Pentagon Hands Out $7 Billion for NGAP; RTX Sees ‘Tailwind’ for Military Propulsion

Jan. 28, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney received matching $3.5 billion contracts to prototype their versions of the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion engine this week, and the CEO of Pratt’s parent company, RTX, said things are looking up for the military engine business, even if the platform that could use NGAP is in some doubt.

“We’re continuing to develop our NGAP solution,” Chris Calio, RTX president and CEO, said on a company earnings call Jan. 28. “This funding will help us continue … to drive down risks on the key requirements” for the program. “With that award, we think we’re going to have a very competitive offering … regardless of where NGAP is in the timing.”

NGAP was originally planned to be the engine for the Next-Generation Air Dominance Fighter, the Air Force’s crewed stealthy platform meant to succeed the F-22. It includes technologies developed under the Adaptive Engine Transition Program, in which Pratt and GE Aerospace prototyped powerplants that could serve as a mid-life propulsion upgrade for the F-35. But because not all variants of the F-35 could use the AETP engines, the program was halted and the remaining resources put toward NGAP.

Yet last summer, the Air Force put a “pause” on NGAD. Frank Kendall, who stepped down last week as Secretary of the Air Force, said the factors contributing to that move were the NGAD’s extremely high unit cost and concerns whether changing technology meant it was still the right approach for future air superiority. Kendall deferred the decision on NGAD’s future to the new Air Force leadership under President Donald Trump’s administration, which has not indicated when it may make any decisions about it.

In a contract announcement, the Pentagon described the new NGAP deals as “technology maturation and risk reduction” efforts, the same phrase used to describe work being done on NGAD by unnamed airframe contractors while awaiting an NGAD decision by the new administration.

“The work includes design, analysis, rig testing, prototype engine build and testing, and weapon system integration,” the Pentagon said in announcing the NGAP awards. “The contract modification … is focused on delivering a state-of-the-art propulsion system with a flexible architecture that can be tailored for future combat aircraft operating across various mission threads; and digitally transforming the propulsion industrial base.”

Officials have said little about the NGAP engines, but they have noted the powerplants will be smaller than the F135 engine that fits the F-35, and smaller than the AETP engines.

A government official told Air & Space Forces Magazine, however, he is concerned there are no guarantees the NGAP engines will ever be produced.

Trump technology advisor Elon Musk has been critical of the F-35 fighter and has called for eliminating fighter pilots and moving directly on to autonomous systems, which might not require the advanced propulsion NGAP offers, the official said.

“You’ve got a potentially hostile administration that may dump NGAD,” he said, “and in the last 20 years, we dropped three new [fighter] engines,” referring to an alternate engine for the F-35 developed by GE and the two AETP prototypes.

“If we don’t do NGAP, the ecosystem for cutting-edge military engines is going to fall behind” what is happening in China, Russia and elsewhere, the official said. “We can’t discount Chinese engines anymore,” he added. “They’ve invested to fix their problems” with designing and maintaining high-performance fighter engines.

Yet Calio projected an optimistic outlook on military propulsion. The Air Force has tapped Pratt to develop an Engine Core Upgrade to the F135 that will, to a lesser degree, meet some of the increased performance needs of the Block 4 F-35. Calio said the ECU and the NGAP creates “a tailwind” for the military engine business.

“I see this as continuing to grow,” he said. He noted that the Air Force continues to fly older aircraft, and so “the aftermarket remains strong. So I’d say, by and large, this is a tailwind for Pratt. And [we’re] happy to see this funding being put in place over the next number of years to continue this development.” He also said Pratt got F135 sustainment work valued at $1.4 billion across 2024.

The engine GE developed for AETP was given the designation XA100 and Pratt’s was the XA101. It is expected that the NGAP engines will be the XA102 and XA103, respectively.

Video: F-35 Crash at Eielson, Pilot Is Safe

Jan. 28, 2025 | By David Roza

An F-35 crashed at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, on Jan. 28, with videos showing the fighter tumbling to the ground as the pilot drifts on a parachute.

The crash occurred at 12:49 p.m. local time and resulted in “significant aircraft damage” the Eielson-based 354th Fighter Wing said in a press release. The pilot is safe and was transported to the nearby Bassett Army Hospital for further evaluation, the release said.

A second release posted Jan. 29 provided more details: the pilot was preparing to land during a training flight when an-inflight emergency occurred and the pilot ejected, in line with emergency procedures. The pilot has since been released from the hospital.

