‘Did We Do Enough?’ Airmen Heed Lessons from Their Air Victory over Iran

‘Did We Do Enough?’ Airmen Heed Lessons from Their Air Victory over Iran

Nov. 19, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

This is the third and final installment in a multipart series based on exclusive interviews with nine Airmen who helped respond to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel. Part 1 and Part 2 are available here. 

RAF LAKENHEATH, U.K.—Below the F-15E Strike Eagles, the swirl of missiles, interceptors, and debris flying through the night lit up the night sky like the Northern Lights, one Airman recalled.  

Iran had launched more than 300 one-way attack drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles at Israel and the attack was now at it its crescendo. After following orders to “launch to survive,” fighters from the 494th Fighter Squadron were airborne and confronting their mission. 

“‘All right, take five seconds to breathe, get our wingmen up with us, because they finally were able to take off,’” Capt. Logan Cowan, an F-15E pilot, recalled thinking. “And then it’s like an ‘everything happening everywhere, all at once’ scenario.” 

In addition to F-15E and F-16 fighters, USAF tankers and command-and-control aircraft were in the air, as were aircraft from coalition partners and Israeli interceptors. 

“The totality of the situation was, ‘Oh sh–,’” Cowan mouthed. 

Ahead of Cowan’s formation, Maj. Benjamin Coffey and Capt. Lacie “Sonic” Hester were back in the thick of things, airborne for the second time that night, having left their bunker at the base in the midst of an Alert as other personnel took shelter from the attack. They launched in a new jet after returning to base with a missile that failed to fire.  

Like their first sortie, Coffey and Hester quickly expended all their missiles; again, one failed to fire. As a last resort, they fired their F-15E’s 20mm gun, but with limited effect. 

As airborne mission commanders, however, they still had work to do. 

“We need to coordinate the other fighters. We need to coordinate for our partners, so that they know where the threat is,” Coffey said. “And at that point, instead of trying to do subsequent gun attempts, we bring fighters back … we reset where the fight is going on, and we start handing off threats.” 

Three other fighters from the squadron remained in the air, including a two-ship flown by Capts. Cowan, Gabriel Diamond, Trace Sheerin, and Brian Tesch that was entering the fight for the first time. 

“We’re just all over the place, hunting down the tracks that other jets picked up and where they saw the drones and cruise missiles,” Tesch said. 

The attack seemed to have petered out. But then the crews got word from Coffey and Hester that a few “straggler” drones were 300 or so miles away. Snapping in that direction, the F-15Es raced to intercept them as they approached a city. 

“Obviously that makes the hairs on the back your neck stand up,” said Sheerin. “If you’re out in the middle of the desert, that’s fine. If something misses, something goes wrong, the worst that happens is … a random crater that could have been from an asteroid pops up somewhere in the desert. 

“But as soon as you start throwing in completely innocent people who have nothing to do with this conflict, and now you have explosives flying over them, and heavily laden supersonic fighter jets flying very low altitude over them, that complicates the equation quite a bit.” 

Cowan and Diamond were the flight leads, but Sheerin and Tesch were in a better position to take the first shot. 

“We’ve set up the intercept, and I’m waiting for him to shoot,” said Cowan. “I query him once, I query him twice, and then all of a sudden, I look up and this missile just flies off his jet and explodes in the center of my field of view.” 

Despite their exhilaration, however, they decided against trying for a second intercept—the risk too great given the chance of civilian harm. Instead, they passed custody of the target off to coalition fighters further back. 

Gen. James B. Hecker, head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, praised that decision during a Nov. 12 ceremony decorating members of the 494th. Amid the excitement and adrenaline of aerial combat, the restraint the crews showed stood out in its own way.

After that, most U.S. fighters returned to base, while Cowan, Diamond, Sheerin, and Tesch still had to fly for several hours more. In the wake of adrenaline-infused takeoffs and dramatic shootdowns, quiet now descended as the sun rose in the east. 

Looking out, the Airmen saw dozens, if not hundreds, of trails of smoke from missiles and interceptors winding through the sky. 

“Like a ball of yarn,” Sheerin said. 

“Like a bird’s nest,” Tesch said. 

“It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen,” Cowan said. “Because the sun is shining through all these missile smoke trails, it looks like a bowl of spaghetti in the sky.” 

For the next several hours, the last two F-15Es patrolled the airspace as the impact of what had just happened sank in.  

Coffey and Hester, returning to base, also took stock. 

“We can see the Iron Dome [Israeli air defense system] going off in the distance. We can see base defense fires from all the bases around us going off. And there is a long period of about 20 minutes where we just talked about, ‘Did we do enough?’” Coffey said.

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 494th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron “Mighty Black Panthers” lands in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Oct. 13, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Josephine Pepin

Aviators and maintainers turned on the news and got their answer: 99 percent of all drones and missiles had been intercepted, and the few that got through caused minimal damage and no fatalities. What some have called the biggest drone attack in history had been thoroughly thwarted. 

“After everything was down, and all the hung missiles were put up, and we had already re-armed and got ready to go for a second round, then we had time to breathe and start processing what actually happened,” said Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver. 

The entire squadron, Coffey said, breathed a collective sigh of relief. And in the days and weeks to follow, they were able to appreciate just how much they had done, said Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh. 

“What we did was very important, saved many lives, and also showed that times are changing, and with unmanned aerial devices [threatening allies], we are prepared to just defend against anything,” Wertsbaugh said. 

On Nov. 12, leaders, dignitaries, and scores of fellow Airmen gathered in a hangar at Lakenheath to recognize those accomplishments. On a stage set up beside an F-15E, Hecker handed out awards ranging from the Air & Space Achievement Medal to the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bronze Star. Hester became the first woman in the Air Force to receive the Silver Star.  

And if, as Hecker said during the ceremony and Air Force leaders have often repeated as of late, the nature of warfare is changing, then members of the 494th can look back on that night in the Middle East as a key moment. 

“I’m too young, too inexperienced even now to be able to tell you where warfare will go in the future. That’s not my purview,” said Sheerin. “But with how things continue to change, I know from the lessons learned in this as a squadron … as a fighter community specifically, I think we’re moving in a good direction, and I think we will be able to continue to assess and improve specifically with the lessons learned from the 13th of April.” 

Part 1 and Part 2 are available here.

