At a Historic Low, Air Force Fleet Size Will Keep Shrinking, Top Planner Says

At a Historic Low, Air Force Fleet Size Will Keep Shrinking, Top Planner Says

April 9, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force fleet will keep shrinking, the service’s senior planner said April 9. In its fiscal 2025 budget, the Air Force plans to reduce its fleet below 5,000 aircraft for the first time in its history as an independent service, divesting 250 aircraft and buying just 91. But that will not be the end of the decline, said Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.

“I see that continuing,” Moore said at an AFA Warfighters in Action event.

Moore said the service had to make tough choices due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which capped spending at a one percent rise in fiscal 2025 before inflation.

“This is the result of a reduced top line and also reduced buying power, and so we have to buy fewer” aircraft, Moore said. “We had to balance. Balance is something that’s a requirement.”

Moore said the Air Force hoped the fleet would not face such a steep cut over the life of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), which is the Department of Defense’s projection of funding, manning, and force structure over the next five years. But Moore did not dispute the prospect the service could end up with a fleet size closer to 4,000 aircraft.

“What’s happening is, in order to maintain legacy force structure and try and modernize, we’re hollowing out the force,” Moore said.

Moore argued that the Air Force should divest its legacy platforms that it no longer believes are financially viable—such as 32 older F-22s—and put that money towards new iron, such as more F-35s. But Congress has balked at that plan so far. Moore admitted the service would rather not have to propose such a tradeoff in the first place.

“In the choice of what we absolutely need to maintain and what hard choice could we make that might not be as hard as others, this is the one,” Moore said of retiring the older F-22s. The Air Force said they are not combat-ready and that upgrading them would be cost-prohibitive.

“We remind ourselves regularly that when times get tough, we have to make hard choices. This was one that was hard,” he said.

Moore said if the service is “being restricted from divesting legacy” aircraft, it is “having to slow down modernization,” including the purchase of new fighters—a key reason the Air Force says it can only afford 60 new fighters—42 F-35s and 18 F-15EXs—in 2025 instead of its long-term goal of 72 new fighters per year.

Moore said that in the near term, the bulk of aircraft retirements are A-10 close air support aircraft that the Air Force does not consider survivable against modern anti-air threats. Also due to exit the fleet in the coming years are aging F-15C/D Eagles, some of which are barely airworthy.

“Not that they don’t matter, but it’s absolutely time for them to retire,” Moore said.

But Moore was clear: if the service had a bigger budget, it would have more airplanes.

“There’s certainly a case to be made that that capacity is necessary,” Moore said.

But he noted the service is fighting the immense fiscal “bow wave” of modernizing two legs of the nation’s nuclear triad at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars—and the reality that the service must compete with other services inside the Department of Defense for funds.

That may mean some tough decisions on which aircraft to keep in the future.

“I don’t know if we’re as troubled by the retirement of A-10s as we would be by other retirements that would have to happen later in the FYDP,” Moore said. “I don’t know that that magnitude will continue. But I do see—hopefully, at a slower rate—I do see divestitures outpacing procurements for the rest of this budget horizon.”

Kendall Will Fly on Autonomously-Piloted F-16 for a Sneak Peek on CCA Technology

Kendall Will Fly on Autonomously-Piloted F-16 for a Sneak Peek on CCA Technology

April 9, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

An autonomously-piloted F-16 will fly this year with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on board, giving the service’s top civilian an up-close look at a critical effort for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.

The Air Force is set to modify six F-16s to test autonomous tech and software at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., as part of the VENOM (Viper Experimentation and Next-gen Operations Model – Autonomy Flying Testbed) project. The first three fighters arrived earlier April 1. Once transformed, the jets will still have pilots in the cockpit to engage in real-time autonomy, retaining control over specific algorithms during test flights.

One F-16 will also have a distinguished visitor.

“I’m going to take a ride in an autonomously flown F-16 later this year,” Kendall told members of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee during an April 9 budget hearing. “There will be a pilot with me who will just be watching, as I will be, as the autonomous technology works, and hopefully, neither he nor I will be needed to fly the airplane.”