A video of the crash was posted to the unofficial Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco later that day. It shows an F-35 with its landing gear extended rolling wingtip over wingtip en route to a fiery impact. A figure in a parachute, presumably the pilot, can be seen drifting to earth not far away.

A base spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine that the video is authentic, that the aircraft involved was an F-35, and that both the F-35 and the pilot were assigned to the 354th Fighter Wing.

While the pilot was safe, it was not immediately clear whether they were uninjured.

“Our people are our most important resource, and we are committed in ensuring their safety and security,” wing commander Col. Paul Townsend said in a statement. “I can assure you the United States Air Force will conduct a thorough investigation in hopes to minimize the chances of such occurrences from happening again.”

KC-135 tankers, likely assigned to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 168th Wing, are parked in the foreground of the video. A recording posted on X appears to show audio from air traffic control from just before the crash, but the wing spokesperson could not immediately confirm if it was authentic.

The crash marks the first major Air Force aircraft mishap of 2025. It comes about seven weeks after an MQ-9 Reaper was mistakenly shot down over Syria by U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces.

In May, an F-35B flown by an Air Force pilot crashed in New Mexico shortly after takeoff. The pilot ejected at low altitude and suffered serious injuries, the Air Force said at the time.

This story was updated on Jan. 29 with more details from the 354th Fighter Wing.

Now CCAs Can Do Things ‘We Didn’t Think Were Possible’

Jan. 28, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force now believes a single manned fighter can control a larger number of drones than previously thought, and can do so using less-sophisticated autonomous technology, according to USAF’s director of force design.

No one is saying yet how many Collaborative Combat Aircraft can be teamed with a single manned fighter, but testing and simulations demonstrate these larger combinations “present dilemmas to our adversary that we didn’t think were possible,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph D. Kunkel Jan. 28, during a virtual event hosted by Defense One.

The exact number of CCA drones USAF could team with its manned fighters remains classified, Kunkel said. Since 2022, Air Force leaders including then-Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall suggested ratios of from two to five drones per manned jet, with a notional plan of two drones per fighter seeming the most likely.

Now that picture is changing. “We thought that it was going to be small ratios,” Kunkle said. “And what we’re finding is, actually, it’s bigger than we thought.”

Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet, speaking separately on an earnings call the same day, suggested the ratio may quadruple.

“We can already control out of an F-35 up to eight autonomous drones,” he said. “We’ve shown this [to the] Secretary of the Air Force a few months ago. It’s … public knowledge.”

Taiclet mentioned the one-to-eight fighter to CCA ratio during Lockheed’s October earnings call, but Kunkel’s comments are the first from an Air Force official suggesting the two-to-one planning ratio may have changed. It’s also in line with recommendations from a late 2022 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies paper, which suggested six or seven CCAs per fighter.

Not only can pilots control larger numbers of CCA drones, Kunkel said, but they won’t need drones with the most cutting-edge autonomy software to do it.

“What we thought was going to be this requirement for a great amount of autonomy and a significant amount of artificial intelligence, and really, really complex algorithms,” he said, has turned out to be instead “frankly, simple autonomy, simple algorithms, a little bit of AI sprinkled in. … We’ve been able to decrease pilot workload to a degree where they can really, really effectively utilize these capabilities.”

Kunkel called the development “probably the most exciting part” of the CCA program so far, because it opens up more options for how the Air Force can employ the drones.

“[Pilots] can take advantage of the mass and present dilemmas to our adversary that we didn’t think were possible in terms of the force ratios that we can present,” he said.

“Mass” has long been a crucial theme behind the CCA program. Because CCAs are less costly than manned aircraft, they offer a route to beefing up the combat air forces, which have declined in number over time. That provides an answer to China’s growing force size, while presenting the Chinese with a more complex targeting challenge against larger number of rival aircraft.

Speed is another emphasis. USAF leaders want at least 100 drones in the fleet by 2029, and Kunkel suggested the Air Force may soon start flying test aircraft from Anduril and General Atomics, whose designs passed a design review in October.

“The critical design review was a crucial step in this plan to field something very quickly,” Kunkel said. “The fact that both of them passed and they met the requirements that were levied upon them and frankly, they’re ready to fly, and in some cases, are flying, puts us in a really, really good spot. I feel like the next steps are to actually get them in the air.”

The Air Force has an experimental test unit working on developing the best ways to use CCAs, and the service is also using its X-62 VISTA program to experiment with the autonomy software undergirding CCAs.