494th Fighter Squadron Decorations

Silver Star Medal

  • Maj. Benjamin Coffey
  • Capt. Lacie Hester

Bronze Star Medal

  • Maj. Clayton Wicks
  • Master Sgt. Timothy Adams

Distinguished Flying Cross

  • Lt. Col. Curtis Culver (V)
  • Lt. Col. Timothy Causey (V)
  • Capt. Logan Cowan (V)
  • Capt. Gabriel Diamond (V)
  • Capt. Trace Sheerin (V)
  • Capt. Brian Tesch (V)
  • Capt. Matthew Eddins (C)
  • Capt. Garrett Benner (C)
  • Capt. Austin Leake (C)
  • Capt. Stepan Volnychev (C)
  • Capt. Claire Eddins
  • Capt. Carla Nava
  • Capt. Kyle Abraham
  • Capt. Eric Edelman

(V) indicates a Valor device, (C) indicates a combat device

Air and Space Commendation Medal

  • Capt. Alexander Thennes
  • Master Sgt. Michael Bialaski
  • Tech. Sgt. Brandon Brown
  • Staff Sgt. Sarah Moir
  • Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh
  • Staff Sgt. Daniel White

Air and Space Achievement Medal

  • Staff Sgt. Michael Wright
  • Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver
  • Senior Airman Ardo Dia
  • Senior Airman Sanders Joseph
  • Senior Airman Rico Sanchez
  • Airman First Class Treyvon Walker
Water Can Be a Global Security Issue. This New Tool Will Help The Military Plan

Water Can Be a Global Security Issue. This New Tool Will Help The Military Plan

Nov. 18, 2024 | By David Roza

From flooding in North Carolina to droughts in East Africa, changing water cycles exacerbated by climate change are driving instability around the world. Even in peacetime, mud or rain can slow troop movements, cancel sorties, and generally make life more difficult for U.S. military leaders.

But a new tool launched late last month aims to give leaders across the government better information at a faster tempo to predict and manage water-related risks when planning military operations, disaster response, environmental monitoring, resource management, and more.

The Global Hydro-Intelligence (GHI) system takes information from a wide range of sources, including satellites, ground-based sensors, and climate models, to give planners a “comprehensive picture of global water dynamics,” Lt. Col. Mickey Kirschenbaum, a public affairs officer for weather force management at Air Force Headquarters, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

If it gets wet, it’ll likely be in the GHI system, which aims to provide accurate and timely information on soil moisture, snow cover, vegetation health, precipitation, and many things in between, both in the short term and the long run.

“GHI-based products and services will, for the first time, establish a routinely available source of global water assessments spanning near-real-time analyses to future projections,” Col. Patrick Williams, director of weather at Air Force Headquarters, said in a Nov. 15 press release. “This will arm warfighters, planners, and decision makers with assessments of surface hydrology features and their potential effects across time scales.”

U.S. Air Force and NASA officials hold a ceremony to celebrate their collaboration and the initial operational capability of Global Hydro-Intelligence at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Oct. 30, 2024. GHI is a strategic tool designed to predict and manage water-related risks for military leaders. (U.S. Air Force photo by Chad Trujillo)

Current systems combine three main approaches, Kirschenbaum explained:

  • traditional hydrological models, which analyze historical data and statistics to forecast floods and droughts but are limited by ground-based data quality
  • Satellite-based observations that provide global water cycle data but are not ideal for real-time military decisions
  • Regional forecasting systems that integrate local ground observations, and meteorological models to assess water-related risks in specific geographical areas

The problem is that none of those three approaches were designed with military operations in mind. GHI aims to bring in data from many sources, then use “real-time data processing and analytics” to produce timely information for commanders.

The system will also use machine learning and advanced modeling techniques to make more accurate predictions of future floods, droughts, and other water events. And it’s all designed to be user-friendly for non-experts.

“Unlike many regional systems, GHI offers global coverage across all time-scales, making it a valuable tool for military operations that span multiple countries and regions,” Kirschenbaum said.

It’s a team effort: representatives from the Air Force, NASA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers all took part in an Oct. 30 ceremony at the Pentagon celebrating GHI’s initial operational capability. The Navy, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory also contributed to the project. 

Each agency has something to offer: for example, NASA’s Land Information System plays a key role assimilating data to create terrestrial hydrology models. Dr. Jerry Wegiel, NASA’s principal investigator for GHI, said the new system will give the government a first-of-its-kind trusted information set about the movement of water, according to the press release.

weather
A maintenance team works on a A-10 Thunderbolt II during a snowstorm Dec. 29, 2013, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Capt. Brian Wagner)

GHI comes at a key moment as the Air Force aims to bring weather forecasting back into operations planning, a muscle group that atrophied during the Global War on Terror. 

“The way weather is used today, we’re an obstacle,” Williams told Air & Space Forces Magazine in July. “Before the pilot takes off, we’ll tell them what conditions they’ll see, which impacts how much fuel they need, how many bombs they can carry, and how to get back safely. [But] we can do so much more than that.

“We can purposely force the adversary into situations that they don’t want to be in where they have to pick between a bad choice and a worse choice,” he said.

That could mean sending U.S. bombers in behind a storm to attack an enemy airfield, or predicting when atmospheric conditions limit the radar systems used to guide enemy surface-to-air missiles. 

Like any weapon system, it pays to have a better weather knowledge system than the other guy. The textbook example is D-Day in 1944, when Allied planners took advantage of a break in the storm that German forecasters missed. But weather forecasting requires powerful computers, talented operators, and quality data, the last of which is particularly tough as only two of the military’s 60-year-old weather satellites are currently operational.

“Not having weather satellites up there is a huge, huge problem,” Williams said. 

New satellites for the Pentagon’s secure use would be the ideal solution, but GHI helps close the gap by integrating with other government agencies and making their water data available more quickly.

“We are extremely excited for the role that GHI is going to play in future operational planning and the enhanced situational awareness it’s going to bring to the fight,” Maj. Gen. John Klein Jr., Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, said in the press release.

Mr. John M. Schnittker (front), agricultural advisor, Kirkuk Provincial Reconstruction Team, U.S. Department of State, evaluates a wheat field after hearing local resident’s concerns of water shortages, Hawijah, Iraq, April 26, 2007. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Michael Alberts)

Faster data in greater quantities is important when climate change is disrupting weather patterns, which in turn disrupts human patterns. Drought is one example: in a March report, the United Nations said water deficits can be linked to 10 percent of the increase in migration worldwide. 

