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.

Pentagon Running Late to Release Suicide Data by Job Specialty

Pentagon Running Late to Release Suicide Data by Job Specialty

April 5, 2024 | By David Roza

Service members and veterans who are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, and those who know a service member or veteran in crisis, can call the Veterans/Military Crisis Line for confidential support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Call 988 and press 1; text 988; or chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat.

The Department of Defense is late delivering a congressionally mandated report breaking down suicide deaths since 2001 by military job specialty, a report which one veteran advocate said is essential for the military to understand its ongoing struggle with suicide and mental health.

“Anecdotally we know it’s really bad in certain career fields,” retired Air Force Master Sgt. Chris McGhee told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “I consider this to be a starting point to investigate what is going on within those career fields that is driving these suicide rates.”

A VA disability attorney who served 20 years as an F-16 maintainer, McGhee worked closely with lawmakers on Section 599 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The provision requires the Pentagon, along with the Department of Homeland Security for the Coast Guard, to file a report on suicides by Dec. 31, 2023. The report must break down the data by year, military job code, and whether the member was Active-duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard.

The report must also compare the per capita suicide rate in each career field to other military fields, to the overall suicide rate for each service and the wider military, and to the national suicide rate over the same period of time. Section 599 also required an interim briefing no later than June 1, 2023. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the provision’s sponsor, told Military Times in 2022 that it would help refine the military’s prevention efforts.

“It seems like something we need to know,” he said. “There is a high level of interest in the subject, but in my view that interest has been more generalized and not really focused as finely as it should be.”

On March 12, about two months after the deadline passed, McGhee penned an open letter to members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee urging them to pressure the Pentagon to release the data.

“You are vested with a sacred duty to execute oversight authority over the Department of Defense,” he wrote. “By not employing your full authority to expedite the release of this study, you become complicit in the ongoing delay.”

He also posted the letter to the unofficial Air Force Reddit page, where it drew hundreds upvotes and dozens of comments. Most of the lawmakers addressed in the letter have not yet responded, McGhee said. Meanwhile, the Pentagon said it is still working on the report.

“The Department requires additional time to further analyze the data, make appropriate and reliable comparisons, and address all requirements set forth in section 599 and anticipates providing the full report to Congress later this year,” Defense Department spokeswoman Jade Fulce told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

A 49th Equipment Maintenance Squadron armament maintenance technician poses for a photo near the armaments flight shop at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, Aug. 24, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Isaiah Pedrazzini)

Once the report does come out, McGhee hopes it can help the military better understand the unique pressures facing each career field. In the Air Force, aircraft maintenance and security forces have historically been associated with higher suicide rates, but little data on the subject is available to the public. 

The 2020 Department of Defense Suicide Event Report included a chart breaking down suicide deaths by career field, but it lumped together many occupations so that the data could be compared between the services. Even so, it shows a wide range in different career fields’ share of suicide deaths. For example, in the Active-duty Air Force, electrical and mechanical equipment repairers and functional support and administration suffered the highest portion of the service’s enlisted suicide deaths (20.5 percent each), while craftsworkers had the lowest (2.7 percent) among career fields with reported suicide deaths.

“The military is a diverse population,” McGhee said. “Lots of people coming from lots of backgrounds, and they all go through the same indoctrinations before they move out into their career fields, where we start to see disparate rates of suicide. That indicates there is something going on in that particular community.”

McGhee retired from the Air Force in 2018, and he blamed the tough working conditions in aircraft maintenance on a long trend of underinvestment and poor policy choices stretching back to 2007, but which intensified in the years after the 2013 U.S. budget sequestration, where the Air Force was reduced by about 20,000 Airmen in two years. The Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Congress at the time that the military was becoming “a hollow force.”

The Air Force built manpower back up over the ensuing years, but the number of suicide deaths spiked in the late 2010s and early 2020s. McGhee said the situation in Air Force maintenance is similar to the one in Army tank brigades covered by a recent Army Times investigation, which found that high operational tempo and not enough equipment or Soldiers meant the suicide rate for Army tank crews was nearly three times higher than the rest of the service between 2019 and 2021. 