The X-62A VISTA flies in the skies above Edwards Air Force Base, California, April 30, 2024. **Richard Gonzales/USAF**

“We’re making a lot of progress on autonomy, exactly what that autonomy needs to be, and then we’re learning new ways just to develop it,” Kunkel said.

With the Air Force focusing on relatively simple autonomy, Kunkel stressed that the service is not interested fully autonomous drones, because these would “not be compliant with the American way of war.”

Having a human in the loop is essential for combat aircraft operating at high speeds, Air Force leaders have said.

“If there’s a person in an airplane that’s next to this thing, the chances of it getting cut off are less, we think,” Kunkle said. “I think you’ll see that tie to the manned platform be something that’s pretty important for how we operate the future.”

Lockheed’s Taiclet said the F-35, equipped with the new Tech Refresh 3 upgrades, is capable of maintaining that tie. “TR-3 gives the F-35 the three things that you need for an effective node,” Taiclet said: data processing, storage, and connection to the cloud.

“Those are the three technical elements you need to have to be able to drive 5G-level connectivity among nodes in a network like this,” he said.

Editorial Director John Tirpak contributed to this report.

What Air Force Maintainers Think of the New Force Design

Jan. 28, 2025 | By David Roza

When the Air Force revealed a new force design for its aircraft maintenance career fields Jan. 27, it kicked off a wave of discussion on social media forums about what it might mean for one of the branch’s largest career fields. Air & Space Forces Magazine checked in with former and current maintainers for their thoughts on the sweeping change, which would start to take effect in 2027.

Proponents of the new design said it could provide junior enlisted Airmen more hands-on time to master the fundamentals of aircraft maintenance, and more experienced Airmen the chance to stay close to the flight line throughout their careers. It might also help prepare maintainers for working in smaller, isolated teams and on next-generation platforms.

On the other hand, critics fear the new design could dilute expertise across the career field and reduce local leaders’ ability to solve complex maintenance problems. Another concern is how the Air Force would switch to the new scheme amid a recent maintainer recruitment slump and resource scarcity.

The Force Design

The new plan would condense more than 50 aircraft maintenance job specialties down to just seven. Junior enlisted maintainers will start out in a generalist track, a single Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) where they will be trained on the most common maintenance tasks, such as launching, recovering, and fueling aircraft, across multiple airframes.

Under the current system, junior enlisted maintainers start their careers in a specific niche, such as avionics, hydraulics, or structures. But in the new force design, specialization would not occur until the rank of Senior Airman. Once there, Airmen will choose between six tracks: Avionics and Electrical, Aerospace Ground Equipment, Advanced Mechanical, Crew Support Systems, Fabrication, and Intermediate-level engines.

The specialties would not be tied to a specific airframe, which would allow for more assignments and development opportunities, maintenance career field managers at Headquarters Air Force said in a memo.

Once they reach the rank of technical sergeant, Airmen can apply to join the technical track, where they would pick up skills from all six specialties to become “THE nose to tail cross-functional expert” on a given airframe the rest of their careers, managers wrote.

Alternatively, technical sergeants can stay in a specialist track until they reach master sergeant, where they switch to the leadership track, providing institutional and functional oversight. Airmen can stay in the technical or leadership track, or they could switch between the two.

Maintainers from the 18th Maintenance Group remove a tire from a KC-135 Stratotanker during an isochronal inspection at Kadena Air Base, Japan, May 22, 2019. (U.S. Air Force photo by Naoto Anazawa)

Contexts and Concerns

The memo laid out two reasons for the new force design: workload and the possibility of conflict against Russia or China. Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flosi told reporters in September that only 20 percent of maintenance tasks account for 80 percent of the workload. Focusing on that 20 percent early in a maintainer’s career will build “a more agile base of early career maintainers,” the memo said.

The new force design is not an attempt to do more with less, said Flosi and the career field managers.

“We’re not trying to, like, squeeze 10 people’s worth of work into five people,” Flosi said in September. “We want to have the capability for an Airman to do as much as they have capacity for.”

A more agile maintainer base may help in a conflict against a technologically advanced adversary, where smaller groups of Airmen will have to generate aircraft from farther-flung airstrips. But one Air Force veteran worried the new force design does not address a fundamental problem: lack of resources.

“While the Air Force claims this policy isn’t about ‘doing more with less,’ it fails to acknowledge that the current maintenance workforce is already operating in a resource-deficient state,” said Chris McGhee, a retired master sergeant who spent 20 years fixing F-16s.