“This displacement can, in turn, contribute to water insecurity by placing added strain on water systems and resources in settlement locations, thereby fueling social tensions,” the UN report states. “This water scarcity can increase the risk of conflict.”

Better, faster information could help generate policies to mitigate that risk, “allowing decision-makers and diplomacy to have a greater effect before crisis turns to violence and the armed forces are called,” the press release explained.

Still, GHI is designed to address a wide range of applications beyond anticipating water-induced conflicts or humanitarian crises, Kirschenbaum said. Other areas include environmental monitoring and resource management.

“The system’s ability to integrate diverse data sources and provide real-time analytics makes it a versatile tool for various stakeholders, including government agencies, environmental organizations, and international bodies, to make informed decisions across multiple domains,” he said.

B-52 Drops Bombs in Lithuania in Rare Live-Fire Exercise

B-52 Drops Bombs in Lithuania in Rare Live-Fire Exercise

Nov. 18, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

A B-52 Stratofortress bomber dropped weapons on a range in Lithuania on Nov. 15 in an unusual live fire display, a U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

The B-52, which is assigned to the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, was participating in a NATO exercise dubbed Vanguard Merlin.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a news release that the B-52 “performed air-to-ground range training”  with an Italian Eurofighter Typhoon on Nov. 14-15  Lithuanian, Czech, Swedish, and Norwegian joint terminal attack controllers also participated in the exercise.

“This mission allowed aircrew to familiarize themselves with the operations in Lithuania and the coalition forces on the ground, creating a combat-ready force that has depth in capability and breadth in capacity,” U.S. Air Forces in Europe said in a release.

The munitions were dropped at Cudgel Range in Lithuania, a Baltic nation that was formerly part of the Soviet Union but which has been a NATO member since 2004.

The bombs for the B-52 were assembled and loaded by Airmen from the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron and 420th Munitions Squadron at RAF Fairford, U.K. Photos and video released by the Air Force indicate they included GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs).

The 420th Munitions Squadron maintains war reserve materiel at RAF Welford, which is the U.S. military’s second-largest munitions storage area in Europe and is located roughly 30 miles away from RAF Fairford.

Ten B-52s are currently deployed to Europe and the Middle East, nearly 15 percent of the USAF’s entire B-52 fleet.

Four of those B-52s are forward deployed at RAF Fairford as part of a bomber task force mission and are normally based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La. Some flew with Danish F-16s, German Eurofighter Typhoons, and Italian Typhoons on a mission over the Baltic Sea on Nov. 15. It is unclear if that was the same flight as the mission that flew over Lithuania in the NATO exercises. 

The remaining six B-52s, which are from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., are at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. On Nov. 13, two B-52s flew over the Bahrain International Air Show, with a third displayed on the flight line, the first time B-52s have participated in that event.

Air Force Moving Fast to Put New Information Dominance Systems Center at Hanscom

Air Force Moving Fast to Put New Information Dominance Systems Center at Hanscom

Nov. 18, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., is the likely home for the Air Force’s new Information Dominance Systems Center, which will be responsible for procuring battle management systems, cyber and electronic weapons, and more. 

The Air Force identified Hanscom as the sole candidate location to host the new center on Nov. 15, and a final basing decision is expected before the end of the year. 

Around 136 positions are expected to come with the center, which was first announced in February as part of the Department of the Air Force’s “re-optimization” for Great Power Competition. The center will fall under Air Force Materiel Command, the service’s main acquisition arm—officials say creating a center focused on information systems will put more focus on procuring systems for a crucial capability that is often forgotten or given less emphasis.

In April, AFMC announced that the Information Dominance Systems Center would be commanded by the program executive officer (PEO) for command, control, and communications/battle management. Maj. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey is the current and, so far, only officer to hold that position. In a Nov. 15 release, the Air Force specified that command of the Information Dominance Systems Center will be a three-star position. 

Hanscom’s selection to host the new center is hardly surprising—the base already hosts Cropsey’s C3/BM program office, as well as the program offices for Cyber & Networks and Electronic Systems, both of which will transition from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center to the Information Dominance Systems Center. 

Maj. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey, Integrating Program Executive Officer for Command, Control, Communications, and Battle Management, is leading the department’s effort to modernize its Battle Network. Jud McCrehin/staff

The only program office that will fall under the new center but not be located at Hanscom is PEO Business Enterprise Systems, which is spread across Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.; Joint Base San Antonio, Texas; and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. 

Air Force leaders indicated in February that they wanted to limit the extra time and financial burdens that can come from setting up new organizations. 

“We’re going to minimize people having to move and we’re going to try to minimize costs, but we’ve got to move out pretty quickly on all those as well,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. 

Putting the Information Dominance Systems Center at Hanscom would seem to fit that goal, and officials say they hope to stand up the center by mid- to late-2025. 

When that happens, it will become Air Force Materiel Command’s seventh center, along with: 

  • Air Force Research Laboratory 
  • Air Force Test Center 
  • Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (becoming Air Dominance Systems Center) 
  • Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (becoming Nuclear Systems Center) 
  • Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center 
  • Air Force Sustainment Center 
How USAF Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos to Defend Israel

How USAF Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos to Defend Israel

Nov. 18, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

This is the second article in a multipart series based on exclusive interviews with nine Airmen who helped respond to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel. To read Part 1, ‘Silver Star Airmen,’ click here. To complete the series, read Part 3, ‘Did We Do Enough’

RAF LAKENHEATH, U.K.—On April 13, Capts. Trace Sheerin, Brian Tesch, Logan Cowan, and Gabriel Diamond were set to fly the second scheduled patrol of the night from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.  

Members of the 494th Fighter Squadron, they had already watched fellow F-15E crews take off earlier that night, heading over the desert to confront Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel.  

Intelligence and command and control feeds made clear the attack was big—jets were expending all their firepower within 30 minutes, “including air-to-ground munitions, which would be like the last thing you have on the jet to try to take out some of those drones,” Tesch said.  

Yet when the crews asked if they would be taking off earlier than planned, the answer came back “no.” Finally, they climbed into their jets. “We had just started the first engine, the canopy had just closed, and then off in the distance, I see about two dozen maintenance folk and other people sprinting and running out of buildings towards the bunkers,” Tesch said.  

Ballistic missiles were now either approaching the base, which was close to Israel, or being hit by the Iron Dome defense system.  

