Today: The Air Force’s Other Birthday

July 26, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

While the Air Force’s “birthday” is generally celebrated Sept. 18—the day it officially became active as one of the U.S. armed services—an equal case could be made for July 26, the day President Harry Truman signed into law the National Security Act of 1947, which created the service.

Seventy-five years ago today, aboard the VC-54 presidential transport Truman had dubbed Sacred Cow, he signed the Act, which also organized the new Department of Defense out of the old War Department and Navy Department. The legislation additionally created the position of Secretary of Defense from the old post of Secretary of War; codified the Joint Chiefs of Staff; established the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council; and in many other ways set the framework for the modern U.S. national security establishment.

Originally part of the Signal Corps, the Air Service had become the Army Air Corps in 1939 and the Army Air Forces in 1942. After the Air Force was established by the Act, Gen. H.H. Arnold, commander of the USAAF, became the Chief of Staff of the Air Force in September 1947.

The 1947 law was meant to define and streamline the chain of command within the U.S. military establishment and to codify the responsibilities of various intelligence agencies under a single director of central intelligence.

The military organizational changes were deemed necessary because, although the U.S. had won WWII, it now needed to efficiently maintain large standing forces and conduct large-scale intelligence collection with the new Cold War. An independent Air Force was deemed necessary to organize for the mission of nuclear deterrence along with furtherance of the science and technology of military aviation.

The Navy resisted the creation of a co-equal service for Air, believing it would be out-voted by the Air Force and Army and because it wanted to retain its status as the nation’s first line of defense. After ordering the branches to work out their differences—and not getting results—Truman laid out legislation interleaving drafts written by all the services.

Truman proposed the legislation to Congress in February 1947. During congressional hearings, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Chester Nimitz testified in favor of the changes, as did James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy. Truman would later appoint Forrestal the first Secretary of Defense.

After it passed both houses of Congress, the Act went to Truman for signature, and he signed it July 26, 1947. The following April, Forrestal convened senior service leaders to hammer out and divide their military responsibilities in what would become known as the Key West agreement.

While the 1947 National Security Act resolved many of the World War II problems of dissimilar bureaucracies and priorities, the chronic issues of duplication of effort and operational confusion persisted through the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, coming to a head in the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, which lessons-learned reports characterized as poorly coordinated among the services.

In 1986, some of the structure laid out in the 1947 National Security Act was revised when President Ronald Reagan signed the Goldwater-Nichols Act. It reorganized the wartime chain of command from the Secretary of Defense down through a new system of regional, joint commanders, taking the service chiefs and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of the chain of command and making the “man, train, equip” mission their top priority. The new system was tested only four years later in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, when Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the head of U.S. Central Command, led air, naval, and land component commanders from all services in the first Gulf War, to great success.

Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 aboard the Sacred Cow because he was about to fly to the bedside of his ill mother, but he delayed the takeoff until the document could be couriered to the aircraft.

Some pieces of the Sacred Cow flew in space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, which orbited in April 1997 for mission STS-83 to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Security Act of 1947—and the “other” birthday of the Air Force. The aircraft is part of the collection of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

Austin Heads to SOUTHCOM, Brazil to Push US Priorities in a Neglected Region

July 25, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

China has made inroads in Latin America in recent years, and Russia has disrupted the information space against America and democracy—and both U.S. competitors provide military assistance to Venezuela.

Countering the two countries’ objectives in America’s “neighborhood” are among the challenges Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will face on his first trip to the region after nearly a dozen combined visits to Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

“We tend to look east and west a lot and not so much south, and I call it south blindness,” commander of U.S. Southern Command Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson said July 20 at the Aspen Security Form. “There are adversaries that are taking advantage of this region every single day, right in our neighborhood.”

Austin was scheduled to meet with Richardson on July 25 before flying to Brazil for the three-day biennial Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) in the capital, Brasilia, according to a Defense Department news release.

The conference agenda includes discussions on cybersecurity; humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; the role of women, peace, and security; and migration. Austin will address integrated deterrence, according to the release, and encourage the 34 participating countries to work together to deter aggression and threats to regional democracy.

“Malign actors, including non-state actors, are advancing a continuum of competitive activity short of armed conflict,” states a discussion paper labeled “U.S. Thematic Basis” available on the CDMA website.

