Part 2: Q&A With Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom on the Future Fleets

April 15, 2022 | By Tobias Naegele and Abraham Mahshie

Air Force Magazine Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele and Pentagon Editor Abraham Mahshie sat down with Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, for an exclusive interview that touched on everything from the the Next Generation Air Dominance platform to the Air Force’s plans to replace the aging AWACS fleet.

This is Part 2 of that interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Air Force Magazine: If you didn’t have to fund that big nuclear modernization thing all out of your budget, what would that do to the rest of the plan?

Nahom: Well, it’s more money.

Air Force Magazine: It’s a lot more money. It would change everything if you didn’t have to …

Nahom: I mean, there’s a lot of things. But it’s our duty as the Air Force to make sure we have that two-thirds of the nuclear arsenal. And so, there’s a lot of things I could wish for, but obviously, more [budget] is probably No. 1.

Air Force Magazine: Well, that’s kind of where I’m going. Do you think that the Air Force really needs a much bigger check?

Nahom: Well, I’ll let you ask leadership that one. I mean, obviously, if you have more money, you’re not making as tough resource decisions if you have more money. I mean, that’s obvious. But the nation gives our Air Force a lot of money to equip our Airmen and our force. It’s not up to me completely, but as the A-8, it’s up to me to be part of the process to make sure that we do our best with the resources we’re given.

Air Force Magazine: So you’re investing a lot in NGAD, almost $2 billion. It’s a family of systems, you used the term yourself. Who are the members of that family? In the back of your SUV, how many, what does that family look like?

Nahom: It’s hard to get into specifics. I probably have to get back to you on that and find out exactly what I can and can’t say. I want to make sure that we don’t discuss anything classified or pre-decisional.

But the intent is … Air dominance—air superiority—is the American way of war. Our Joint Force assumes we have it. And the only people that are going to give them air superiority is the U.S. Air Force. That’s what we do. And as warfare changes, especially when you look at what a conflict would be like in the South China Sea, we’re going to have to continue to evolve.

I’ll tell you, one thing is interesting: If you look at our fighter platforms from development, we’ve never developed a fighter with the ranges of the Pacific in mind. And so this would be a first. Really everything, including the F-35, has been designed with Europe in mind. And Europe ranges are a lot different. So I think it’ll be a fascinating time as we continue to develop out what our air dominance, air superiority is going to look like in the future.

Air Force Magazine: And that’s a built-in part of the NGAD requirement?

Nahom: Well, I won’t say it like that, but I’ll just say that our leadership has said, we have a pacing challenge, and it’s in that part of the world, and we have to make sure that we, as an Air Force, are equipped. And the days of taking off out of your airfield and declaring air superiority over your airfield are probably not here. Probably, you’re going to go quite a distance and have to do that and then get quite a distance to get back, and you’re probably going to be in contested airspace. So it’s a different-looking problem set.

Air Force Magazine: Do you know, by chance, what it would have cost to upgrade the F-22 fleet that’s instead going away?

Nahom: I’ll check and see if we can share that. But you know, you have to wait. You’re looking at fifth-generation combat power. We have a fifth-generation airplane coming off the assembly line right now. And so you have to make decisions. Do you want to do this, or do you want to buy more F-35s? Because you’re not going to do both. And so I think we made a good risk, a good financial decision about putting the oldest F-22s in the boneyard while we modernize the majority of the fleet, and we make sure we keep our eyes on the future.

Air Force Magazine: And then how do you continue training the pilots for those F-22s?

Nahom: Well, it’s interesting, and I came out of the F-22, so I understand the difference between the two airplanes—the block 20s, which are the aircraft we’re retiring, to the Block 30, 35, which are our front-line fighters.

Because of the nature of the hardware and software in those airplanes, the difference [between] them is getting greater and greater over time, because we keep putting more capability on the operational Raptors that’s not being put on the training ones, because they don’t have the capacity. … And so what you’re finding is the students that go through the school, you learn on an airplane, [and] you really have to relearn a lot of things when you get to your operational units.

And we’ve gone through this over time. I mean, when I first started out, I went through my first F-15 school in the F-15A, and when I got to my operational unit, the F-15C, it was like almost a complete restart. You’ll see this in the F-16s as well—you see a big difference in the training airplanes.

You try to minimize it as best you can, so when a young kid goes through the training, when they show up to their operational unit, it’s a quick top-off, and they’re off to the races. It’s not that way with the Raptor right now. So, what we’re going to do is … we’re going to take some of those Block 30/35s and turn them into a training unit, and it will be able to train [students] at a higher level. And so you’ll have a much more full-up round when the young pilot shows up at his or her operational unit.

Air Force Magazine: Can I follow up on a couple points on the EX that you mentioned? Was part of the decision to go with the F-15EX that you can get them faster than F-35s? And then on the South China Sea, protecting our interests out there, does the EX work better for those needs?

Nahom: When the chief outlined the four-fighter fleet, we talked a lot about the F-15 platform. And I’ll say it like that, because the way in which we would use an F-15EX and the way we would use an F-15E would be pretty comparable. They’re obviously similar airframes, similar OFP, as well as they’re going to carry similar weapons. The advantage of an F-15 platform is the ability to carry some outsize weapons that you [wouldn’t] necessarily put internal into a fifth-gen airplane.

It also carries a lot of weapons and a lot of gas, which gives you an advantage in certainly critical infrastructure protection in permissive areas. Think homeland defense, point defense. Think of your ability to protect and defend, and doing a mission that you don’t necessarily need a fifth-generation airplane. So you kind of almost think of it as like a truck. It can haul some things. We don’t need a large fleet of them. And I think you’ll see in our budget, we’re not going after a large fleet. But I think the Air Force is going to find that platform very useful, not only in permissive environments and defending, but also in its ability to carry outsize weapons and its contributions into the high-end fight.

Air Force Magazine: So let’s go back to NGAD. You’re talking about fifth-generation or sixth-generation capabilities. The plan is to still have the F-35 as the backbone fifth-generation capability. What about fifth-generation weapons? We keep hearing this come up: We need fifth-generation weapons to go with a fifth-generation aircraft. What does that mean?

Nahom: We are certainly invested in … much improved—I won’t say fifth-generation, let’s not put a generation on it, I don’t want to define something here today. But let’s say much improved air-to-air weapons that are comparable with our platforms. We’re also investing in a lot of air-to-surface weapons that are improved and comparable with our weapons as well. We can check and see if we can give you specifics on what those are.