The base declared “Alarm Red”—meaning it was facing an imminent threat; troops were directed to underground bunkers. A Patriot air defense battery on the base started firing interceptors.  

“I look over my shoulder and it just looks like the Fourth of July,” Teach said. “I remember, usually I couldn’t see the paper on my on my knee because it’s just dark. It’s night. There’s no lighting out there. But I could see, like, clear as day. I could read everything on the paper just from the explosions lighting up the cockpit.” 

The second shift of F-15Es weren’t the only Strike Eagles on the flight line. The first two aircraft to take off that night, flown by Maj. Benjamin Coffey and Capt. Lacie Hester and Lt. Col. Curtis Culver and Lt. Col. Timothy Causey, had returned to base after expending all their firepower, and Culver and Causey’s jet got an integrated combat turn—being reloaded and refueled with the engines running—in a breakneck time of 32 minutes. 

U.S. Air Force aircrew assigned to the 494th Fighter Squadron walk to their F-15E Strike Eagle as they prepare to depart RAF Lakenheath, England, for a deployment to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, Oct. 16, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Olivia Gibson

But Coffey and Hester’s jet had a “hung ordnance,” meaning a missile that had not fired. They were planning on hopping over to a second plane when the Alarm Red sounded, and with their jet not ready to take off yet, they headed to the bunkers. 

Once there, however, Coffey and Hester came to grips with the situation. Their fellow aviators were still defending against the attack—and they had a jet still on the flight line, if they could just get it prepped for launch amid the Alarm Red. 

“I remember looking at Sonic [and saying], ‘We got to go out. We haven’t done enough yet. We can do more. We can just do one more sortie, there’s one more jet. Let’s just take it and go,’” Coffey said. “And she’s like, ‘Yeah, we got to go.’” 

To make that happen, though, they needed a crew chief and maintainers to volunteer to leave the bunker. 

“One of them stood up, Senior Airman Freer, and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a crew chief,’” Coffey recalled. “’You want to go out there right now and launch this ship?’ [He said] ‘Absolutely,’ so we three of us, left the bunker. A few other folks joined us, and Sonic and I got in, started cranking. He stayed plugged in with us. When we cleared him off, he’s like, ‘Nope, until you taxi, I’m going to be right here. My job’s to get you out.’ So he chose, over and over again, with all that stuff going on, to stay out there.’” 

While the alarm kept going as they prepared for takeoff, there was a small gap in the air defense by the time Coffey and Hester were ready for takeoff, giving them an opening to go. 

Meanwhile, the second patrol got the order from the squadron commander: launch to survive. With missiles and debris raining down around the base, the sky was now the safest place for the fighters to be. 

“The problem is, we can’t take off until we have an arming crew … pull the arming handles, the pins and make it so that we can effectively use our aircraft and weapon systems,” said Cowan. 

On the flight line, Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh and her team were responsible for a final inspection and arming munitions just before takeoff. They had watched the maintenance crew pull off the speedy combat turn just as the alarm red had started. Now, they were in a van, preparing to head to the bunker. 

“We had two more aircraft that were not ready to be launched, but they were at chocks, waiting to taxi to be launched. So I said, you know, we have to turn around,” Wertsbaugh said. “We have these last two aircraft, who knows how long this alarm red is going to last? So if we do this now, it’ll be done, and after that we can get inside.” 

While the aircraft taking off would be safer in the air, the ground crews would have no such luck. But Wertsbaugh was not deterred. 

“Nobody else is going to do this,” she said. “I was assigned to this part. I need to stick with it.” 

Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver had helped resolve issues on jets before the alarm sounded, then he and other maintainers directed others to go to the bunkers while they stayed on the flight line to get the final jets off. 

“We know how to do it in that moment. There’s so much going on, there’s so much process. There’s no room for emotion,” he said. 

In their cockpits, Cowan, Sheerin, Tesch, and Diamond watched as “a team of like 10 people swarm our jets,” Cowan said. 

“I don’t even know if they were the arming crews. People would run up to the jet to arm us up and then continue running to the bunker,” Tesch said. 

A dozen Airmen were decorated for their actions that night, including Master Sgt. Timothy Adams, who was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for overseeing the maintainers under fire and remaining on the flightline.

Ready to go, the jets taxied for takeoff—and then stared down a runway with active air defense going off on either side. 

“The takeoff corridor that we had was out of the way of the battery firing,” Cowan said. “We took off, and I wanted to become invisible, because we still had other base defenses, and we have the other bases in the area that have their own defense zones we needed to avoid.” 

Behind Cowan and Diamond, Sheerin and Tesch saw the jet’s afterburner go out at around 3,000 feet. In the darkness, with lights and explosions all around, they couldn’t tell if their flight lead had made it. 

“I was convinced they had been shot down from our own air defense or hit something on the way up,” Tesch said. “So that, for me, was probably the scariest moment of, ‘Hey, it’s our turn to go. They just got hit. Now we have to follow them through that cluster of debris and flaming chunks of metal.’” 

Sheerin kept the jet low over the runway, knowing debris wasn’t falling directly on it and the air defense was positioned to fire parallel to the runway, rather than across it. 

“it felt kind of like a drag race,” Sheerin said. “So you are racing the air defense basically. [Tesch] talked about the Fourth of July lights—you’re chasing these fireworks and racing them down the runway. And then once we had enough airspeed, and we were past the edge of the runway, just pitching the nose up pretty, pretty high, trying to get away from the ground as fast as possible.” 

In the air, Capt. Matthew Eddins and Capt. Garrett Benner were part of the first alert crews to launch against the attack and were returning to base after handing things over to the second alert jets. As they drew near, they saw chaos ensue. 

A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from Royal Air Force Lakenheath’s 494th Fighter Squadron returns to formation after receiving fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker from the Fairchild Air Force Base’s 92nd Aerial Refueling Squadron, over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, May 2, 2024. U.S. Air Force Photo/ Staff Sgt. Devin Rumbaugh

“When you’re under night vision goggles, you can see probably the greatest firework show you’ve ever seen, and lots of stuff raining down from who knows where, but it’s hard to tell if that’s 100 miles away or or 10 miles away or if that’s directly above me,” Benner said. 

At the operations desk, Maj. Clayton Wicks and others had decided to stay at their posts as the primary focal communications point for all the jets even as the alarm went off. Now, they needed to decide whether or not they should have Eddins and Benner land with the Alarm Red still in effect. 