Kendall added that the project has been “moving forward very well” but did not offer any more details on when the flight will take place. An Eglin spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that project managers “don’t want to speculate” on when the F-16s will be modified and ready to fly.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall addresses lawmakers at the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request review hearing on April 9. Screenshot.

VENOM first came to light last year when the Air Force requested nearly $50 million in the fiscal 2024 budget and officials detailed their hopes for it. In the 2025 budget, the service is seeking just under $17 million for the effort, which will feed into Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the program to pair unmanned, autonomous drones with manned fighters like the planned Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD).

Kendall and other Air Force leaders have projected a fleet of 1,000 to 2,000 CCA drones. In the next five years alone, the Air Force wants to spend $8.9 billion on CCAs, starting by selecting two or three contractors to move forward on the program.

In contrast with its budget request last year, officials now say the first mission for CCAs will not be spectral warfare.

“The initial role for the aircraft was going to be counter-air, but it will have the potential to do other things,” said Kendall.

Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, echoed Kendall, stating that the current focus is on “increasing the number of weapons in a formation.”

“The one that we’re going to focus on first is the ability to augment the shooters and to add additional rails to the formations that we send forward,” Moore said during an April 9 AFA Warfighters in Action event. “There are other things like electronic warfare or ISR or even tanking, there are a lot of things that you could go to, but that’s not our focus.”

Experts have described CCA as central for the service’s plan to deter conflict and impose costs on a high-level adversary like China. These uncrewed systems could act as force multipliers, enhancing sensor and weapon deployment in contested regions and bolstering the effectiveness and survivability of crewed stealth aircraft.

“The first increment, which we’re trying to get out quickly, is sort of a minimum viable product,” said Kendall. “Then, the second follow-on increments will add additional capabilities.”

Kendall added that CCA production will be managed carefully to control costs. The service intends to keep the price to “a third, or a quarter of the cost of F-35,” which would be less than $28 million per aircraft.  

Air Force Expects to Pin First Warrant Officers in January 2025

Air Force Expects to Pin First Warrant Officers in January 2025

April 9, 2024 | By David Roza

Within the next nine months, the Air Force expects to have warrant officers in its ranks for the first time since the 1980s. 

“We’re focused on making it work and making it work quickly, because we don’t have time to waste,” Alex Wagner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said April 9 at the Association of Defense Communities’ National Summit. 

“The first warrant officers are going to be pinning on by January of next year, and we’re starting our training course some time this fall,” he added.

Wagner’s comments come about two months after Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin announced the service will bring back warrant officers in the information technology and cyber career fields in a bid to retain highly-skilled technical specialists. The Air Force and Space Force are the only military services not to include warrant officers, who fill technical rather than leadership functions in the other military branches.

The move to resurrect warrant officers in the Air Force came amid a greater push to prepare for a possible conflict with China, Wagner said.

“One element of that was making sure we had the right type of talent,” he said. “We saw a challenge both on the retention side and on the attraction side, specifically with regard to cyber and to software and [IT].”

The issue was leadership development: the Air Force develops its officer and enlisted corps as if each of them might serve as the next service chief of senior enlisted leader, Wagner said. That requires attending leadership courses and serving in leadership roles, which can take time away from their fast-moving fields.

“With perishable skills, like cyber, like IT, where the technology is moving so rapidly, folks who are experts in that can’t afford to be sent off to a leadership course for eight or nine months,” he said. 

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall addressed a similar concern at the AFA Warfare Symposium in February.

“Now I don’t know about you, but if I had a doctor who had not been doing medicine for three years and who was about to do surgery on me, I would be a little nervous,” he said.

Meanwhile, civilian industry offers better pay, cutting-edge technology, and no time spent away in leadership training, Wagner said. 

“We needed to offer a pathway to not only leverage that talent, but, more importantly, retain it in a job where you’re not going to be diverted to this enterprise leadership track,” he said. “You can stay and be that subject matter expert, maintaining those skills.”

In early March, then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass said the selection process for the service’s first batch of warrant officers will begin this summer, though details on the application process and the requirements for the program are still unavailable. The initial cohort, according to planning documents posted on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page and obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine in February, would consist of 30 prior-service personnel, though the pipeline could scale up to 200 junior warrant officers and 50 senior warrant officers per year. 