Last year, an Air Force Times investigation found a five-year high in aviation mishaps in fiscal 2023 and blamed it in part on an estimated 1,800-person shortage in a maintenance corps spread over a fleet of aging, high-demand aircraft.

By 2024, that gap shrank to about 500 maintainers, but it takes time to grow an experienced workforce, and McGhee worries the new force design will drag that out even longer.

“Under the current system, an Airman Basic begins their career in a specific specialty—like hydraulics—and focuses exclusively on building skills in that field,” he explained. “When they arrive at the hydraulic back shop, they aren’t an expert yet, but they’ve developed a solid foundation in hydraulics.”

That Airman Basic can always fill in as a generalist for more universal tasks, but if a critical hydraulic problem comes up, they have the specialized skills to fix it, he said. Switching to a generalist track early on would weaken that foundation for technical depth.

“It also undermines the flexibility to reallocate personnel effectively,” McGhee added. “Instead of being able to move a hydraulics troop to help avionics when needed—and still have a specialist for hydraulics—you end up with generalists everywhere, and specialists nowhere.”

Online commenters made similar points.

“We need technicians who have been reading wiring diagrams as their primary focus for YEARS,” wrote one Redditor who said they worked in environmental and electrical for 11 years. “I need someone who knows what a twisted pair, twisted triplet, and NDC cables are and that they can’t be spliced AT ALL.”

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Jacob Millette, 134th Fighter Generation Squadron, crew chief, conducts post-flight procedures on an F-35A Lightning II after arriving at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Jan. 13, 2025. . (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Tylir Meyer)

Hands-On

Still, other experts said they were encouraged by the prospect that younger Airmen could get more time practicing maintenance fundamentals under the new force design.

“In my opinion, it seems as if we aren’t giving maintainers a good ‘hands on’ foundation of aviation maintenance, but through the new design, every Airmen will have the opportunity to understand basic aircraft principles practically instead of theatrically through in-class training,” one anonymous production superintendent told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Despite today’s emphasis on specializing early on, the superintendent said he has seen fuels technicians not know how to refuel or defuel their own aircraft, as well as hydraulics technicians who do not know how to verify a jet’s hydraulics system is depressurized.

“In my experience, our Airmen aren’t lazy or unintelligent,” he said. “They are frustrated because they don’t get enough reps in the fundamentals before having to become a specialist.”

The superintendent said he benefited from a flying crew chief prospect program which taught him the fundamentals of aircraft maintenance. Despite starting out as a hydraulics specialist, he soon became qualified on every maintenance task on the C-130.

Once Airmen gain a solid foundation and have a chance to specialize, the new force design may help keep those experienced Airmen on the flight line, said another anonymous maintenance NCO.

Under the current system, maintainers may start out in a specialized track, but by the time they become a noncommissioned officer, they have to take on leadership roles to stay competitive in the promotion cycle.

“If you’re a tech sergeant on the flight line, you might be the most capable mechanic, but you’re not looked at as being successful because you haven’t been a flight chief,” he said. “An Airman can say ‘I can learn how to change this brake really well, or I can find things to do that show me being a capable leader.’”

A commenter on Facebook who said they are a career crew chief made a similar point.

“By the time they [Airmen] got or started to be experts in their career field, they then got into management,” the commenter wrote in a message posted by the administrator of the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page. “By the time one got to E-5 [staff sergeant] he was not [sic] longer turning wrenches full time.”

The new technical track could let experienced NCOs stay hands-on rather than lose their edge in managerial roles. It may also be a chance to re-emphasize the value of technical proficiency.

“What the Air Force has valued, to me, has been leadership skills, but what the Air Force needs is technical skills,” the anonymous NCO said.

air force mq-9 — Airmen assigned to the 20th Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron lift the radome off of an MQ-9 Reaper at Melrose Air Force Range, New Mexico, Dec. 18, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Gracelyn Hess)

More Adaptable

A maintenance corps made up of more generalized junior Airmen guided by lifelong technical experts may help prepare the force for operating future platforms whose maintenance needs could look different than today’s fleet. Air Force officials envision a future with more expendable uncrewed aircraft whose service life may be measured in years rather than decades, though it is not clear how close that future might be amid tight budgets and shifting defense priorities.

“What I see is they are trying to make the career field more adaptable to whatever comes next,” the anonymous NCO said.

