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.

House Panel Releases Draft Defense Bill, Cutting F-15EX Buy, Blocking Changes to Pass-Through Funds

June 14, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee rolled out its draft version of the fiscal 2023 defense funding bill June 14, cutting the Air Force’s planned buy of F-15EX fighters and moving to block any changes to the current system of “pass-through” funding.

All told, the top line for the budget is $761.7 billion for the entire Department of Defense, an increase of some $32 billion over the fiscal 2022 enacted total and in line with the Pentagon’s 2023 request. However, that sum is likely to be challenged by lawmakers who feel the increase isn’t enough to keep pace with historically high inflation. The panel meets for a closed markup session June 15.

For the Air Force, in particular, the proposed budget would fully fund many of the service’s key programs. It includes the money requested for USAF to buy 33 F-35 fighters, 15 KC-46 tankers, 10 HH-60W helicopters, $1.5 billion for B-21 bombers, and $1.7 billion for the Next Generation Air Dominance platform. It also includes $246 million for nine aircraft as part of U.S. Special Operations Command’s Armed Overwatch program.

However, it would limit the F-15EX purchase to 18 fighter jets. That’s down from the 24 requested by the Air Force, which would have doubled the 12 in the 2022 budget—USAF leaders told lawmakers in April that the service wanted to increase its purchases of the EX in the short term while reducing the overall numbers in the long term. That move, they said, was necessary to get older F-15C/Ds out of service faster while freeing up resources in the future for other programs.

Other requests from the Air Force’s unfunded priority list, such as seven more F-35s and four more EC-37B Compass Calls, were left untouched.

What was included in the bill was a requirement that no funds be used to modify the appropriations accounts for the National Intelligence Program budget, or even to change how that money is presented in the Pentagon’s budget documents.

Such a requirement would likely stymie any Air Force effort to separate out “pass-through” funding—billions of dollars that are officially included in the department’s top line but are never actually controlled by the Air Force, instead going to classified or undisclosed programs.

Critics say the practice of pass-through spending distorts public perception, making it seem as though the Air Force gets more money than it actually does. Appropriators, however, have been reluctant to make a change, with the argument for the status quo being that pass-through provides a needed layer of secrecy for some agencies.

The 2023 appropriations bill includes a caveat that the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense can study and develop proposals for alternative accounting practices for pass-through spending, but those proposals can be only “for the purposes of achieving auditable financial statements and improving fiscal reporting” and will have to include “a comprehensive counterintelligence risk assessment to ensure that none of the alternative processes will adversely affect counterintelligence.” Those proposals would also have to be certified by the affected agencies.

For the Space Force, the proposed 2023 budget would include $3.9 billion in funding to continue the transition of space activities to the new service. It would also include $647 million to buy two GPS III Follow On satellites.

However, the budget would also cut USSF’s research and development funding—the largest chunk of its request—from $15.8 billion to $15.46 billion.

The Space Development Agency, scheduled to become part of the Space Force later this year, got a boost in the proposed budget, with funding for five launches as part of the National Security Space Launch program. That’s a boost of two over the agency’s initial budget request and in line with its unfunded priority list. With the additional launches, SDA officials say they could get the Tracking Layer of its planned multi-use satellite constellation online by 2025, a year ahead of schedule.

How Sanctions Are Affecting Russia’s Defense Industrial Base

June 14, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The U.S. shouldn’t count on economic sanctions to cripple Russia’s defense industrial base or to prevent Russia from replacing military equipment lost or expended in Ukraine, according to a panel of experts.

Despite a shrinking economy—Russia’s gross domestic could contract as much as 10 percent—its “abilities to finance the war and its military remain pretty robust,” said Richard Connolly, director of the Eastern Advisory Group consulting firm and senior honorary fellow at the University of Birmingham, England. Connolly presented remarks during the Center for a New American Security’s 2022 National Security Conference on June 14.

Connolly and colleagues pointed out that sanctions haven’t affected Russia’s ability to export oil and gas, and that it’s even found new or expanded markets in places such as China, India, and Turkey.

“So the Russian state doesn’t look as though it’s going to run out of funds soon,” Connolly said. “Indeed, Russian ministry of defense data for the first four months of the year show that military spending has doubled what it was intended to [be] at the end of last year. And if it remains at this level for the rest of the year—which is a big if—Russia could end up spending … more on weapons and more on the war and have a smaller economy.”

