story was corrected on June 2 at 12:30 p.m. to note the F-35 took 17 years to develop, not the F-16.

Air Force Flying Hours Decline Again After Brief Recovery

June 1, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Across all categories except reconnaissance, the Active-duty Air Force flew fewer hours in fiscal 2021 than it did the previous year, after making gains in most categories of flying from the year before. However, there were flying hour improvements in some mission areas for the Air National Guard and an improvement overall for the Air Force Reserve.

Flying hours are key to readiness, and are usually a good overall barometer of other readiness factors such as pilot and spare parts availability, speed of throughput at depots, and operations budgets. They are also affected by combat operations. Inadequate flying hours reduces pilot proficiency and correlates with increased accident rates.

According to figures provided to Air Force Magazine, pilot flying hours across all types of aircraft in the Active-duty force averaged 10.1 hours per month in fiscal 2021, down from 10.9 hours in 2020. Flying hours had averaged just 6.8 per month in 2019, down sharply from 10.7 in 2018. Hours for 2022 so far were not provided. The service did not offer commentary on why hours had changed as they did.

In a Heritage Foundation event June 1, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said, “I’m not happy with where we are” on flying hours. He said the Budget Control Act forced the Air Force to restrict hours for a decade, and the service “never recovered” from that pattern. The Air Force is now able to “do more with simulators,” though, because that technology has advanced rapidly and can now deliver extremely high fidelity virtual presentations of the flying environment. Simulator hours are generally far less costly than real-world flying, and allow aviators to rehearse dealing with emergencies that can’t be practiced in a real, flying airplane.

The Air Force said its numbers for flying hours are for real-world flying only, and do not include simulator time.

Average Pilot Training Hours Per Month By Aircraft Type

Aircraft Type	Component	2018	2019	2020	2021
Airlift	Active Duty	12.7	8	12.2	12
	ANG	9.8	5.8	10.3	9.3
	Reserve	10.7	5.2	8.3	9.3

BACN	Active Duty	26	21.6	23.4	9.2
	ANG				2.3
	Reserve

Bomber	Active Duty	6.1	4	7.2	7.1
	ANG	4.2	1.6	2.2	1.4
	Reserve	3.5	2.9	4.7	4.6

Fighter	Active Duty	8.2	5.7	8.1	6.8
	ANG	7.1	4.2	6.4	7.3
	Reserve	5.2	3.9	5.5	6.7

Fixed Wing	Active Duty	9	5.7	8.7	6.1
	ANG	6.8	5.8	10.8	7.9
	Reserve			4.8	10.9

Recon	Active Duty	7.8	4.7	7	8.4
	ANG	8	5.7	9	8.1
	Reserve	5.7	2.7	5.3	5.4

Rescue	Active Duty
	ANG	1.6
	Reserve

Rotary	Active Duty	6.8	4.5	6.9	6.5
	ANG	5.8	3.9	7.9	6.4
	Reserve	8.5	3.4	4.9	6.9

Special Ops	Active Duty	11.1	6.6	13	11.6
	ANG	6.9	3.7	5.8	10.1
	Reserve	5	3	5.2	5.9

Tanker	Active Duty	13.6	8	12.1	12
	ANG	12.4	7.5	10.4	9.4
	Reserve	10	5.7	8.3	9.1

Trainer	Active Duty	10.2	6.8	9.6	8
	ANG	7.9	1.7	0.2	1
	Reserve	1.2	2.2	2.9	0.4

Source: U.S. Air Force

Active duty fixed-wing hours averaged 6.1 hours per pilot per month, down steeply from 8.7 hours the previous year. Guard fixed-wing pilots also saw a drop from 10.8 to 7.9, but Reserve pilots saw a huge jump, from 4.8 hours in fiscal 2020 to 10.9 in 2021. The trends were similar for rotary-wing pilots; down for Active and Guard, but up for the Reserve.

The Active fighter pilot community saw a big drop in hours, from 8.7 to 6.1 from 2020-’21. But Guard fighter pilots got more hours, up from 6.4 to 7.3. Reserve fighter pilots also saw an increase, from 5.5 to 6.7, from 2020-2021.