… I think you’ve heard [Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly] say that you can’t run around with fifth-generation platforms and third-generation weapons.

Air Force Magazine: That’s really what I was driving it. So what do you do in advance of that?

Nahom: We are certainly invested in them. This is one of those trade-offs, too, because you want the stockpiles if you have a conflict today, but you also want to be invested in the advanced weapons for tomorrow. And I think you’ll see in our budget a pretty good measurement between those two. But I’ll tell you, we have a lot of discussion on that, certainly with OSD and CAPE and the other services, because we invest in weapons as a Joint Force. Certainly the Navy and Air Force platforms carry the same weapons, and that’s how Americans would want that. So we work very closely with our Navy counterparts to make sure that we’re adhering to the stockpiles we need if something should happen near-term and making sure we are adjusting with the times, let’s just say.

Air Force Magazine: Well this includes there, again, the range issue. Is the [AIM-260 JATM] long range?

Nahom: It is, yeah. Ranges are always gonna be a factor. Going forward, I’ll tell you, the Air Force is committed to making sure we have the open-air ranges we need. Our features are obviously the NTTR—the Nellis Test and Training Range—and the JPARC up in Alaska. There’s other ranges. … You’re going to see a big push in the Gulf Coast, because we’re putting a lot of F-35s in the Gulf Coast, so you want to make sure that they have the ability to train there.

But the big thing, when you look at training to that level, we also have to adhere to the virtual. We have to make sure we have the virtual environment that’s needed, so our crews can train to the highest … threats, because you’re not always going to have the open-air ranges. You’re not always going to have the adversary air and the weapons and the things you need in open-air ranges. So we’ve got to adequately augment it with the correct virtual environment. And we are correctly invested in making sure we get that.

Air Force Magazine: And that’s been one of the holdups really for F-35, right?

Nahom: In the joint simulation, yeah. And that’s a big part of us, because that virtual environment they’re building is certainly something we can build upon for training as well.

Pilots still need to fly—that’s a big part of readiness. But they also need to be overwhelmed and challenged and have the threat densities that aren’t always available in open air. I would love to declare the UTTR over Salt Lake City and the Nellis one big range and tell all airlines to go away for about an hour, but I just don’t see that in the cards.

[Laughter.]

Air Force Magazine: You also have a challenge, though, just exercising some of the capability on that airplane that you can theoretically only simulate without giving away its [capabilities].

Nahom: No, I mean, we’ll find places to make sure we test weapons. We will adequately test weapons. But obviously, there are some things you’re going to have to simulate. But you know, there’s also a piece of it—why do we still have WSEP? Because sometimes a simulation works too good, and it’s nice to know where the imperfections are in the system and test them. And I think we, as an Air Force, do that better … than any air force in the world.

Air Force Magazine: So I want to talk about the [AIM-260 JATM] again, because Gen. Wilsbach talked about China in that context at AWS just recently. So does that buy back some capability? Does that create for us a new counter threat? Will it buy back some of the edge that the Chinese have with the PL-15?

Nahom: The 260 is a wonderful weapon, and we’re really looking forward to getting it in service. I think when you mix that with our platforms, certainly the Raptor and the enhancements we’re putting into the F-22, that is going to help us keep our advantage. But we can’t stop, because our adversaries aren’t stopping. And that’s why you see our investments in things like NGAD and moving past that. But we’re very excited about the upgrades we’re making to the F-22 and excited about integrating the JTAM onto that platform.

Air Force Magazine: So ACE, can we talk a little bit about ACE? I think there was some discussion yesterday about investing in pre-positioning and so on. Really ACE is about this ability to be instantly mobile and get anywhere quickly. So pre-positioning is almost a misnomer in a sense.

Nahom: People talk about ACE and logistics under attack, and they kind of almost talk about them in the same sense. I like to separate them out. And that might be a little too simple, but when I think about logistics under attack, I do think of pre-positioning, because if the stuff is already there, I don’t have to bring it into the theater. That simplifies my logistics problem if it’s already there. So I think there is an aspect of that.

But everything comes with balance. If you’re going to pre-position everything, and you’ve got a couple of theaters, you have to buy two of everything. And we don’t necessarily, as a nation, want to buy two of everything.

Air Force Magazine: You might have to buy three of them, or four.

Nahom: We hope not. But I think there’s got to be a balance. I think there’s some things we should put forward. If it’s heavy and cheap, and a host nation is OK with us stockpiling it there, or we have a facility, let’s do it. If it’s expensive, exquisite, and small, and we can move it quickly, maybe we don’t want to commit that to one theater and have to buy two or three.

And so I think there’s certainly a balance, and we’re looking at what that is, because the days of having months to build that U.S. iron mountain are probably not there with the way modern warfare is. So we’ve just got to balance it.

When I think of ACE, we have to have the ability to be able to operate, not from one or two or three large footprints in a theater, but maybe operate from many, many places and much smaller, offering up a much more difficult problem to our adversaries. Operate in places they don’t expect us, operate from many places, and be able to move and be agile when we do it.

Air Force Magazine: So that’s why the pre-positioning thing seems to be kind of counterintuitive, because you’ve got small groups, they can’t all come from the same place.

Nahom: I mean, there’s places that you wish some things were there, I tell you, one of the hardest things to move is fuel. If you could tell me where we could possibly be, and I could count on there being gas there all the time, I’d say sign me up. But it’s one of the heavier and more difficult things we move in a theater. In a place like the Pacific, it’s not going to be as prevalent as it is in places like Europe or even the Middle East and all the places we fly in and out of. So could there be some pre-positioning? You would like that.

Air Force Magazine: And that’s the sort of thing…

Nahom: It’s just not everything. You can’t put everything forward. But there could be some things you put forward and are there waiting for you. But I think the the ACE piece, though—the ability to jump in maybe to a large location and then spoke out to smaller locations or come right into smaller locations and operate out of many areas where an adversary may not have expect us, and in much smaller footprints where you’re not as vulnerable and maybe not as attractive to target, because you’re not as vulnerable, and still be able to operate.