While some people are “pinning their hopes on sanctions eroding the defense industry’s capacity,” that’s unlikely because the Russian industry usually stocks large reserves of components, Connolly said. Add to that the facts that much of the lost equipment was from the Soviet era and certain industry sectors are highly self-sufficient, and “it’s not going to take long to replace lost combat aircraft. It’s not going to take long to replace the modern ground equipment,” Connolly said.

Conservative data says Russia has lost only about 250 of its modern tanks built in the last decade and 16 modern aircraft. “Now put that into some context,” Connolly said. “Russia took delivery of around 400 new combat aircraft over the past decade. … So Russia is a long way off from having its military capacity completely undermined.”

Meanwhile, the self-sufficiency of certain sectors could insulate those from the effects of sanctions, such as nuclear weapons.

“I wouldn’t expect sanctions to affect Russia’s ability to build nuclear-powered submarines, ballistic missiles, etc.,” Connolly said.

He conceded that Russia could face more of a challenge replacing the estimated 3,000 long-range precision-guided munitions it had expended in Ukraine but said the industry is already “adjusting accordingly,” describing a missile factory adding 500 workers and around-the clock shifts.

“And we’re seeing reports of this all across the defense industry, suggesting, of course, that an absence of components is not yet a problem,” Connolly said.

Taken altogether, the evidence suggests that Russia’s “defense industrial enterprises will continue to produce in the months to come,” he said, “… and we should not underestimate the ability of its industry to adapt to these new and changing circumstances.”

Navy Unit Transfers Into Space Force, Becomes 10th Space Operations Squadron

June 14, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

More than a dozen satellites and the Navy unit that operated them transferred into the Space Force on June 6, when the Naval Satellite Operations Center became the 10th Space Operations Squadron.

The switch marked the first of several space-focused units transferring from the Army and Navy over to the Space Force, a process that began as soon as the new service stood up in December 2019.

After months of discussion, the Space Force announced in September 2021 a list of 15 Army and Navy units that would transfer over, units that contained 319 military and 259 civilian personnel. Later that month, the Space Force announced it would welcome 215 military and 259 civilian personnel from those units.

Those transfers were supposed to start with the beginning of fiscal 2022, but Congress’ delay in passing a new budget slowed the process down. An appropriations bill was finally passed in March, setting the stage for the June 6 Disestablishment and Assumption of Command Ceremony at Point Mugu, Calif.

“This activation marks the beginning of the Department of Defense’s consolidation of all narrow-band, wide-band, and protected SATCOM to include all associated responsibilities for training, acquisition, and sustainment activities under a single military service for the first time in history,” Space Force Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting, head of Space Operations Command, said in a release.

The Naval Satellite Operations Center, or NAVSOC, first stood up in 1962 and has operated the Navy’s satellites—there are 13 at the moment, providing global narrowband communications.

“For 60 years, NAVSOC has advocated and advanced American maritime superiority,” said Vice Adm. Ross A. Myers, commander of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and the 10th Fleet, during the ceremony. “NAVSOC enabled satellite communications to afford the United States and her allies the crucial ability to provide defensive measures, conduct over-the-horizon monitoring and targeting, and project combat power in areas of conflict and instability around the globe.”

All 13 of those satellites are now under the Space Force, including the Ultra High Frequency Follow-On (UFO) satellite system, the Mobile User Objective System, and the Fleet Satellite Communications System. In addition to the satellites, NAVSOC also transferred over a facility at Laguna Peak, three miles from Point Mugu, that is responsible for the Space-Ground Link System and the satellites’ telemetry, tracking, and command operations.

The newly formed 10th Space Operations Squadron will continue with its existing missions while now falling under Space Delta 8, which handles USSF’s satellite communications enterprise.

“Space has become highly contested,” Col. Matthew Holston, commander of Space Delta 8, said at the transfer ceremony. “Our adversaries recognize our reliance on space, and they are actively seeking ways to create vulnerabilities to take away our competitive advantage. It is the 10th Space Force Operations Squadron that is on the front lines to guaranteeing our American way of life.”

According to a release, the 10th Space Operations Squadron was designated as such as a nod to its history as part of the 10th Fleet.