The drop in fighter pilot hours is likely due in part to the Air Force’s chronic shortage of these aviators. Sources report that of the 1,700 pilots the Air Force is short, about 1,000 of those are fighter billets, with about 700 of those vacancies in the Active Duty, 200 in the Guard, and 100 in the Reserve component. The Air Force has said that much of its pilot shortage is due to a paucity of rated officers available for staff jobs, but that some cockpits are indeed going unfilled.

Flying hours for Active bomber pilots were flat, as they were for Reserve bomber pilots, but Guard bomber pilots saw nearly a 50 percent decline in hours, from 2020-2021.

Active airlift pilots also saw flat hours at about 12 per month, but Guard and Reserve pilots saw about a 10 percent decline in hours from fiscal 2020-21.

Battlefield Airborne Communications node pilot hours plummeted from 23.4 hours a month to just 9.2 for Active pilots, likely due to the withdrawal from combat operations in Afghanistan and Syria, where BACN aircraft were in high demand and use, but are in lower demand during peacetime.

Hours for Active-duty special operations pilots fell from 13 to 11.6 hours per month, but Guard pilots in that category saw a near-doubling of hours from 5.8 to 10.1. Reserve special operations pilots hours were flat.

Tanker flying time for the Active duty was flat, but Guard pilots saw a downturn from 10.4 to 9.4, while Reserve pilots flew more, up to 9.1 hours from 8.3 the year before. Retirements of the KC-10 tanker may have affected the flying time, although new KC-46s are also entering the force.

Trainer aircraft time dropped about 20 percent for Active pilots, from 9.6 hours to 8 per month. Guard trainer pilot time was flat at about one hour per month, while Reserve hours fell precipitously from 2.9 to 0.4 hours.

Reconnaissance hours were up for pilots in that category, from 7 per month to 8.4. Reserve time in recce was flat at 5.3-5.4, but Guard recon time fell from 9 hours a month to 8.1.

F-16s Not on the Table for Ukraine, Says NATO Ambassador

June 1, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The United States does not intend to provide high-end aircraft to Ukraine despite Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine, U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith said.

When asked by Air Force Magazine whether the United States or alliance members have discussed transfer or training for American aircraft like F-16s, Smith simply stated, “No.”

While Smith said she relies on the Defense Department for detailed, regular talks with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry about Ukraine’s battlefield needs, she affirmed that the prospect of a prolonged conflict between Russia and Ukraine has not changed partners’ willingness to provide aircraft to Ukraine.

President Joe Biden argued in a New York Times editorial June 1 that his decisions regarding which weapons to transfer to Ukraine were motivated by giving Ukraine the strongest hand at the negotiating table, not weakening Russia.

“We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression,” the President wrote.

“We have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry and ammunition so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table,” Biden said. “We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.”

After several weeks of consideration, Biden used the editorial to argue why he approved the transfer of the advanced rocket system High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), but with limited ranges and guarantees from the Ukrainian government that they would not be fired inside Russia’s borders.

Biden said as part of a $40 billion aid package approved by Congress in May, other advanced weapons like Javelin anti-take missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, precision rocket systems, radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters, and ammunition would continue to flow.

An eastern flank NATO official told Air Force Magazine that alliance members had not “directly” talked about providing American aircraft to Ukraine.

The official said even the discussion of transferring Soviet-era fighters like the MiG-29s used by the Ukrainian Air Force is all but dead.

“There is less talk about the supply of post-Warsaw Pact airframes,” the official said. “There are other ways to sustain the [Ukrainian] Air Force.”

In March, Poland offered to give roughly two dozen MiGs to the United States to transfer to Ukraine in exchange for “used aircraft with corresponding operational capabilities,” but the United States refused. U.S. European Command chief USAF Gen. Tod D. Wolters argued that transferring the aircraft would be “escalatory.”

In subsequent months, the United States worked closely with eastern European allies to transfer air defense systems, providing Slovakia security guarantees and the protection of U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missile systems in exchange for Slovakia’s transfer of S-300s to Ukraine.

At the April 29 meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian assured Air Force Magazine that air power conversations were part of the discussions hosted by DOD with over 40 nations in attendance.