“We decided that having them divert and land somewhere else was not the best course of action,” Wicks said. “I mean, the base hadn’t actively been hit, so we’re like, if we determined that having them go somewhere else, that absolutely takes them out of the fight, whereas if we can get them down here, we might still be able to put them through the ICTs and get it back airborne. And in all likelihood, our base was still the safest place for them. So just stay airborne as long as you can, and land once you don’t have fuel to stay airborne anymore.” 

With hung ordnance and low fuel, Eddins and Benner decided to land. After holding off for a moment to let the jets on the ground take off, they landed on the base’s backup runway. 

“At that point, I was just focused on landing,” Eddins said. “I know that runway was not the best. About 1,000 feet down that runway is actually a little bump. So when you land and you hit that bump, it actually brings you up airborne again. You have to bring it back down with the crosswinds. It was definitely not my greatest landing.” 

But they made it. On the ground, with the Alarm Red still in effect, jets with hung ordnance had to be carefully positioned on the flight line so as to not be too close together. But the danger to the base was starting to fade. 

At the ops desk, Wicks got the word from the Combined Air Operations Center: Stop launching jets. “Save it for tomorrow, because we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” they told him. High above, some U.S. fighters remained in the air—as did a number of Iranian drones. 

Read Part 1, ‘Silver Star Airmen,’ and Part 3, ‘Did We Do Enough.’

494th Fighter Squadron Decorations

Silver Star Medal

  • Maj. Benjamin Coffey
  • Capt. Lacie Hester

Bronze Star Medal

  • Maj. Clayton Wicks
  • Master Sgt. Timothy Adams

Distinguished Flying Cross

  • Lt. Col. Curtis Culver (V)
  • Lt. Col. Timothy Causey (V)
  • Capt. Logan Cowan (V)
  • Capt. Gabriel Diamond (V)
  • Capt. Trace Sheerin (V)
  • Capt. Brian Tesch (V)
  • Capt. Matthew Eddins (C)
  • Capt. Garrett Benner (C)
  • Capt. Austin Leake (C)
  • Capt. Stepan Volnychev (C)
  • Capt. Claire Eddins
  • Capt. Carla Nava
  • Capt. Kyle Abraham
  • Capt. Eric Edelman

(V) indicates a Valor device, (C) indicates a combat device

Air and Space Commendation Medal

  • Capt. Alexander Thennes
  • Master Sgt. Michael Bialaski
  • Tech. Sgt. Brandon Brown
  • Staff Sgt. Sarah Moir
  • Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh
  • Staff Sgt. Daniel White

Air and Space Achievement Medal

  • Staff Sgt. Michael Wright
  • Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver
  • Senior Airman Ardo Dia
  • Senior Airman Sanders Joseph
  • Senior Airman Rico Sanchez
  • Airman First Class Treyvon Walker
New Report: How to Avoid a Nuclear War With China

New Report: How to Avoid a Nuclear War With China

Nov. 16, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force’s ability to carry out long-range strikes can play an important role in defending Taiwan against a Chinese attack—but must be carefully managed to avoid triggering a nuclear conflict, warns a new study by the RAND Corporation. 

“Employing long-range strike assets judiciously, hardening them against nuclear attack, and protecting them from conventional attack should reduce escalation risks,” according to the report, which is titled “Denial Without Disaster—Keeping a U.S.-China Conflict over Taiwan Under the Nuclear Threshold” and was prepared for the Air Force. The report was released on Nov. 15. 

Until the 2020s, RAND researchers write, China had only a limited nuclear capability and the risk of escalation was low. But since then, “everything changed,” they said. “China began a dramatic nuclear buildup, enhanced its survivability with the DF-41 road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and near-continuous nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) patrols, and improved its ability to penetrate U.S. missile defenses with a nuclear-capable fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS).”

Noting that a full determination of China’s secure second-strike capability requires a classified assessment, the authors argue here that “recent qualitative and quantitative advances in China’s nuclear capabilities mean that the United States must treat Beijing as if it already has a secure second-strike capability—especially by 2030.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is developing a variety of long-range strike weapons, including hypersonic missiles, conventional surface-to-surface missiles, and a new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, which will carry a mix of munitions, including stand-off weapons.

Planners have employed long-range weapons in wargames as one means to defend against a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan. But the cost of such weapons is high, and the concept can only be effective, RAND notes, if the Air Force acquires an adequate supply. 

RAND sees a greater risk of escalation into a nuclear conflict if those same long-range strike weapons were used to strike targets on the Chinese mainland. U.S. war planners would need to select targets carefully and shroud their long-range strike assets such that they don’t become an inviting target for a limited Chinese nuclear strike.

The RAND study also recommends establishing a new Escalation Management Center of Excellence within Air Force Global Strike Command to train junior and senior personnel and to help weigh the risk of escalation in peacetime and when picking targets, devising training exercises, and acquiring weapons. 

“There will likely be a trade-off between military operational utility, force survivability, and escalation management,” the report states. “The United States might also have to adopt a slower war tempo, strike less ideal targets, and operate farther from the fight than desired to manage escalation dynamics.”

The study comes as the Biden administration seeks ways to reduce the need to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Nuclear calculations are now more complicated given China’s rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and North Korea’s continued saber rattling.

The Pentagon submitted a report to Congress on Nov. 14 on the U.S. “nuclear employment strategy.” That document calls for simultaneously deterring China, Russia, and North Korea, in part by relying on “non-nuclear capabilities [to] support the nuclear deterrence mission.” 

China sits some 7,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and 1,800 miles from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Both are well beyond the range of any fighter, but U.S. bombers can strike targets from that distance. B-52s, B-2s, and, in the future, B-21s are designed to carry both nuclear and conventional weapons great distances.
 
While strikes on mainland China could trigger escalation, some risk is inevitable if the U.S. is serious about defending Taiwan—and that the U.S. should make that plain to Beijing, said Mark Gunzinger, a former bomber pilot, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and now a senior analyst at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“There are those who seem to accept that U.S. attacks on military targets in mainland China, like the PLA’s bomber and fighter bases and logistics that support their rocket forces, would be highly escalatory,” Gunzinger said. “Yet they also accept as a given that the PLA will attack our bases and other targets located on the sovereign territory of our allies, and even in Guam, which is U.S. territory. We need to think about how to deter those attacks, perhaps by communicating that strikes on our forces and bases in Japan and Guam would open the door to mainland attacks.”

