Stoltenberg Meets With Austin, Highlights Ukraine Aid as Russia Consolidates Gains

June 2, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III met at the Pentagon June 2 to discuss Russia’s gains in Eastern Ukraine and Turkey’s concerns with the NATO bids of Finland and Sweden. The two leaders also were expected to discuss how the latest U.S. aid package might help reverse Russia’s control of 20 percent of Ukrainian territory without escalating the conflict and threatening the NATO alliance.

“In the face of Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, NATO has grown stronger and more united, and we’ve come to reinforce our allies,” Austin said during opening remarks at the Defense Department, noting that he has met in-person or virtually with Stoltenberg 21 times in 16 months.

Stoltenberg, in turn, commended Austin for ramping up support for Ukraine among NATO allies and partners.

“What has impressed me is not only the magnitude and the scale of the support, but also how swift and quickly you were able to act when Ukraine needed our support,” Stoltenberg said.

While NATO as an alliance does not directly provide security assistance to Ukraine, Stoltenberg regularly consults with NATO allies about the security implications of the conflict, and the NATO allies have rallied behind U.S. leadership to deliver lethal aid to Ukraine.

NATO posture changes stemming from Russia’s troop buildup and subsequent Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine include an increased U.S. presence, which now includes 100,000 troops in Europe. The U.S. Air Force has also increased its participation in NATO enhanced Air Policing missions that began prior to the invasion and cover the entirety of the eastern flank from the Black Sea to the Baltics.

Will it Be Too Late?

Stoltenberg’s visit to the White House June 1 coincided with President Joe Biden’s announcement of $700 million in additional aid to Ukraine, marking the 11th presidential drawdown of his administration.

For the first time, the United States will give Ukraine High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) for precision battlefield targeting. At the Pentagon June 1, Under Secretary of Defense for policy Colin Kahl said the HIMARS and other equipment are “critical capabilities to help the Ukrainians repel the Russian offensive in the east.”

The aid package also includes guided munitions with a “range of up to 70 kilometers [43 miles],” counter artillery radars, air surveillance radars, 50 command launch units, 1,000 more anti-tank Javelins, 6,000 anti-armor weapons, 15,000 155-mm artillery rounds, four Mi-17 helicopters, 15 tactical vehicles, and related spare parts and equipment.

The latest presidential drawdown, or transfer of U.S. stocks, was part of an $8 billion drawdown authority couched in Congress’s $40 billion aid package to Ukraine passed in May.

Kahl said in anticipation of the President’s decision, four HIMARS were pre-positioned in Europe and American Soldiers are preparing to train Ukrainians to use the system. The United States and allies have trained Ukrainians in Germany and undisclosed sites on the eastern flank of NATO, but not inside Ukraine.

Training is expected to take three weeks, and it comes as Russia is consolidating its gains in Luhansk province in the eastern Donbas region.

As of June 1, Russia reportedly controlled 70 percent of Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukraine, and Ukrainian troops are retreating from the city center. At the same time, Ukraine mounted a fierce counter-offensive in Kherson province, north of Crimea, while Russia’s forces remain focused on the Donbas.

Russia has reportedly stopped it’s offensive in Southern Ukraine and is defending positions and reinforcing administrative control of Ukrainian terrain that now forms a land bridge between Russia and Crimea.

“In the last several days, the Russians have made some incremental progress in and around the Donbas,” Kahl said at the June 1 briefing. “We’re not seeing the Ukrainian defenses buckle. They’re hanging on, but it is a grinding fight. And we believe that these additional capabilities will arrive in a timeframe that’s relevant.”

Addressing Turkey’s Concerns

Stoltenberg’s first visit to Washington since the start of the conflict was billed as historic as NATO potentially expands into strategically important areas of the Baltics and Arctic region through partner nations Sweden and Finland.

But Turkey may still block the ascension as diplomats shuttle between European capitals to court Turkey, which has close defense ties to both Russia and Ukraine.

Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 missile system in 2017 led to its eventual expulsion from the F-35 program after $1 billion in investment. Turkish President Recep Erdogan reportedly wants reinstatement as part of a list of demands before he will allow Sweden and Finland to join the alliance.

At the State Department June 1, Stoltenberg said he would convene senior officials from Turkey, Sweden, and Finland in Brussels in the coming days.

NATO will hold a defense ministerial in Brussels June 15-16, and NATO leaders will meet in Madrid June 29-30 to adopt a new strategic concept.

Space Force Set to Make GMTI, Data Transport ‘Big Piece’ of 2024 Budget, Top Planner Says

June 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force’s much-increased 2023 budget request highlighted major investments in missile warning and tracking, but the service is hoping to add data transport and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance as major pieces to its 2024 request, the service’s top planner said June 2.

Specifically, the Space Force is looking to define the force structure and build a budget for ground moving target indicator capabilities, Lt. Gen. William J. Liquori Jr. said during a virtual Schriever Spacepower Forum hosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Such a move would bring USSF in line with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s operational imperatives, which include a focus on air and ground moving target indication. The Air Force has decided to use E-7 Wedgetails to replace the aging E-3 Sentry fleet, covering the need for some moving target indication capabilities, but the plan to replace the E-8C for GMTI has been less clear.