The goal of the “malign actors,” according to the paper, is “to gain diplomatic, informational, military, and economic advantages and favorable balances of power” through “increasingly coercive and aggressive strategies favoring their asymmetric interests.”

Integrated deterrence is the means to deter China in the region, Richardson said.

“When you talk about the rules-based international order, I think the PRC, China, would like to replace the United States. That is their goal,” Richardson said. “When I talk about the integrated deterrence, I look at that as all of the levers out there, all of the elements of national power that we have in the United States.”

For SOUTHCOM, integrated deterrence has meant leveraging the convening power of the U.S. government to attract business executives to a partner nation; or academic partnerships that benefit nations.

Austin will have a tough case to make in a region with economies hit hard by the coronavirus and the impacts of natural disasters in recent years. All the while, Richardson said at the Aspen forum, China has made investments in infrastructure, including deepwater ports, telecommunications, and spaceports with projects in 25 countries in the hemisphere. In Brazil, the biggest economy in the region, China is the top trade partner.

Venezuela is not among the CDMA attendees, but the regional migration of six million Venezuelans caused by its economic crisis will be a topic of discussion.

“Venezuela has caused a lot of instability in the region. It’s caused a lot of migration,” Richardson said, declining to discuss security threats posed by the socialist country. In 2018, Russia sent two TU-160 supersonic bombers on a mission to the country. Venezuela is also the top regional buyer of Chinese arms, according to an April 2022 report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Austin will make a case for upholding democracy and strengthening integrated deterrence, a whole-of-government collaboration to achieve security goals, according to the DOD news release.

“Countries must work together to bring to bear a collective deterrent ability against mutual threats,” the U.S. discussion paper reads. “This especially means sharing information and helping each other to strengthen our capabilities.”

In a section called “A Broader Call to Action,” the U.S. discussion paper notes that malign state-based actors as well as illicit groups foster corruption to erode democratic institutions. The paper cites “gray zone” activities such as illegal fishing and economic coercion, two known Chinese tactics affecting the region.

Richardson said illegal fishing robs the region of $3 billion in revenue. The U.S. has helped countries in the region to counteract illegal fishing with shared space-based intelligence and maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

The Pentagon said in the release that Austin will hold a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the event. DOD and SOUTHCOM did not respond to interview requests by Air Force Magazine for this story.

Austin’s argument will lean on the oft-cited network of U.S. partners and allies around the globe to encourage the countries of the Western Hemisphere to further integrate and strengthen “the region’s long-standing consensus in favor of democracy.”

Disinformation campaigns by Russia also threaten democracy and U.S. influence in the hemisphere, Richardson said.

“The PRC is playing chess while Russia is playing checkers,” she said at Aspen. “They have short-term goals in terms of undermining our democracy, causing destabilization through the information environment [that is] off the charts in this region, over 30 million followers in social media.”

Richardson cited Russian state media sites Sputnik and Russia Today in Spanish and Portuguese.

“We are not in competition in that space. We are in conflict in the information environment,” she said.

In a November 2021 interview with Air Force Magazine, SOUTHCOM’s military deputy Air Force Lt. Gen. Andrew A. Croft said SOUTHCOM helps nations in areas such as values, human rights, rule of law, democracy, and migrant patterns; and delivers humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to nations hit hard by earthquakes and storms—”all those things we care about that the Chinese and the Russians will not. They’re going to do things that just purely benefit them,” Croft said. “It’s very transactional if you’re China and Russia.”

New Application Lets Airmen Give Feedback on Their Gear

July 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has launched a new application allowing male and female aircrew the ability to provide feedback on their gear beyond the unit level.

The hope of the program, called GearFit, is to reduce the number of administrative layers that feedback has to go through before it reaches AFLCMC, giving officials a better sense of the biggest problems aircrew have with certain pieces of equipment or gear.

A previous version of GearFit, launched in 2020, specifically targeted female aircrew members who often had to use gear not designed for them but modified after the fact and that still fit poorly. Beyond being uncomfortable, the poorly fitting equipment also presented a safety issue.

That situation led the Air Force to announce in 2019 that it was going in a “new direction” for female-specific flight equipment, launching the Combat Ready Airman program. That program extended to looking at the gear for female special warfare operators.