There is a need to deny adversaries “operational sanctuaries,” Gunzinger added. “If we don’t factor mainland strikes into our war plans … we would be ceding mainland China as an operational sanctuary to the PLA.”

A Star is Born: New KC-46 Demo Team Flies First Show

A Star is Born: New KC-46 Demo Team Flies First Show

Nov. 15, 2024 | By David Roza

There’s a new player on the air show circuit: the world’s first KC-46 Pegasus demo team debuted at a Texas airshow last week, marking the latest first for the Air Force’s new aerial refueling tanker.

The demo team performed at the Wings and Warriors Fly-In at San Marcos, Texas on Nov. 9, according to a Nov. 14 press release by the 97th Air Mobility Wing at Altus Air Force Base, Okla., home of the 56th Air Refueling Squadron, which hosts the demo team.

During the show, the team performed a high-speed pass at just 500 feet with the refueling boom extended, followed by a pass with the gear and flaps down.

“The team showcased the KC-46’s air refueling and slow-speed maneuvering capabilities,” Maj. Gary Sowa, 97th Operations Group KC-46 demo team lead, said in the release. “This gave spectators a glimpse into the aircraft’s versatility.”

kc-46 demo
A KC-46 Pegasus aircraft from Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, executes a fly-over at the Wings and Warriors Fly-In at San Marcos, Texas, Nov. 9, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jonah Bliss

Air Force fast-jet demo teams such as the Thunderbirds and the F-22 demo team make a splash at airshows with their tight turns and sneak passes. But the “heavies,” the term for larger aircraft such as transports and tankers, are no less impressive for their size and grace. 

The 140-ton C-17 transport, for example, shows off its ability to take off and land in just a few thousand feet of runway, while tankers mimic their refueling mission by putting their boom down as another aircraft trails behind it. 

Air show fans may have to wait a while before they can see the KC-46 team’s next act. The 97th AMW Public Affairs office told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the team will not perform any more shows in 2024 and is yet to announce its full 2025 schedule, but it will perform at the Altus Airpower Stampede Open House & Air Show scheduled for April 12-13, 2025. Once the rest of the 2025 lineup is solidified, it will be published on the wing’s Facebook page.

kc-46 demo
The 56th Air Refueling Squadron’s KC-46 Pegasus demo team and members from the 97th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron pose for a photo at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, Nov. 9, 2024. From left to right, the team consists of Thomas Turner, engine mechanic; Tech. Sgt. Lacy Pickett, boom operator; Staff Sgt. Braydon Scarborough, boom operator; Maj. Brian Weeks, pilot; Maj. Gary Sowa, pilot; Capt. Jeremy Delzer, pilot; Staff Sgt. AJ Gac, boom operator; and William Guenther, avionics technician. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jonah Bliss

Flying a tanker is a team effort, and there are 13 total KC-46 aircrew members—seven pilots and six boom operators—at the 97th AMW certified to fly the demo team profile, the public affairs office explained. The minimum and typical aircrew during a demo performance consists of two pilots, one boom operator, and one pilot serving as a safety observer for a total of four aircrew. One of those crew members is Tech Sgt. Lacy Pickett, a boom operator.

“Being part of this demo team is very meaningful, especially as a woman in this field,” she said in the release. “We’re showing the public how far we’ve come in the KC-46 community and proving just what we’re capable of.”

Any Air Force unit worth its salt has a distinct shoulder patch, and KC-46 demo team sports one with a unique take on the emblem of the 56th Aerial Refueling Squadron. The emblem features a bird wearing a graduation hat watching over a smaller bird without one, which symbolizes the squadron’s mission as an aircrew training squadron.

The demo team version features that same design but with the silhouette of a KC-46 with its boom extended splashed on the right-hand side, the words “KC-46A Pegasus” scrawled across the top, and “97 AMW Demo Team” along the bottom.

A KC-46 Pegasus aircraft from Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, executes a fly-over at the Wings and Warriors Fly-In at San Marcos, Texas, Nov. 9, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jonah Bliss

The crew took out a special tail for the debut last week. It sported a black-and-white triangle symbol known as the Triangle Y, the marking assigned to the 97th AMW’s predecessor, the 97th Bombardment Group, during World War II. Each of the three aircraft types at the 97 AMW (C-17s, KC-135s, and KC-46s) has a jet with the Triangle Y painted on the tail in tribute to the wing’s long history.

“There is not a jet permanently assigned to the demo team, but the team coordinates with the 97th Maintenance Group to fly the KC-46 with the Triangle Y tail flash when it is available,” the wing’s public affairs office explained.

Last week’s debut marked the latest first for the KC-46, which Airmen from the New Jersey-based 305th Air Mobility Wing flew to the Middle East late last month for the tanker’s first-ever operational deployment, though the tanker had flown one-off operational sorties before that. The first KC-46 was delivered to the Air Force in 2019, and Air Mobility Command cleared it for worldwide deployments and combatant commander taskings in September 2022.

The older KC-135 tanker has a demo team, and now the Pegasus will show off the future of Air Force aerial refueling.

“With each demo flight, we’re not just showing what the KC-46 can do,” Sowa said. “We’re reshaping its story, growing as a team, and inspiring future Airmen.”

Silver Star Airpower: Inside an F-15 Mission to Block an Attack on Israel

Silver Star Airpower: Inside an F-15 Mission to Block an Attack on Israel

Nov. 15, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

This is the first in a multipart series based on exclusive interviews with nine Airmen who helped respond to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel. For the rest of the series, read Part 2, ‘Air Force Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos’ and Part 3, ‘Did We Do Enough?’ 

RAF LAKENHEATH, U.K.—Flying their F-15E Strike Eagle through the Middle Eastern night on April 13, pilot Maj. Benjamin “Irish” Coffey and weapons system officer Capt. Lacie “Sonic” Hester anticipated picking up signs of Iranian one-way attack drones and missiles launched at Israel. 

Sure enough, Coffey said, “we get a radar hit, and another, and another, and another.” To be sure the blips were missiles and not cars on the ground, Hester cued the jet’s air-to-ground targeting pod to get visual confirmation. 

“She recognizes there’s no roads in that area. It’s just open desert,” Coffey said. “So all these radar hits that we get, 20 to 30 of them at that initial [sweep], were real, and they were headed west.” 

Those hits represented the leading edge of some 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones in a barrage that was Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel and perhaps the largest drone attack in history. 