The Space Force will not be introducing warrant officers, but other career fields in the Air Force are watching with keen interest, Wagner said.

“It’s been so well-received that other career fields have been saying ‘well, what about me?’” he said. In fact, Kendall said in March that he expects the program will eventually expand to other career fields, pending how successful it is in cyber and IT.

For now, the warrant officer experiment “is specifically designed to fill that gap of focusing on our pacing challenge, focusing on great power competition, and leveraging the talent of the American people and the talent resident in our force,” Wagner said.

Breaking Byzantine

Outside of warrant officers, Wagner said change is also coming to the Defense Department’s civilian hiring practices. The department uses online systems such as USAJobs and a hiring pathway through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, but they are often difficult to navigate.

“Boy, you think it’s hard to recruit someone in the military? Imagine going through OPM and USAJobs,” Wagner said.

Those systems are designed to prevent improper hiring processes such as nepotism, “but it prevents you from hiring the best person as well,” he said. “Ironically, the people who are able to navigate that byzantine system usually know someone on the inside, so it’s almost inimical to its values of preventing you from nepotism.”

Last April, the Defense Department hired its first-ever chief talent officer, Brynt Parmeter, in part to address the difficulties with OPM, Wagner said. He expects special authorities that will help “transform OPM for a 21st century job market for the year 2024, so we can attract talent, especially at the younger grades,” he said.

Agnes Gereben Schaefer, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower & reserve affairs, echoed Wagner’s call for civilian hiring reform.

“This really puts as at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the private sector, because they can hire folks in a couple of weeks or days versus us,” she said at the ADC summit. “Some of these broader byzantine policies are really challenging.”

Is the Upcoming Air Force Waist-to-Height Ratio Test Any Good?

Is the Upcoming Air Force Waist-to-Height Ratio Test Any Good?

April 8, 2024 | By David Roza

As the Air Force moves toward officially implementing waist-to-height ratio as part of its body composition program, one expert applauded the move, saying waist-to-height is a more accurate health gauge than the Air Force’s previous methods, such as abdominal circumference and body mass index (BMI).

“That measurement has shown to better predict heart attacks, blood pressure, strokes, and other problems than just waist circumference,” Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiologist with the Mayo Clinic who has studied obesity-related measurements for years, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“As a person who has been doing a lot of research on this area, I think this is really a move in the right direction,” he added.

The Air Force announced its shift to the waist-to-height ratio in January 2023, about three years after the service abandoned the abdominal circumference assessment, better known as the tape test, in 2020. With the new test, Airmen divide their waist by their height in inches. For example, an Airman who stands 69 inches tall and has a waist of 36 inches would have a waist-to-height ratio of 0.52. The Air Force defines the waist as the midpoint between the lowest rib and the top of the hip bone.

According to a release at the time, any ratio below 0.55 is deemed a low or moderate risk, meeting the standard. Ratios equal to or above 0.55 will be considered a high risk and out of standard. The Air Force said at the time that assessments would begin in April 2023. In an email shared on social media and confirmed by Air & Space Forces Magazine last week, the Air Force’s force management policy directorate said the adaptation period remains in effect until the official Body Composition Program publication comes out, which the directorate expects will happen in the next 90 days.

The publication will include updated guidelines and protocols for body composition assessments. After it is released, a 180-day implementation period will follow “to afford all Airmen a window of awareness of the final policy to ensure compliance,” the email said. 

“During the original and extended adaptation periods, administrative actions are not authorized if solely based on the results of any body composition assessments,” Air Force spokesperson Master Sgt. Deana Heitzman told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Airmen, assigned to the 557th Expeditionary RED HORSE Squadron, stretch after a group workout session June 3, 2008. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Julianne Showalter)

Better Science

The Air Force dropped the abdominal circumference measurement in 2020 amid a COVID-induced hiatus in physical fitness testing. About 10 years earlier, the service had been using body mass index, which compares a person’s height and weight but can misclassify people with certain body types. Muscle weighs more than fat, Lopez-Jimenez noted, which can lead to strong people being misclassified as obese.

After BMI, the Air Force switched to abdominal circumference, which measures fat around the waist. The Air Force adopted CDC guidelines indicating an increased risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease for women with an abdominal circumference greater than 35 inches and for men with an abdominal circumference greater than 39 inches, according to RAND.