However, Harrigian said providing Ukraine with American F-16s was “not a recipe for success.”

“Clearly, they want to migrate from Russian capabilities to U.S., but that takes some time,” he said.

Likewise, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told Air Force Magazine that barring a NATO-wide decision, his country’s platforms would not be delivered.

“It should be a decision taken by all [the] alliance, the NATO alliance,” Błaszczak said during a pull-aside interview before the start of the Ramstein meeting.

In a joint press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III at the State Department on June 1, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will continue to invest in Ukraine.

“The alternative—not to support Ukraine—that would actually enable President Putin to win,” Stoltenberg said. “That would be dangerous for all of us, and the price we’d have to pay would actually be higher than to now invest in the support for Ukraine.”

In her meeting with reporters the same day, Smith said the type of weapons provided to Ukraine are tied to real-time battlefield needs.

“In terms of the evolving nature of the assistance. I mean, all of us, NATO allies, the NATO Secretary General, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, are in constant contact with the Ukrainians,” she said.

Those conversations, which have now included two contact group meetings, have at different moments emphasized air defense, ammunition, coastal defense, and armored vehicles, Smith said.

“We’ve seen an evolution in terms of what’s been provided,” she said. “It reflects the evolution of the war, of the situation on the ground, of the Ukrainians own internal debates about what is needed in this moment.”

As Concerns over Privatized Housing Linger, Air Force Begins Independent Inspections

June 1, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Starting in mid-June, third-party inspectors will begin touring privatized military housing at Department of the Air Force installations—and they’ll keep going for the next 28 months, checking every one of the department’s approximately 55,000 units.

The process, which is scheduled to end by Sept. 30, 2024, will bring the Air Force in line with a Defense Department memo released in January directing all the military services to have independent inspections of all their privatized housing.

The other military branches have already begun their inspections—the Navy started in October 2021, the Marine Corps followed in January, and the Army launched a pilot program in February.

The Air Force will start with a pilot program as well, at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, according to a release from the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center.

Independent inspections are required by legislation in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which mandated that the Pentagon establish “a uniform code of basic housing standards for safety, comfort, and habitability” and start conducting inspections based on that code by Feb. 1, 2021.

It’s one of more than 30 requirements related to privatized military housing included in the 2020 and 2021 NDAAs, as lawmakers reacted to news investigations that uncovered widespread fraud and unsafe living conditions ignored by housing companies. Airmen and other service members alleged that companies failed to conduct needed maintenance but created false records to keep collecting performance bonuses from the services.

Those revelations led to an FBI investigation, which culminated in one company, Balfour Beatty Communities, pleading guilty to fraud and agreeing to pay $65 million in fines and restitution.

Still, a recent Congressional investigation found that Balfour Beatty employees have continued to submit incorrect or incomplete work order information, and several service members told lawmakers their personal experiences of dealing with employees that dismissed problems, changed work orders, and made shoddy repairs.

With third-party inspections, the Air Force is hoping to get a “consistent and effective assessment of the entire inventory,” of privatized housing, said Mark Wall, Air Force Civil Engineer Center Housing Program Manager, in a statement.

Under the 2020 NDAA, the inspectors cannot have a relationship with the federal government or the companies operating the privatized housing. The law also requires the Pentagon to establish minimum credentials for inspectors.

Tenants will be notified prior to inspections taking place, as required in their lease agreements, and Air Force officials are urging residents to work with the inspectors to ensure the process is useful.

“The residents have a place in this process and it is important that they are heard,” Wall said. “We highly encourage Airmen, Guardians, and their families to support the inspection and assessment of their homes to ensure their needs for quality housing are met well into the future.”

Air Force and Space Force Announce Hackathon Spread Across Three Bases

May 31, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force and Space Force are teaming up for a hackathon event in late July, looking to “validate rapid development” of new capabilities in an environment spread across bases, services, and classification levels.

BRAVO 1 Canary Release will take place from July 18 to 22 at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.; Patrick Space Force Base, Fla.; and Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., the services announced in a press release.

It will mark the second edition of the Air Force’s BRAVO hackathon series, in which teams “form and develop working prototypes urgently in response to challenges often accompanied with data,” according to the Air Force.