This new GearFit program, however, goes beyond those career fields and is available to both male and female aircrew members.

The Combat Ready Airman program, meanwhile, has expanded to other career fields to include fully 91 percent of Airmen, AFLCMC said in an announcement.

“We focus solely on maintainers, Security Forces, medics, anybody that isn’t aircrew or special ops,” Taylor Harrison, Combat Ready Airman program manager, said in an AFLCMC podcast.

In the GearFit application, aircrew members can submit comments on different pieces of gear and equipment. Those comments are then shared directly with the AFLCMC teams responsible for designing and acquiring that equipment, with the goal of offering standardized equipment across the force.

“We are getting feedback from our Airmen, the end user,” Harrison said. “We are not just delivering and hoping that we hit the mark.”

The Air Force has rolled out or is set to introduce several new pieces of equipment for Airmen in recent years. In June, the service selected a prototype for its new aircrew helmet. In June 2020, the service announced that it was purchasing new body armor for female Airmen, followed by new handguns for both men and women that same month. Security forces got new helmets starting in October 2020, and security forces, pararescuemen, Guardian Angels, and explosive ordnance disposal Airmen got nearly 1,500 new rifles this past April.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Aug. 18 to clarify which Airmen can now submit feedback on the GearFit application.

Lockheed Military Space Boss: We Have ‘Opportunity to Expand Beyond’ GPS

July 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—Military and defense industry officials are proud to say the Global Positioning System of satellites has entrenched itself as the world standard of position, navigation, and timing.

But new threats—and some futuristic considerations—are leading some to think bigger than GPS when it comes to the systems that help undergird military operations and daily life.

“We’re at a time when we have the opportunity to expand beyond just that concept of a singular [medium Earth orbit] constellation,” Johnathon Caldwell, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s military space division, told Air Force Magazine in an exclusive interview at the Farnborough International Airshow. “There are opportunities to put different orbits into play, to provide greater resilience for the civilian applications and the military applications.”

Lockheed Martin has been working on GPS for more than a decade, winning a contract from the Air Force in 2008 to develop the constellation’s GPS III satellites, followed by the GPS III Follow-on program in 2018.

And the system has been extraordinarily successful. “GPS is the world standard [and] will remain the world standard for a long time,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson told Congress in May.

Caldwell credited that success in part to the focus on the system as “software enabled,” so that improvements can be made rapidly.

“We’ve been able to evolve the technology over time,” Caldwell said. “So that first GPS III that we launched in December 2018 … we’ve evolved that product line along the way. … We’re constantly upgrading the software and how it operates to deliver performance. It’s modular, so we can constantly pull in the latest technology to make sure that it’s resilient.” Since that December 2018 launch, four more of Lockheed’s GPS III satellites have gone into orbit. Three more have been declared available for launch. At the same time, the contractor has developed a ground control software update that is helping to operationalize the ultra-secure and jam-resistant M-code signal.

But at a certain point, GPS has become almost too successful, Thompson noted to lawmakers, saying “it is perhaps fair to say that we’ve come to rely on it solely and exclusively and too heavily.”

Both China and Russia have tested antisatellite weapons in recent years, creating new urgency in the Pentagon to develop a resilient space architecture. And while much of that resiliency talk has focused on the Space Development Agency’s data-transport and missile-tracking constellations, PNT has gotten some attention, too.

The Air Force Research Laboratory is on the verge of launching the third Navigation Technology Satellite, or NTS-3, in 2023. One of the Air Force’s first PNT demonstrations in decades, it is also slated to become a program of record. The satellite will help AFRL test “advanced techniques and technologies to detect and mitigate interference to PNT capabilities and increase system resiliency,” according to the lab’s website.

The Air Force is not alone in paying more attention to PNT. Thompson noted in May that the Army is actually leading the way on that front, with the Navy and Air Force following closely, and Caldwell told Air Force Magazine that other countries’ militaries have also been looking into the issue for some time now.

“The Australians have been enormously interested in the future for something like PNT augmentations,” Caldwell said. “So you get precise, we call it precision pointing—you get an augmented system. And they’ve invested heavily with us in a testbed.”

The United Kingdom is another country that is considering how it might rethink PNT, Caldwell said, sparked in part by the country’s departure from the European Union and corresponding departure from Europe’s GPS alternative, Galileo.