The problem is proportion: a six-foot-tall man may have a bigger waist than a five-foot-tall man, not because he is overweight, but because he is a larger individual, Lopez-Jimenez said. To make things more difficult, the Air Force also ran the physical fitness test at the same time as the tape test and factored the tape test into the overall score, which led to some Airmen starving themselves or other extreme measures, then pushing themselves through runs, push-ups, and sit-ups, a dangerous combination that then-Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright said led to the death of some Airmen.

The body composition assessment was separated from the physical fitness portion in 2020, but Defense Department regulations require some kind of body composition assessment. Waist-to-height ratio is a reliable tool for the job, said Lopez-Jimenez.

“When you divide by height, you are adjusting for the different sizes of humans,” he said. “There is a significant amount of scientific evidence showing that when you divide by height, your measurement goes from ‘good’ to the ‘excellent’ category of measuring cardiovascular risk.”

The cardiologist ranked BMI as the least reliable body composition measurement, with abdominal circumference in third, and waist-to-height ratio as second. He and his peers often use the highly accurate waist-to-hip ratio, but he reasoned that logistical concerns may have stopped the Air Force from adopting it. 

“Waist-to-height just requires one extra measurement,” the waist, since measuring height is simple and Airmen already receive a height measurement at some point, Lopez-Jimenez said. By contrast, waist-to-hip would require time and training for both waist and hip measurements. Measuring someone’s hips also involves measuring their buttocks, which “might lead to some sensitivities.” 

Students select food in the dining facility on Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, on June 9, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Miriam Thurber)

Access to Resources

Better science is great, but Lopez-Jimenez cautioned that losing weight is no easy task.

“I hope it will be parallel with providing access to resources like dieticians and medical consults” for those who don’t make the cut, he said. “Some people might have eating disorders and may need medications to lose weight.”

The Air Force appears to be on that track. When it announced the waist-to-height ratio last year, the service said Airmen who do not meet body composition standards would be enrolled in an informal, self-directed improvement program for a year. The goal is to provide them with “tools, resources, and a tailored action plan to aid in making positive changes toward better health,” according to a release at the time. 

The initial results and the 12-month improvement program would be non-punitive, but if the individual fails again after that period, they may be enrolled in a formal program or be considered for administrative action, the release said.

The other services have taken different paths. In June, the Army switched from measuring men at their necks and waists, and women at their neck, waists, and hips, to measuring just the waist for both men and women. Soldiers who perform very well on the Army Combat Fitness Test are exempted from the tape test, while Soldiers who miss the mark on the tape test can request another assessment from a high-tech fat-measuring machine such as the InBody 770.

The Marine Corps still measures height, weight, and waist for initial body fat estimation, but starting in January 2023, Marines who miss those marks are not assigned to a body composition program or separated until they are measured by a high-tech fat-measuring machine. Later in 2024, the Navy is due to finish a two-year study of its body-fat analysis methods, Military Times reported in August, but it still involves a waist-measurement component for now. 

AFMC Names New Program Officers, Details Reoptimization Changes

AFMC Names New Program Officers, Details Reoptimization Changes

April 8, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Editor’s Note: This story was updated April 9 with additional details.

Brig. Gen. Luke C.G. Cropsey—or his successor as the Department of the Air Force’s top command, control, and communications/battle management officer—will command the new Air Force Information Dominance Systems Center, Air Force Materiel Command announced April 4.

An AFMC spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine the goal timeline for standing up the center is mid- to late-2025.

The command also said it will elevate its director of aircraft propulsion to a program executive officer, and will split the PEO now responsible for mobility and trainer aircraft systems into separate jobs.  

The changes are part of the department’s effort to “reoptimize for great power competition.” 

AFMC’s announcement offers some of the first specifics since the reoptimization changes were unveiled in February. The Information Dominance Systems Center will cover a broad range of nonkinetic capabilities, including C3/BM, cyber, electronic warfare, digital infrastructure, and more. 

The center’s commander will be Department of the Air Force’s PEO for C3/BM, the job Cropsey has held since September 2022. Cropsey is the first ever in the position, which Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and service acquisition executive Andrew Hunter created to tie together the department’s disparate efforts to develop joint all-domain command and control and the Advanced Battle Management System. 