I’ll tell you, I’ve done it before. … It’s not easy. And so we say, ‘Oh, yeah, just take four jets over there, six over there.’ Let me tell you right now, when you split up a maintenance package. …

Air Force Magazine: Because now you don’t have the specialist you need, you don’t have the quality of the equipment you need …

Nahom: You know, it’s amazing, you start finding your limitations. I mean, I remember operating out of the Pacific, we were operating out of several locations for training for different exercises. And I remember them asking me, and I was the ops group commander down at Kadena at the time, they’re asking me, ‘What’s the long pull—what are you missing?’ I go, ‘Seven level avionics maintainers.’ I only had enough for three locations. I had enough jets for like six locations. But three of those locations were not going to have the right avionics specialists. So if something broke, it was going to stay broke.

And so these are things you start thinking through when you start operating out of many places—what is that long pull? And it may be a certain thing, and you may be putting a crew chief on an airplane with a small part. It’s really fascinating. You see it in the Pacific, because not only do you have great distances, you don’t necessarily have great transportation between those great distances. The ways you can get around Europe are amazing—road, rail, small planes, large planes, shoot, discount airlines. You name it, you can get around.

Air Force Magazine: When you mentioned fuel, it got me thinking about, are there some Pacific Deterrence Initiative dollars going into maybe building up some partner?

Nahom: I don’t want to get into the details of PDI. But obviously, we’re investing, and we’re investing in our facilities over there and making sure that we can ACE in many locations, but I’ll leave it at that. I want to be careful with what I say.

Air Force Magazine: Can you help me understand the bridge … how the tanker shortfall that’s coming and pre-positioning fuel can help that?

Nahom: What tanker shortfall?

Air Force Magazine: I guess when you start to retire some KC-10s before the KC-46s all come online?

Nahom: No, the KC-10s are actually divesting pretty commensurate with the KC-46 bed down. In fact, if we don’t retire some KC-10s, we’re going to have parking location problems, because some of the places—McGuire is probably the perfect example—we’ve got to be careful, there’s not enough ramp space for the KC-46s coming in if I don’t get some KC-10s out.

So I think, actually, the KC-10 is on a really good profile. And we need to leave it there. We’re at a nice couple-year divestment plan for it. We’re taking care of the jets at the end. We’re taking care of the crews. We’re transitioning. We’re transitioning the missions, and the two locations we’re going into where the KC-10s are coming out, McGuire and Travis, are doing great. We’re really excited about getting the new capability in there.

The KC-135 is a little different. We’re going to retire some KC-135s this year, as you saw. One of the things we want to make sure we keep on track is we’re investing a lot of money in air refueling. In fact, we’re investing more in the air refueling enterprise this year than we did last year—we actually increased funding. The No. 1 thing we can do is keep the recapitalization of our tankers fleet on track. Right now, that’s KC-46. So we’ve got to keep the KC-46. I’ll tell you, that was challenging. When you look at all the challenges I had this year with resources, that was one of the challenges, to make sure we keep KC-46 on track, and we did. And we, as a nation, just need to keep going. Because when we get to the end of the KC-46 buy and we start looking at KC-Y and beyond, the KC-135s on the ramp were still built in 1960 and ’61. So it’s important to keep going,

Air Force Magazine: You’re getting rid of a lot of AWACS: half the fleet. And I suppose half the fleet wasn’t working anyway.

Nahom: Well, I think first AWACS has served our nation extremely well. But you know, it’s a 707 on a very old engine, and the maintenance challenges—the two big things for the E-3 fleet [are] the maintenance challenges as well as the capability. There’s capabilities out there it just doesn’t possess because of the age of the system. It’s time to move on. And so what we need to do is, we need to divest some to free up the resources so we can invest in a replacement. And so all that money’s going into a replacement platform, and we are going to get at that as quickly as possible.

Air Force Magazine: So Wedgetail, presumably …

Nahom: Right now, we’re looking very hard at Wedgetail. Wedgetail has got an advantage, because it’s got the capability we want. It’s a new airframe, so it’s going to have the maintainability that we would want. We’ve got some partner nations flying it—the Royal Air Force is ordering them right now. So it’s a hot line. So it’s externally very attractive.

What we’re doing right now, we’re doing a very quick study with industry to make sure there’s not other things out there that would match that capability. And then our plan is to get after pretty quickly. But we have to do due diligence to make sure there’s not anything else out there with industry that would meet our requirements.

Air Force Magazine: So let’s say, best case, you settle on that hot line. It’s still five years or so before you have an airplane. So what do you do for that five, seven years that you’re without half of a fleet that has been in pretty high demand?

Nahom: It’s in high demand, but it’s also stressed and challenged. So I think we have to be realistic with where we are with that fleet. But there’s also some risk involved. And just like many of our fighter fleets are going to go down in numbers before we can get them back up, we just believe we have to commit to recapitalize this fleet and get after it.

In current resources, there’s just not a path to do it without taking some decrement in capacity in the near term. There’s just not a path. You’d love that world where you can maintain capacity and bring the new system on and just keep going. It’s not there. It’s too much to maintain the old systems and invest in the new. And there’s not resources to do both at the same time.

Air Force Magazine: Is [airborne moving target indication] going to be a capability that’s sort of merged into that airplane?

Nahom: Right now the intention for what is going to replace E-3 is primarily getting after AMTI, the airborne moving target indicator system, the ability to see things moving through the air, and that’s all things moving through the air.

GMTI is very important, the ability to see things moving on the ground—we found it very valuable over the years. JSTARS is in the same boat, if you will, if not worse, just because of the age and the stress on that platform. GMTI is different because there’s other ways to get after it. We have other airborne platforms, as well as, without getting into the details, certainly, you’ve heard us discuss the potential for space-based capability. And I’ll leave it at that. We also have other platforms, we can mitigate some of the capacity, the RQ-4 Block 40. And there’s some other joint platforms, too.

We will continue to mitigate the GMTI while we get to the next phase, but when you look at GMTI, when you look at some of the opportunities, they’re not there with AMTI. We certainly feel, at least in the interim, we have to go back after another airborne platform like an E-7, potentially.

Air Force Magazine: Space would not be an answer?

Nahom: Right now we’re not looking at that. We’re looking at least what we could call a bridging solution. But we have to get to a more maintainable modern platform that can do the mission that’s expected. And we’ve flown, obviously, alongside E-7s for years with our Australian allies. And we’re very impressed with the performance of that airplane. So obviously, again, we’re looking at it, but we have to do due diligence with industry.