“That is exactly what we experienced in aircraft maintenance,” he said. “It is just caustic and terrible.” 

McGhee wants the Defense Department to publish its data not just so the military can better understand its suicide rates, but also to help the services make an argument for appropriate funding to Congress.

“When a certain career field has a higher suicide rate, it draws your inquiry to why, which is the whole reason why this study is so important,” McGhee said. 

Airdrops to Gaza: The Art and Science of One of the Largest Aid Missions Since the Berlin Airlift

Airdrops to Gaza: The Art and Science of One of the Largest Aid Missions Since the Berlin Airlift

April 5, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

OVER THE GAZA STRIP—After three hours in the air, the cargo door of the C-17 slowly opens up, revealing the Mediterranean Sea, the beach, and the ruins of Gaza City on the shore below. Pallets full of MREs tumble out, their parachutes opening to slow their fall to Earth.  

The U.S. Air Force and its partners have dropped hundreds of thousands of meals to famished Gazans in recent weeks as efforts to bring in humanitarian aid by land and sea remain stymied. Airmen try to calculate all the variables, from the altitude, to weight, to the effect of the wind, but it’s obvious looking out the back of this massive jet aircraft that airdrops are as much art as science.  

Air & Space Forces Magazine joined a March 29 aid mission, which aimed to deliver 46,080 MREs (meals-ready-to-eat) to a drop zone northwest of Al Shifa hospital, the scene of fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters even as the airdrops continue. Two C-17s delivered 80 pallets of food to the Gazans below.

“We’re doing everything we can, as much as we can, as fast as we can,” said Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the commander of Air Forces Central (AFCENT) and the top air boss in the region, in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

Hungry Palestinians spied the C-17s in the distance and raced on foot, bicycles, and motorcycles toward the drop site, an open stretch of beach north of a destroyed marina. 

Just nine aircrew manned the two C-17s, including an intelligence specialist on each plane to assist with up-to-date imagery. MQ-9s monitored the drop zone below with real-time, full-motion video.

Cargo falls 28.5 feet per second, so forecasting wind is crucial to ensure pallets don’t land on rooftops, or, worse, the hungry people scrambling for food.  

“We rely on the intelligence and weather data from staff weather officers in the Air Force, and the crews do the pre-flight and in-flight calculations,” said Army Col. Brian Olson, operations officer for the 1st Theater Sustainment Command, which provides materiel support for the joint force throughout U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). 

The cargo door opened for just three minutes, more than enough time to release the pallets inside. Airdropping relief is not precision warfare. Without guidance systems, crews can try to predict conditions, but they can’t ensure pin-point delivery. On this day, winds proved lighter than expected, and 26 of the 80 bundles drifted into the sea. Some, perhaps most, may wash up on the beach and be salvaged, and the hungry often take to the waves to try to retrieve them.

There will be many more airdrops to come.  

After the drop, the aircraft turned towards the Mediterranean Sea, the previously tightly packed C-17 cargo bay suddenly feeling empty, even cavernous as the journey home to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, began. The next day, AFCENT C-130s flying out of Jordan made another airdrop.

The Best Option Available

After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 civilians and taking some 250 hostages, the Israeli military invaded Gaza, launching an intensive campaign intended to destroy Hamas, a political and military movement. The fighting has displaced at least one million Gazans and caused an international outcry.

Israel recently promised to increase aid after President Joe Biden called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “unacceptable,” but efforts to mitigate it have proven difficult. On March 2, with the enclave on the brink of famine, the U.S. began airdropping food.  

While hardly a panacea for the crisis, the drops are one of the few ways to get aid in now. Trucks could deliver more help, but with only a few land corridors open across the Israeli and Egyptian borders with Gaza and Israel carefully inspecting the flow of supplies, delivering assistance to hungry civilians, as opposed to Hamas fighters, has only gotten more difficult as Gazans have grown hungrier and more desperate.