Kendall has called Cropsey’s position “the hardest acquisition job I’ve ever given anybody.” Cropsey, in turn, has taken what he calls a “model-based system engineering approach” to simplify his mission, starting by defining some of the basic digital infrastructure needed to connect sensors and shooters around the globe. 

The Information Dominance Systems Center will also absorb three PEOs from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, while tweaking some of their portfolios: 

  • PEO for Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, and Networks will become PEO Cyber and Networks, with a revised portfolio. Maj. Gen. Anthony Genatempo is the current PEO. 
  • PEO Digital will become PEO Electronic Systems, with a revised portfolio. Col. William T. Collins Jr. is the acting PEO. 
  • PEO Business Enterprise Systems will stay the same. 

The Life Cycle Management Center will become the Air Force Air Dominance Systems Center and drop to nine PEOs, four of which—bombers; fighters and advanced aircraft; armament; Presidential and Executive airpower—will remain largely unchanged. The move to split mobility and trainer aircraft under two PEOs comes as the Air Force embarks on a major shift in its tanker fleet, acquiring an undetermined new “bridge” tanker to complement the KC-46 and developing a Next-Generation Aerial refueling System (NGAS), which could have stealthy characteristics, to answer combat requirements in the Pacific. 

Meanwhile, the new T-7 trainer has suffered a series of delays.

Making the top propulsion official a PEO shifts the platform-centered focus that has defined engine development in the past to a more “holistic, integrated” approach, the AFMC statement said. Right now, the Life Cycle Management Center’s propulsion directorate is led by director John Sneden. The new PEO will have to guide the nascent Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion program that will power the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter and will likely play a key role in developing engines to go on different Collaborative Combat Aircraft variants. 

The Rapid Sustainment directorate, currently led by the Life Cycle Management Center commander, will take over some programs from the Agile Combat Support directorate and become the combat readiness directorate, led by the Air Dominance Systems Center commander. The ISR and Special Operations Forces directorate will also take on additional programs, including the E-3 AWACS, E-7 Wedgetail, E-8 JSTARS, and E-9. 

AFMC’s Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center will be renamed the Air Force Nuclear Systems Center and headed by a three-star general, who will also be PEO for “Nuclear Air Delivered Systems and the Nuclear Materiel Manager for the DAF.” Under that command will be the new PEO for intercontinental ballistic missiles along with the existing PEO for nuclear command, control, and communications. 

Finally, AFMC is establishing its new Integrated Development Office, which will “be responsible for defining and overseeing early systems acquisition prototyping, experimentation, and mission engineering; executing enterprise-focused and integrated early systems engineering and systems acquisition; and applying the technical architectures developed and managed by the three Systems Centers,” AFMC said in a statement. 

The office will be coordinate closely with the new Washington-based Integrated Capabilities Command, a three-star major command set to reach initial operating capability this year with the role of setting requirements and structuring the force of the future. 

“More information will be released as plans are confirmed, but the intent is to move forward as quickly as possible,” AFMC said. Service leaders have repeatedly said they intend to minimize personnel movements related to the changes. 

Air Force Materiel Command graphic
T-6 Makes Emergency ‘Belly Flop’ Landing, No Injuries Reported

T-6 Makes Emergency ‘Belly Flop’ Landing, No Injuries Reported

April 8, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Editor’s Note: This story was published April 5 and updated April 8 with more details about the emergency landing.

An Air Force T-6 Texan II made an emergency “belly flop” landing at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, on April 3 after its pilot declared an in-flight emergency. No one was injured in the incident.

“After the T-6 experienced a gear malfunction, the instructor pilot executed a gear-up landing in accordance with emergency checklists,” a spokesman with the 12th Flying Training Wing told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “The aircrew was unharmed, as a result.”

The turboprop aircraft, assigned to the 559th Flying Training Squadron of the 12th Flying Training Wing, executed the landing at approximately 11:30 a.m. local time on April 3. The flight crew, along with emergency responders and ground personnel, carried out emergency protocols following the landing. An investigation into the cause of the incident is currently underway, with a report on the extent of damage is pending.