Indeed, during the Farnborough airshow, the British government announced that later this year, it will be launching a satellite that will provide “an innovative new signal … to provide data from space that can be used on the ground to obtain a position or an accurate time.”

And despite its heavy involvement in the GPS program, Lockheed Martin is eager to partner with other companies or governments interested in further developing the future of PNT, Caldwell said.

“There are interesting and unique technologies coming into play, and we are trying to find ways to put as many of those into test beds as we can to get real-world on-orbit data,” Caldwell said. “And we’re very focused right now on these demonstration platform sets, demonstration satellites, and finding different companies to partner with and say, ‘Hey, if you’ve got a great idea, … what could that mean for timekeeping?’”

The implications, he noted, could be far-reaching.

“What would PNT look like in lunar, cislunar space? How would a cislunar PNT [vehicle] operate with a terrestrial PNT system?” Caldwell posed. “Someday, gosh, we’re going to get to Mars, right? So what is Martian PNT going to look like? Because eventually there’ll be enough rovers or one day even people to be there and they’re going to arrive and be like, ‘Where am I’ if there’s not a system in place. So I think now’s a really good time to be experimenting.”

Already, the Space Force has started considering how it will monitor and police cislunar space. Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond predicted in January that the service will need cislunar space domain awareness within five years, and AFRL is already seeking input for a satellite to do just that.

While Russia-Ukraine Looms Large, Hecker Promises ‘Balance,’ Focus on Africa

July 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FAIRFORD, U.K.—When Gen. James B. Hecker, the new commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, got the chance to meet with dozens of other nations’ air chiefs during the Royal International Air Tattoo, the main topic on everyone’s minds was obvious.

“The consensus is that everyone agrees Russia invaded a sovereign country [Ukraine] without being provoked. They just did it. And everyone, I think, is against that,” Hecker told Air Force Magazine in an exclusive interview.

Indeed, much of the Pentagon’s focus over the past few months has been on aiding Ukraine against Russia’s aggression and bolstering NATO’s defenses, and USAFE has been at the forefront, with increased vigilance and extra rotations of Airmen and aircraft in the region.

But while the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues to dominate headlines and concern military and government officials alike, Hecker emphasized that as he settles into his new job, he won’t forget about the other region he’s tasked with overseeing—Africa.

“Right now, the demand signal is a little bit more on the European side, based on what is happening with Ukraine,” Hecker acknowledged. “But it is also relatively constant and maybe increased a little bit on the AFRICOM side.”

While roughly 100,000 U.S. troops are now in Europe, only a couple thousand are now in Africa, and the Air Force presence, in particular, is small, with no permanent USAF installation and limited personnel to cover a massive continent with issues ranging from terrorism to regular regime changes to great power competition, as China and Russia seek to increase their influence.

As a result, the main Air Force mission in Africa is typically intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, usually accomplished with unmanned aircraft such as MQ-9 Reapers.

Those Reapers fly “very long-duration” flights, Hecker said, regularly staying in the air for 24 hours.

That “gets a lot of intel for [U.S. Africa Command boss Gen. Stephen J. Townsend] that he needs,” Hecker added. “And then, if required, we can arm those ISR platforms as well to provide a kinetic activity, if we need that. So that’s a big part of our job in Africa, but a lot of it is not manned aircraft, which we just don’t need over there right now.”

That demand for ISR is only likely to grow. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael E. Langley has been nominated to succeed Townsend as the leader of AFRICOM, and in his confirmation hearing July 21, he specifically pointed to ISR as something he will need more of to monitor and deter terrorist groups that have grown on the continent, such as al-Shabab and Boko Haram.

Al-Shabab, in particular, has gained a foothold in Somalia, where U.S. troops are returning after a brief withdrawal of about a year and a half. And with troops back in that region, AFAFRICA will have to work more with special operators to be prepared for combat search and rescue, Hecker said.

“Once you put human beings there, you need to make sure that if something happens, you have a way to get them picked up,” Hecker said. “So more ISR operations, as well as making sure that we have the capability to get folks out if we need to with pararescue operations.”

While at RIAT, Hecker said he spoke not only to air chiefs from NATO and European nations, but some from Africa as well. His message to them was simple: “It’s something that I need to balance and make sure I’m not just paying attention to one [area of responsibility].”