BRAVO is different from other hackathons in that it allows teams of government employees and contractors to work alongside members of industry and academia using both open-source data and programs and operational data from the military. The goal is for 60 percent of participants to be from government.

For Canary Release in particular, teams will be working on use cases provided by Air Combat Command, Space Launch Delta 45, and the Space Force Chief Technology Information Office.

The goals for the event are to demonstrate rapid development of new capabilities in a cloud-based environment cutting across locations and organizations, to provide a new way for participants and industry to develop those capabilities, and to generalize BRAVO’s development model for future scaling with more partners.

“DOD talks a lot about connecting weapons systems but has been too slow to implement groundbreaking, data-driven capabilities,” Stuart Wagner, Department of the Air Force chief digital transformation officer, said in a statement. “BRAVO hackathons leverage existing Department of Defense technologies to provide hackers the development environment and operational data to rapidly build data-driven kill chains and cognitive electronic warfare capabilities. If you are a cleared or uncleared American citizen with technology skills looking to build national security capabilities during a one-week event, this is your opportunity.”

What capabilities teams will look to build is unclear, but a previous version of the BRAVO series had teams focusing on “jet sensor visualization and playback, target planning and pairing, multi-jet sensor fusion analysis, artificial intelligence-assisted radar sensor failure mitigation, maintenance visualization, and automation/artificial intelligence-assisted personnel recovery,” the Air Force said.

Other hackathons hosted by the Air Force have focused on topics like aerospace cybersecurity, digital engineering, and more.

Air Force Changes T-38 Formation Approach After Instructor Pilots’ Poor Communication Led to 2021 Fatal Crash

May 31, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Poor communication and reactions from a pair of instructor pilots were the main causes of a fatal T-38 crash at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, in November 2021, that killed a student pilot and injured two others, a recently-released Air Force accident report found—and Air Education and Training Command has taken action in response.

The incident in question took place on Nov. 19 on the runway at Laughlin, involving two T-38s, the Air Force’s supersonic trainers, attempting a formation approach. The pilot killed was identified as 2nd Lt. Anthony D. Wentz, 23, a student in the 47th Flying Training Wing.

The Air Force Accident Investigation Board report, released May 25, detailed how Wentz was flying in the front of one T-38’s cockpit with an instructor pilot in the back, with another instructor pilot flying solo in the other trainer.

The sortie mission was part of Wentz’s pre-solo two-ship formation block of training—after the two jets swapped lead positions midway through the flight, they returned to base to conduct a formation approach—with Wentz and the instructor’s plane supposed to “clear off” the other instructor to land, then separate and perform a low approach.

However, during the pre-flight briefing, the instructors included a caveat that the plane that would land on the initial approach could change “if there was a difference in fuel.”

But when it came time for the formation approach, the instructor pilot in Wentz’s jet “failed to communicate” and the other instructor pilot “failed to verify” which plane would be landing—with a difference of 30 pounds of fuel, the instructor in Wentz’s plane “appears [to have] interpreted any fuel difference as sufficient to alter the plan,” while the other instructor did not.

Neither instructor explicitly confirmed a change in the flight plan, and both failed to intervene at several points when they could have requested more clarity.

On top of that, the instructors used differing techniques during the approach, and the student’s callsign usage became confusing as a result of the two jets changing lead positions, preventing the tower or the instructor pilot not in his jet from realizing that Wentz and his instructor believed they were supposed to be landing.

As a result, the first jet with one pilot landed, and a second later, the other T-38 with Wentz and his instructor landed virtually on top of it. The second plane’s nose landing gear impacted the first’s left horizontal stabilizer, and the second plane rolled. The instructor initiated the ejection sequence, but as the plane was inverted, Wentz’s ejection was “interrupted by the ground,” the report states, resulting in fatal injuries.

The instructor pilot suffered life-threatening injuries from his ejection and was transported to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Due to his medical condition, he was not interviewed for the report. The report found that he failed to recognize a dangerous situation developing when he did not notice the other plane approaching the runway in a descent below them, which “would have been alarming and prompted immediate action.”