For example, the new force design emphasizes that maintainers will be platform-agnostic unless they join the technical track. By contrast, in today’s system, a C-5 maintainer can sign off on an actuator on the jet’s wing, but they may not be qualified to sign off on the same actuator on the tail of a C-17.

There are valid safety reasons why that’s the case, the NCO said, but it could be a hindrance in a future conflict where Airmen may have to jerry-rig maintenance solutions to launch aircraft from an isolated field in the Pacific.

Implementing the force design will be difficult, said the superintendent, who worried about burnout and clashes between leadership and technical tracks amid a changing cultural dynamic and a nonstop high operational tempo.

“My biggest concern is how do you hold onto the experience long enough to train the maintainers during this transition?” he said. “I worry we might slow promotions and overwork our remaining experts to fill the gaps during the transition.”

Even if the Air force sticks the landing, it will take time for the seeds of such a large transformation to bear fruit. The first generalist track Airmen won’t join the service until 2027.

“People have to buy into it, and they’re probably not going to at first because they’re not used to it,” the NCO said. “It’s a big step in a different direction, but I think it’s necessary.”

Trump Wants an Iron Dome for America. How the Space Force Is Key to Making It Happen

Jan. 28, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to prepare a sweeping plan within 60 days on how to defend the American homeland against attacks from Russian and Chinese missiles and other aerial threats.

Dubbed “Iron Dome for America,” the initiative is outlined in an executive order issued on Jan. 27. The directive calls for a comprehensive air and missile defense strategy, with a heavy emphasis on space-based interceptors that could knock out attacking intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States,” the order states. “President Ronald Reagan endeavored to build an effective defense against nuclear attacks, and while this program resulted in many technological advances, it was canceled before its goal could be realized.”

Experts outside the government said the White House’s push puts new weight behind needed missile defense efforts, with an emphasis on the quick development of a plan for a future missile defense architecture and a roadmap for how to develop and deploy it.

“There is an emphasis on a full spectrum of threats and I think that’s appropriate,” said Tom Karako, an air and missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “… It’s not like it’s technologically infeasible. It just requires effort.”

Trump’s order does not say what new funds might be devoted to the efforts but stipulates that the plan needs to be in hand before the budget for fiscal 2026 is prepared.

Key to the effort will be the Space Force. The plan calls for a boost in the Space Development Agency’s “Custody Layer.” It is part of the effort of Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, in which SDA plans to field hundreds of satellites that can also transfer data and facilitate navigation, with plans for additional capabilities.

“You may have a sensor that only sees a portion of the trajectory, and what you want to be able to do is hand off the tracking,” explained Charles Galbreath, a retired Space Force colonel who is now a senior fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“The ability to maintain custody through different phenomenology and across different regions of the glide path is absolutely critical to supporting the multi-layered missile defense approach that the executive order is advocating for,” Galbreath said.

The Trump administration plan also calls for the fielding of Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor satellites (HBTSS), another project well underway that is designed to be integrated with the SDA’s custody layer of satellites. HBTSS is a collaboration between the Missile Defense Agency and the Space Force.

The plan also calls for the development of a variety of kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities to take out missiles and other threats in multiple phases of flight. Notably, the plan floats “the development and deployment of proliferated space-based interceptors capable of boost-phase intercept” of missiles.

“It takes it a step further to say we’re not just going to track them, we’re going defend against them in every way possible—at least he’s directing to study and review it and make recommendations,” Galbreath said.

Trump’s concept recalls President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which Reagan said would seek to render “nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” That expansive goal was never realized. The limited missile defense the U.S. currently maintains is intended to block a North Korean attack and is not capable of thwarting a Russian or Chinese strike that involves a large number of missiles.

Trump’s call for space-based interceptors has brought attention to a sensitive issue that is not generally discussed in such blunt terms.

In recent years, the Space Force has begun to argue space is no longer a benign environment but a “warfighting domain.” The service has crept ever closer to openly acknowledging it will need weapons of some sort—at least of a defensive nature—in space, increasingly referring to “counter-space” capabilities and “space fires” in recent years.

“This is the year where we need to have a conversation about that. The world has changed. Technology has changed,” Karako said. “The implications of space as a warfighting domain have begun to sink in, and as they do, we are going to see the multiplicity of kinetic and nonkinetic space fires.”

Two Air Force Leaders Fired This Month in Unrelated Incidents

Jan. 28, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

A colonel and a brigadier general were each fired from high-profile jobs within two weeks of each other following investigations, according to the Air Force.

