MQ-9 Reapers Prove Value in ACE Pacific Operation

Aug. 3, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Airmen on the South Pacific island of Palau watched intently as an MQ-9 Reaper flew in for an automatic landing recently. None grabbed the controls from the pilot, 7,000 miles away at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. The landing marked the first time in a major Pacific exercise that the Reaper landed without ground control.

The Reaper’s new automatic takeoff and landing capability (ATLC), made possible with just a pallet and half of equipment, was at work again an hour later, as the the Reaper launched again. The Reaper agile combat employment, or RACE, demonstration was part of June’s Valiant Shield exercise.

“It’s fundamentally shaking up how we present our force, because I don’t need everybody downrange anymore,” Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, commander of the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Creech, which oversaw the MQ-9s, told Air Force Magazine. Only 10 Airmen made the trip, instead of 55.

“What we started doing was just full control over satellites,” he explained. “It turns out, you can do everything on the ground, except for start the aircraft.”

The demonstration means that the platform can be flown using satellites over the horizon for thousands of miles across the Pacific and then when it’s time to land, a small Reaper team—two operators and eight maintainers—using the ATLC system are sufficient to safely refuel and relaunch.

ATLC landings had already been proven at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, during exercise Northern Edge 2021, but Valiant Shield 2022 was about making RACE a reality.

“We proved out what we could do by just going up there and just flying the plane to a location that we’ve never operated from,” he said. The Reaper hopscotched from Hawaii to Guam to Palau. “There’s this monumental change in mindset, that I don’t need to pack all this stuff up and go. I can go places just with a very small piece of maintenance equipment and less amount of people.”

Normally, Chmielewski said moving Reapers to theater requires 3 to 4 days of preparation to break down the airplanes, ship them on C-17s, then reassemble the planes. That load out takes 55 maintainers and four “cockpits,” or antenna control towers, must be set up and tested around the landing strip to assure an uninterrupted signal to the platform for a pilot on the ground to land it.

With ATLC, however, all that’s needed fits in a 6-foot-square box. That negates the need for the C-17, and enables the package to move on a CV-22 Osprey or C-130 Hercules.

There is a price: Risk increases, the commander admitted, because there’s less maintenance and repair capability and equipment. But the exercise demonstrated that Reapers could be employed throughout the Pacific and can relocate quickly.

The demo was a small part of Valiant Shield, in which more than 200 aircraft and 13,000 personnel took part. All the the military services participated, operating on or from numerous islands, including Palau, Micronesia, Guam and other Northern Marianas islands.

The exercise used the Reaper’s Electronic Support Measure (ESM) pod to provide combat jets with long-range find fixed track (FTT) data. Since Valiant Shield had a large maritime component, the Reaper switched its radar to maritime mode and helped scan for enemy ships, relaying data to the carrier strike group.

The Reaper also showed it could protect manned aerial assets, and study pattern of life changes to alert commanders of potential preparation for an attack.

“For us, long range find fix track, you know, that’s your team, and being able to just accelerate the kill chain,” he said about employing the platform ahead of combat jets. “If you can put what we would say is a relatively low-cost platform on that leading edge, and the persistence stuff, you’re gonna build that pattern of life.”

Chmielewski said there still is some resistance in the Air Force to employing the Reaper in the Pacific theater. Budget is one of the big challenges since Reapers require expensive satellite communications and backend review by members of the intelligence community. Valiant Shield helped prove those costs can be cut.

“If you can’t prove yourself compelling, and lean logistically and monetarily right now, what’s the value you’re going to provide?” he posed. “The more automated you can make things and cut those, that’s how you win the platform over.”

Reapers have long been expected in the Pacific Air Forces region, but basing delays prevented their permanent employment. Instead, ISR is used by the PACAF commander on a rotational basis. Chmielewski said a permanent home will likely be stood up at an air base in Japan by the fall of 2022.

The commander also said that would put the asset in the first island chain nearest China with access to the East China Sea, but likely not the South China Sea.

The 556 TES is in the midst of preparing an after action report with its recommendations for how to better employ the Reaper in future exercises and real-world missions. Chmielewski said that the AAR will ask what tactical capabilities can still be added to the platform to meet the specialized needs of the Pacific theater.

Short of having a theater-specific information-gathering tool, the Reaper can provide value now to PACAF missions, he said.

“The persistence gives you that unblinking eye, you get to soak up stuff,” he said of a platform that can remain aloft for 20 hours.

This year’s Valiant Shield RACE demonstration offered commanders a new idea for how to employ ISR in the Pacific.

“With a platform like this, you know, we’ll set up shop for a week, run ops for a week from our location with reduced footprint, and then go back,” he said. “Take your smaller footprint, put that forward in a different location, then go persist there for however long you want to persist.”

New Air Force Reserve Chief Pledges to ‘Transform Our Design Processes’

Aug. 3, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Lt. Gen. John P. Healy assumed command of the Air Force Reserve, succeeded Lt. Gen. Richard W. Scobee in a ceremony at Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

Healy takes command after a year as Scobee’s deputy at AFRC; Scobee is retiring from the service. Healy previously led 22nd Air Force, where he was responsible for the Reserve’s C-130 wings. Other prior assignments included helping to lead the Reserve’s strategic planning and future concepts, under the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs.