USAF fighters helped defeat the attack, downing 80 drones in one of the largest displays of combat airpower in decades. On Nov. 12, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander Gen. James B. Hecker decorated 30 Airmen at RAF Lakenheath for their contributions to that mission, awarding Coffey and Hester Silver Star Medals for their heroism.

The events of April 13, Hecker said at the ceremony, were a clear sign that “the nature of warfare has changed, especially when it comes to … one-way UAVs.”  

The 494th Fighter Squadron, nicknamed the Panthers, deployed to an undisclosed Middle East location in October 2023 after Hamas’ attack Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and over the course of the next five months downed several Iranian one-way attack drones, breaking new ground for the Air Force. 

Iran’s drones have been a common feature in Russia’s war on Ukraine, but the U.S. did not have much experience countering those threats, a niche weapon that falls between a missile and air-to-air combat. 

Coffey took that experience, “essentially reviewing everybody’s tapes … and then everything he had known and studied,” said Capt. Brian Tesch, a young weapons system officer with the unit. “He wrote a paper of like, ‘Here’s how you will execute if you find a drone out there.’” 

Coffey’s tactics development soon proved crucial. Israel launched an attack that killed senior figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria on April 1, and Iran vowed to retaliate. The 494th braced for the response. 

“We were on kind of an alert status for about a week, week and a half, leading up to that point,” said Maj. Clayton “Rifle” Wicks. “We knew that there was going to be some sort of large-scale attack. How big we didn’t quite know, and when exactly we didn’t quite know.” 

Anticipating that the attack would likely come at night, the squadron kept at least two jets in the air, plus extra crews on the ground ready to go within 30 minutes. The days dragged on. Then, on April 13, Coffey and Hester were one of the crews scheduled to fly the first six-hour shift, alongside squadron commander Lt. Col. Curtis Culver and Lt. Col. Timothy Causey. Wicks, having flown the night before, was the “operations supervisor,” acting as a liaison with the Combined Air Operations Center and other command-and-control elements. 

U.S. Air Force Maj. Benjamin Coffey, 494th Fighter Squadron pilot, suits up at RAF Lakenheath, England, for a deployment to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia, Oct. 13, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Seleena Muhammad-Ali

“There were a couple nights leading up to that point where we’re like, ‘tonight’s going to be the night, or we think tonight’s going to be the night,’ and then it wouldn’t happen,” Wicks said. “So then April 13 rolls around, it was kind of like that again. I didn’t show up for my shift that night being like, ‘tonight’s the night.’” 

Capt. Matthew “Pepper” Eddins and Capt. Garrett “Bull” Benner were one of the crews on alert status. They too “didn’t really think much was going to happen that night, to be honest,” said Benner. 

Intelligence reports suggested otherwise. Wicks began giving crews whatever new information he got as they walked out the door. 

“Things were just happening so fast out there that it was pretty much a sort of a pickup game. … I remember feeling guilty that I couldn’t do more for them, before launching my friends out into the darkness to who knows what,” Wicks said. “So that part was tough.” 

The alert crews—Eddins and Benner and Capt. Austin Leake and Capt. Stepan Volnychev—took off with the first scheduled formation, putting four aircraft in the air. F-15s from the 335th Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., which had just deployed to the region, were also airborne, as were F-16s from the D.C. Air National Guard’s 113th Wing. Wicks was monitoring a command-and-control feed when the F-16s started to engage. 

“A message comes across that just says … like Viper 72 is ‘Winchester,’ which means they are out of missiles. They have no bullets left. They have nothing,” Wicks said. “And I remember, I got chills, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, because that was the first time I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Command and control can’t keep up with the amount of missiles that are being shot and things that are happening.’ And that’s the only message they got across.” 

In the air, Coffey and Hester were tasked as mission commanders, responsible for multiple “lanes” of airspace that the formation had to defend. Now, they faced an attack on a scale they had never seen before—flying at low altitude into the night. 

“I first get hit with dread, recognizing the numbers we were seeing,” Coffey said. “This wasn’t a small-scale or a chest-thumping show of force. This was an attack designed to cause significant damage, to kill, to destroy, and now we are on literally the leading edge of firepower, able to try to do something about that. And that lasted maybe for 10, 15 seconds, and then training kicked in, and it was time to get the job done.” 

Confronted with more targets than they could possibly hope to take down by themselves, the aviators started prioritizing the one-way attack drones. 

As Coffey and Hester directed aircraft where to go, the other aviators quickly fell back on their training and started executing. 

Weapon Systems Officer Capt. Lacie Hester prepares for a weapons check ride aboard her F-15E Strike Eagle in 2021.

“The first reaction, it was really exhilarating, a lot of adrenaline, especially to finally see the picture that we did see of the tons of radar contacts across the scope,” Benner said. “After that though, once we kind of realized that we were getting into a flow, then it was just fun.” 

“As we’re turning away just so we can build some more space from the next wave, you look back and you see drones impacting the ground, like, ‘Oh, they got another one. They got another one,’” added Eddins. “Looking a few miles away, and you see another one impacts: ‘Oh, the Vipers got another one.’ And then you hear from your flight lead, Hey, turn hot, so pitch your aircraft back around and target again. ‘Here we go again,’ and it’s just almost repetitive at that point.” 

It didn’t take long for every aircraft in the formation to exhaust their firepower. In the span of about 20 minutes, most of the fighters had fired off all eight of their air-to-air missiles. Coffey and Hester had “hung ordnance”—a missile that didn’t fire for one reason or another, and were forced to return to base, while Eddins and Benner waited another 10 or 15 minutes for more fighters to arrive with fresh firepower and to direct them using their own radar, before turning back themselves. 

“I think that’s when I started to realize where the drones were and where we’re going, we’re somewhere around there, and if anything in this group gets through, then this is going to be a danger on the back end,” Eddins said. “So that kind of starts setting in. It really, really started to kick in when the ballistic missiles started blowing up overhead, as Israel started shooting them down.” 

To complete the series, read Part 2, ‘Air Force Fighters Kept Going Amid Chaos’ and Part 3, ‘Did We Do Enough?’ 