“The safety of our personnel and the integrity of our equipment and facility are critical to our flight training mission,” the wing’s statement read. “We are committed to transparency and will provide updates as more information becomes available.”

The popular, unofficial Facebook page “Air Force amn/nco/snco” posted two pictures following the landing on April 3, depicting the aircraft having landed with its gear up. The 12th Flying Training Wing could not confirm the images’ veracity.

Gears-up landings are risky procedures, but Airmen have executed several in recent years due to gear malfunctions, engine failures, or other emergencies. Another training aircraft, a T-38C Talon jet, made an emergency wheels-up landing at Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., due to landing gear malfunction in November 2022; the pilot was unharmed. In February, an F-16 pilot was honored for skillfully handling an emergency wheels-up landing when his fighter lost a tire during takeoff from Aviano Air Base, Italy, in March 2022.

The T-6, a two-seater aircraft used to teach young Airmen training to pilots, has been involved in a few notable mishaps in recent years. In September 2018, a T-6 crashed into a nearby field in JBSA-Randolph, Texas, due to an improperly installed engine part. An instructor pilot and a student pilot safely ejected, avoiding injuries, but the aircraft was destroyed, resulting in a loss of $5.7 million.

A few months later, a T-6 from Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, crashed in May 2019 during a routine instructor training mission. Both crew members ejected before the crash, sustaining minor injury, but the aircraft was destroyed. A follow-up investigation revealed that the crash was due to the instructor pilot’s fixation on the outside environment, not recognizing the aircraft was in a nose-high attitude with a slow airspeed, followed by a stall recovery checklist.

The T-6 Texan II is a joint Air Force/Navy undergraduate pilot training aircraft, developed under the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System program. Both the student and instructor can switch between positions, and operate the aircraft independently from either seat.

New KC-46 Wing Pods Being Tested to Enable Two Aircraft to Refuel at Once

New KC-46 Wing Pods Being Tested to Enable Two Aircraft to Refuel at Once

April 8, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Airmen started testing new Aerial Refueling Pods last month which enable the KC-46 Pegasus to refuel two naval aircraft at once, using their probe and drogue system. 

McConnell is the first operational base to get the pods, which have been in development since 2019 and delayed during a lengthy FAA certification process. A team drawn from the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, 22nd Air Refueling Wing, and 931st Air Refueling Wing installed the pods March 5, according to a 22nd Air Refueling Wing statement, and the tanker has flown at least two successful missions so far, refueling two Navy F/A-18 Hornets from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas, on March 9, and two Marine AV-8B Harriers from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., on March 20.

The 20-foot-long pods connect to the fuel tanks in the KC-46’s wings, and pump fuel through some 80 feet of hose at a rate up to 400 gallons per minute, depending on the receiving aircraft. 

“The WARPs are an optional capability that was included in the original design of the KC-46, so there is very little difference in handling characteristics of the aircraft,” said Capt. Taylor Johnson, a KC-46 pilot. “The big challenge is making sure aircrews are properly trained and understand the additional considerations with WARPs installed on the aircraft, so they can properly execute missions.” 

These tests have been a long time coming. The Air Force first successfully tested the system in 2019, and Boeing officials expressed confidence in January 2021 that FAA certification would soon follow. But the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation wrote in a 2023 annual report that the pods missed a scheduled test in April 2023 because it still lacked FAA certification due to questions about wiring corrosion risk and safety tolerance in case of bird strikes. Those tests didn’t get underway until March of this year.  

“We’ve been waiting for a while to get started on using WARPs,” said Airman 1st Class Cord Nakaahiki, a boom operator for the 22nd Air Refueling Wing, in a statement. But the first flight offered no surprises. “Using the new system felt just like our usual practice on simulators, which made using the real thing pretty straightforward. To be out there flying them has been exciting and rewarding.” 

An Air Force Life Cycle Management Center spokesman previously told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the FAA certification will not delay initial operational testing, “as IOT&E will be conducted using one of the production article pods.” 

In a statement, 22nd Maintenance Group commander Col. Robert Meadows said initial operational testing would last another two months, to “provide training for our aircrews and maintenance teams on servicing and inspecting the pods on the wings.” 