As a result of the mishap, Air Education and Training Command has expanded its training guidance for pilots for formation approaches, “further defining mission briefing requirements, raising the minimum altitude for this maneuver, re-emphasizing deconfliction responsibilities, and standardizing radio procedures to reduce the possibility of confusion,” spokeswoman Capt. Lauren Woods told Air Force Magazine in a statement.

The changes come just a few years after AETC stopped performing T-38 formation landings—when both planes land together—after a student pilot and instructor died in a crash. The Combat Air Force, which pilots enter after graduating from training, had already almost completely ended the practice.

Formation landings are still allowed during emergencies, and formation approaches, where one plane approaches the runway but doesn’t actually land, have remained a part of training.

Austin, Biden at Arlington Cemetery Draw Parallels to Ukraine Fight

May 31, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

In a Memorial Day address at Arlington Cemetery, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III drew parallels from veterans fallen from America’s longest war to Ukrainian soldiers fighting against Russia today to preserve democracy as Ukraine’s request for multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) remains unheeded.

“In the 21st century, the security of the world hinges again on the survival and success of the American experiment,” Austin said alongside President Joe Biden and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Today, on the battlefields of Ukraine, the world again sees the power of democratic citizens and soldiers to defy tyranny, cruelty, and oppression,” Austin added. “Their freedom is under attack.”

Austin honored the 2,461 Americans who died in Afghanistan before describing an ongoing global fight to preserve democracy and maintain the international order that has prevailed since World War II. The Defense Secretary highlighted the importance of close cooperation with partners and allies to preserve democracy, saying the United States would rise to meet the challenge.

Biden, likewise, said the Russia-Ukraine war was “between democracy and autocracy.”

“Today, in the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are on the frontlines fighting to save their nation,” Biden said. “But their fight is part of a larger fight that unites all people. It is a fight that so many of the patriots, whose eternal rest is here in these hallowed grounds, were part of.”

Yet, the United States is again facing a limit to how far it will go to meet Ukraine’s challenges against Russia without escalation.

Ukraine recently pleaded for MLRS—powerful rockets that fire farther than the U.S. howitzers now on the frontlines in Eastern Ukraine.

U.S. officials appear reluctant to give Ukraine systems that can reach inside Russian territory after Ukraine has made several cross-border attacks on the fuel depots reinforcing Russian forces as they solidify gains in the Donbas.

“We’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” Biden said May 30 on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, said May 27 that MLRS are under consideration.

“I won’t get ahead of decisions that haven’t been made yet, but we are in constant communication with them,” Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said at his final Defense Department briefing before he takes an assistant press job covering national security issues at the White House.

“We knew when Russia decided to focus on the eastern part of the country and that Donbas region that it was going to be an artillery, a long-range-fires kind of fight,” he said. “It has proven to be that.”

Meanwhile, Russia is closing off the Donbas region and the new weapons, if approved, may not arrive in time.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Russian forces entered Severodonetsk, the farthest eastern city still held by Ukraine. The move would bring Russia closer to fully capturing Luhansk province after artillery pummeled the city for weeks. A successful capture may also pin down Ukrainian forces operating in the region, and free up Russia to advance elsewhere, argued the Institute for the Study of War.

Russia now controls a land corridor to Crimea, but it has not moved on Ukraine’s vital port city of Odesa, although missile attacks and a naval blockade of commercial shipping continue.

A $40 billion assistance package passed by Congress in May gives Biden the authority to make an 11th presidential drawdown of key weapons from U.S. stocks, often delivered to Ukraine’s frontlines in a matter of days.

Kirby refused to outline what will be in the next package, but he said it will be tailored to Ukraine’s current battlefield needs.

“It’s not a hold-up here,” Kirby said when asked if the Defense Department was preventing the delivery of MLRS. “I understand that they have been asking for the assistance for a long time. And we have been talking to them. And I’m just not going to get ahead of where the decisions are.”

Space Force Finally Rolls Out Cyber Standards for Commercial SATCOM Providers

May 31, 2022 | By Shaun Waterman

The U.S. Space Force finally rolled out new cybersecurity standards for its commercial satellite vendors on May 28, saying those who could meet them might be able to charge more.

“We expect that cost [of security] to be reflected in the services that we’re buying,” Space Force official Jared Reece told Air Force Magazine. “If we’re going to want a more secure solution, we’re going to have to be willing to pay for that capability.”

