Space Force Accepting Transfer Applications, Plans to Add 243 Guardians

June 16, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines who want to make the jump to the Space Force have their chance: USSF is accepting applications for its interservice transfer program from June 15 to 30. There won’t be very many slots available, though.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, in a message posted to social media and confirmed by a Space Force spokesman, said Space Force will be only be choosing 243 service members for transfer—29 officers and 214 enlisted.

By comparison, the service selected 720 Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines for transfer in 2021, announced in two batches. Some of those transfers were members of units that were transitioning wholesale to the Space Force.

The competition to get into the newest military service has been tough, with thousands of service members applying for transfer last year.

In order to apply, service members must meet the eligibility criteria laid out in AFMAN 36-2032, which establishes the requirements for eligibility to serve in the Department of the Air Force. Those eligible have until June 30 to put together a package including a transfer request letter, an endorsement form from their unit commander, a service career brief, their last five signed performance reports, and a candidate data form.

The Space Force will then convene an interservice transfer board in July, according to public documents shared by the service. Raymond’s message specifies that the board will meet July 20-21.

A list of those selected for transfer will be publicly released in September, with transfers taking place throughout fiscal year 2023, which begins in October.

All specialty codes can apply, the Space Force said, but transfers will have to be able to fill one of the Space Force’s specialty codes, of which there are 14 for enlisted and five for officers.

The Space Force’s end strength has risen significantly lately, from some 6,500 in fiscal 2021 to 8,400 this year. In its budget request for 2023, the Pentagon asked to increase that number to 8,600 uniformed personnel.

Senate Panel Allows A-10 Cuts, But Not F-22s

June 16, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

After years of blocking the Air Force from retiring A-10 attack aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee will allow the service to proceed, but not with a new initiative to retire older F-22 Raptor air superiority jets. It also agreed to add seven more jets to USAF’s request for F-35 fighters, and overruled the service on its plan to trim the HH-60 Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter buy.

In its version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, passed June 16, the SASC didn’t challenge USAF’s request to retire 21 A-10s from the Air National Guard and replace them with F-16s. The number is smaller than the Air Force has asked to trim in earlier years. The close air support airplane has enjoyed fierce support in Congress and lawmakers have frequently included provisions in the NDAA to prevent any A-10s from being retired.

The panel was not willing to let the Air Force take down its inventory of F-22s. The Air Force had wanted to retire the oldest 33 F-22s, which are used for training only. The service has said they are expensive to maintain and produce negative learning because they are of an older configuration of the Raptor, and that it’s too costly to bring them up to par. The Air Force wanted to use the savings to improve the remaining jets and invest in the replacement Next Generation Air Dominance system.

In its version of the NDAA, the SASC said no F-22s can be retired “until submission of a detailed written plan for training F-22 aircrew while avoiding any degradation in readiness or reduction in combat capability,” according to a committee news release.

All of the F-22s USAF had slated for retirement are assigned to Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., which is represented by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Tyndall was largely destroyed by Hurricane Michael in 2018 and those F-22s the Air Force wants to retain have been redistributed among other F-22 bases.

The Air Force only requested 33 F-35s in its fiscal 2023 budget submission, but in its unfunded priorities list, it noted seven more that got squeezed out. The Senate obliged by adding seven more F-35s to USAF’s ask, for a total of 40. That is still lower than USAF’s request for 48 per year in the last few years, raised in most of those years to 60 by Congress. The Air Force has said it prefers delaying purchases now to wait for the Block 4 model of the jet.

The committee also fulfilled the Air Force’s unfunded priority request of four extra EC-37B Compass Call aircraft, as well as its No. 1 request, of $579 million for additional weapon system sustainment money.

The Air Force had planned to reduce its buy of HH-60W Combat Search and Rescue Helicopters from 113 to 75, on the argument, voiced by Air Combat Command Chief Gen. Mark D. Kelly, that the aircraft can’t get to downed airmen behind the lines in Asia. USAF planned to halt the program with the 10 helicopters requested in the FY’23 budget, but the SASC doubled the planned buy to 20. It also included a provision requiring a briefing on “plans to satisfy the combat rescue requirement with United States assets should the Air Force’s program of record be truncated short of the inventory objective.”

That requirement mirrors one included in the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee mark of the NDAA, which directs a “study on the requirements for the Air Force combat search and rescue mission to meet the objectives of the most recent National Defense Strategy and the development of an acquisition strategy to meet the requirements identified.”