Successful HAWC Test Doesn’t End DARPA’s Hypersonic Scramjet Efforts

July 22, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

DARPA is going to keep working on its Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) missile, even though the program for which it’s meant to be a technology pathfinder is already in source selection. A HAWC demonstrator flew successfully this month.

The new program is known as MoHAWC, but DARPA was not able to immediately explain the new acronym. An agency spokesperson referred to a line item in the fiscal 2023 budget request for continued Air Force/DARPA funding of $60 million for MoHAWC. The next phase of the program would “develop, integrate, and demonstrate technologies to increase effectiveness and producibility of an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile,” according to the budget request. HAWC is a joint effort of the Air Force and DARPA.

“These technologies include advancing hydrocarbon scramjet-powered propulsion operation, shrinking navigation components, upgrading aircraft integration algorithms, and improving manufacturing approaches,” according to the request. Continued flight tests would “expand the operational envelope.” DARPA would continue to collaborate with the Navy and Air Force on “efforts to meet future technology insertion dates for service programs of record.”

However, a Pentagon official said MoHAWC is “probably … moot” because the Air Force intends to make a choice between Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon for the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile before the end of the fiscal year in September, and HAWC was intended to be a technology pathfinder for HACM.

“The main aspects of that [missile] are pretty much already locked down,” the official said. “It’s in source selection … so they’re not going to be changing anything at this stage.”

A former defense official noted that DARPA has continued working on its Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) program long after the Air Force decided to pursue the similar AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). DARPA is asking for $30 million to keep working on TBG and do a test shot in fiscal 2023.

“There could be some value in continuing to work on these projects after the programs they were meant to feed get going,” he said, “in the sense of, it gives you some diversity of approaches.” However, he acknowledged that the HAWC contractors—Lockheed Martin and Raytheon—are two of the three competitors for HACM, so little diversity would be achieved.

DARPA announced the “successful test flight” July 18. The vehicle that flew was one of two types of HAWC demonstrators DARPA is working on: the version made by Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman, which built the vehicle and the scramjet engine, respectively. It was the second successful test flight for the Raytheon/Northrop vehicle, which first flew in September 2021. The other version, made by Lockheed Martin (vehicle) and Aerojet Rocketdyne (engine) made a successful test flight in mid-March.

The July test of the Raytheon version of HAWC “leveraged data collected during the 2021 flight,” DARPA said.

“After release from the aircraft, the first stage boosted the vehicle to the expected scramjet ignition envelope,” according to the agency. “From there, the missile’s Northrop Grumman scramjet engine fired up and propelled the cruiser to speeds greater than Mach 5 … for more than 300 nautical miles and reaching altitudes of greater than 60,000 feet.”

A DARPA spokesperson was not able to say how much of that 300 seconds was under power of the scramjet or how much was under power of the booster, which accelerates the vehicle to hypersonic speeds, considered to be Mach 5 or greater. As a rule of thumb, travel at Mach 5 equates to one mile per second, so the missile could have flown up to 300 seconds under scramjet power.

“The most recent test allowed exploration of more of the flight and scramjet engine operating envelopes,” DARPA’s HAWC program manager Andrew Knoedler said in a press release.

“DARPA demonstrations are always about learning, whether it’s in the interest of feasibility or practicality, and this time we certainly got new information that will further improve performance.” He added that the Navy and Air Force “will have access to the data we’ve collected, as they make development decisions for future high-speed weapons.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has voiced dissatisfaction with the progress of ARRW, which recently made a successful test flight, and he has said hypersonics, while important, should not be USAF’s top priority. He has said that while hypersonics are key to China’s strategy of denial of operations, the Air Force should not attempt to “mirror” that strategy and instead should concentrate on developing penetrating systems that can deter China.

Ukraine Says It Needs ‘Fast and Versatile’ Aircraft, Not the A-10

July 22, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Air space over Ukraine has been contested for more than five months, replete with advanced Russian fighter jets and near-universal Russian surface-to-air missile coverage that make penetration by aging Ukrainian Air Force MiG-29s and Su-25s both risky and dangerous.

For the duration of that time, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov has asked the United States and international partners for Western combat jets and the training to fly them. U.S. officials have weighed in, but they may not be suggesting the right aircraft, a Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine.