The Commercial Satellite Communications Office, or CSCO, the office in Space Systems Command where Reece works, buys private sector satellite bandwidth for the U.S. military services. CSCO will begin third party cybersecurity assessments in September, Reece explained, piloting the process with a handful of volunteer vendors.

“Based on our conversations with industry, there’s a number of companies itching to go,” he said.
The Infrastructure Asset Pre-Assessment program, or IA-Pre, that Reece manages at CSCO, is designed to pre-qualify particular commercial assets, like a satellite constellation and its ground system, as meeting federal cybersecurity standards.

IA-Pre grew out of concerns about the ability of peer and near-peer adversaries to use cyberweapons to cripple commercial satellite networks on which the U.S. military increasingly relies. These fears were dramatically realized by the Russian malware hack that knocked thousands of users of Viasat’s KA-SAT European network—including large swathes of the Ukrainian military—offline, just as the tanks rolled across the border.

Viasat executives told Air Force Magazine back in March that the hackers would not have been able to execute their attack on any of the networks the company operates for the U.S. military.

IA-Pre replaces the current questionnaire-based process, where vendors self-attest to meeting cyber standards every time they submit a bid. Instead, they undergo a one-off third party assessment, plus mandatory follow-up reporting on a monthly basis. Once a system passes the assessment and is in compliance, it can be added to the Approved Platforms List, or APL, Reece said.

Having an APL of pre-certified cybersecure assets will speed up procurement of commercial services and avoid unnecessary duplication of cybersecurity acquisition requirements, Reece said last year, enabling CSCO to be more agile in its ability to onboard new capabilities.

But vendors will be incentivized to comply with IA-Pre because of changes in the acquisition rules that govern the way CSCO buys commercial services.

“I don’t have any misconceptions that everyone is going to be ready to go on day one,” he said. As IA-Pre requirements are phased in to CSCO contracts over the next three years or so, Reece said, the incentives for vendors to get on the APL by undergoing a third party IA-Pre assessment would sharpen, as compliance became a tradeoff factor, allowing vendors to potentially charge more.

Reece said CSCO has replaced the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable standard, which drove military acquisition officials to choose the lowest bidder who promised to meet the requirement, with a new pricing philosophy called Best Value Tradeoff, where they can choose a higher priced bid, if it represents better value for the government, based on certain factors that can be traded off against higher prices.

“As we implement this into our contracts, and it becomes a preference, and that’s the focus of the tradeoff criteria, hopefully that will incentivize industry to get their assessment scheduled and get their assets on the APL,” Reece said.

A key deadline will be September 2023, when CSCO will begin to sunset the questionnaire process, according to a Space Systems Command factsheet, meaning vendors will no longer have a choice about getting on the APL.

IA-Pre, first mooted to industry in 2018, and made public the following year, has taken years to finalize, but Reece said the time was needed to do “due diligence” to ensure the program would work, and to secure vendor buy-in.

Other efforts to impose federal cyber standards on vendors in the broader defense industrial base, like the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, have stumbled amid industry criticism.
“Commercial industry’s involvement is critical to ensure our success,” said Clare Grason, CSCO division chief and Reece’s boss, in a press statement announcing the roll out.

“We couldn’t really release anything until we really kind of solidified our feedback from industry and really developed a program that could be implemented successfully,” said Reece.

Alexander Purves, chief commercial officer with the Providence Access Company, a satellite consultancy, said the extended timeline was understandable in view of the pandemic and the fact that the functions and personnel of CSCO had moved twice as IA-Pre was being developed—from the Defense Information Systems Agency to the Air Force in 2018 and then to Space Force in 2020—all the while developing and managing over 100 major satellite procurements every year.

“I do not see this as a delay in IA-Pre, I see this as a competing number of pressures on the Space Force to do many things with a small team,” he said.

Because CSCO had been very transparent about the standards as they were being developed, releasing drafts for public comment and incorporating much industry feedback, Purves said, there was a “silver lining” to the postponed implementation. “The timeline lag has provided the industry time to get prepared,” he said.