The NDAA authorizes money and sets policies and priorities for the Pentagon. While the SASC conducted its markup of the 2023 bill behind closed doors and approved its version with a bipartisan 23-3 vote–with a summary released shortly thereafter–the House Armed Services Committee will have an open session to consider its version on June 22.

Space

As the Space Force continues to grow and develop, the SASC version of the NDAA includes several provisions addressing the service’s structure.

For one, the NDAA would allow the Secretary of the Air Force to vary end strength more than the other services in order to build up and establish the Space Force. For another, the bill would require a federally-funded research center to conduct a study on the Space Force’s proposal to combine its full-time and part-time Guardians into one hybrid Space Component.

The Senate also wants a report on the five-year cost of “the transfer and operations of the fleet of narrowband communications satellites from the Navy to the Space Force,” a process that has already begun.

The bill would also direct the Secretary of Defense to make a recommendation as to whether the Space Development Agency should be exempted from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System. SDA, which is scheduled to transition into the Space Force in the coming months, was established to accelerate innovation, acquire commercial technologies, and generally move quicker than more traditional Pentagon organizations. JCIDS, meanwhile, is tasked with documenting, reviewing, and validating capability requirements for programs across DOD, but for years now, critics have faulted it for being too slow and cumbersome.

Finally, the SASC version of the NDAA would designate the Chief of Space Operations as the “force design architect” for space systems of the Armed Forces.

New Commander of Space Force Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron Highlights Interservice Culture

June 16, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

A single “hooah” filled the atrium of the Electromagnetic Warfare Facility at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., on June 15, where a former Army officer received his first salute as commander of the USSF’s 4th Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron.

Lt. Col. Nicholas R. Shaw became the first transferring officer from a prior service besides the Air Force to assume command of a Space Force unit. (When the Naval Satellite Operations Center became the 10th Space Operations Squadron on June 6, Navy Capt. Jason Parish ceded command to Space Force Lt. Col. Jason Sanders.)

The 4th EWS operates the Space Force’s only overtly offensive weapon, the Counter Communications System, or CCS, which interferes with enemy satellites. Col. Christopher A. Fernengel, commander of Space Delta 3—roughly equivalent to a wing commander in the Air Force—presided over the change of command June 15. He said electromagnetic warfare is “the decisive advantage” in war and characterized the squadron’s role as being “to ensure … threats are crushed” that would try to destroy U.S. space-based command and control.

A Guardian for only six months Shaw assumed command from a prior Air Force officer, USSF Lt. Col. Kara L. Sartori. She goes on to become the operations officer for the Space Force component of U.S. European Command.

But even while still in the Army, Shaw had a hand in shaping the Space Force from the start, and the interservice aspects of the unit’s people and its mission provided a theme for the ceremony.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Shaw served 15-and-a-half years in the Army, including three years deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., when—with a background in electronic warfare and signals intelligence—he heard the brand-new Space Force needed people from other services to help stand it up from its headquarters in the Pentagon.

“My hand went right up in the air,” Shaw recalled in an interview after the 4th EWS change of command ceremony. He had recognized “an incredible opportunity” to start a new service “from the ground up” and worked in a few different divisions as the headquarters took shape. That blank slate “really lets you see the impact of the things you do,” he said.

The foresight on the part of the Space Force to bring Army, Navy, and Marine Corps troops into the fold has paid off, Shaw said. Now it’s “become more combat-focused than it used to be” and “able to integrate with these services better.”

A few Air Force name tapes distinguished the Airmen from the Guardians delivering Sartori’s final salute and Shaw’s first, and one of Shaw’s fellow former Soldiers issued the “hooah.” Uniquely among Space Force units, the 4th EWS is likely to interact with as many services as its members came from. Proximity plays a role in operating the CCS, so 4th EWS members forward-deploy with the equipment. The unit also interacts with international partner militaries to provide training.

Aside from “being ready to respond when any of these combatant commands needs us,” Shaw anticipated that the unit will try to take advantage of opportunities from the Space Force such as the “Supra Coders” program to teach software development. In that case, the squadron would need to “align that with the need,” he said.