Healy said his priorities wold be “pretty basic and pretty straightforward,” and that his unifying mantra would be “ready now, transforming for the future.”

“We’re going to continue down the path of ensuring all of our Airmen have what they need to carry out their wartime requirements, the basic blocking and tackling based on their AFSCs,” Healy said. “Our Airmen will be accessible and resilient. We’ve always answered the call for volunteerism, whether it was for COVID response in 72 hours out the door, or most recently [Operation Allies Refuge in Afghanistan], where we had all those crews on the hook and truly, truly demonstrated … what I think is the epitome of resilient leadership.”

To keep more than 70,000 Reserve Airmen ready to surge, Healy promised to expand resiliency efforts across the MAJCOM.

“We’ll continue to develop what I think is the most effective resiliency strategy and approach in the Air Force, scaling the efforts that we’ve been pilot testing over the last year in a few wings, to provide a holistic approach to ensure that our forces and their families are ready in all aspects of life,” Healy said.

The Air Force Reserve’s Develop Resilient Leaders team has led much of that effort, including developing a Comprehensive Airman Fitness Reserve Assessment, a survey tailored specifically for the AFRC, and the Connect the Network initiative, which centralizes full-time first sergeants as the point of contact to help struggling Airmen connect with support programs.

Healy also said he wants to “transform our design and processes” to improve the Reserve’s capabilities, communications, and decision-making.

“Our reform efforts will leverage our DAF-level success in data maturity, by continuing to produce data-driven synchronized decisions focused on planning to execution of our resources,” Healy said.

The balance between modernization and maintaining current capabilities remains a matter of concern. Concerns about capability gaps opening up as older aircraft retire and new systems are brought on line has worried some, but Healy promised in March that all Air Force components are working together to ensure “we’re not going to have any bases uncovered.”

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. presided over the Aug. 3 change of command ceremony.

“For the men and women of Air Force Reserve Command, you fill a unique role by bringing diverse strengths and experiences gained from your dual civilian and military identities,” Brown said. “Not just to one area, but everything we provide to the nation. You support our nuclear deterrence operations … precision attack, provide rapid global mobility and provide combat ready forces to fly, fight, and win.”

Scobee’s four-year tenure at AFRC coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He praised Brown for his accessibility and support of the Reserve, and said his tenure was made easier by the support of his wife, Janis, and his command chief, CMSgt. Timothy C. White.

“Who knew four years ago we would be stepping into what we have, especially the last two years,” Scobee said. Commanders need the help of “somebody like a Chief White or Janis Scobee, [who] actually hear and feel what our Airmen are struggling with,” he said. “That’s what makes the difference. And that is why our United States Air Force is successful, because it starts at the top, and it filters all the way down to our supporting commands and our command chiefs. I’m very appreciative of that.”

AFRL’s Homegrown Cubesat Begins Mission to Test Cognitive Communications

Aug. 3, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

A new cubesat built and operated in-house at the Air Force Research Laboratory is set to demonstrate cognitive, beyond-line-of-sight radio networking via satellite while also giving AFRL’s researchers “intimate knowledge” of how the satellite works to apply in the future.

Its name, “Recurve,” refers to a recurve bow because the cubesat demonstrates a new communication technology to provide troops “with another tool in their tool belt (or arrow in their quiver, so to speak),” said Kate Yoshino, Recurve’s program manager.

The group Yoshino works in—the Small Satellite Portfolio within AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate—has found that advancing communication technology benefits both the Air Force and the Space Force, she said in a July interview, just as Recurve completed its launch and early operations phase.

“If we can do communication better, that enables is to do all kinds of other things better,” Yoshino said, calling it “one of the backbone technologies … in order for us to achieve other missions as well.”

As many as 50 people at a given time worked on Recurve’s development, but the numbers were shrinking as the process gave way to the ultimate mission. Two people at a time will operate the satellite out of 20 who were trained, with the hope that a degree of ground automation can take away some of the flight burden so the researchers can focus on the experiments.

Recurve’s experiments should show how beyond-line-of-sight radio communications are possible by routing the beams through the satellite.

Yoshino said the cognitive aspect of Recurve’s experiments “is really interesting to a lot of people.” She explained that in conventional communication systems, “you have a set frequency, a set bandwidth, basically a set configuration” to communicate “point to point between two preconfigured, predetermined radios.”

In the Recurve experiment, on the other hand, “the radio itself kind of auto-configures to meet the needs to the operator,” Yoshino said. Since the radios act as nodes in a network, “you jump onto the network, and then the network will route your data to your desired destination.

“And then on top of that, the cognitive piece is that it does change the parameters of the actual physical radio waves to better assist in those needs. So that includes things like, it’ll change the power scaling or change the frequency it’s operating on. And those types of things enable you to more effectively communicate either point to point or with multiple parties.”

As a “truly experimental test asset” within the cubesat portfolio, Recurve’s development emphasized speed over design life of the satellite, Yoshino said. She expected the tests to take six months to a year.

Designing, building, and operating Recurve in-house at AFRL means the researchers “can more pointedly understand how lessons learned can be used,” Yoshino said. “Specifically with communication systems, having such intimate knowledge of the developed vehicle helps us understand kind of how those communication systems can be better proliferated or used further.”