“Our intent will be to pick up right where we left off in ’23. We’ll want to move forward and complete our pivot in missile warning, missile tracking, but then begin to move into other mission areas as well,” Liquori said.

Lt. Gen. William J. Liquori Jr., the Space Force’s chief planner, speaks with Doug Birkey, executive director of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies during a virtual Schriever Spacepower Forum hosted by the Mitchell Institute.

The Space Warfighting Analysis Center, which provided the analysis that shaped the pivot to missile warning/tracking in the 2023 request, is working on a force structure analysis for space-based GMTI that will be complete “later this month,” Liquori added.

That analysis, as part of the operational imperatives, will inform how the 2024 Space Force budget is built, a process that has already begun and will continue for months—going through the Pentagon and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget before hopefully being unveiled in February 2023, followed by work with Congress “to explain the force design and the analysis and to answer questions and then move forward” with the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and appropriations bill.

“The intent here is to try to make sure that we don’t have a gap,” Liquori said. The Air Force plans to retire most of its JSTARS fleet by the end of fiscal 2024, raising some concerns about a capability gap opening up before space-based ISR is ready.

ISR is a particular area of focus for the Space Force. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond has touted the service’s future in providing tactical ISR, and Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones has noted that “there are many things that just make a lot of sense to do from space.”

Naturally, then, the Space Force turned to ISR as the first mission area to address as the newly-appointed integrator for all joint space requirements, Liquori said.

“We’ve got a team that has started working with all the other services, the combatant commands, as well as the Joint Staff and the Intelligence Community, on really getting a handle around, what are the Department of Defense’s requirements for space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance?” Liquori said. “And so that team has been going since the start of the new year.”

The first fruit of that work is an ISR “needs” memo, which lays out “all of the DOD’s space-based ISR requirements,” Liquori said. Right now, the memo is “working through the Joint Staff coordination mechanisms” and will eventually go to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council.

Once it is approved there, the next step will be a gap analysis to see what needs aren’t being fully met. But Liquori made clear that he doesn’t expect the Space Force to fill every role needed, or to take over responsibilities already handled by other agencies.

“There is a large portion … that the national Intelligence Community already meets and will be able to continue to meet. We don’t want to replace that,” Liquori said. “But we do believe … that while the national community will be able to fill a large portion of that, there will be a subset that’s left over. And that would be Title 10-type capabilities that it makes sense for us to go do and that’s what Gen. Raymond talks about when he’s talking about tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.”

Key to that tactical ISR, as it has been with so many of the Space Force’s efforts, will be resiliency, Liquori said. And to that end, the service will look to use commercial capabilities in addition to fielding its own assets.

“Hybrid approaches certainly give us more flexibility. Actually, you get some resilience from that as well,” Liquori said. “And so I would anticipate it will be a combination of things, both government owned and operated, commercial, there is a plethora, there are a large amount of commercial companies that are getting into this space, are already in this space, and it would be short sighted of us not to leverage what’s out there.”

For Second Time in a Month, South Dakota Guard F-16 Slides Off Runway

June 1, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Less than three weeks after a South Dakota Air National Guard F-16 slid off the runway while landing in Sioux Falls, S.D., another F-16 has done the same thing at the same location.

The latest incident happened May 31 at Joe Foss Field, located at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport, at around 2:43 p.m., according to a statement from the 114th Fighter Wing.

Like the initial May 11 crash, the accident happened at the end of a routine training mission, the 114th FW’s statement said. The second F-16 slid off the end of Runway 33, while the first slid off Runway 15, which covers the same area.

Both pilots are safe, after being “assessed and released by emergency crews,” the statement said.

Local media outlets including the Argus Leader and Dakota News Now posted images of the initial F-16 mishap, with the landing gear crushed, the plane resting on its nose, and the canopy raised.

The same media outlets posted photos of the second crash, similarly showing the fighter resting on its nose, its landing gear presumably damaged.

The 114th Fighter Wing did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Air Force Magazine before publication.

Reports from Sioux Falls Regional Airport indicate that conditions on May 31 were mostly cloudy with winds of 15 to 18 miles per hour and gusts of up to 28 miles per hour. On May 11, there was light rain with thunder and winds of 14 miles per hour.

This marks the third safety incident involving an Air National Guard F-16 in just over three months. On March 23, an Oklahoma Air National Guard fighter crashed in a woodland area near the Louisiana-Texas border. The pilot in that incident was able to eject.

According to data from the Air Force Safety Center, the F-16 was involved in 13 Class A mishaps and 16 Class B mishaps from fiscal year 2017 to 2021. All told, the fighter was involved in 3.38 Class A and B mishaps every 100,000 flight hours over that time period, exceeding the A-10 but lower than the F-15, F-22, and F-35.

Class A mishaps result in a death or permanent disability, cause more than $2.5 million in damage, or result in the destruction of an aircraft. Class B mishaps cause permanent partial disability; damage valued at between $600,000 and just under $2.5 million; or hospitalize three people, not counting those admitted for observation or administrative purposes who are treated and released.

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.