Hawaiian Space Force Antennas Collect Vital Data with ‘Antiquated’ Equipment

June 16, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

KAENA POINT SPACE FORCE STATION, Oahu, Hawaii—Atop a ridge 1,500 feet above the waters of Yokohama Bay on Oahu island are six giant white globes concealing antennas for the collection of space data. The intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data collected from satellites as they orbit over the Pacific is vital to the Space Force and Joint Force. But all too often, the aging antennas are down and deferring their tasks to other sites at island locations also operating with near-obsolete hardware at risk of failure.

The Space Force’s 21st Space Operations Squadron (SOPS), commanded by a single Guardian with the help of more than three dozen civilians and contractors, ensures the data flow in spite of the offline periods, switching from one antenna to another when possible. Together, the two Detachment 3 antennas under Space Force control form a pipeline to stream instructions to satellites and downlink data for the Defense Department, National Reconnaissance Office, other government agencies, and allies.

“Without us, space doesn’t happen,” Space Force Maj. Brandon Hammond, commander of the 21st SOPS Detachment 3 told Air Force Magazine. “Without the … operators identifying issues and fixing them, and making sure that the site is up and running, nobody would get to talk to the satellites.”

The slight elevation, up a single access road an hour north of Honolulu, is enough to give the 21st SOPS antennas visibility across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean and capture data from satellites that pass between Satellite Control Network (SCN) sites at Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, on Guam, and at Vandenberg Space Force Station, Calif.

It is not uncommon for instructions from Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., to send coordinates for matching a satellite that are a few degrees off, or for the antennas to follow noise emanating from a different direction and lose a satellite’s vital data download. Contract operators under Hammond are closely monitoring dozens of tasks sent 24 hours a day to reposition antennas to maximize the data capture in passes that last as little as a few minutes.

“We provide on-demand command and control for 192 users around the world,” Hammond said.

The 21st SOPS’s two antennas are referred to as hula alpha and hula bravo. Hula alpha is a newer Remote Tracking Station Block Change (RBC) antenna with updated electronics, and hula bravo is considered a hybrid because it uses an older Automated Remote Tracking Station (ARTS) dish that dates to 1968 with upgraded electronics.

Dozens of times throughout the day, sirens buzz and red lights flash inside the building that houses hula bravo, alerting staff to stand clear as the 60-foot-wide dish rotates to the direction of the distant satellite as far away as geosynchronous orbit.

At a control station a few hundred yards away, one contractor is on each antenna station overseeing the instructions on four screens sent from Schriever or Space Operations Command at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., crosschecking that the antennas are lining up to the satellite correctly and making adjustments. There is regular communication back to make sure objectives are met.

“We’re protecting and defending our assets, which underpins everything that we do day-to-day,” Hammond said.

But sometimes high-power amplifiers that transmit the instructions fail, requiring the operators to reset the system or shut it down entirely and replace components. When the station’s second antenna cannot pick up the task, it is re-rerouted to satellite control networks on the islands of Guam or Diego Garcia before the data download is missed.

Hammond, who took command in July 2021, will not see the upgrades to more reliable systems that are years away.

“Some of the electronics are old, dated, but it’s being upgraded slowly,” he said. “This is a years-long effort to get to the upgrade.”

The fiscal year 2023 defense budget calls for $51 million to move to an interim phase called the Modular Transitional Remote tracking station, and warns of significant increases in sustainment costs and decreases in operational capability if not fully funded. In the budget justification, ARTS is deemed obsolete and RBC is nearing end of life.

“Without it, the SCN will experience increased failure rates and lost contacts over time with the potential to impact or lose operational capability of on orbit payloads that rely on the SCN for command and control,” the FY23 Air Force budget reads. “The antiquated SCN system is already operating at the very edge of its capacity supporting over 170 satellites.”

Meanwhile, Guardians like Hammond are leveraging the creativity and know-how of contractors with decades of experience to squeeze additional life from the ARTS and RBC antennas before they can ultimately be replaced by phased array radars.

“With the increase of space traffic, the needs to be able to track more is getting greater and greater,” he said. “Phased array radars are electronically steered as opposed to mechanically steered like these are, and also it enables you to track more than one satellite at a time.”

Thousands of miles away from the U.S. mainland, where acquisitions decisions are made, Hammond feels the impact.

“Being out here, even though we’re separated from the warfront, I’m a user now, and the things that the program officers do directly affect my day-to-day life,” he said. “Test assets, operational assets, nobody talks to those without places like us. So, as we’re up there doing ISR on China or on whoever, we are the people that allow that to happen.”