Brig. Gen. Erik Quigley, program executive officer for the bombers directorate at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, was fired Jan. 28 by Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Duke Z. Richardson. Quigley was relieved “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to lead, following an internal investigation which revealed inappropriate personal relationships,” according to an AFMC release.

Twelve days earlier, Col. Julie Sposito Salceies was fired from her job commanding the 613th Air Operations Center by Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Kevin B. Schneider. A PACAF release said the Jan. 16 removal was the result of a “loss of confidence in her ability to command the organization,” but in response to questions from Air & Space Forces Magazine, a spokesman said the command had “validated a UCMJ violation, leading to a decision to relieve her from command.”

Quigley was responsible for guiding sustainment and modernization of the Air Force’s B-1, B-2, and B-52 fleets, and had been in the job since April. His role put him in charge of the major upgrade program for USAF B-52s, which include new engines, radar, cockpits, and more to keep the Stratofortress flying for decades to come.

Not included in Quigley’s portfolio was the new B-21 Raider, which is being developed under the control of the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office.

A career acquisition professional, Quigley led the Minuteman III systems directorate from 2020 to 2022, then spent time as director of staff at AFMC and director of the command’s Digital Acceleration Task Force. He was reassigned to a role within AFMC headquarters, a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Sposito Salceies took command of the 613th AOC in June after commanding the 609th Air Operations Center—the Combined Air Operations Center in the Middle East, one of the busiest commands in one of the most complex regions of the world. The 613th provides command and control of U.S. air assets in the Indo-Pacific, a more expansive region. An air battle manager by trade, Sposito Salceies was reassigned to a position at PACAF headquarters, an official said.

Senior Editor David Roza contributed to this report.

Lt. Gen. Laura Lenderman, Pacific Air Forces deputy commander, presents the guidon to Col. Julie Sposito Salceies, 613th Air Operations Center incoming commander, on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, June 26, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Mark Sulaica

New Air Force Plan: Just 7 Aircraft Maintenance AFSCs

Jan. 27, 2025 | By David Roza

A new Air Force memo lays out how the service aims to condense its list of more than 50 aircraft maintenance job specialties down to seven, starting in 2027.

In a memo dated Jan. 24, maintenance career field managers at Headquarters Air Force said the change will focus younger maintainers on entry-level tasks and free up experienced hands for more technical work. The memo was leaked on the unofficial Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco, and an Air Force spokesperson confirmed it was authentic.

“An in-depth analysis confirmed what many of you already know: as maintainers, a small number of our tasks consume the majority of our time,” wrote Chief Master Sgts. Abbi G. Cabeen, Joseph L. Hicks, and Timothy M. Wells, who manage the avionics, aircraft systems, and crew chief career fields, respectively.

“The future force design leverages this and trains early-career Airmen on our most common tasks, which will free up experienced Airmen to focus on tasks that require substantial expertise,” they wrote.

Under the new plan, junior enlisted Airmen will start out in a generalist track, a single Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) where they will be trained “on the most common maintenance competencies and be charged with applying them across multiple airframes,” according to the memo.

Those common tasks include launching, recovering, and fueling aircraft, but Airmen will also be exposed to more specific skills in the generalized track.

Once Airmen reach the rank of Senior Airman and are preparing to become noncommissioned officers, they will become a specialist in one of six areas:

Avionics and Electrical, which combines avionics with the electrical side of the Environmental and Electrical (E&E) specialty

Aerospace Ground Equipment, which will look the same as it does now

Advanced Mechanical, which combines crew chiefs, fuels, hydraulics, and the flight line side of engine maintenance

Crew Support Systems, which combines ejection seat systems with the environmental side of E&E

Fabrication, which combines aircraft structural maintenance, aircraft metals technology, and nondestructive inspection.

Intermediate-level engines, for maintainers dedicated to intermediate-level engine maintenance.

The specialties would not be tied to an airframe, which the memo said will allow “for more assignments and development opportunities for ALL 2A Airmen.” 2A is the general term for aircraft maintenance AFSCs. There are about 86,000 2A aircraft maintainers across the service, according to 2024 data.

Airmen will stay in a specialized track through the rank of technical sergeant, at which point they can apply for the “highly selective” technical track, where Airmen become “THE nose to tail cross-functional expert” on a given airframe. Selectees would pick up skills from all six specialties and focus on just one airframe.