Contractor Who Walked Into MQ-9 Propeller Lost Situational Awareness

Contractor Who Walked Into MQ-9 Propeller Lost Situational Awareness

April 5, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The death of a contractor killed last year when she walked into the moving propeller of an MQ-9 during ground tests was blamed on a confluence of factors, including inadequate training, poor lighting, noisy conditions, poor conditions, and a rush to finish testing, all of which contributed to the victim’s loss of situational awareness while she took telemetry readings. 

Stephanie Cosme, 32, of Palmdale, Calif., died Sept. 7, 2023. She was a test engineer for Sumaria Systems performing test support functions for Detachment 3 of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Gray Butte Airfield, Calif., according to an Air Force accident investigation report.

Cosme was taking readings seeking to see if new software for the MQ-9 would generate electromagnetic interference that might affect the drone’s critical systems and weapons. 

The tests had been scheduled for the day prior, but were scratched before the aircraft was pulled from the hangar. When a member of the team suggested canceling the tests, the test director stated “We’re going to run until we fall.” 

That evening, the test director discovered that the spectrum analyzer used in previous tests was “out for calibration,” according to the report. So the team decided to use a smaller, handheld device, which had to be held just a few feet away from the parked aircraft to get a reading. 

The test director conducted a “dry run” on Sept. 6, walking around the drone with its engine off, holding the handheld device, while Cosme observed the procedure. But members of the ground crew later said they did not know what her role in testing was or that she would be approaching the aircraft once its engines were started during testing.

The next day, the pre-test mission briefing was supposed to cover 24 points but actually included “well less” than that, skipping over portions that would have identified every team member’s assigned roles and safety warnings about “aircraft keep out zones,” the report stated. 

The aircraft was taken out of the hangar and testing continued into the evening. As darkness fell, Investigators said, the test director and the team began to rush through the process. The report notes comments such as, “C’mon guys, the quicker you respond, the faster we get out of here.” 

While most of the test engineers and the director were at the ground control station, Cosme was near the aircraft, with only a cell phone for communications.  

When the time came for her to record the telemetry data, Cosme walked directly toward the aircraft without checking in with the crew chief, then walked beside the fuselage while looking down at the handheld device. That’s when she walked directly into the drone’s propeller. She never looked up. 

Investigators later recreated the lighting and noise conditions of the mishap and determined that “the spinning propeller was not visible when looking to the rear of the aircraft,” and the noise was such that Cosme could not have heard anything but the engine. 

Ground crew took measures to control her bleeding within moments of Cosme being struck, and emergency responders were on the scene within six minutes. A medical helicopter crew transported her to a local hospital within an hour, but Cosme could not be resuscitated.  

Air Force investigators declared that the main causes of the deadly accident were Cosme receiving improper training and her losing situational awareness during the test. Specifically, investigators found “conflicting guidance concerning the danger areas and propeller no enter zones for the MQ-9A” and could only confirm that Cosme had been instructed on the “least restrictive” standards. On top of that, she was not familiar with or properly trained to use the handheld device the test director switched to, and was not told “the proper procedures to approach a running aircraft,” according to the report. 

Cosme had limited background and knowledge of the MQ-9 or the device she was using, and the lighting and noise conditions also likely contributed to her losing awareness, investigators said. 

Finally, poor communication and rushing meant the entire test team and ground crew did not follow proper safety procedures, the report concluded. 

The accident investigation report is the second released this week regarding a contractor-involved mishap with an MQ-9—in January 2023, a drone crashed in in Victorville, Calif. No one was injured in that incident.

Air Force Wants $1.3 Billion to Finish Design for New Fighter Engine

Air Force Wants $1.3 Billion to Finish Design for New Fighter Engine

April 5, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force has requested $1.3 billion over the next three years to compete development of a new engine to power the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, which will succeed the F-22. The effort, already well underway, picks up where the Adaptive Engine Transition Program left off, and may yield a new powerplant ready for production in the 2028 time period.

The funding is included in one of five advanced propulsion development accounts in the Air Force’s fiscal 2025 research, development, test, and evaluation budget request—collectively worth more than $4 billion through 2029—which also fund development of new propulsion technologies pertaining to materials, fuels, rockets, and hypersonic systems.