“We have been requesting combat aircraft from our partners for a long time now,” Yuriy Sak, adviser to Ukraine’s minister of defense, told Air Force Magazine by phone from Kyiv on July 21. “We need Western-standard fighter jets. We need Western-standard combat aircraft.”

Reznikov again discussed Ukraine’s battlefield needs at a July 20 virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group led by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III.

Following the meeting, U.S. Air Force leaders indicated that conversations had begun on how to provide Ukraine with Western aircraft, such as older A-10s, but Ukraine says the slower aircraft won’t fill the mission set urgently needed.

To target Russian positions in Ukrainian territory, Ukraine needs “fast and versatile” combat aircraft such as the F-16—not slow-moving ground defense platforms such as the retiring fleet of U.S. A-10s, a proposition Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall entertained in comments July 20.

U.S. defense leaders such as Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley have repeatedly recommended to President Joe Biden weaponry for Ukraine that meets evolving battlefield needs.

A-10s do not meet that bar, the defense adviser said.

“The answer to this question depends on the understanding of the needs of the Ukrainian Air Force in the current situation,” he said.

Sak gave the example of the U.S. decision to provide 12 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), with an additional four promised by Austin at the contact group meeting.

“These HIMARS systems, they are really a game changer,” Sak said. “They’ve pretty much stalled the Russian offensive. We’ve been able to destroy 50 munition depots and command centers in the last 10 days.”

The advanced rocket system met the current battlefield need in the artillery war grinding out in the flat, eastern Donbas region. It also helps Ukraine to transition to NATO standard weapons.

The Ukrainian Air Force today is tasked with protecting the Ukrainian sky from enemy aircraft, drones, and missiles; and performing air support for ground forces to strike Russian manpower and combat equipment such as armored vehicles, artillery, and tanks.

“If we look at these needs of the Ukrainian Air Force today, it kind of leads us to conclude that the most optimal option would be something fast and versatile, and fast and versatile are F-16s,” Sak said.

U.S. Air Force Leaders Weigh In

In a July 21 fireside chat with the Washington Post’s David Ignatius at the Aspen Security Forum, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said A-10s do not provide a capability needed against America’s current adversaries. Ignatius then asked if the Air Force would consider giving Ukraine any of its aging fleet of A-10s.

“That’s largely up to Ukraine,” Kendall said.

“Older U.S. systems are a possibility,” he added. “We’ll be open to discussions with them about what their requirements are and how we might be able to satisfy them, but there are a number of possibilities.”

Kendall also referenced July 20 comments by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who a day earlier at Aspen suggested a range of different fighter options for Ukraine.

“There’s U.S. [fighters]. There’s Gripen out of Sweden. There’s the Eurofighter. There’s the Rafale,” he said. “So, there’s a number of different platforms that could go to Ukraine.”

Sak said the Ukrainian Air Force has closely studied the advantages of the A-10, especially how it was used to support ground operations in Iraq, where it was able to target tank columns and equipment.

“They are a great support machine, very durable, very deadly. And the enemy cannot hide even behind tank armor when it meets A-10s,” he said. “But then, at the same time, they are slow. And, to operate them efficiently—and we know this from our pilots—they are really vulnerable to the enemy’s air defense.”

Sak argued that A-10s would be an easy target for Russian Buk missile systems and modern Russian MiGs.

“The function that could be hypothetically performed by A-10s in Ukraine is performed by Su-25,” Sak said.

Nonetheless, Sak said the A-10 has clear advantages over the Su-25, including three times the firing range, double the firepower, and the capability to shoot high-precision weapons.

Sak likened the proposition of receiving A-10s to the March debate whereby countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic would offer their older MiGs to Ukraine while asking the United States to backfill and modernize their fleet with F-16s. Ultimately, the United States dismissed a Polish offer, and Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak later told Air Force Magazine that making the MiG delivery now would require a consensus among NATO nations.

At Aspen, Brown indicated that the idea of transferring MiGs to Ukraine had passed.

“It’ll be something non-Russian,” he said. “I could probably tell you that. But I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be.”

Sak said the other European options could meet Ukraine’s battlefield requirements.

“The criteria for us is the transition towards Western standard weaponry, and weaponry which can help us achieve our goals for aircraft, which is fast and versatile,” he said.