Recurve will also “assess an inherent positioning, navigation and timing capability under various operating and environmental conditions,” according to a news release announcing Recurve’s launch.

Recurve was one of seven experiments air-launched by Virgin Orbit from the Mojave Air and Space Port, Calif., for the Defense Department’s Space Test Program.

Boeing and USAF Mark More than 75 Years of Innovation, Collaboration

Aug. 3, 2022

For more than 75 years the U.S. Air Force and Boeing have shared an intertwined history of supporting the highest priority national defense missions. Today, Boeing leads industry investment in pioneering next-generation technology and innovation as the company looks to the future to provide the most digitally advanced, simply and efficiently produced, and intelligently supported solutions to the U.S. Air Force.

Boeing’s industry partnership with the U.S. Air Force dates back to the earliest days of aviation, and continues today in the form of some of the most sophisticated and formidable flying machines on the planet. With an eye toward the future, Boeing continues to develop the cutting-edge capabilities the Air Force needs to maintain its strategic advantage across space and air domains.

To illustrate the depth and breadth of this key national security relationship, we’ll take a look back in time; explore current programs; and look ahead to what the future may hold.

Innovating from the Start

Boeing’s ties to the Air Force began in the wake of World War I and the design in 1919 of the GA-1 attack plane, an armored triplane powered by a pair of modified Liberty engines driving pusher propellers.

“Our history has been intertwined with the Air Force, and it’s been a remarkable story,” said Steve Parker, vice president and general manager for Bombers & Fighters at Boeing Defense, Space & Security.

Lethality and survivability have been the watchwords for both since those earliest days. From the start, “the relationship was built on a foundation of trust,” Parker said. Airmen were climbing into dangerous, experimental machines. Flight was a high-risk endeavor. Trust was essential.

“We’ve always focused on making sure we are able to provide solutions that meet the Air Force’s needs for mission effectiveness,” Parker said.

Boeing has long looked to Air Force veterans for their expertise, and today, more than 15 percent of its workforce are veterans, many of them Air Force vets. The mutual experience ensures Boeing’s workforce understands inherently who their customers really are and what is at stake each time an airplane rolls out for a mission.

Over the years, Air Force and Boeing programs have also been recognized by the whole of the aerospace industry. Boeing-Air Force partnered programs yielded nine Collier Trophies to date, an award that recognizes the greatest achievement in aeronautics and astronautics for the given year from the National Aeronautic Association, Parker noted. “That’s proof of our shared partnership doing revolutionary things together,” he said.

Building the Future

Today, Boeing’s Air Force program portfolio bulges with new developments: The KC-46 tanker and E-7, a replacement for the E-3 AWACS, are both derived from Boeing commercial aircraft and host the newest technologies in refueling and reconnaissance.

The KC-46A Pegasus tanker is a powerful example of the advanced capabilities that Boeing is delivering to the Air Force. With tactical situational awareness and secure datalinks, the KC-46A delivers data as well as fuel to give the 21st century warfighter an information advantage.

The next-generation T-7A advanced trainer was the first Air Force jet designed digitally from the ground up and will serve USAF pilots for generations to come.

Boeing is also reinventing venerable airframes like the B-52 and F-15. As the lead systems integrator for the B-52, it is responsible for integrating new engines into the ageless bombers, which first rolled off Boeing assembly lines more than half a century ago. Engineering the BUFF to keep flying for another 30 years or more, Boeing’s overall integration program also encompasses a major avionics upgrade.

Boeing is similarly raising the bar for its F-15EX fighter, the Air Force’s newest combat aircraft. The EX is, in effect, a digitally remastered, 21st century variant of the Air Force stalwart air superiority machine, now featuring combat aviation’s most powerful digital processor, an all-glass cockpit, open mission systems, and best-in-class payload, range, and speed, as well as the advanced capabilities of the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS), which integrates radar warning, geolocation, situational awareness, and self-protection to detect and defeat surface and airborne threats.

“With investments in open-mission systems architecture, digital engineering and agile software, we are supporting SECAF’s Operational Imperatives to bring leading-edge capabilities to future fighters and bombers,” Parker said.
Looking to the future, Boeing is partnering with the Air Force to develop the capabilities essential to the future of air battle management, the technologies essential to taking Joint All Domain Command and Control from concept to reality. For example, the KC-46’s Wing Aerial Refueling Pods are slated to be the first integration of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System.

“Our mission is always to provide the most digitally advanced, simply- and efficiently-produced, and intelligently-supported solutions to the world’s greatest air force,” said Parker, whose portfolio includes the Air Force F-15, T-7A, and B-1 and B-52 bomber programs, as well as the Navy’s F/A-18E/F and EA-18G Growler aircraft which is the only airborne Electronic Attack platform in the world today and is central to all U.S. combat air employment. He also oversees the 777X wing component manufacturing and assembly.

All of these programs have one thing in common: advanced digital technologies that enable new, improved manufacturing techniques to make aircraft more efficient, more survivable, and at a lower cost to operate and sustain —so they can get to the fight faster and stay there longer.
Those efforts extend to every part of Boeing’s work for the Air Force, where Parker says, “we’re reinventing many of the capabilities the Air Force uses today.”