Air Force Magazine: The B-21, you started out, they wanted 80. Then they wanted 100, then they wanted 120, then 145.

Nahom: Obviously we’re going to a two-bomber fleet. So we’ll get to the B-21 and the modified B-52. My focus as your A-8 right now is making sure we have the resources applied so we get the B-21 development, and we get [these] B-52 modifications moving. Because I’ll tell you, the B-21 is doing wonderful. It’s going to be a great airplane, a great capability for our nation.

The B-52 is a pretty complex undertaking, and you’re taking an old platform, you’re making it a new platform. And so how we manage that over the years, with taking airplanes offline so we can modify it with new motors and new internal software and hardware [while keeping] enough capacity for near-term conflict is going to be a challenge.

But the B-21. I would say the final number is not settled. But right now the focus, just like anything, is, let’s keep this development moving. The program’s doing well. And I think you heard Mr. Walden and others say we’re going to fly it relatively soon, which should be pretty exciting.

Air Force Magazine: So there’s also an unmanned bomber?

Nahom: Yeah, I don’t want to get into the ACPs, the collaborative platforms, just yet, because I’m not sure what we can or can’t say yet.

But obviously, you know we’ve been experimenting with unmanned systems in different ways than we have in the past with MQ-9s and MQ-1s and others. So we’re doing a lot of RDT&E and experimentation on what that looks like in the future, because all platforms that we use in a high end conflict, may or may not be crewed.

Air Force Magazine: Well, it comes back to this idea of a family of systems. Are you anticipating—like NGAD is going to be a family of systems—is B-21 going to be a bit of a family of systems as well?

Nahom: If you look at the Secretary’s [operational imperatives], that’s exactly what we’re looking at. And I think right now, as we’re looking at the operational imperatives, is what exactly does that look like? And there’s some exciting technology out there. Whether we can get after it and get it in a manner where we can get military utility out of it in long-range strike or in that air dominance role is what the experimentation is all about.

Air Force Academy Separates 22 Cadets for Cheating

April 15, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force Academy has separated 22 students and put 210 on probation as a result of the widespread cheating scandal in the spring of 2020, the Academy’s superintendent told its Board of Visitors on April 13.

All told, almost every disciplinary case from the incident has now been resolved, according to a presentation from Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark. Of the 245 Cadets implicated in the cheating, 232 have now been punished; seven were determined to have committed no violation; three had their cases dropped; and three are either on hold or have a decision pending.

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first began to spread across the U.S., USAFA sent freshmen, sophomores, and juniors home, pivoting to distance learning for the first time.

But that presented opportunities for students to game the system.

“We had some that were using unauthorized websites, some that plagiarized on papers, some that collaborated on tests when they weren’t authorized to do so. It wasn’t just one group. It was just a bunch of different actions that we were made aware of,” Clark said in response to a question from Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), himself a retired USAF brigadier general.

Most of those suspected of cheating admitted to their actions—all told, 231 confessed.

The disciplinary process, however, unfolded slowly as the school waited for students—who run the process of holding fellow cadets accountable for honor code violations—to return to campus for the fall semester before taking punitive measures. By January 2021, only one student had been expelled, and another had resigned.

At the same time, the academy undertook a reassessment of its honor code and policies, Clark said.

“The real action here, though, is the action we took afterward as a team, to take a look at our honor code, but also to take a look at: How are we developing them to live honorably and helping our Cadets understand the importance of that,” said Clark.

In February 2021, USAFA organized an honor code design sprint including Cadets, alumni, and other members of the academy to consider that issue. The group came up with three main themes to address.

“First, we realized that we weren’t emphasizing the ‘why’—why is this important that our Cadets own the mantra of living honorably?” Clark said. “ … We realized there was a lack of trust in the system, that they didn’t see the consistency in the way the honor code was administered. … And then, lack of intentional development. We were doing a fairly good job of development, but maybe it wasn’t in the right place and the right amounts in the right place.”

Looking to address those issues, the academy has increased staffing and curriculum for the honor system and updated and clarified parts of the honor code.

The early returns thus far have been promising—the number of honor code violations in the 2021-2022 school year, less than a month from final exams, is at its lowest point in more than a decade, after reaching a new high last year, according to data from Clark’s presentation.

This isn’t the first time a large number of Cadets have been forced out after cheating. In 2007, 18 students were either expelled or separated. In 1965, 105 Cadets were booted for cheating or for stealing and selling test papers. There have been other recent probes into cheating in 2019 and 2017.

Brown: KC-Y and KC-Z Likely Traditional Tankers; NGAD Has the Range ‘to Go Where it Needs to Go’

April 15, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force probably won’t pursue some exotic approach for the KC-Y and KC-Z tranches of the service’s aerial refueling tanker modernization plan, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said. The KC-46, “tweaked” with upgrades, can likely do the job, he reported.

At a March 25 fiscal 2023 budget rollout briefing, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said, “I want to be very transparent about this: I think that there’s still a possibility of a competition out there” for the KC-Y and KC-Z programs, “but as we’ve looked at our requirements, the likelihood of a competition has come down.”

Brown, meeting with defense reporters on April 12, said he concurred with Kendall’s comment.

“I do somewhat agree with him,” Brown said. Going through “the developmental piece” of a new approach to the KC-Y “may take more time [and] more money,” and this outlay is probably unnecessary because the KC-46, despite its deficiencies, “is doing fairly well,” Brown said. He added that in most scenarios, the KC-46 provides a better than one-for-one capability replacement for the KC-135.

“So part of the question is, do we go straight to the KC-Z?” Brown said.

The last three heads of Air Mobility Command have speculated that the KC-Z might be a significant departure from the modified-airliner approach taken with the KC-135, KC-10, and, overseas, with the KC-30 and KC-767 tankers. They have speculated that it might possibly be a stealthy platform that could operate inside an enemy’s air defense zone.

Brown brushed that notion aside, however, saying the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, intended to operate inside an enemy integrated air defense system (IADS), will have “the range to go where it needs to go” and that an escort tanker is probably not needed. Brown specifically said, “I wouldn’t call [KC-Z] an escort tanker.”

Still, the Air Force is reassessing the KC-Z, which in initial plans would have replaced the KC-10 with a comparably sized tanker larger than the KC-135 or KC-46.