While NAVSOC is now part of the Space Force, the formal transfer of other units is still to come, including the Army’s 53rd Signal Battalion.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated June 15 to clarify which Army units will transfer into the Space Force.

Hawaiian Inter-Island ACE Helps PACAF Practice Close to Home

June 14, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii—Some Airmen consider the Marine Corps’ landing strip on the southeast side of Oahu island in Hawaii to be the most difficult to land on in the world. Surrounded on both sides by water and protected by a mountain range, the 7,800-foot runway is near a population center. Small islands rise from the waters of Kaneohe Bay.

It’s also perfect for practicing the Air Force’s concept of agile combat employment (ACE), which requires Airmen to practice landing in austere Pacific island locations as though they were in a contested environment.

“This is the most difficult airfield to land at in the world for C-17s,” said Maj. Niko Votipka, assistant director of operations for the 535th Air Mobility Squadron at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, as he circled around the southern tip of Oahu in a simulator after departing from Honolulu’s airport, which is co-located with the joint base.

“This is actually one of the strips that we do practice our assault landings on,” he said, a reference to flying low under radar and managing with minimal equipment and manpower.

Marine Corps Base Hawaii’s runway was not listed in the simulator’s database as an austere location for practicing ACE, but the former F-15 pilot who’d spent the past four years flying cargo to places such as Guam, Diego Garcia, the Marshall Islands, Thailand, and Alaska, immediately prepared to descend anyway.

“I’m wrapping the jet in to get to a downward position. I’m slowing the jet down. I’m also descending the jet,” he narrated above the simulated sound of the C-17’s four engines.

A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor from the 19th Fighter Squadron taxis at Marine Corps Air Station Kanehoe Bay, Hawaii, during a training exercise. The F-22s were loaded with fuel that was off-loaded from a Nevada Air National Guard C-130 Hercules. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Thomas Cox.

“The reason that makes this approach so difficult, is because we have to fly it up against the mountains. We can’t fly over land because of local restrictions,” Votipka said, referring to agreements with the state and county. “Basically, we descend very, very fast, and we want to get the jet down as fast as possible and spend as little time close to the ground as possible.”

The pilot started announcing his actions over a beeping sound: slats out, flaps extended 75 percent.

“This is a lot tighter than when we fly most of our approaches,” he said, putting flaps out to 100 percent, pulling back power, and lowering the nose in the direction of the bright sand and nearby blue waters. Just past two white bars painted on the runway was where the assault landing needed to take place.

The jet’s head-up display (HUD) said 5 degrees above the horizon, nose low, with a green bar lit across the landing point Votipka was targeting.

A simulated female voice announced 50 feet from touchdown. Votipka cut power when he hit the ground hard and threw the engines into reverse throttle for a quick stop in approximately 1,500 feet.

“It’s normally very, very bumpy,” he said. “It’s violent.”

Confounding enemy targeting by quickly moving from island to island is hard and expensive to practice, but it’s a lot easier on the islands in U.S. territory, said Airmen who recently practiced ACE in Hawaii.

“It’s an added benefit of being here,” said Hawaii Air National Guard Master Sgt. Ryan Morita, superintendent of power support systems at the 154th Maintenance Squadron, which has 1,000 personnel assigned to it and is the largest Air National Guard wing in the nation.

“We have the geographical location—it’s expensive for us to go anywhere else,” Morita said of practicing ACE in Hawaii’s Pacific islands, the focus of Pacific Air Forces’ preparation to meet China’s pacing challenge.

“We have the benefit of having a channel or a body of water between us, and we can treat it as a hub and spoke,” he said of the string of islands, most of which have landing strips. “Having that body of water presents its challenges in itself.”

To prepare for the inter-island ACE exercise Ho’oikaika 22-1 in March, equipment was flown between three locations: two on Oahu and one on Hawaii’s big island, just like it would be for an ACE exercise in a remote American territory in the Pacific or with a partner nation.

And even though Hawaii could have all the infrastructure and equipment that the Air Force would ever need, in the exercise scenario, communications were cut, and teams were required to select the absolute minimum equipment and personnel to take to the spokes.

“It was simulated … but the equipment didn’t get to us,” Master Sgt. Brian Lampitoc, a maintenance crew chief in the Hawaii Air National Guard, said of the fast-paced, high-intensity exercise.