The U.S. plans to construct a makeshift pier and causeway—called Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS)—and is sending a flotilla of Army and naval vessels and 1,000 troops to set it up and help get more aid into Gaza from the sea, but establishing that beachhead and causeway will take a month as the flat-bottomed Army boats must first cross the choppy Atlantic at a scant 10 miles per hour. It still remains unclear who will anchor the causeway to land and provide security.  

Efforts to negotiate a temporary cease-fire suspending Israeli-Hamas hostilities could facilitate delivery of more aid by land and sea, but no such deal has been forthcoming, leaving the airdrops as among the most critical means of feeding starving civilians. U.S. officials say the Gaza air bridge could become one of the biggest such humanitarian support initiatives since the Berlin Airlift. 

“Everyone has seen the challenges with getting aid across the border through the border crossing points,” Grynkewich said. “We’re going keep doing these drops to help the Palestinian people as much as we can until other solutions that can really deliver aid in volume come into play.” 

The airdrop initiative had its origins in Jordan, which first conducted an aid airdrop to help resupply a hospital in November and discussed the possibility of expanding that effort with Grynkewich when he visited Amman, Jordan, in early February. 

“The Jordanians started reaching out to their allies and partners. Their leadership was very concerned about the suffering in Gaza and the lack of food,” Grynkewich said. “There was some engagement with the U.S. and we wanted to help.”  

The U.S. began airdrops a day after President Joe Biden announced the effort on March 1, and in recent weeks, the number of drops has grown exponentially. One month on, C-130s, C-17s, and Airbus A400s from several countries whir over Gaza, with the British the latest to join in.  

To boost the effort, C-17s arrived a few weeks ago from Joint Base Charleston, S.C., with crews specially trained in airdrops. Each C-17 can move 40 pallets, far more than the C-130s which carry U.S. and Jordanian-supplied meals. But the C-17s must operate out of Qatar, a roundtrip flight of six hours or more, compared to two hours for a C-130 operating from Jordan.

To facilitate the deliveries, Jordan runs a combined planning cell, including representatives from the U.S. and coalition countries. It coordinates airdrop locations and deconflicts airspace days in advance. The planning process is extensive.  

“I’m probably on about 12 different Signal and WhatsApp chats, being geographically separated,” said Maj. Spencer Boone, the mission commander for the March 29 airdrops. “I’m familiar with everything they’re planning,” he said. “I’ll have capabilities on the jet to reach back to a mission planning cell.” 

The U.S. mostly drops aid in northern Gaza, where the population is largely cut off from land routes, selecting dropzones that are at least the size of a football field, well clear of structures and roadways.

Prepping the Drop

Not all of the challenges are in the air. The biggest constraint is the availability of humanitarian aid.  

“There’s a few things that determine the capacity to drop,” Grynkewich said. “The biggest one is how much humanitarian aid do we have on hand that we can drop.”  

At Al Udeid, food and parachutes arrive from America, U.S. bases in the Pacific and Europe, CENTCOM stocks in Kuwait and Iraq, and other locations. The food must be packed into air-droppable bundles and rigged with parachutes. 

Rations, which pack 1,000 calories or more into each vacuum-sealed pouch, conform to Islamic dietary restrictions. Finding enough has become a global scavenger hunt. “We’ve had to go all across the world from Japan, Italy,” Olson said. “This has been a daily operation to identify exactly where in the world they are.”

The Army’s setup for rigging the aid at Al Udeid is spartan: an arched steel warehouse, or Nissen hut, surrounded by steel shipping containers. Dozens of aid bundles prepared for future missions are spread out, blocking off a makeshift basketball court with a backboard constructed from an airdrop bundle’s skid board. 

Initially, Georgia Army National Guard troops deployed to the region since fall did the rigging; they had been preparing supplies for U.S. troops at forward bases elsewhere. But with demand surging, 28 more riggers recently arrived, doubling capacity. 

“They’re partnering with and learning from the group of guys who are here, and they’re going to be together for a while,” said Olson. 

Soldiers shuffle the pallets with forklifts, aided by volunteers, among them Guardians from Space Forces Central (SPACECENT), security forces personnel working after completing 12-hour shifts, and dental hygienists, who assemble the aid packages. 