Sak said Reznikov also continues to lobby the United States and partner nations for pilot training. The initiative has support from members of Congress, who have recently increased pressure on the Biden administration. The House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes an amendment calling for $100 million to train Ukrainian pilots on American aircraft. The legislation does not specify the type of aircraft.

“It could be something like A-10s, as an example, which are a resource of ours that we have been saying fairly consistently that we need less and less of,” Air Force veteran Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) recently told Air Force Magazine.

Houlahan is one of the lawmakers calling on the Biden administration to support pilot training, something Sak said can be done before a decision is made on aircraft.

“Why not start training our pilots in advance? Advance training is a very important issue so that we don’t lose time,” Sak explained. “So that by the time the political decision is made, we have pilots ready to fly those jets.”

Both Austin and Milley acknowledged at a July 20 briefing that pilot training had been discussed with Ukraine, but they said no decision had been made. A Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson previously told Air Force Magazine it has 30 pilots ready for training, and the Ukrainian Air Force expects that the experienced aviators could learn how to fly F-16s in six months.

The Ukrainian Air Force’s affinity for the F-16 as the fighter jet of choice for its future fleet remains clear as the country continues to press for air power to change the course of the conflict with Russia.

“F-16s are still something that our pilots dream about. F-16s are a global symbol of the aviation might and force,” Sak said. “We really hope that our pilots will be able to fly some of them to protect our country and show the world that Ukraine is a modern Army capable of protecting the whole of Europe.”

SDA Pushes Industry to Embrace ‘True Standards‘ for Satellites

July 22, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—As the Space Development Agency looks to capitalize on innovation from the fast-expanding commercial space market, its leaders have said they want to constantly have open competitions for the tranches of new satellites projected for every two years.

Already, the agency has selected five contractors—Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, York Space Systems, L3Harris, and SpaceX—across Tranches 0 and 1 for the Tracking and Transport layers, splitting the contracts each time in a bid to avoid so-called “vendor lock.”

But the SDA’s approach isn’t just increasing competition. It’s also helping to shape common standards across satellites that are much needed and could have far-reaching effects, a top commercial space executive told Air Force Magazine.

Indeed, the interoperability that SDA’s approach requires will represent a significant opportunity for the industry, Johnathon Caldwell, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s military space division, said in an exclusive interview at Farnborough International Airshow.

“One of the big things it’s challenged all of industry to do is to get down to common standards,” Caldwell said of SDA’s award. “When we talk about crosslinks, when we talk about how we will all get launched on the same rocket, it forces a healthy dialogue about coming to true standards.

“When you’re only doing one or two satellites in a constellation of three or four … you can kind of size the problem. We’re talking about proliferated [low-Earth orbit], we’re going to be getting into the multiple hundreds of satellites.”

Indeed, SDA has already awarded contracts for more than 180 satellites as part of the initial two layers, and Lockheed Martin is responsible for a little more than 50 of them. With the cost of launches decreasing, the commercial space sector has experienced rapid growth.

At the same time, a lack of norms and rules in the domain have created a “wild, wild West,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond has said. Even within the Pentagon, standards for things such as cybersecurity for commercial SATCOM providers have been slow to roll out. And leaders have emphasized the need for more proliferation and interoperability, as opposed to the smaller number of so-called “exquisite” satellites built and launched in the past.

“Years ago, you might be designing a product for a particular service, and they might have unique needs that they’re very focused on getting … met,” Caldwell said. “We’re very responsive to our customers, responsive to the pressures they feel in their service. And that might have happened in stovepipes. And so you have systems that were developed that didn’t necessarily have interconnectivity.”

That’s all changed with SDA—and Caldwell sees the impact going beyond it, especially in an area such as data transport, which will likely be key to enabling the Pentagon’s hugely ambitious joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) effort.

“We see the future of transport as not just what SDA is doing, but the idea that those transport satellites will most likely talk to things like GPS. They will talk to things like [Advanced Extremely High Frequency]. There’ll be this entire mesh tapestry, if you will, of data transport, where the data—you really don’t have to define the path. The data will find its own way to the user who’s pulling for it,” Caldwell said. “And so these SDA contracts are providing the opportunity for industry to define those real standards so that they become kind of the DNA of how we’re designing, rather than an afterthought.”