Lockheed Martin has a partnership with Airbus to offer an Americanized KC-30 Multi-Role Tanker Transport to the Air Force, under the name “LMXT,” that would incorporate a number of new technologies, including probable autonomous boom operation. Lockheed Martin is specifically targeting the KC-Y contest, the initial requirements for which could call for a longer-ranged platform. The MRRT is about 40 percent larger than the KC-46.

Brown wondered if the KC-Z requirement is “still valid, based on the threat—based on what we know [about] how the KC-46 is doing? I think it’s worth looking at [whether] Z [should be] the way we originally thought it was going to be.”

Studies undertaken during the last administration’s Air Force acquisition executive, Will Roper, explored wither the boom operator could be eliminated on tankers and replaced with an autonomous lidar remote-sensing system, Brown said. Noting that cars are being offered with hands-free driving, Brown wondered, “Could you do that on a tanker? It potentially could change what the tanker requirements are.”

In the grand scheme of things, though, “I’d say a tanker’s a tanker, depending on how big it is, how much gas it carries, where it can go, where it can land,” Brown said. “And those are the things we do have to think about. And how you protect it, and what communications suite it has on it.”

The KC-Y and Z tankers would differ from the KC-46 in having “additional self-protection” capabilities and serve as a communication node, he noted.

Brown also said Air Mobility Command has been quietly operating KC-46s in Europe “for the last month or so” and planned to keep them there through about April 22. Gen. Mike Minihan, AMC commander, “did that so they’d have some operational deployment and wring out some things,” Brown said, noting that “when you deploy, you learn things … Crawl, walk, run—and they’re running.” The KC-46s are “able to do quite a bit of stuff to support the operation in Europe right now,” Brown asserted.

The KC-46s are not yet considered operational due to continued deficiencies with the Remote Vision System that allows the boom operator to see what’s happening at the back end of the aircraft. But the airplanes are certified for a secondary mobility mission and can do air refueling if needed. The KC-46 has been certified to refuel about 70 percent of the aircraft planned for it.

Asked why aerial refueling capacity is no longer the liability it was described as three years ago, Brown acknowledged that the end of overwatch and strike operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has relieved some of the tanker burden. But he also said AMC has “new tools” that allow the tanker inventory to be more efficiently tasked and managed.

“When I was the air component commander for CENTCOM,” Brown said, “we were still doing tanker planning on a white board.” When U.S. Transportation Command and AMC “came in and said, ‘We want to take some tankers,’” Brown declined because “I don’t have the analysis and data to be able to show that I can let these tankers go home.” The subsequent introduction of planning tools fixed that situation, he said.

“By using the data, I think we’re smarter about how we’re going to be able to do things,” he said.

NATO Scrambling More Often in Response to Russian Jets Near Poland

April 14, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

WARSAW, Poland— Russia is increasingly harassing NATO aircraft near Polish air space, reinforcing the need for both Polish and NATO air policing, including various U.S. Air Force assets, a senior Polish Air Force official told Air Force Magazine.

“The current situation brings more tension—more risk—and it’s definitely more serious for the whole NATO community,” Polish Chief of the Air Force Directorate Brig. Gen. Ireneusz Nowak said via videoconference.

Nowak said Russian Su-35s, Su-27s, and MiG-29s from Belarus have approached Polish air space multiple times since the invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s a rather frequent situation,” Nowak said. “Fighters are scrambled twice or three times from the [quick reaction alert] typically in 24 hours, so that’s a lot.”

Russian air defense systems also track NATO aircraft.

“Whatever they have, they flew here,” he said. “There are a variety of threats.”

Nowak said Russia is also keeping its airborne early warning and control aircraft, the Beriev A-50, airborne at all times.

Russia’s mounting combat jet presence near Polish air space bordering the Baltics and Belarus in recent months was met early by U.S. deployments from RAF Lakenheath, U.K., and Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, beginning the first week of February, prior to the Feb. 24 invasion. NATO partners Germany and the United Kingdom also joined the effort.

Even with the NATO plus-up on aircraft, Russia is testing the air space and the NATO response time.

“They harass us,” Nowak said. “They force us to scramble, and they force us to intercept them.”

Poland keeps four quick reaction alert aircraft—two MiG-29s and two F-16s—ready for air policing.

Polish skies border the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to the north and Belarus to the east. Poland also has a border with Ukraine to its southeast, but Russian jets battling Ukraine have yet to venture so close to NATO airspace, choosing instead to fire cruise and hypersonic missiles from Russian territory at Ukrainian targets near the Polish border.

“We put a lot of effort currently into this air policing system,” Nowak said. “The problem for us is that, with relatively small airports like we have, and we have a small fighter fleet, its exhausting for us, so we cannot rotate like you can.”

Poland’s need is urgent, and it is rooted in what Poland perceives as a weak response by NATO to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s incursion in Ukraine in 2014.

“This time, there is a very sober awareness that our reaction must be very decisive,” he said.

In turn, Poland has taken on tremendous risk, hosting 10,500 allied troops in addition to 24/7 air patrol and surveillance.

“We have a very busy air domain recently,” Nowak said.

“We reacted as required, and we postured as required,” he added. “We showed the adversaries that we are ready, and we are not going to back off.”

U.S. and Poland both fly F-16s, and all Polish pilots flying American aircraft train in the United States. However, the quick response did not come without operational shortcomings.

“We have discovered some operational gaps due to the fact that we are quite a young NATO country,” Nowak said. “So, we catch up with the U.S. Air Force capabilities.”

U.S. Air Force fighters patrol Poland’s skies alongside the Polish Air Force, plugging into a complex network of American, Polish, and NATO systems under NATO Air Command that initially took a week to work through, Nowak admitted, before the air picture could be shared properly. The so-called Enhanced Air Policing missions have brought regular rotations of U.S. fighters from across Europe, including Air Force F-16s and F-35s, and Marine Corps F/A-18s.

Poland’s adoption of American techniques, tactics, and procedures along with joint training and education have made the deployments smooth.

“One day American Airmen [arrive] here, the next day they can generate operational sorties,” he said.

Russia has, in turn, used state-controlled media to build opposition to Poland and public support for an invasion of the Baltic States.

“Poland is perceived as a threat to Russia and also as a country which supports a strong U.S. presence here in Europe,” Nowak said. “For Poland, our special relationship with the U.S. Air Force is very important. It’s vital for us.”