“It’s nonstop boots on the ground, running, just constantly,” Lampitoc said of the exercise, the third ACE exercise he has practiced in the past year. “I was amazed with combat comms and how quick they could just set up.”

The 26-year Air National Guard veteran said combat communications had set up equipment and had the base up and running within an hour at the Marine Corps landing strip known as “K-Bay” that was acting as a spoke.

Lampitoc, meanwhile, was operating with a skeleton crew when he got word from the hub that some equipment would not arrive.

“I was pretty much frustrated with that because I was like, ‘How do I get jets out of here if I don’t have equipment?’” he recalled.

The Hawaiian ACE exercise taught him to think more keenly about the bare minimum equipment he should bring.

“If a jet lands, and we don’t have the right equipment to get back on track, the assets won’t be able to get off the ground,” he said, describing a breakdown on landing that grounded a jet when he conducted a previous ACE exercise in Guam.

“It was a pretty big ask. And it was a pretty, really big task,” Morita recalled of the Ho’oikaika exercise, which also used the big island’s Hilo International Airport as an austere location.

To simulate an austere location at Hilo, security forces secured the airfield and civil engineering personnel set up a mobile kitchen, while pilots recovered aircraft themselves, exiting the cockpits and chalking their F-22s until maintainers could arrive.

Runners were even employed to fly between spoke locations when communications was down. The challenging exercise taught the integrated team of Active duty and Guard Airmen that they could still overcome challenges and execute the mission.

“We can adapt, we can overcome, [when] we have challenges and obstacles,” said Morita, who predicts that Hawaii will be used for more inter-island ACE exercises in the future. “I’m sure—we’re sure of it.”

Air Force: C-17 Crew Not at Fault in Deaths of Afghan Civilians Clinging to Aircraft

June 13, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The crew of a C-17 did nothing to cause the deaths of Afghan civilians who tried to cling to the jet when it took off from Hamid Karzai International Airport in August 2021, the Air Force said June 13. Civilians fell off the aircraft, and remains were found in its landing gear well when it landed at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.

In an email to members of the press, the Air Force announced the results of an inquiry by the judge advocates of Air Mobility Command and U.S. Central Command, as well as a review by the aircrew’s operational leadership, and based on evidence collected by USAF’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said in the statement that the aircrew “acted appropriately and exercised sound judgment in their decision to get airborne as quickly as possible” in the Aug. 16, 2021, incident.

The C-17 had just landed, and had not yet offloaded its cargo of support equipment for the evacuation effort, when it was swarmed by civilians who had breached the airport’s perimeter, desperate to leave the country. Unprepared for this surge of people and unsure of hostile intentions, the C-17 crew opted to continue taxiing and take off.

“Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield” with all speed, the Air Force said at the time.

Video footage showed numerous people clinging to the fuselage, sponsons, and landing gear. Many let go before takeoff, but video of the incident appeared to show two or three people falling off the airplane from several hundred feet up as it climbed.

“Human remains” were found in the C-17’s wheel well when it landed at Al Udeid, Stefanek said. The aircraft—tail number 2-1109, and which had deployed from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.—was apparently undamaged.

The incident occurred “during an unprecedented evacuation where resources were constrained to ongoing security and evacuation activities” at Karzai International, Stefanek said. The OSI was asked to investigate, and upon the aircraft’s landing at Al Udeid, it “processed and documented the aircraft and the remains” and handed the scene off to “the host nation police, who declined further investigation,” she said.

The aircrew’s “operational leadership” reviewed the incident and determined that the crew acted appropriately in light of the circumstances. The AMC and CENTCOM judge advocates “concurred” that the aircrew complied with applicable rules and followed the rules of engagement “specific to the event and the overall law of armed conflict,” she reported.

The aircrew “faced an unprecedented and rapidly-deteriorating security situation,” Stefanek said, and the crew’s “airmanship and quick thinking ensured the safety of the crew and their aircraft.”

The aircrew sought “appropriate care and services to help cope with any trauma from this unprecedented experience” and returned to flight status later, she reported.

The Air Force evacuated more than 200,000 Afghan nationals out of the country between Aug. 14 and 25. At least one C-17 took off with more than 800 people onboard.

“This was a tragic event and our hearts go out to the families of the deceased,” Stefanek said.