Each bundle is assembled on a simple wooden pallet, or skid board, which in turn is topped with two layers of energy-absorbing honeycombed material and then MREs in cardboard boxes. The whole bundle is wrapped in plastic, then wrapped into an A-22 Cargo Bag—a canvas package covered in netting—which Soldiers secure tightly with nylon ties. Parachutes are added to slow the descent of the 1,250-pound pallets to the ground.  

“This is the standard configuration that we do for humanitarian aid airdrops,” said Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael Romeo, the head of Detachment 2 of the 165th Quartermaster Company.

“We routinely support troops in forward locations for OIR, and we use the same type of system,” he added, referring to Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State group. “Everything is done with exactly the same care whether it’s going out for a humanitarian aid airdrop, out for a training drop, or out to our forward locations. Everything is real world for us.” 

“It’s complex,” Army Staff Sergeant Jacob Engstrom, a parachute rigger with Detachment 2, said later as he stood near the bundles that had been prepared for the next airdrop. “It’s like a vehicle. It’s super easy for you to drive, but the internals of it are what’s complicated.” 

At Al Udeid, the packages are then loaded onto a flatbed truck, transferred, rolled up to the back of a C-17, and pushed onboard, usually at night before a daylight flight. When it’s time for the three-hour journey to Gaza, an American flag hangs above the cargo bay outside the cockpit. 

Helping ‘Save Lives’

It takes specialists to make these deliveries. Only one-fourth of C-17 pilots are airdrop-qualified aircraft commanders, and only half of C-17 crews have an airdrop-qualified loadmaster or co-pilot. Among them is a loadmaster sporting a kangaroo on his t-shirt, a souvenir from last year’s Mobility Guardian 2023 exercise, where he operated out of Australia, practicing airdrops in the Pacific theater.  

Half an hour out, Boone and other Airmen run their last checks. The aircraft creaks as it depressurizes, and the dim green lighting is replaced by bright flood lights. A loadmaster starts removing straps tying down the bundles to the floor.

Untethered, the 25-ton cargo starts to shift in place, rocking back and forth, and the door slowly opens, revealing the beach and sea 3,000 feet below.  

As the pallets slide out, the Low-Cost, Low-Velocity parachutes, each one 64 feet in diameter, open up. Designed to move slowly to minimize injuries below, they are less accurate than the high-velocity parachutes used in war zones. 

“It’s not screaming down,” Olson said. “In combat, you want our soldiers to get on the ground as quickly as possible. We don’t want these to get on the ground as quickly as possible.” 

Designed for a lifespan of 15 years, they won’t be used again. Sourced, like the MREs, from all over the world, many arrived in CENTCOM from the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy. 

“Frankly, we don’t have a large stockpile,” Olson said. “We’re kind of a just-in-time capability.”

Protecting U.S. troops sometimes comes ahead of more humanitarian supplies. The day before, he said, missiles for Coyote anti-drone systems arrived in the theater, ahead of roughly 1,000 parachutes expected the next day for humanitarian airdrop missions.

“We have to balance our needs,” Olson said. 

A computer program called the Consolidated Airdrop Tool (CAT) helps troops factor wind speed and other data for the drops, but the aim is to err on the side of safety. In early March, parachutes failed during an ally’s airdrop, killing several civilians; dropping loads near or in the water that will float ashore is safer than risking hitting civilians on the ground, though some drownings have been reported.

So far, the U.S. military has dropped some 500,000 meals and 150,000 bottles of water. Hamas, which instigated the crisis with its attack on Israel, has denounced the airdrops as dangerous to civilians. But while aid agencies say the scale of aid is modest compared to the need, every little bit of food makes a difference.  

The meals “help save lives,” Olson said. “We have video evidence, we have photographic evidence of children that are eating probably their first meal in days.”

Allvin, Kendall Tour Pacific Islands to See Progress on ACE

Allvin, Kendall Tour Pacific Islands to See Progress on ACE

April 4, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

Top Air Force officials are on a weeklong tour of the Pacific, including visits to key bases the U.S. hopes to expand to be better positioned for a possible conflict with China. On April 4, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin, and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flosi visited Saipan and Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam at the southern end of the island chain, where they met with Airmen and local elected leaders.