36th Munitions Squadron Readies Guam for Improved Stand-Off Weapons Capability

June 15, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam—Amid 4,400 acres of jungle terrain on the northern plateau of Guam, new construction is underway to add storage for standoff munitions and to better prepare the Air Force to meet the rising threat posed by China.

The new standoff weapons complex under construction at the Air Force’s largest munitions depot in the world will cost $43.7 million and include 20 Hayman-style igloos capable of storing 48 pre-loaded standoff weapons, plus a pre-load facility and a powered trailer capable of fully equipping bombs.

“We need more storage space,” said Maj. Timothy Wu, commander of the 36th Munitions Squadron at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

Wu is responsible for $1.7 billion in munitions inventory consisting of 17.1 million pounds of explosive weight. Current igloos, including 1950s-era magazines covered in dirt and grass, are 90 percent occupied and increasingly filling. Aside from invasive deer, wild boar, brown snakes, and packs of dogs that roam the site, munitions handlers battle an aggressive equatorial environment that includes typhoons and high humidity, inducing corrosion.

Guam standoff — Each new Hayman-style igloo at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, includes design characteristics for seismic and typhoon protection. Each igloo will have a concrete apron to ensure safe entry as well as reinforced walls, floors, and roof slabs. U.S. Air Force photo.

Andersen’s munitions storage is already extensive, including 127 earth-covered igloos, four flow-through igloos, 10 above-ground magazines, two eight-bay multi-cubes, 152 open-storage pads, and eight explosive operation locations.

With new Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) coming online to protect the continental United States from Guam’s “forward edge” location, the U.S. Air Force needs a strategically located storage facility to equip bombers for forward positioning away from the West Coast of the mainland.

“We are in the area where China is concerned about,” he added. “This is what we can do to support future bombers—and, of course, current bombers.”

The facilities will allow the 36th MUNS to pre-load JASSMs in place of current assembly process, cutting load times from eight hours to just two hours.

“That way, whenever bombers come out here, they can be rapidly reloaded right away,” Wu explained.

Joint Region Marianas (JRM) commander Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson, who oversees the Navy, Marine Corps, and about half the functions at Andersen, said new ordnance types and service needs, as well as future plans for defense of the island, require a quick ramp-up in storage capacity.

“As more forces pivot towards the Pacific, we’ve also had some interest from some other services in having some magazine storage capability here,” Nicholson told Air Force Magazine at the JRM headquarters at Fonte Plateau, the site of the 1944 Marine Corps charge that retook Guam from Imperial Japan.

The Army and Marine Corps will also be adding munitions in Guam.

Marine Corps Camp Blaz is undergoing extensive expansion on the northern part of Guam that will add barracks to accommodate 5,000 Marines. Jungle operations training, an urban warfare training area, and firing ranges will also be coming online in the next two years.

Perhaps most important for the defense of Guam will be the munitions stored by the Missile Defense Agency as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) units are enhanced by Patriot missile defense systems and Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) missile interceptors.

The 20 new igloos are part of Phase 3 of a four-phase expansion plan, said Wu. A $49 million contract recently awarded for completion of Phase 4 will add 16 more igloos by 2024 and ready Guam to support the newest bomber platforms.

“All those bomber bases already have that type of facility, so that’s just building this capability here,” explained Wu, noting that the new facilities will position Guam for second-strike capability.

“The reason why we have this that way is so that we can rapidly reload bomber aircraft. When they land here, they can get rapidly re-armed and take back off again,” he said. “It increases the lethality for a second strike.”

Air Force Magazine Editors Recognized for Journalistic Excellence

June 15, 2022

The Washington, D.C., Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists recognized four Air Force Magazine editors June 14 for excellence in journalism.

Editorial Director John T. Tirpak took home two awards, including first place in the magazine non-breaking news category for his feature, “Catching Up on Hypersonics,” from the April 2021 print issue. In the article, Tirpak digs into the obstacles the U.S. must still overcome as it urgently works to catch up with China and Russia when it comes to hypersonic weapons, including shortages of talent, testing capacity, and supply.

Tirpak also was named a finalist in the newsletter/trade publication breaking news category for his May 14 AirForceMag.com article, “Air Force Wants to Cut 421 Old Fighters, Buy 304 New Ones,” which previewed the Air Force’s 2023 budget request.