USSF Starts All-Guardian Basic Training in May

April 14, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The first all-Guardian, Guardian-led flight of new recruits starts Space Force basic training in May to undertake a space-oriented curriculum that teaches space power and tries to instill a common culture.

The service will continue to rely on Air Education and Training Command at Joint Base San Antonio—Lackland, Texas, “for infrastructure and a lot of the support,” said Chief Master Sgt. James P. Seballes, the senior enlisted leader for the USSF’s Space Training and Readiness Command.

“Up until this point, [Guardians have] had a very similar Air Force experience going through basic training, but that will change in the summer,” he said.

Seballes and STARCOM’s commander Maj. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton took reporters’ questions during the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., on April 6.

Space Force’s staff development plan, “The Guardian Ideal,” provided some of the framework for the new curriculum, Seballe said.

“Within that document, we have our own core values now, and so core values will be something that will be taught. The identity that we hope that our Guardians aspire to become—and is part of the reason many of us came over to the Space Force in the first place—those kinds of things will be taught.”

Many of “the basic elements of basic training” that don’t apply to a given service, “those things will still be taught—PT, those kinds of things,” Seballes said.

Bratton compared what the command has in store for new Guardians with his experience going through Air Force basic training 35 years ago.

“We had to memorize all the different kinds of airplanes, a little bit on their capabilities,” Bratton recalled. “We learned about the heroes of air power—you know, Curtis LeMay, Jimmy Doolittle, and those folks in the history of air power. We want those same things but for space power: Who are the heroes of space power that we want Guardians to be familiar with? What are the systems that we fly, that we want our Guardians to know—both the blue and then the threats they represent.”

“The Air Force has different needs than we have,” Bratton continued. “The concepts are the same. We want to understand capabilities and breadth of those capabilities, but, you know, air domain threats are different than space domain threats.”

In addition to basic training, the Space Force has also made progress on its professional military education and has begun to address civilian professional development, Seballes said.

“And the last thing that is not just germane to STARCOM, but actually impacts the entire Space Force, is culture,” Seballes said. “We’re working on efforts specifically within STARCOM and how, through all those training arenas, do we make it to where it sticks and becomes a thing to help in that Guardian identity.”

US Patriot Air Defense Systems in Poland Protect Aircraft Delivering Supplies for Ukraine

April 14, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

RZESZOW, Poland—Just 62 miles from the Ukrainian border in Southeast Poland, a small regional airport has been converted to an international logistics hub where aircraft deliver defense and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. It is protected by American air defense systems.

Military and cargo aircraft from the United States and across Europe land, unload, and take off in quick succession here. Ukrainian registered cargo and military trucks line the gate waiting for their load, passing American Soldiers stationed next to Humvees. Then, they promptly stream down a nearby highway, over a hill, and out of sight in the direction of the Krakovets, Ukraine border crossing.

After Moscow promised to target defense assistance to Ukraine, the United States established an array of anti-aircraft, anti-missile systems, including Patriots, in Poland to protect this vital airfield and cargo transfer center. Camouflage netting covers command-and-control points scattered throughout. Even miles away, military equipment is strategically positioned on hilltops.

“It’s balanced risk,” Polish Chief of the Air Force Directorate Brig. Gen. Ireneusz Nowak told Air Force Magazine by videoconference from Warsaw.

“We are constantly at the edge of NATO, so we have this awareness that we face a full-scale threat from the Northeast,” he said, referring to Russia’s military positions in Kaliningrad and Belarus. “We cannot afford the situation [of] Ukraine losing the war.”

Russia’s heavily fortified ex-clave of Kaliningrad is situated between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.

There, Russia possesses a heavily fortified sliver of land, complete with advanced anti-access/aerial-denial S-400 systems that force Poland to fly daily within an A2/AD bubble.

On Poland’s eastern border is Belarus, which has allowed Russia to position its troops and equipment within its borders to mount an invasion. Should Russia take Ukraine, almost all of Poland’s eastern border save the 68-mile “Suwalki Gap” that connects Poland to the Baltic countries, would be in Russian control.

“If you imagine a situation [where] Ukraine were to lose this war, that would be very dangerous for us and for all of NATO because in that case, Russia would be closer,” Nowak said.

That’s why Poland is hosting an important defense logistics hub for Ukraine.

“The airfield in Rzeszow, located in Southeast Poland, is currently the hub for defense or humanitarian aid to Ukraine,” said Nowak.

On a recent sunny day, a C-130 cargo plane from the Turkish Air Force could be seen on the runway at Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport. As it unloaded, an Antonov An-12 run by the Ukrainian charter cargo company Cavok Air landed and pulled up next to it, departing within the hour.

The same afternoon, a C-130 bearing the red-white colors of Poland on its tail also landed and departed within an hour. So, too, did a British C-130, landing and departing within 30 minutes. A Ukraine International commercial jet also landed and parked alongside the military aircraft.

While no U.S. aircraft were spotted in a four-hour afternoon period at the airfield on April 12, Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said “roughly eight to 10” flights full of supplies and equipment for Ukraine, including advanced air defense and anti-tank weapons, arrive to Eastern Europe each day.

Although Nowak considers the possibility of a Russian strike on NATO soil targeting the defense logistics hub to be “low,” protecting against the possibility is necessary, he said.

Still, commercial flights come and go, and life in the city of Rzeszow carries on. The only signs of nearby war are the full hotels and shows of solidarity: Ukrainian and Polish flags flying side by side, yellow and blue ribbons fastened on the jackets of businessmen.

“In the most pessimistic scenarios, yes, they can strike us. That’s why we build this whole defense system over, I would say, vital points here in Poland,” Nowak said.

Poland received foreign military sales approval to purchase its own Patriots in 2017 but deliveries are not expected until later this year.

“The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army actually jumped in, and they brought Patriots to Poland,” said Nowak. “This place is actually very well protected.”

On March 25, President Joe Biden touched down at Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport, meeting with 82nd Airborne Division troops at the nearby G2A Arena. He praised humanitarian efforts and Poland’s acceptance of more than 2 million refugees from Ukraine.

Nowak said each time Russia has threatened, the U.S. Air Force has been the first to support Poland.

In 2014, after Russia invaded Crimea, some 200 miles from NATO’s shores, a U.S. Air Force A-10 squadron was the first unit to arrive.

“Even then, in 2014, eight years ago, we had this strong impression that the U.S. Air Force is a very reliable ally for us, the Polish Air Force,” he said.