Alternatively, technical sergeants can stay in a specialist track until they reach master sergeant, where they switch to the leadership track providing institutional and functional oversight. Airmen can stay in the technical or leadership track through the rest of their careers, or they could switch between the two tracks.

c-17 — U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Anthony Goodman, 15th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron engines technician, inspects the engine of a C-17 Globemaster III during Exercise Global Dexterity 23-2 at Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Nov. 29, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Makensie Cooper)

The memo comes about four months after Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flosi floated the idea to reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. He cited an analysis by Air Force headquarters which identified 54 aircraft maintenance AFSCs and noted that of the many tasks they train for, only 20 percent of them account for 80 percent of the work.

Focusing on that first 20 percent early on in a maintainer’s career “will provide us more agility on the flight line,” the chief said. “We’ll have more people that are qualified on the tasks that are most frequently done, and then bolt-on capability capacity.”

Flosi said the impetus for these changes is the possibility of conflict against China or Russia, where smaller groups of Airmen will have to generate aircraft from farther-flung airstrips.

“We’ll be contested in the air, on the ground, in the information environment. Supply chains are far more difficult in the [Indo-Pacific] theater,” Flosi said. “So we need to put the smallest number of Airmen into harm’s way and achieve the maximum capacity out of each one of them.”

The effort dovetails with the mission-ready Airmen concept, where Airmen step outside their usual specialty to refuel a bomber, defend the airfield, or other tasks to accomplish the mission. It means each Airman will be qualified to do more, but it is not “do more with less” Flosi said.

“We’re not trying to, like, squeeze 10 people’s worth of work into five people,” he said. “We want to have the capability for an Airman to do as much as they have capacity for.”

The memo writers made a similar argument.

“As aircraft maintainers, we balance a significant and ever-growing workload, based on the reliability and utilization of our fleet,” they wrote. “In a [Great Power Competition]-combat environment, being well-positioned to fulfill this workload is critical and this design aims to more efficiently distribute our workload across our force.”

It took 18 months to develop the plan, which was “carefully vetted” across the aircraft maintenance community and with Air Force leadership, the memo said. While aspects of the plan may change, the goal is to have the first cohort of generalist track Airmen enter the service in 2027.

Current Airmen will not see changes in their day-to-day work during and immediately after the switch, though they would see administrative and organizational changes such as to their AFSC title and unit manpower document, the memo said.

The Truth About Air Force Basic, Tuskegee Airmen, and Trump’s DEI Order

Jan. 27, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

In the wake of President Donald Trump issuing executive orders about diversity, equity, and inclusion programming in the military, news reports started blaring that videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and other historical figures had been banished from Air Force Basic Military Training—with some reports suggesting that pulling the videos was an act of “malicious compliance” with the order.

Here’s what’s really going on, according to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin: The service is “faithfully executing” the president’s orders and will continue to teach new trainees about the Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Air Force Service Pilots, or WASPs, whose contributions to the war effort helped win World War II.

“While we are currently reviewing all training courses to ensure compliance with the executive orders, no curriculum or content highlighting the honor and valor of the Tuskegee Airmen or Women Air Force Service Pilots has been removed from Basic Military Training,” Allvin said in a Jan. 27 statement.

Air Education and Training Command boss Lt. Gen. Brian S. Robinson said in a separate statement: “The Air Force has not removed these Airmen’s incredible heritage from any training. Their personal examples of service, sacrifice and combat effectiveness are illustrative of the core values, character and warrior ethos necessary to be an Airman and Guardian.”

The controversy began Jan. 23, when the Air Force started shutting down DEI offices and identifying which parts of its training curriculum needed revisions to comply with the executive orders. AETC identified the “Airmindedness” unit at Basic Military Training as having “included DEI material.” Also in those units, however, were videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs, trailblazing units of Black and female Airmen, respectively. These were “interwoven” into the programming, said an Air Force official who spoke on background to Air & Space Forces Magazine. The videos were “not the direct focus of course removal actions.”

While the Air Force worked on revisions, Robinson said, “one group of trainees had the training delayed.”

Word of the changes leaked when a memo was posted on the popular and unofficial Air Force Amn/NCO/SNCO Facebook page.

That’s when the blowback started. The Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a nonprofit devoted to preserving the Tuskegee Airmen’s history, issued a statement criticizing the move, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) took to social media to charge the Air Force with “malicious compliance,” suggesting someone obeyed the directive in a way intended to undermine the order’s intent.

Newly installed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth thanked Britt on social media, saying the change had been “immediately reversed.” At least one online news outlet has published criticism suggesting Air Force units and bases are using “malicious compliance” while following Trump’s DEIA order.