News Editor Amy Hudson and former Pentagon Editor Brian Everstine were named finalists in the investigative journalism category for their feature, “Defending Forward Bases,” which also ran in the April 2021 issue. Again, the U.S. is playing catch up to Russia and China, both of which have made big strides in missile technology as U.S. air base defense has languished.

Digital Editor Amanda Miller was named a finalist for her October 2021 feature, “Cislunar Space,” which explored the possible roles of U.S. Space Command and the Space Force in lunar orbit and in the space between the Earth and the moon as international and commercial interests advance a range of plans to ramp up activities there.

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists Hawaii Chapter judged the contest. See the full list of Dateline Awards winners and finalists.

New SiAW Seen as Modular, Pathfinder Weapon

June 15, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Stand-in Attack Weapon is to be a pathfinder system in that it will both open a corridor through enemy air defenses and potentially result in a new way of buying weapons, industry and Air Force officials reported. With initial contracts announced June 7, the SiAW may build on the Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range but will likely be an all-new munition.

The Air Force awarded matching $2 million, 90-day SiAW contracts to L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman on May 25. Neither the service nor the companies could say exactly what will happen after the 90 days, as much of the SiAW program is close-hold.

But industry officials said the three companies will work toward competitive, rather than complementary, concepts for the SiAW. They also said the Air Force expects a five-year development program after which the service will have usable assets for operational evaluations. No one would comment on how many weapons are to be produced in this phase.

The Air Force is looking for an operational capability in the 2026 timeframe, sources said, after a brief evaluation period of products generated during the development phase.

The SiAW is, broadly, a successor to Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER), itself a successor to the AARGM and the High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) in service since the 1980s. While the HARM was for suppressing enemy air defense radars, the SiAW has a broader target set aimed at other elements of an enemy’s integrated air defense system. The target set also includes ballistic missile launchers, cruise missile launchers, GPS jamming platforms, and anti-satellite systems in addition to threat air defense radars and tracking systems.

Neither the Air Force nor the contractors would bound the range of the SiAW, with one noting that “it’s an open question right now how you define ‘stand-in’ versus ‘stand-off.’” However, he said that while “it’s farther than what we used to shoot with HARM,” the term “‘stand-in’ sort of implies that you’ve already entered the enemy’s airspace.” He said the “only thing it shares with HARM … is the ‘high speed’ aspect.” Sources agreed the missile will be a supersonic weapon at its maximum speed. It will also have multiple sensors and high-resolution GPS guidance.

A senior USAF official said the service is looking at “best-of-breed offerings where we can potentially mix and match … modular elements and get in the habit of changing [them] out rapidly, both to accelerate our response to the threat and diversify our base of suppliers.”

Bryan Gates of Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control unit said the company’s work on the program will be as an integrator of missile elements, to include seekers and propulsion modules not necessarily produced in-house; but with the goal of presenting USAF with “an open, agile, and digital weapon that can be rapidly upgradeable through digital engineering.”

L3Harris said it is doing “initial weapon system modeling and integration,” using digital engineering to “rapidly design, test and manufacture advanced sensors and weapon systems.” It described the May 25 contract as “Phase 1” of the SiAW. It said its Agile Development Group, formed earlier this year, is in charge of the SiAW development effort. A company official described it as a “Skunk Works-like” unit, and the company described it in a press release as having an “urgent focus on complex, front-end … capability development.”

The SiAW was initially planned as a follow-on to the AARGM-ER, but the Air Force opened the program to competition a year ago. Five companies were designated as capable of doing the work; three have now been picked to proceed. The Air Force has not described its acquisition strategy, but one source said it will “carry as many competitors as long as it can” to derive the full benefit of competitive approaches. Those not picked to be the prime contractor/integrator could later compete for upgrades. Sources would not comment on whether the Air Force plans to carry more than one contractor through the critical design review stage.

“It’s got to come down to when do they actually need the combat capability,” an industry source said, “and and how much money do they want to spend to have it at that time?”

Another said the unusual low-dollar-value, brief initial stage is to “keep [the Air Force] … on track while they figure out their acquisition strategy.”

The SiAW must fit inside the F-35’s internal weapon bay, and a Lockheed Martin video shows an F-35 volley-firing six of the weapons—two from internal bays and four from underwing stations. The Air Force has also said the B-21 bomber could carry the SiAW, but whether that is a requirement at this stage of the program is unclear.

Development and acquisition of the SiAW will be entirely digital, making it a pathfinder in that sense, according to industry sources.