For example, Boeing is applying new algorithms to make C-17 transports more fuel efficient and applying digital analytics to reduce and streamline maintenance costs.

Speed is always in the discussion, Parker said. “From fighter aircraft to autonomous platforms to work we are doing in our Phantom Works, it’s all about burning down risk and validating and proving out technology and capabilities more quickly and efficiently.”

Another part of the overarching connecting tissue that ties Boeing’s Air Force portfolio together is today’s focus on connectivity and the emergence of a shared battlespace that can be better managed and assessed through the use of open mission systems and agile software techniques.

“To deter the evolving threat, data must be distributed across all the Air Force’s systems,” Parker said. “Data will have to be managed securely and delivered in real time to deliver a collective effect across the DOD’s battlespace. We are working to connect manned and unmanned platforms and sensors together, to provide an overwhelming capability.”

To that end, “we’re focused on connecting everything—Boeing products and non-Boeing products—to provide the disruptive advantage in any location around the world,” he said. “It’s a means of expanding the force capabilities exponentially.”

Boeing’s strong collaborative relationship with Air Force stakeholders helps keep all parties on the same page. “Everything is totally transparent from a data perspective: status, opportunities, risks, issues,” Parker said. “We manage them collectively—together.”

Parker says that kind of mutual trust and transparency has helped the rapid development of the T-7A, it’s not that every step in the development has been perfect, he said. “You’re always going to discover things along the way— and when we do, we fix them together,” Parker said. “That’s how we have been able to redefine how a clean sheet aircraft can go from concept to first flight in just 36 months and move straight into developmental test and evaluation —something that was previously unheard of.”

Looking Ahead

At its heart, Boeing is an engineering technology company, one that keeps one eye firmly focused on the future. “We are always working to get them the best aircraft, the safest aircraft, on time and predictable,” Parker said. “Working closely with the Air Force enables us to do that, and the Air Force trusts us to deliver on the commitments we have made.”

To ensure that remains the case, Boeing continues to invest its own resources in areas such as digital engineering technology and advanced manufacturing capabilities, Parker said. “We need to be able to rapidly field new technologies, to rapidly change and pivot as the threat changes, so that the U.S. Air Force always has the most capable assets in the world.”

For Boeing, that means embracing not only its own ideas, but those of partners and even rivals as the Air Force presses ahead with an open systems/open architecture vision of the future. “Open systems will give the Air Force the ability to plug-and-play apps, to integrate third-party solutions,” Parker said. “It means they will always have the latest and best technology available to them,” both in crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

“We want the Air Force to be not only the most capable but also the most connected force on the planet, so that they can make informed decisions in real time,” Parker said. “That’s what it’s about at the end of the day, and that’s what gets us excited, it’s all about their mission.”

A Century of Partnership

Boeing delivered its first military aircraft, two trainers, in 1917; some 101 years later, in 2018, Boeing won the competition to build USAF’s newest jet trainer, the T-7A. Few companies can match its extensive history.