494th Fighter Squadron Decorations

Silver Star Medal

  • Maj. Benjamin Coffey
  • Capt. Lacie Hester

Bronze Star Medal

  • Maj. Clayton Wicks
  • Master Sgt. Timothy Adams

Distinguished Flying Cross

  • Lt. Col. Curtis Culver (V)
  • Lt. Col. Timothy Causey (V)
  • Capt. Logan Cowan (V)
  • Capt. Gabriel Diamond (V)
  • Capt. Trace Sheerin (V)
  • Capt. Brian Tesch (V)
  • Capt. Matthew Eddins (C)
  • Capt. Garrett Benner (C)
  • Capt. Austin Leake (C)
  • Capt. Stepan Volnychev (C)
  • Capt. Claire Eddins
  • Capt. Carla Nava
  • Capt. Kyle Abraham
  • Capt. Eric Edelman

(V) indicates a Valor device, (C) indicates a combat device

Air and Space Commendation Medal

  • Capt. Alexander Thennes
  • Master Sgt. Michael Bialaski
  • Tech. Sgt. Brandon Brown
  • Staff Sgt. Sarah Moir
  • Staff Sgt. Kendra Wertsbaugh
  • Staff Sgt. Daniel White

Air and Space Achievement Medal

  • Staff Sgt. Michael Wright
  • Staff Sgt. Ethan Tarver
  • Senior Airman Ardo Dia
  • Senior Airman Sanders Joseph
  • Senior Airman Rico Sanchez
  • Airman First Class Treyvon Walker
U.S. Airmen and families gather to recognize Airmen during a ceremony at RAF Lakenheath, England, Nov. 12, 2024. Airmen from the 494th Fighter Squadron, 494th Fighter Generation Squadron, and supporting units were recognized for their contributions during a defensive operation against hundreds of one-way attack drones, formally known as one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicles, and missiles launched from Iran and Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen against Israel April 13-14, 2024, while deployed in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Seleena Muhammad-Ali
Integration is the ‘Manhattan Project’ Facing Air Force Leaders

Integration is the ‘Manhattan Project’ Facing Air Force Leaders

Nov. 14, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

“Integration” will be the key to future Air Force success and will be the key to achieving war-winning advantage over adversaries in the future—if USAF can pull it off, senior USAF leaders said Nov. 13.

“It’s so important, I would offer that it’s the Manhattan Project of our generation, and hopefully, we can get there first,” said Lt. Gen. Michael G. Koscheski, deputy commander of Air Combat Command, at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies Air Force Futures conference.

The original Manhattan Project produced the atomic bomb that helped end World War II, a monumental secret project drew together some of the world’s best minds with the singular goal of producing the world’s first atomic weapon.

Likewise, integration is “really difficult, varsity-level stuff,” Koscheski said, requiring the Air Force not only to align its own capabilities and structures, but to connect with the other services and with allies to complete “the long-range kill chain.” The aim: That targets detected and confirmed by one military service or nation can be “finished” by another, he said.

“We talk a lot about platforms and weapons, and those are very important,” Koscheski said. “But the network and integration piece is key.”

Integration is a central theme to the Air Force’s “re-optimization” drive, launched in February. Conceived by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the push includes multiple references to integration, including the creation of a new office to oversee integration and a new command responsible for integrating requirements and capabilities.

The Integrated Capabilities Office stood up in July within the Secretariat and is responsible for coordinating efforts related to the core operational imperatives and cross-cutting enabling functions across the Air Force. The Integrated Capabilities Command, not yet fully assembled, is supposed to absorb the requirements roles that now belong to Air Combat Command, Air Force Global Strike Command, and Air Mobility Command, centralizing the requirements process in a single command.

That decision remains controversial among some Air Force leaders, who worry that divorcing requirements from operations could undermine combat effectiveness.

The Air Force has said the ICO will facilitate Integrated Development Campaign Teams led and staffed by operational experts from the newly formed U.S. Space Force Space Futures Command and U.S. Air Force Integrated Capabilities Command, along with acquisition professionals from Air Force Materiel Command’s Integrated Development Office and multiple Space Force acquisition organizations.

Doug Young, Northrop Grumman vice president of strike systems, cited the B-21, built by Northrop, as exemplifying the integration of multiple capabilities and platforms. B-21 was conceived as a “family of systems,” Young said, and the idea of integrating the B-21 with a host of offboard sensors and platforms was “baked in” from the outset.

“I don’t really think that a ‘family of systems’ concept necessarily has to be considered a cost problem to overcome,” he said. “There are a lot of existing systems, and…connecting them is not a big cost driver. In many cases, it’s not technical. It’s actually people and policy; how we get those information streams to the platforms quickly.”

Koscheski also said the Air Force is “doing pretty good” in terms of developing the end of the kill chain: munitions. The service is working on a range of all-new weapons that are able to fly further and will be harder to spot and stop.

It’s also making progress on “affordable mass,” which could be achieved with large numbers of relatively inexpensive one-way munitions. While Air Force is buying high-end “counter-maritime” munitions—such as the AGM-158 Long Range Anti-Ship Missile—and new longer-range air-to-air weapons, “the problem is, they’re expensive.”

USAF wants to complement those with “Franklin,” a Defense Innovation Unit initiative to develop long-range weapons for $100,000 per round, rather than $1.5 million or more.

“Franklin” is named for Aretha Franklin in a nod to her hit song “Respect;” the idea behind the weapons si that an enemy must “respect” hordes of cheap incoming missiles and devote defenses to them, which could make it easier for manned or unmanned aircraft to penetrate air defenses and survive.  

In Franklin, the Air Force will have “a…$100,000 weapon that can go about 500 miles and can punch a hole in a ship.” While those weapons do not necessarily have to do that, adversaries will be “threatened and [therefore] honor those weapons,” he said. “That mass will make our…weapons more effective and more capable.”

The B-21 bomber is designed for flexibility so it can rapidly accept a wide variety of weapon loadouts.

“The Air Force is going through a complete redo, really, of what kind of weapons are out there,” Young said. “Most of the weapons that we’ve been talking about in previous years were developed in the ’90s. And there’s really a generation that’s coming online with new weapons, many of them tailored for exactly the kind of missions that we’re talking about in terms of operating in anti-access/area denial areas, and really doing new things, unique things, in order to deal with” heavily-defended airspace.

These emerging weapons will be integrated with each other to achieve the effects they’re built to deliver, he said.

“It’s really about…connecting those things,” Koscheski said. “A lot of good work has really started to happen now that many of these systems are out operating.”

Koscheski said a decade of work is paying off, giving the Air Force increased “ability to be able to adapt and tie into those networks and take advantage of off board” sensors.