Caldwell’s vision would entail satellites from different orbits connecting and communicating data—a view shaped by his belief that low Earth orbit, where the vast majority of satellites reside, is at risk of becoming overcrowded. It’s a belief that more and more experts are coming around to.

“There’s a growing awareness that you can’t just stick 30,000, 40,000, …100,000, 200,000 things in orbit,” Caldwell said. “Even if you break them up into different little shells, it’s going to get crowded.”

Even beyond the crowding issue, there are advantages to different orbits, Caldwell said.

“There’s always going to be a place in every layer for the right type of system,” Caldwell said. “And I think we’re kind of slowly coming around to that idea that OK, it’s really an integrated architecture we need. … LEO is like the super cool beach real estate right now, but not everybody wants to live on the beach. Some people want to live in the mountains. And we’ll get there. I think there’s a healthy dialogue right now.”

It’s not just data transport that could benefit from a multi-orbit approach, either. Caldwell said a recent Mitchell Institute report arguing for such an approach for missile tracking and warning “resonated” with him.

“I think people want the easy button, and so they want to say we can just do everything from LEO. And while I appreciate that people want easy solutions, supporting missile tracking and ultimately getting to the place of taking care of the missiles that are a threat to you, there’s no easy button,” Caldwell said. “I wish there was an easy button, but we’re firm believers that it takes a fully integrated architecture to get after a problem as hard as missile tracking and warning.”

Boeing Says It’s Ready to Help USAF ‘Accelerate‘ Delivery of E-7 Ahead of 2027 Timeline

July 22, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.—The Air Force’s aging E-3 Sentry fleet is on its last legs. The service has already asked in the 2023 budget to retire half the fleet, and its replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail, has been selected.

But now, lawmakers and observers are asking a new question: How quickly can the Wedgetail actually be delivered? The Air Force has said the first prototypes will be delivered by 2027—but Boeing, the contractor behind the airframe, says it is ready to help accelerate that process.

“There’s a lot of options, and we’d be happy to explore those with the U.S. Air Force,” Tim Flood, Boeing’s senior regional director of international business development for Europe and the Americas, told reporters at the Farnborough International Airshow when asked about the possibility of getting the Wedgetails into service faster.

The urgency to replace the E-3 is nothing new. Gen. Mark D. Kelly, head of Air Combat Command, said in October 2021 that he wanted the wanted the E-7 in the fleet “two years ago.” The degraded state of the E-7 fleet has made it such that it requires a “Herculean” effort just to keep mission capable rates around 50 percent, he added.

The airframe is so old and unreliable, there is already a capability gap, meaning retiring much of the fleet before the E-7 is ready won’t incur more risk than already exists, Gen. David S. Nahom, former deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, told Congress in May.

Yet at the same time, acquisition officials say they have moved fast in the process to select the Wedgetail but that they will not “rush” the process to get it into the fleet.

The current plan calls for funding for two “rapid prototypes,” one each in 2023 and 2024, followed by a production decision in 2025, two full years before the prototypes are delivered in 2027.

Members of Congress have expressed concerns about that timeline, pressing Air Force leaders on the possibility of moving those dates up. In May, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it takes two years to build the airframes, based on Boeing’s 737 Next Generation aircraft, and another two years to modify them, and that the U.S. may be stuck behind other customers with their order. Still, he left the door open that “there are things that we could do … to maybe get access to aircraft earlier one way or another.”

The Air Force has reportedly already decided, however, that it won’t pursue one of those potential ways. According to multiple media reports, Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary for acquisition, recently said the service will likely not look to buy used 737s and adapt them, a route taken by the Royal Air Force.

Yet even with that option off the table, Flood indicated that Boeing could still find ways to get the E-7s to the Air Force faster.

“First of all, the capacity to deal with 737 [Next Generations] is strong … So to incorporate the modification program, there is capacity there to accelerate,” Flood told reporters. “We will talk to the U.S. Air Force about how fast they want to move and how to … find ways to increase the schedule.”

Flood added that Boeing’s Renton, Wash., facility that manufactures 737s for military use would be able to increase production, based on customer demand. In addition to the E-7, Boeing’s P-8 Poseidon aircraft is based on the 737.