Jan. 1917:	Boeing delivers its first airplanes, two EA trainers, to the US Army Signal Corps.
Nov. 1919:	Boeing Airplane Co. begins its first major contract for the US Army Air Service modernizing de Havilland DH-4s. Between 1919 and 1924, Boeing will rebuild over 300 of the light bombers for the US Army Air Service.
March 17, 1924:	Four Douglas World Cruisers built for the U.S. Army Air Service leave Santa Monica, California, en-route to Sand Point Airfield outside Seattle, where they will officially begin their flight around the world. On Sept. 28, the Douglas World Cruisers Chicago and New Orleans complete the first ever round-the-world trip.
March 20, 1932:	The Boeing P-26 Peashooter makes its first flight. It soon establishes a reputation as the fastest air-cooled pursuit fighter in the world and the first all metal monoplane fighter in the U.S.
Nov. 26, 1934:	The Kaydet trainer, built by Boeing Airplane Co. subsidiary Stearman Aircraft, makes its first flight. It will become the most common preliminary trainer, and Stearman will build 8,584 Kaydets in all versions, plus the equivalent of 2,000 more in spare parts.
July 28, 1935:	The Boeing Model 299 XB-17 experimental bomber, prototype of the B-17, makes its first flight at Boeing Field in Seattle. Newspaper reporters nickname it “The Flying Fortress.”
Oct. 26, 1940:	The North American Aviation NA-73X prototype single-seat fighter, built in just 102 days, makes its first flight. Designated the P-51 Mustang, it becomes one of the most important Allied aircraft of World War II. The company will build 15,586.
Dec. 23, 1941:	The Douglas C-47 Skytrain, a military transport version of the company’s famous DC-3, makes its first flight. The transport is also produced in the C-53 Skytrooper troop transport version.
Sept. 21, 1942:	The Boeing Model 345 bomber, prototype of the B-29 Superfortress, makes its first flight.
Oct. 1, 1947:	The North American Aviation XP-86 Sabre, the first U.S. swept-wing jet fighter, makes its first flight. The Sabre jet would become famous for gaining air superiority over Soviet-built Migs during the Korean War.
Dec. 17, 1947:	The XB-47 Stratojet makes its first flight from Boeing Field, Seattle. The revolutionary Stratojet is the U.S. Air Force’s first swept-wing jet bomber.
Oct. 22–24, 1948:	Over the course of one weekend, a Boeing team develops plans for a new eight-engine jet bomber, which will become the B-52 Stratofortress.
July 18, 1956:	The first of more than 800 KC-135 Stratotankers rolls out from the Boeing plant in Renton, Washington, followed a few minutes later by the last KC-97 Stratofreighter. The KC-135 makes its first flight on Aug. 31, 1956.
May 27, 1958:	The McDonnell F-4 Phantom II, makes its first flight.
Oct. 10, 1958:	The U.S. Air Force selects Boeing to assemble and test the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
May 3, 1959:	The first Boeing-built VC-137 transport is delivered to the U.S. Air Force for presidential use.
July 27, 1972:	The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle air superiority jet fighter makes its first flight successfully and on schedule. On Dec. 11, 1986, the long-range strike version of the F-15; the F-15E Strike Eagle, makes its first flight.
1974:	Rockwell International is awarded a contract to build the first eight Block I NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. In 1992 the U.S. Air Force and Rockwell would be jointly recognized with the Collier Trophy for development of GPS.
May 25, 1976:	The Boeing E-3 AWACS, a modified 707-320B jet, makes its first flight with full mission avionics.
Oct. 18, 1984:	The Rockwell B-1B Lancer bomber makes its first flight.
Sept. 6, 1990:	The VC-25A, a modified Boeing 747-200B, enters service as presidential transport Air Force One, replacing the modified 707s that had served for the previous 30 years.
Jan. 17, 1995:	The C-17A Globemaster III enters operational service.
Sept. 19, 2005:	The U.S. Air Force takes delivery of the first production CV-22 Osprey, the Air Force Special Operations variant of the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft.
April 16, 2008:	The first Wideband Global SATCOM satellite is placed into operation.
Sept. 25, 2015:	First flight of the KC-46A Pegasus tanker aircraft.
Dec. 20, 2016:	The Boeing T-X trainer completes its first flight. In Sept. 2018, the U.S. Air Force chooses Boeing T-X for its Advanced Pilot Training System Program contract, and in Sept. 2019, the U.S. Air Force announces the aircraft’s official service name as the T-7A Red Hawk.
Sept. 24, 2018:	The U.S. Air Force selects the MH-139 helicopter to replace the more than 40-year-old UH-1N “Huey” helicopters used to protect America’s ICBM bases. In Dec. 2019, the U.S. Air Force announces the aircraft’s official service name as the MH-139A Grey Wolf.
Oct. 2019:	The X-37B autonomous spaceplane returned to Earth following 780 days on orbit.
Feb. 2, 2021:	First flight of the F-15EX, the most advanced F-15 aircraft to date.

Saved from Closure, RAF Mildenhall Starts Planning: ‘What Should Tomorrow Look Like?‘

Aug. 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

RAF MILDENHALL, U.K.—Only a few years ago, RAF Mildenhall, one of a few bases in the United Kingdom that still hosts U.S. Air Force units, was set to close, a target of the 2015 European Infrastructure Consolidation Plan.

That changed in the summer of 2020, when then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper announced that the base, home to the 100th Air Refueling Wing, the 352nd Special Operations Wing, and several more squadrons, would remain open, saying it made “obvious strategic sense.”

Now, with its future seemingly secure, officials at Mildenhall are starting to consider how that future might look.

“I’m optimistic about the future because … I feel like we’re at a point here where we’re ultimately able to build out the future of the installation itself, making strategic investments in the actual infrastructure and necessary adjustments,” Col. Gene A. Jacobus, commander of the 100th ARW and the base commander, told Air Force Magazine.

The initial 2015 plan was for the 100th ARW—the only permanently based aerial refueling wing for U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa—to transfer to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.

But Jacobus, who took command in July 2021 and noted that he wasn’t involved in the decision to keep Mildenhall open, said he believed the base’s strategic value remains strong.

“The unique capability that we provide from this installation—we talk about it being a strategic forward base—is, I think, key to ultimately its relevance in this AOR and the positioning of the installation—where it’s at in the theater, where we can range from in the KC-135 from here, its close proximity to other U.S. visiting forces, i.e. RAF Lakenheath, and the capability it has there,” Jacobus said.

Indeed, Lakenheath and its squadrons of F-15Es and F-35s sit just a few miles from Mildenhall, and the two bases continue to work together “quite extensively,” Jacobus said.

“We’re proud of the capability that they bring to this AOR, and we’re proud of the fact that we can help extend that capability, wherever it needs to be, at a moment’s notice,” he said.

In recent years, Lakenheath has seen some notable changes, with construction of a new flight simulator facility, maintenance unit, hangars, storage facilities, and more in advance of the arrival of new F-35 fighters this past December.

Now, Jacobus and other leaders at Mildenhall are considering how it, too, might change and grow in the coming years.

“My view is that we will continue to look at not only today’s capabilities, but what should tomorrow look like, in terms of infrastructure to meet future mission needs,” Jacobus said.