On Feb. 10, two weeks before Russia’s invasion of of Ukraine, the 48th Fighter Squadron’s F-15Cs and F-15Ds from RAF Lakenheath, U.K., deployed to Poland’s central Lask Air Base to conduct enhanced Air Policing mission. The Air Force continues to rotate fighter aircraft through Polish Air Bases to conduct air policing.

“Nowadays, it’s an even stronger action from the U.S. Air Force,” Nowak said. “They support us, no matter what, no matter what the situation is, no matter what the risk is, and they show up as the first and they stay as required.”

What, Exactly, Is ‘Airmen’s Time’? The New Initiative, Explained

April 14, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A new initiative announced by Air Force leadership this week is aimed at leadership development and unit cohesion—and thus far, it has drawn mixed reactions on social media.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass took to Facebook on April 12 to release a memo detailing “Airmen’s Time.”

“The intent of Airmen’s Time is to create a safe space, be present, and ensure that our Air Force culture invites healthy conversation for every Airman,” states the memo, which is signed by Bass and Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.

The effort dovetails with the Air Force’s overhaul of how it develops its enlisted force. Under the new Enlisted Force Development Action Plan, released in January, the service aims to revise its “Little Blue Book” of Air Force Core Values and its “Little Brown Book” defining the enlisted force structure. The service also introduced “Airman Leadership Qualities,” new standards for assessing both enlisted and officers.

“Airmen’s Time” will further those efforts by pushing leaders to engage with their Airmen and help “elevate connection, growth, and enhance the well-being of individual Airmen while building unity within our teams,” the memo states.

“The concept of ‘Airmen’s Time’ certainly isn’t new—many units have been doing it for years,” Bass said in a statement provided to Air Force Magazine. “This memo is meant as a call to action for our leaders to ensure we are devoting the time needed to help deliberately develop our Airmen.”

What exactly that will look like, however, is going to be up to unit-level commanders.

“The ‘Airman’s Time’ initiative is part of our push to deliberately develop our Airmen, build that Airman of 2030 and beyond,” Master Sgt. Jarad A. Denton, public affairs advisor to the CMSAF, told Air Force Magazine. “And so as we’re deliberately developing our people, the team that’s working on that identified that, ‘Hey, we can’t just push out things saying, develop people here, do this, follow this program.’ You have to build leaders by allowing them to lead and ‘Airman’s Time’ is a way of doing that.”

That open-endedness has been the source of frustration for some Airmen—in particular, posters on the Air Force’s unofficial Reddit page have written more than 500 comments about the memo, the vast majority of them expressing confusion as to what “Airmen’s Time” will actually entail.

“I have no idea what it is [Bass] is asking us to do,” one of the top comments reads.

However, the lack of precisely defined expectations and tasks was intentional, meant to allow lower-level leaders to decide what is best for their teams, according to Denton.

“The thought process behind it goes back to … leaving it up to those leaders at unit levels at all the different levels throughout the organization, to really use this initiative as a way to define what their culture in that unit is going to look like, how they deliberately develop their Airmen to best get after the individual missions that they have to accomplish,” Denton said. “So that’s why it’s not a prescriptive program out of the Pentagon. It’s really kind of going back to that initiative to empower our leaders to actually help develop our Airmen into what we need from them.”

Asked for examples of what “Airmen’s Time” could look like for individual units, Denton indicated that it could be informal if commanders decide that is best.

“Some organizations have their own formalized programs. Some have initiatives,” Denton said. “But it can be as simple as a conversation under the wing of an aircraft on the flight line, saying, ‘Hey, we got a little bit of time in between jobs. Let’s chat about something. Let’s chat about your development. Let’s chat about the direction the Air Force is going in. Let’s chat about any of these things.’ So it doesn’t have to be ‘Hey, let’s all come together and sit down.’ Unless that is what would work best for that unit.”

On Facebook, more than 400 comments have been logged on Bass’ post sharing the memo, many of them providing examples of units that have already started programs or efforts to boost morale and team-building.

“At the [55th Medical Group] we have implemented wingman Wednesdays, first and third Wednesday, where we hang out and get to know one another,” one commenter wrote. “Also, implemented in the flight I work we do flight lunches every Friday.”

It’s examples like that, Denton said, to which those who are confused by the idea should look to understand what “Airmen’s Time” can be.

“It falls on those units to find out what’s best going to work for them, and what level of accountability they want to have with this,” Denton said.

Bass, however, expressed confidence in “Airmen’s Time” taking root.

“As with any new initiative, there are going to be innovators, early adopters, the early and late majority, and laggards,” Bass said in a statement. “Right now, the feedback has been largely positive, but these things take time to implement at all levels. I would ask that Airmen look at this memo as one step in a larger process toward building the Air Force we need in 2030 and beyond.”

Brown: Aircraft Planned for Divestment Likely Wouldn’t Go to War Anyway

April 13, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The 250 aircraft the Air Force is seeking to divest in fiscal 2023—with potentially a net 1,000 coming out of the inventory over the five-year defense plan—are largely airplanes the service considers obsolete for air combat and wouldn’t take to war anyway, said Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr.

In a roundtable discussion with defense reporters, Brown characterized the fiscal 2023 budget as the second bite at his “accelerate change or lose” approach to transitioning the Air Force to the capabilities it will need in the future.

Brown said “raw numbers” of aircraft don’t tell the whole story. He needs to push the aircraft inventory from war-irrelevant systems to ones that will be war-winning in the future. However, he acknowledged the near-term risk against a backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasingly threatening posture toward Taiwan. “We all feel a bit of discomfort” about it, he said.

Brown said he appreciates that Congress, in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, allowed the retirement of “some things we had not been able” to divest previously, with the notable exception of the A-10, but said there’s much more to do.

When asked if USAF would refuse to send the aircraft it’s asking to divest to war, Brown said, “To an extent, yeah.”

It’s a “transition” he said, because “you’re going to have to maintain some level of capacity and capability” in the near-term while preparing for the future.

“The capability we have today, is not … the capability we’re going to need in the future, vis a vis the threat,” Brown said. If “you hang on to all the capability we have today, you’re not going to be better in the future.”

The 2023 budget is carefully constructed to have enough capacity to take on near-term scenarios while building toward a future force that can meet all comers, Brown said. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has characterized the requested retirements as being the billpayers for the research and development of future capabilities, like the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program and related systems.