A Northrop Grumman official said the Air Force’s decision to pursue SiAW in an entirely digital fashion “really helped us out … because we’ve been working with the Air Force on the GBSD (Ground Based Strategic Deterrent) program … and that’s all digital engineering.”

Although USAF is looking to 2026 for initial operating capability, “we keep thinking” that the service “is going to say, all of a sudden, they want to go faster than what they’re doing now,” the official said, making the company’s entrant, based largely on the AARGM-ER, a good bet. The original IOC date, when AARGM-ER exclusively was to develop into the SiAW, was “sooner” than what the Air Force is now thinking, he said.

“We’re actually prepared to be able to compete and win across the board … addressing … digital engineering concerns,” he said. “We can … provide to the warfighter combat capability in a timeframe that they really do want it,” he said.

The Northrop Grumman entrant, while “leveraging” the technology in the AARGM-ER, should not be considered a “derivative,” the official said.

“The AARGM … and the AARGM-ER are two very distinct efforts,” he said. “AARGM-ER is a tip-to-tail, brand-new” weapon “without any old components. There’s no legacy parts in it.”

While AARGM and AARGM-ER are different on the outside, Northrop’s SiAW is very similar externally to AARGM-ER, mainly because of the form/fit requirements to fit within the F-35 weapons bay.

“This is what we were talking about working with the Air Force on, even before there was a competition,” he said. “That’s how we can say we can still meet their IOC desires … because we already have” the AARGM-ER, which is already in its second low-rate production lot, he said.

“We’re leveraging existing designs, parts, capabilities, people, and facilities that are already in place,” he said.

The Air Force has budgeted $1.9 billion for SiAW development over the fiscal 2023 Future Years Defense Plan. The fiscal 2023 request is for $283.2 million, and development funding is expected to peak in fiscal 2026, with $718.2 million planned.

House Armed Services Chair Raises Concerns about F-35—and NGAD

June 15, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The services may want to pause buying the F-35 fighter until the Block 4 version is available—and possibly curtail the program from reaching planned buys, House Armed Services chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told defense reporters. Meanwhile, lawmakers should take a hard look at the Next Generation Air Dominance system that’s the next step in fighter technology, Smith said. The Air Force is poised to spend scores of billions on the two programs in the coming decade.

F-35

Smith, who has long been a critic of the F-35—he has previously referred to it as a “rat hole” for its delays and high operating expense—said “we can do a hell of a lot better” on sustainment costs and suggested that the fifth-generation fighter is not as survivable as previously hoped. In the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, he included a provision that will limit the number of F-35s the services can maintain starting in 2027, depending on how far sustainment costs come down.

More immediately, though, Smith told reporters that the continued delay of the F-35’s Block 4, a suite of upgrades, is creating a challenge for procurement.

“Frankly, until they’re able to produce the Block 4 F-35, we shouldn’t buy more,” Smith said. “Now the argument from the manufacturer is, ‘Buy the Block 3s, we’ll turn them into a Block 4 at some point.’ I don’t think it’s that simple or that cost-freeing. So I think we need to continue to put the pressure on them to get to the Block 4.”

The Air Force cut its planned buy of F-35s from 48 planes in previous years down to 33 in its 2023 budget request. The House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee did not adjust that amount in its markup of the 2023 NDAA, as it has in recent years, when it added aircraft to USAF’s request.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said he is “insistent” on getting Block 4 F-35s, and it’s an issue similar to one he’s faced before with the jet. As undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, he capped purchases for several years to put pressure on prime contractor Lockheed Martin and to avoid buying jets that would later need to be modernized.

But beyond Block 4 and the possibility of a new engine, the F-35 faces a more existential issue, Smith argued.

“The world has changed a lot, even in the last 10 years, in terms of survivability. What is the mission of the F-35? Originally … it would be a fighter that could go anywhere and do anything.” But, “it’s not that” anymore, he said.

“Missile technology and targeting technology have simply gotten so much better in the last decade that it has limited the mission range of the F-35 to an extent. So what does that mean? What are we going to do to use it? I don’t know for sure. But I think it probably means we don’t need to buy as many as we had contemplated buying.”

Air Force leaders have repeatedly said they still plan to buy 1,763 F-35s over the course of the program, and foreign allies and partners such as Canada, Germany, and Finland are all planning on buying the fighter as well, increasing the benefits of interoperability. Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, continues to describe the jet as the “most lethal, survivable, and connected fighter jet in the world.”