Those considerations are still in early stages, but Jacobus hinted that changes could go beyond simply modernizing a base that was first constructed in the 1930s.

“There are areas on the installation that we want to focus our attention on essentially updating the infrastructure itself, but also looking at, are there changes necessary to the base for a future mission?” Jacobus said. “So we don’t have it formalized yet. But we’re certainly putting together a plan, and we’ll look to resource against the plan once we get it finalized.”

Jacobus declined to share any details on what that plan might look like, but he did say that the action group tasked with helping to draft the plan have started with a fundamental consideration: “What is that future mission?”

“We’re less than two years out from the decision to reverse the closure,” Jacobus said. “So there’s still work to be done there. And we’re certainly getting after it.”

Considerations of the future mission raise further questions about the fleet of 15 KC-135s operated by the 100th ARW. The legacy tanker has been flying for more than 60 years, and the Air Force has sought to cut the fleet in recent years, requesting to retire 13 jets in 2021, 18 in 2022, and 13 in 2023.

“We are proud of the ‘135, and I know that there’s a lot of discussion about the future of the ‘135,” Jacobus said. “But what I can tell you is that every single day … we’re producing KC-135 sorties and providing air refueling at the speed of relevance across this AOR. And so, you know, going out into the future, and again, outside of really my purview, but we’re receiving the support from our higher headquarters, through the supply chain, through the logistics professionals, to continue to produce sorties.”

As the airframes continue to age, though, more issues will arise, Jacobus acknowledged. And looking to get ahead of that, “we’re thinking through … what are those potential future needs so that we can anticipate any concerns that might be in the future,” he said.

Meanwhile, the KC-135’s ostensible replacement, the KC-46, still has not been cleared for combat operations, and only recently refueled its first international aircraft as issues persist with its Remote Vision System and other aspects.

So as Mildenhall’s planning for the future unfolds, it’s doing so under the assumption that the KC-135 will be sticking around for some time to come, Jacobus said.

“What I tell our team is we will keep leaning into the KC-135 until we’re directed otherwise. And so when and if that decision comes at some point, we’ll make the necessary adjustments,” Jacobus said. “But we’re certainly proud to continue to fly such a historic aircraft that has continued to produce amazing capabilities.”

Space Force’s Towberman Plants the Seeds of Partnership, Talks Talent Management

Aug. 2, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

When enlisted leaders from 65 nations gathered in a hotel ballroom to hear how the Space Force built an enlisted corps, seemingly few could apply the lessons. Most of their militaries didn’t have the equivalent of a Space Force. But the session attracted more questions than any before it during a weeklong summit to strengthen partner enlisted corps and to foster relationships that could lead to space.

“We’re new and independent, and we’re on that journey as some of you are on that journey,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman told the group as he paced the length of the room, taking numerous questions from countries in Latin America and Africa, some of which host Chinese space assets.

Towberman took the opportunity during the Senior Enlisted Leaders International Summit in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 2 to encourage the nations to get onboard with the Space Force’s value of good behavior in the space domain. He invited the leaders to call him personally to discuss ways to cooperate with the United States in space.

“We’ve developed our own promotion system. We’ve developed our own assignment system—all of the things that any service has to do. But we’re right in the middle of it,” Towberman said, describing how in three years, three field commands have stood up with 7,500 Guardians in uniform, a quarter of whom never wore an Air Force uniform.

“That makes the Space Force a great teammate and a great source of information, and we’re happy to partner with anyone,” Towberman said. “We’re trying to figure out, how do we develop our noncommissioned officer corps? How do we develop great technicians? How do we develop a culture that is independent and distinct from any of the services that built us?”

Towberman responded to questions about threats in space, including the debris fields created by China’s and Russia’s anti-satellite weapon tests, and Russia’s projectile-firing space satellite. The Space Force’s senior enlisted leader called for establishing norms even before every spacefaring nation is in agreement.

“It needs to start somewhere,” he said. “It’s important that we don’t perhaps wait for a perfect solution where everyone can agree, but somebody has to start drawing boundaries.”

One African questioner drew laughs when an Airman had to translate his lengthy, three-part question about how to protect military communications systems and satellites and how to clean up the debris field.

“Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships,” Towberman said. “We have got to work together to protect the systems and to ensure, from a military perspective, that our allies have access to the systems and capabilities that they want.”

The Space Force official called for more communication, more information sharing, and more access agreements, noting that the proliferation of satellite companies means any nation can launch a satellite into orbit.

“It won’t be limited by physics or by technology,” he said. “It will be limited by relationships, by partnerships, by policy, perhaps by law.”

The ‘Classic Model’ vs. ‘Gigonomics’

Towberman also discussed talent management at the Space Force and what he learned from a 2021 visit with human capital leaders at SpaceX.

“We’ve made one of our core values as a service a commitment to growth,” Towberman said, echoing what he learned from the commercial space company.

“We recruit from the beginning people that want to improve themselves and grow and develop continuously,” he added, noting that unlike generations past, the younger generation does not want to stay in the same career for decades. Space Force, in turn, is creating flexible development programs.

“The classic model is, I commit, and on the first day of my career, someone says, ‘You’re going to do this,’ and I do that for 20 years or 30 years,” he said. “We don’t believe that that resonates very well with American young people today that they want to be able to do different things.”