The Air Force would only buy 57 fighters in the 2023 budget proposal, but has said in recent years that it must buy 72 fighters annually to keep the fighter fleet from aging beyond its current average of 29 years.

Asked if 72 is still the goal, Brown said the Air Force must find the funds for the “once-in-a-generation” recapitalization of the nuclear command and control system and the “two-thirds” of the nuclear triad the Air Force is responsible for. He didn’t say how long USAF will tap the fighter accounts to pay for nuclear modernization.

Of USAF’s “4+1” fighter scheme for the next 15 years or so, Brown said he’s anxious to retire the “+1”, which is the A-10, because it lacks the survivability needed to make a contribution to a war with a peer adversary, and it consumes resources—people and funds—that could be used to accelerate bringing on needed new systems.

“I’m focused on aircraft with multirole capabilities,” he said, and the A-10 doesn’t meet that test.

Brown defended the acquisition of the F-15EX, saying its avionics and other improvements put it ”in some ways … on a par with fifth-generation” fighters, providing near-term fighting capacity and a useful “bomb truck” able of carrying many weapons and oversize munitions. He indicated that the F-15EX alone among the current fighter fleet will be capable of carrying the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, or HACM, and shouldn’t be discounted simply because it has “a fourth-generation outer mold line.”

Brown said the NGAD and a new “B-21 family of systems” will likely have uncrewed escorts that will carry additional munitions and perform electronic jamming.

He has upped his engagements with members of Congress, trying to convince them that the Air Force’s strategy is the right one and the near-term reductions in the force are a necessary but worthwhile investment. Experience has shown, he said, that presenting Congress with a “take it or leave it” plan will not work, and USAF must be flexible enough to “work with” lawmakers to smooth the transition.

Giving members “a better idea of where I’m coming from” was largely successful in getting needed divestments in the 2022 budget, he said, and he plans to maintain the pace of engagement this year, with attention to the issues that have been “of interest” to them in the past, Brown said.

Eielson Days Away from Achieving Full Complement of F-35s

April 13, 2022 | By Amy Hudson

Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, will receive its final two F-35 strike fighters in the coming days, making it the Air Force’s second fully-equipped combat-coded F-35 wing and the first for Pacific Air Forces.

Once the beddown is complete, Eielson will have a total of 54 strike fighters in two squadrons. Eleventh Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm told Air Force Magazine that when combined with the two squadrons of F-22s at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska will have more operational fifth-generation assets than anywhere else in the world.

Krumm channeled Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell’s prescient 1935 comment to Congress: “Whoever holds Alaska will hold the world.” The line is drummed into every Airmen and Guardian assigned there, and it is often quoted by senior Air Force leaders. From the two major Air Force bases in Alaska, USAF fighters are within an eight-hour sortie to any place in the northern hemisphere, Krumm noted. And, the massive Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex, which is roughly the size of Indiana, also provides unique training space, allowing crews to “fully test out those fifth-generation capabilities,” he added.

“It’s a synergy of being able to organize, train, and equip in a place that few others can replicate along with the ability to then go to the sound of gunfire wherever we’re needed,” Krumm said.

Three more F-35As are delivered to the 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, on March 29, 2022. The wing needs two more aircraft to complete its beddown of 54 strike fighters. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jose Miguel T. Tamondong

Acclimating to the Arctic

The Air Force selected Eielson to be home to the first operational overseas F-35s in 2016 and the 354th Fighter Wing accepted the first two aircraft in April 2020.

“We’ve stood up our F-35s here an order of magnitude faster and more aggressively than any other F-35 base. And, we’ve done it at 50 below” zero, 354th FW commander Col. David J. Berkland told Air Force Magazine during a March visit to Eielson. “There’s a certain pride of doing things up here in the extreme Arctic environment” that motivates Airmen.

To prepare for the fighters, the Air Force spent $600 million on 39 military construction projects at Eielson, to include individual heated shelters to protect the aircraft and aircrew from the elements. With temperatures regularly dipping well below zero, aircraft parked outside won’t function properly, and maintainers can’t work on them outside most of the year without risk of frostbite. Berkland compared the shelters to a hospital operating room.

“Our maintainers take great pride in those facilities,” he said. “And with these airplanes being stealth, everything on them is just pristine. And the maintainers make sure it stays that way.”

Even after the last aircraft arrive, however, it will take some time before the service declares initial operational capability.

“The stand-up and the buildup, I would argue, is still definitely ongoing,” said Lt. Col. Samuel Chipman, commander of the 355th Fighter Squadron, which will receive the final two aircraft this month. “The F-35 community, if you look at it and compare it to the F-16 community or the A-10 community, has definitely not matured yet. There is not enough experience to go around … For instance, a lot of my guys are young captains. They are extremely motivated and extremely focused on what they do when it comes to the mission, [but] they are still extremely inexperienced.”

Chipman acknowledged the squadron’s 33-percent experience rate is “extremely low,” saying he’d love to have it above 50 percent, and preferably close to 75 percent. “It’s a little bit of a heavy lift right now, because we’re literally building both an F-35 squadron and [we’re] also building the F-35 community at the same time,” added Chipman, who served as the director of operations for the 356th Fighter Squadron as it was bedding down its Lightning IIs, before moving across the street to lead the 355th. “[The] good news is, they’re not conflicting with each other.”

He often tells his pilots, that if they can fly out of Eielson, which is located about 100 miles from the Arctic circle, they can fly anywhere in the world.

“It’s nothing for us to land on a snow-covered runway. It’s nothing for us to apply the brakes on this aircraft, either taxiing or on rollout from landing,” and not get a response. “That is a normal thing here and we pride ourselves” on being able to handle it, he said.

Learning to operate in such an environment takes practice, which is part part of the reason the wing’s operational tempo is so high. Berkland said the 354th Fighter Wing flies 44 F-35 training sorties a day, plus another 14 daily lines with its F-16 Aggressors. Both F-35 squadrons have already deployed with the jets: the 356th Fighter Squadron went to Exercise Cope North at Andersen Air Fore Base, Guam, in 2021, while the 355th recently returned from its own deployment to Guam.

“It’s awesome to be able to have that kind of communication, which is really key,” noted Chipman. “Although we’re separated by buildings and a roadway, we definitely … stay in touch and we make sure that lessons learned are getting passed.”