According to budget documents for the “Advanced Engine Development” program element, the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program will “design and perform risk reduction” for adaptive engine prototypes applicable to NGAD, the secretive fighter set to enter flight test around 2028.

“NGAP will select appropriate adaptive engine technologies that can meet [NGAD]…engine requirements while ensuring appropriate manufacturing and technology readiness levels,” according to the documents. These technology maturation and risk reduction activities will ensure that once the design is set, production and testing can start with little delay.

The Air Force said the NGAP effort “consists of six phases: initial design, preliminary design, adaptive prototyping planning, detailed design, engine fabrication, and engine assessments.” Initial and preliminary design activities are already complete, indicating that prototypes are now being sketched out.

The Air Force has said that it needs the NGAD to be ready for operational service around 2030, which means its engine, the NGAP, will have to be ready for flight testing at least two years prior.

The plan for fiscal 2025 is to “complete NGAP detailed design activities and transition to prototype engine fabrication and assembly activities,” according to budget docs.

Funding dipped from $595.4 million in 2024 to $562.4 million in 2025 “due to transition from prototype planning and detailed design activities to prototype engine fabrication and assembly,” the documents note.

Proposed spending declines again in 2026 to $439.9 million, then again 2027 to $287.5 million. After that, the development account drops to zero, indicating a transition to production.

Funding for the AETP engine was zeroed out for fiscal ’25, and the Air Force said any remaining monies were shifted to NGAP.

The AETP—in the form of GE Aerospace’s XA100 and Pratt & Whitney’s XA101—was designed to fit in the F-35 and would have given that fighter impressive gains in thrust, acceleration, and range. But the Pentagon and the international F-35 partners opted against pursuing it because it could only be applied to the F-35B and C variants with extensive further engineering. Buying the engine only for the Air Force and other countries using the F-35A model would have required creating separate parts, logistics, and maintenance systems, raising costs.

Pratt & Whitney is instead developing the Engine Core Upgrade on the F-35 engine, which it makes.

Last year, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the termination of the F-35 AETP engine was his greatest budgetary regret; one that he wished he had “another shot at.”

Although little is known about the NGAD, Kendall and John Sneden, head of the Life Cycle Management directorate for propulsion, have said the NGAD engine will be smaller than the AETP engines developed by GE and Pratt, arresting a steady growth in engine fan diameter since the 1970s. But it also means the AETP cannot simply be tweaked to power the NGAD. Instead, a wholly new design is required.    

Explaining the acquisition strategy for the NGAP, Air Force budget documents note that the service “awarded two limited source, cost-plus incentive fee contracts in FY 2016 to General Electric and Pratt & Whitney due to their unique qualifications to design a high performance, flight-weight adaptive turbine engine in the thrust class for the Adaptive Cycle Engine Transition Program (AETP).”

Embedded in those AETP contracts “was an option for the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) effort through preliminary design. In FY 2018, these options were exercised and awarded to optimize risk reduction.”

In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, “new indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts for completion of NGAP detailed design and prototyping” were awarded to Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX’s Pratt & Whitney. Those contracts were worth up to $975 million each over ten years. Those values—measured against the budget profile—suggest much of the funding will come in the procurement phase of the program.

In February, Pratt said it had completed the critical design review on its NGAP engine, which it said bears the designation XA103. GE Aerospace’s engine is the XA102.

The inclusion of Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop among the NGAP contractors raised eyebrows, as those companies traditionally make airframes and not the engines that power them. However, Air Force officials have said their contribution will be in the form of new propulsive technologies and to refine the integration of the NGAD airframe with its engines.

The Air Force’s acquisition strategy said the contracts “include digital transformation requirements, scope to complete prototype detail design and execute prototype engine testing, digital Weapon System integration activity to reduce technology transition risk, and a contracting approach that enhances the program’s acquisition agility.”

In addition to detailed digital models of the proposed engines, “deliverables” on the existing contracts include “engine hardware (plus spare parts); matured technologies; major rig assessment data (controls, combustor, etc.); program reviews; and technology, affordability and sustainability studies.” Further details can only be provided “in the appropriate forum,” meaning that they are classified.

The NGAD is expected to be a very expensive platform. Kendall has said the aircraft will cost “in the multiple hundreds of millions” of dollars each.