The Space Force is trying to build a development structure that allows Guardians to grow and develop in different ways that still fill the service’s needs.

“It’s hard. It can be frustrating, as well,” Towberman said.

Experts he has spoken to indicated that building a culture can take 10 years.

“We’re just slowly kind of marching and doing the best that we can,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t even know that we’re being, you know, unwilling to change. It feels like [being] quite open minded.”

In a pull-aside interview with Air Force Magazine, Towberman said he has embraced the mindset of the younger generation. One way the Space Force demonstrated a long-term commitment was to allow Guardians to help develop the service’s four core values.

“I love this sort of gigonomics,” he said, referring to careers that are broken up into short-term stints. “I love their energy. I love the sort of servant attitude that we see from young people today. And I’m happy to lean into it.”

“Our values [are] probably the most significant kind of place where we went to young Guardians and we talked to them about what was important to them,” Towberman added. “That’s probably the biggest success is just baking them into those processes and listening more and kind of talking less.”

Space Force Drops Garrison Name in Favor of ‘Space Base Delta‘

Aug. 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Garrisons are out—Space Base Deltas are in.

The Space Force has switched up how it refers to the organizations responsible for mission support functions, saying the new designations better reflect their function and place within the service’s structure.

The Peterson-Schriever and Buckley Garrisons became Space Base Delta 1 and Space Base Delta 2, respectively, in May. Los Angeles Garrison followed suit July 14, becoming Space Base Delta 3.

“The naming convention of Space Base Delta more accurately characterizes the function and structure of the organization in relation to the mission deltas/units that they support,” a Space Force spokesperson told Air Force Magazine.

Garrisons had occupied a niche within the Space Force’s organizational structure of field commands, deltas, and squadrons. Instead of focusing on mission areas, they were tasked with all the non-operational things that need to happen for the service to function.

“We have got to have defenders of the gate. We’ve got to have the contracted means in place. We have to have the … IT functions to provide the network and telephony aspects of that because we fight from home,” Col. Zachary “Shay” Warakomski, commander of Space Base Delta 1, said in a Mitchell Institute webinar in May.

However, the garrison name caused slight confusion for some who associated the term with the physical installation.

In contrast, the Space Base Delta name is more akin to the Air Force’s Air Base Wing. The two organizations are “not necessarily equivalent,” the Space Force spokesperson said, “but an Air Base Wing would be the most similar type of organization to the Space Base Delta.”

Air Base Wings are responsible for mission support functions at Air Force installations, often serving as host units at bases with multiple tenant units.

Space Base Deltas, meanwhile, can be responsible for Space Force installations separated by vast distances. Space Base Delta 1, formerly Peterson-Schriever Garrison, is tasked with supporting not only Peterson and Schriever Space Force Bases in Colorado, but also Thule Air Base, Greenland; Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, Colo.; Kaena Point Space Force Station, Hawaii; and New Boston Space Force Station, N.H.

Space Base Delta 2, formerly Buckley Garrison, supports not only Buckley Space Force Base, Colo., but also Cavalier Space Force Station, N.D., Cape Cod Space Force Station, Mass., and Clear Space Force Station, Alaska.

SBD 3 supports Los Angeles Air Force Base, which the service has said will be renamed as a Space Force Base in the future, and Space Systems Command.

Space Launch Deltas 30 and 45 are the host units at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., and Patrick Space Force Base, Fla., where the launch deltas provide base services. The Space Force spokesperson told Air Force Magazine there are currently no plans to establish more Space Base Deltas beyond SBD 3.

Space Base Deltas will continue to be distinct from space mission deltas, the USSF’s organizations that are similar to “Army Brigade Combat Teams or Air Force Expeditionary Wings in that they enable laser focus on specific mission sets that pull together unique capabilities and highly-trained warfighters to deliver combat effects,” the spokesperson said.

As part of the switch from Garrisons to Space Base Deltas, the units will receive new emblems and insignia, the spokesperson confirmed.

New Missile-Warning Satellite, Set to Launch, Will Complete SBIRS Constellation

Aug. 2, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Force’s sixth and final satellite in the Space-Based Infrared System heads to geosynchronous orbit as soon as Aug. 4, the faraway orbit offering a wide view of Earth to detect missile launches in the atmosphere.

The sixth satellite in the constellation adds “crucial fortification of the current missile warning system” that is “global, persistent, and taskable,” said officials who briefed reporters about the mission by phone Aug. 1.

The infrared sensors onboard SBIRS GEO-6 are identical to those on the other five SBIRS satellites, the first of which launched in 2011. But the new entry adds to the constellation’s accuracy in detecting missile launches anyway because of the satellites’ overlapping fields of view, said Col. Brian Denaro, program executive officer for Space Systems Command’s Space Sensing Directorate at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

“When you get multiple looks at a single launch, it really helps with the accuracy and assuredness of that launch,” Denaro said. He called SBIRS GEO-6 “another critical, unblinking eye to track and defend against ballistic and hypersonic missile threats.”