NGAD

The Next Generation Air Dominance program is still early in development and highly classified, but Kendall has said it will be a “family of systems,” including at least one crewed aircraft and an undisclosed number of uncrewed aircraft, along with other technologies that could include optionally crewed platforms, missiles, pods, and offboard capabilities.

That crewed aircraft, envisioned as a “sixth-generation” fighter to replace the F-22, could become the most expensive fighter ever; Kendall told lawmakers in April the price could be “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars” per plane.

At the time, he acknowledged that such a figure is “a number that’s going to get your attention.” And on June 15, Smith seemed to hint that the price could be an issue as it goes up against other budget priorities.

“What does the mix look like? What do you want to bring into that fight?” Smith said. “Right now, it seems to me that the investments we should be making are in more survivable drone systems, satellites, communications, missiles. When you look at the fights that are really going on, fighter planes haven’t been that big a part of it. It’s been the drones. It’s been the cyber.” He questioned whether the U.S. can “really afford to make that big of an investment in a plane? … That’s a decision that you have got to make.”

He said “maybe we’ve got to do this” because the Navy’s F/A-18 “can’t survive. You ain’t sending the F-35. And the thing is, you don’t know for sure what that technology is going to be.”

Smith cautioned that he is not calling for NGAD to be abandoned; in fact, he praised the structure of the program and gave it credit for using innovative technologies such as digital manufacturing.

But given the inherent uncertainty of the future, he sounded a note of caution about pinning too much on one program.

“I’m always reluctant to put a whole lot of chips in the middle of the table when you don’t know for sure. And the NGAD seems like a whole lot of chips going in the middle of the table,” Smith said. “And maybe you’ve got to do it. Maybe it’s a technology that, if somebody else gets there first and you haven’t gotten there, then you’re in a really bad place. … But I prefer a solution that puts you in a position to meet your defense needs without having to make such a large investment on sort of betting on the common technology.”

Ultimately, Smith acknowledged that the Air Force has to take action on things like NGAD to prepare for future threats, even if there is risk of failure. Still, he said, Congress needs to take a “hard look” to determine if NGAD is the right bet.

“I want those questions more thoroughly examined than just, well, of course, we have to build a sixth-generation fighter. Well, why? What’s it going to bring us?” Smith said. “I think we need to ask those questions before we make massive, massive investments in the program.”

Raytheon’s Pratt & Whitney Gets $4.4 Billion F-35 Engine Deal

June 14, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney military engines unit received a $4.385 billion Naval Air Systems Command contract for 178 of its F135 engines to power all variants of the F-35 fighter, the Pentagon announced. The eventual contract value could be as much as $8 billion.

The contract is a not-to-exceed, undefinitized modification to the Lots 15 and 16 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production, according to the Pentagon.

The contract funds the F135 engine only. The F-35 Joint Program Office is still negotiating the Lot 15-17 contract for the F-35 fighter airframe with Lockheed Martin.

The award funds:

108 F135-PW-100 engines for the Air Force’s F-35As.
29 F135-PW-100s for the Navy/Marine Corps’ F-35Cs
26 F135-PW-600 engines for Marine Corp F-35Bs, which include the lift fan element unique to that variant.

The contract also covers long-lead items and materials for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) F-35 customers as well as non-U.S. F-35 partners; along with an undisclosed number of spare engines, power modules, and parts for the F-35 global spares system. Additionally, the contract funds a Block 4 developmental engine for short takeoff/vertical landing testing.

A Pratt & Whiney spokesperson said adding the additional parts and modules makes the deal for “more than 250 engines or equivalents.”

He said the agreement, struck with the Joint Program Office in April, “covers the base production and option quantities for up to 518 (maximum quantity) engines and equivalents with a contract value, if all options are exercised, of approximately $8 billion. Engine deliveries are set to begin later this year through the end of 2025.”

The contract runs through September 2024, and the bulk of the work will be done in Pratt & Whitney’s Connecticut facilities as well as in various locations around the U.S.

The Navy portion of the contract is worth $912.8 million, with the funds coming from a combination of fiscal 2021 and 2022 appropriations. The Air Force work is worth $986.1 million over those fiscal years. The non-DOD customer work is valued at $636.2 million, and the FMS work at $355.2 million, to be funded in the year of execution. The balance is mainly for research and development of the test engine.