Purves said many satellite vendors were near ready for their third party assessment, as they had been tracking the draft requirements as they evolved.

The tail end of compliance, he said, would likely be the subcontractors, who supply ground station services or rent antenna time to satellite operators. It would take time for IA-Pre to trickle down to those vendors, he argued.

“The third party infrastructure will lag behind and I’m not saying that as a negative. As a practicality, it’s not on the top of their to do list when the program has not yet been released and when they may not have any direction from their prime contractors or others further up the [supply] chain,” he said.

Senate Confirms More Than a Dozen Air Force, Space Force Generals to New Ranks, Positions

May 27, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

In the final few hours before the Senate adjourned for its Memorial Day recess on May 26, lawmakers approved a raft of some 3,400 pending military nominations, including a number of high-profile Air Force and Space Force generals to assignments that will significantly reshape some of the upper echelons of leadership.

Three USAF generals were confirmed to be deputy commanders of combatant commands—Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh is set to go to U.S. Cyber Command, Lt. Gen. Steven L. Basham will go to U.S. European Command, and Lt. Gen. Gregory M. Guillot will join U.S. Central Command.

Haugh leads the 16th Air Force, the service’s information warfare-focused Numbered Air Force, and Air Force Cyber Command. In that role, he oversees a host of activities and helped to activate the service’s first spectrum warfare wing. He has prior experience at CYBERCOM, including a stint as director of intelligence, and he will serve as No. 2 to Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone.

Basham served as deputy commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa. Now, he’s set to join Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, pending Cavoli’s Senate confirmation as the new EUCOM commander, at a critical moment in the theater, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continuing and the NATO alliance set to welcome Sweden and Finland.

Guillot has been the commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, helping to oversee the military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. He will serve as the deputy to Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who assumed command of CENTCOM in April.

Guillot’s replacement as AFCENT commander was also confirmed May 26—Maj. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, confirmed to become a lieutenant general, will make the jump from director of operations at CENTCOM and receive a third star. In his new role, he’ll immediately face the challenge of conducting so-called “over the horizon” operations in Afghanistan to monitor threats of terrorism.

Grynkewich was one of several Air Force officers confirmed to a third star, including:

Maj. Gen. John D. Lamontagne, the Chief of Staff at EUCOM, will become the deputy commander of USAFE.
Maj. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., the director of programs under the deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, will succeed Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, who has been nominated to take command of U.S. Northern Command’s Alaskan Command and the 11th Air Force.
Maj. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt, the program executive officer for command, control, communication, intelligence, and networks, will become the new director of the F-35 Joint Program Office, succeeding Lt. Gen. Eric T. Fick. The appointment is unusual in that leadership of the JPO traditionally swaps back and forth between the Navy and Air Force. Typically, under the program’s 20-year old arrangement, an Air Force F-35 Program Executive Officer would be succeeded by a naval officer, and the overseeing service acquisition executive would switch also, with the Air Force now assuming that role. The purpose was to ensure that both services got an evenhanded opportunity to shape the program. The JPO said the Navy will “retain the service acquisition responsibilities” when Schmidt takes over.
Maj. Gen. Charles L. Plummer, the deputy judge advocate general, will take on the lead role as the top judicial officer in the service.
Maj. Gen. Leonard J. Kosinski, deputy commander of the Fifth Air Force, will become director of logistics for the Joint Staff
Maj. Gen. Andrea D. Tullos, deputy commander of Air Education and Training Command, will move up a rank.

Also confirmed to become a lieutenant general is Brig. Gen. Caroline Miller, who will make the rare but not unprecedented move of skipping a rank. Miller will be the next deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services.

Miller and Tullos will increase the number of actively-serving three-star women in the Air Force to four.

Meanwhile, the Space Force will see its number of total general officers expand by more than 20 percent, as five colonels were confirmed to become brigadier generals—Col. Robert J. Hutt, Col. Anthony J. Mastalir, Col. Jacob Middleton Jr., Col. Kristen L. Panzenhagen, Col. Brian D. Sidari.

Prior to their confirmation, the Space Force only had 24 generals in its ranks, 11 of them one-stars. Panzenhagen in particular will become just the third woman to be a Space Force general, and Middleton will be just the third Black man.