Both the Northern Marianas and Guam are U.S. territories. Tinian, which hosted Army Air Force bombers during World War II, is being resurrected to project airpower. Airmen at North Field on the island are restoring the location’s 20 million square feet of pavement so it can be a future operating location under the service’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine of dispersed forces. Kendall, Allvin, and Flosi observed the efforts, the Air Force said.

Allvin said in a news release Tinian would “increase flexibility” and the Airmen conducting the work were “pathfinders for advancing our scheme of maneuver in the Indo-Pacific.”

Earlier in the week, the service leaders visited U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and its boss Adm. John C. Aquilino and Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) head Gen. Kevin B. Schneider, in Hawaii. There, they were briefed on upcoming ACE training and exercises, the Air Force said.

“Nearly three years ago, I entered office deeply concerned about the security challenges inherent in the Pacific,” Kendall said. “The rapid buildup of the Chinese military is the defining challenge we face.”

The trip is aimed at evaluating the Department of the Air Force’s progress in adapting to that threat, the leaders said.

“The leadership and Airmen here in PACAF are laser-focused on working with our Allies and partners to deter aggression, and defeat it, if necessary,” Allvin said.

On Tinian, the 513th Expeditionary RED HORSE Squadron began work on North Field in January, clearing hundreds of acres of jungle around the old airfield, the Air Force said. The Air Force has operated from Tinian International Airport as part of recent exercises, but the USAF has since been able to conduct “austere landings” at North Field since the jungle was cleared.

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Matthew Andrews, heavy earthwork craftsman assigned to the 820th Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, operates a cold planer to mill concrete at the Pacific Regional Training Center – Andersen, Guam, June 22, 2023. Airmen from the 820 REDHORSE will be repairing two airfields at the PRTC-A along with one in Tinian. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Emily Saxton

“This small team has a large task,” Kendall said in the release. “They are working at a remote, austere location to reclaim a historical airfield.”

Tinian is planned as an alternative location—or a spoke—for nearby Andersen Air Force Base—a hub—on Guam as part of ACE. Andersen serves as the Air Force’s main base in the Western Pacific but was devastated by a typhoon last year. Allvin and Flosi hosted an all-call there to discuss the Air Force’s re-optimization initiative.

The U.S. military plans to use small islands in the Pacific, such as those in the Compacts of Free Association—the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau—and U.S. territories such as Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. The Air Force plans to spend $400 million upgrading the airfield on the island of Yap and has already budgeted more than $70 million for work on Tinian.

Contractor Crashed MQ-9 on Loan from Air Force in 2023, Causing $16 Million in Damage

Contractor Crashed MQ-9 on Loan from Air Force in 2023, Causing $16 Million in Damage

April 4, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

A contractor caused $16 million in damages to a U.S. Air Force drone, according to a new accident investigation report. The MQ-9 was on loan from the service as part of a program to capture data from hypersonic tests before it crashed last year.

The crash took place Jan. 18, 2023, at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, Calif. Crew members, while members of the California National Guard, were working as civilians for Integrated Innovation, Incorporated—known as i3—at the time. 

i3 helps operate the Defense Department’s SkyRange program, which uses MQ-9 and RQ-4 drones to clear hypersonic test ranges and relay telemetry. The crash was not during a flight to support a hypersonic test; its purpose was to test operations and procedures for the MQ-9, according to the investigation report, released this week 14 months after the crash. 

Air Force investigators determined that before takeoff, the crew chief and pilot failed to note during preflight checks that the drone’s angle of attack (AOA) gauge in the ground control station cockpit was displaying between 6.5 and 7.0 degrees, well outside the –1.0 it is supposed to show. 

As a result, when the MQ-9 gathered speed to take off, warning messages and tones started flashing on the cockpit head’s up display. At that point, however, the drone had already reached 78 knots of indicated airspeed—the rotation speed at which point the pilot is supposed to initiate takeoff.