But Allvin disputed the charge. “Despite some inaccurate opinions expressed in reporting recently, our Air Force is faithfully executing all the President’s executive orders,” Allvin said. “Adhering to policy includes fully aligning our force with the direction given in the DEI executive order. Disguising and renaming are not compliance, and I’ve made this clear. If there are instances of less-than-full compliance, we will hold those responsible accountable.”

While the video presentations on the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs were delayed for one group of Airmen, both Allvin and Robinson said no videos were ever removed from the curriculum.

On Jan. 27, the revised training unit was re-introduced, Robinson said, with a focus “on the documented historic legacy and decorated valor with which these units and Airmen fought for our Nation in World War II and beyond.”

Allvin said he has “directed our Air Force to implement all directives outlined in the executive orders issued by the President swiftly and professionally—no equivocation, no slow-rolling, no foot-dragging,” according to his statement. “When policies change, it is everyone’s responsibility to be diligent and ensure all remnants of the outdated policies are appropriately removed, and the new ones are clearly put in place.”

Air Force officials did not immediately respond to queries from Air & Space Forces Magazine seeking details on what “DEI material” was removed from the boot camp training unit, how much material was removed, and what, if anything, has replaced it in the curriculum.

A 2019 revision to Air Force Instruction 36-7001 established three hours of diversity training in boot camp as the “optimal instruction time” over seven and a half weeks. It’s unclear if the videos on the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs were introduced to help fulfill that requirement or if they predate the instruction, but celebration of both groups as part of the Air Force’s heritage is not new.

During President Trump’s first term in office, the Air Force designated the new T-7 jet trainer as the “Red Tail,” in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, whose planes had distinctive red tails, and he also celebrated famed Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee at his final State of the Union address, announcing his honorary promotion to brigadier general at the age of 100. McGee died in 2022, aged 102.

During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps trained its first Black pilots at Tuskegee, Ala., even as the Armed Forces remained largely segregated. Between aviators, ground crews, and support personnel, nearly 14,000 individuals became “Tuskegee Airmen.” They distinguished themselves in combat over hundreds of missions, earned scores of decorations, and are credited with helping pave the way for integration in the military. In 2007, they were recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal.

At the same time, more than 1,000 women flew as WASPs—they freed up male pilots for combat missions by ferrying aircraft, working as test pilots, towing targets for gunners, pulling weather reconnaissance missions, flying student navigators and bombardiers, and instructing male pilots. Technically civilians, they were granted honorable discharges and veteran status in 1977 and were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon and Senior Editor David Roza contributed to this report.

New ‘Space Campus’ to Boost Space Force in Middle East

Jan. 27, 2025 | By David Roza

The Space Force broke ground on a new ‘Space Campus’ at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, on Jan. 14—a move officials say will boost space operations and capabilities in the Middle East.

“This complex will soon become a beacon for the vital space systems and operations that underpin U.S. CENTCOM’s mission of promoting stability, security, and partnership across the region,” Col. Frank Brooks, deputy commander of Space Forces Central, said according to a Jan. 24 press release.

Space Forces Central (SPACECENT) stood up in 2022 as the service component to U.S. Central Command. Commander Col. Christopher Putman told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the time that the new organization would better integrate space capabilities such as missile warning with the rest of the joint services operating in CENTCOM.

At first, the component had only around 30 Guardians deployed to Al Udeid. In recent months, however, SPACECENT has grown.

In March, it activated Combat Detachment 3-1, which provides command and control for SPACECENT teams that in turn provide missile warning detection, space-based communications, and GPS, according to a press release at the time. Guardians there have already made a difference warning of missile launches aimed at U.S. troops and ships in the Red Sea, Stars and Stripes reported last year.

In June, the Space Force took official ownership of the Army’s Joint Tactical Ground Station missile warning systems, which provides real-time missile warning infrared tracking to forward-deployed areas. Al Udeid is one of the bases where JTAGS units are located.

By July, the Space Force was reporting more than 60 Guardians deployed in the Middle East. To this point, though, many Guardians at Al Udeid have been working out of spartan facilities.

The new facility at Al Udeid will be “state-of-the-art,” the Space Force release states, and comes amid a spate of construction projects in recent years—in 2023, officials said they had completed 38 projects worth $1.4 billion as part of a 2040 Strategic Master Plan. And in early 2024, the Pentagon and Qatar agreed to extend the U.S.’s presence there for 10 years.

“It will stand as a testament to our shared vision for a safer, more secure world,” Brooks said in the release.