Able to monitor a third of the Earth at a given time, the SBIRS satellites’ two infrared sensors—one that scans and one that stares—provide “rapid notification” of a missile launch to alert the likes of the President, the President’s cabinet, combatant commanders, the Missile Defense Agency, and troops in the field, said Col. Daniel T. Walter, senior materiel leader for the Space Sensing Directorate’s Strategic Missile Warning Acquisition Delta.

SBIRS satellites “tip and queue MDA’s more high-fidelity sensors and targeting solutions in order to take out inbound threats,” Walter explained.

The SBIRS constellation serves as a successor to, and works in concert with, the Defense Support Program constellation, also orbiting in GEO, the officials said. SBIRS not only detects the fact of a missile launch, predicting points of origin and impact, but also identifies “a vast arsenal of missiles,” Walter said. Those include not only long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, “but as we’re getting better at this mission area, we’re able to detect much shorter-burn missiles.”

SBIRS GEO-6 comes online as the Pentagon plans to field new missile-warning and missile-tracking constellations in GEO, polar, low Earth (LEO), and medium Earth orbits (MEO) starting in 2025. The new space architecture responds to the desires to track faster, maneuverable hypersonic missiles and to improve resiliency against anti-satellite weapons through sheer numbers and by placing the satellites in various orbits.

An experimental satellite preceded the sixth SBIRS to GEO in July. The Wide Field of View Testbed (WFOV) will provide data to inform the Space Force’s Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) constellation. The WFOV satellite will monitor Earth’s atmosphere for infrared signatures at a higher resolution and over more of the Earth than SBIRS satellites.

Several months of on-orbit testing of SBIRS GEO-6 follow the launch in which “we go out and we test all the subcomponents of the satellite,” said Maj. Matthew Blystone, program manager overseeing production, launch, and early orbit testing of the SBIRS GEO 5 and 6 missions. “We deploy solar arrays and light shades, and then we start payload tuning.”

A period of operational acceptance follows during which the 2nd Space Warning Squadron of Space Delta 4 at Buckley Space Force Base, Colo., “will more or less kick the tires on the satellite, just to make sure that everything is good to go” before the delta officially takes command of the satellite, Blystone said.

Lockheed Martin built the satellite carrying its infrared-sensing payload made by Northrop Grumman. Its expected life is 12 years.

SBIRS GEO-6 is the third-to-last national security launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket before transitioning to ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur. The Pentagon’s final two Atlas V launches will be in 2023. All five of the SBIRS GEO satellites already in orbit have launched on Atlas 5s as well.

The Aug. 4 launch window is from 6:29 a.m. to 7:09 a.m. Eastern time. As of the Aug. 1 press briefing, the likelihood that weather would prevent the launch from taking place during Aug. 4’s launch window was 30 percent. The likelihood of weather preventing the launch during the Aug. 5 launch window, starting at 6:25 a.m. Eastern, was 40 percent.

McGuire’s ‘Pudgy’ KC-46s Honor Legendary WWII Ace

Aug. 1, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.—The KC-46 Pegasus tankers here all fly with the callsign “Pudgy” in honor of the second-highest-scoring American ace of World War II, Thomas B. McGuire.

“Pudgy 01” and “Pudgy 02” arrived Nov. 9, 2021, as part of an elaborate welcoming ceremony. Pudgies 03 to 08 have arrived since.

The new aircraft aren’t named Pudgy. “That was just chosen to be the callsign to be best representative of the base,” said KC-46 pilot Capt. Luke A. Williams. “There was no name given to the aircraft besides” their given Air Force type nickname, Pegasus.

A replica of the original “Pudgy,” McGuire’s P-38 Lightning, is on display at the entrance to the McGuire section of the base.

McGuire’s Pudgy “is so emblematic of the base,” explained 305th Air Mobility Wing historian Stuart R. Lockhart. “It is a connection so well known” in the area and within the Air Force.

Lt. Col. Joe Delgado of the 514th Maintenance Group told Air Force Magazine that the joint base’s leaders came up with the callsign because it references the entire base, not just one wing.

“The commanders didn’t want to use ‘Can Do’ because that is a 305 AMW callsign,” Delgado said. Usually, when someone from the 514th Air Mobility Wing flies, “they simply adopt the squadron’s callsign,” he said.

Williams, the pilot, said “Can Do” would have left out the 514th Air Mobility Wing, which also flies the KC-46, and the 87th Air Base Wing, which hosts the wings.

“In the end, Pudgy is used to encompass everyone who does the mission of the base,” Delgado said. Each delivery flight will have the Pudgy callsign: “Pudgy 24” is to be delivered in 2023.

87th Air Base Wing historian James J. Warrick said McGuire named his airplane “Pudgy” after his wife, Marilynn. She had “obtained the nickname in high school,” according to information published by the base.

“He shipped off to the Pacific shortly after they were married and never returned home to her,” Warrick said in an email. “On 7 January 1945 over the Philippines, Major McGuire was killed during a dogfight performing a maneuver in an attempt to help a wingman,” Warrick said.

“His remains were hidden by locals and were not discovered until 4½ years later. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on 8 May 1946 with Charles Lindbergh attending,” Warrick added. “He was buried with full honors at Arlington in May 1950.”

But every month or so, a new Pudgy flies over the skies of New Jersey.