The drone sensor operator had not noticed or called out the aircraft reaching that speed and called for the flight to be aborted when the warning message appeared. When the MQ-9 left the ground, the drone pilot told the sensor operator to “Kill the GDT,” severing any sort of connection between the ground terminal and the aircraft. 

The MQ-9, which never got more than 18 feet off the ground, slammed back into the runway and veered off to the left. 

“As the [aircraft] careened into the dirt surface surrounding the runway, all three landing gears collapsed causing catastrophic damage to the aircraft’s radome, lower data link antenna, [Multi-Spectral Targeting System], and the engine,” the accident investigation report states. The estimated cost of the damage was $16.1 million, though the report does not say if the aircraft was salvageable.

Ultimately, investigators determined the primary cause of the crash was the decision to sever the communications link between the aircraft and the ground terminal. Using a simulator, officials said they were able to determine that “although the [aircraft] stalled and impacted the runway hard, not cutting the GDT allowed us to maintain aircraft control to a full-stop on the runway.” 

Officials also faulted the pilot for failing to note the AOA gauge was displaying data that would cause an alarm, and the sensor operator for failing to call out when the MQ-9 reached rotation speed and attempting to abort the flight after rotation speed had been reached. All were “substantially contributing factors” to the crash. 

Both the pilot and sensor operator were current and qualified to instruct and conduct MQ-9 launch and recovery operations, the report noted. 

The drone was assigned to the 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nev., but no personnel from that wing were involved in the mishap. The Air Force’s MQ-9 fleet averages about 4.9 Class A mishaps per year, according to the latest available data. Other MQ-9s have been damaged or destroyed by Russian aircraft and Houthi missiles in the past year. 

i3 continues to work on SkyRange, which officials say has allowed the Pentagon to test hypersonic systems faster and more effectively than before—limited test capabilities and infrastructure have been common complaints in the U.S.’s hypersonic efforts.  

B-52s Fly with US, South Korea, and Japan Fighters Hours After North Korea Missile Launch

B-52s Fly with US, South Korea, and Japan Fighters Hours After North Korea Missile Launch

April 4, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Two B-52 bombers flew with fighter aircraft from the U.S., South Korea, and Japan southwest of Kyushu Island near the East China Sea on April 2, marking the first trilateral aerial exercise between the nations this year and just the third one ever.

The exercise also came just a few hours after North Korea tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle. Pyongyang’s state-controlled media claimed a successful launch of the weapon, with the missile flying approximately 403 miles and reached a maximum altitude of 62 miles before landing in waters near Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

The B-52 Stratofortresses that participated in the trilateral drill came from the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., flying from their deployed location on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Three USAF F-16s, four Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s, and two Republic of Korea Air Force F-15K Slam Eagles flew across the airspace southwest of Korea’s Jeju Island. The region is where the Air Defense Identification Zones of South Korea and Japan intersect and is also close to Taiwan.

“The enhanced complexity and fluidity of our collective forces demonstrate the strength of the partnership and cooperation between the three countries, keeping with commitments made to regularize defensive exercise and increase readiness.” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a statement.

Each of the two U.S.-Japan-South Korea aerial exercises last year also featured fighters from all three countries escorting U.S. bombers: one with B-52s and one with B-1s. Leaders from the three nations pledged during a summit last year to hold more trilateral exercises.

Later in the day, one B-52 diverted from its route and made a landing at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, Stars and Stripes reported, marking the bomber’s second such unexpected landing in Japan in nine months. Pacific Air Forces did not immediately respond to a query from Air & Space Forces Magazine for the cause of the diversion or further details.

The North Korean missile test marks the latest provocation by leader Kim Jong-un, who has ramped up launches in recent months. When launched at a normal angle, intermediate-range ballistic missile like the one tested can reach up to 3,100 miles, making the weapon capable of targeting any U.S. military base in Japan and Guam, according to the Republic of Korea Defense Ministry.  

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is set to welcome Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio at the White House on April 8. They are expected to discuss efforts counterbalance China’s influence in the region and concerns regarding Pyongyang’s continued missile and nuclear development.