EUCOM Nominee: European Deterrence Initiative Has Been as Vital as ‘Oxygen’

May 26, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Over the past several years, the Pentagon has dedicated nearly $30 billion in funding to the European Deterrence Initiative, helping to bolster the U.S. military’s posture and flexibility in the region to respond to Russian aggression.

In that time, the initiative has become “absolutely vital” to U.S. forces in Europe, the potential next boss of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe told lawmakers on May 26—and he wants to expand its impacts to include an Air Force effort that has fallen off the radar for some.

Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli currently serves as commander of U.S. Army Europe-Africa and has a long history in the EUCOM area of responsibility. And in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cavoli gave the EDI a strong endorsement, especially as Russia’s war with Ukraine drags on.

“The European Deterrence Initiative has not just been important, it’s kind of been like oxygen to us for several years now,” Cavoli told senators. “It’s the thing that allows us to do all of the exercising, to build all of the infrastructure, to preposition all of the equipment that we’ve been using and that you’ve seen us use in response to this crisis.”

EDI, first called the European Reassurance Initiative, began in 2014 under then-President Barack Obama with $800 million. Over the next several years, funding progressively increased all the way to $6.5 billion in fiscal 2019. That was followed by a multi-year decline, down to $3.8 billion in the fiscal 2022 budget, as Pentagon officials said the initiative had achieved many of its goals, according to U.S. News and World Report.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has sparked a global response, and the Defense Department’s 2023 budget request would increase the EDI funding for the first time in four years, to roughly $4.2 billion.

Cavoli credited past funding for enabling forces to prepare for crises like the current one and he advocated for it to continue.

“Since my first tour as a general officer in Europe, when the original ERI was authorized and appropriated, we’ve been benefiting from it,” Cavoli said. “We’ve slowly but surely used it to put infrastructure into place where we are pre-positioning equipment. And now we exercise that equipment at a large scale with the funding that this committee authorizes. It’s absolutely vital to what we’ve been doing. And I think we’ve seen the benefits of it in our rapid ability to react in the past couple of months.”

Specifically, Cavoli noted that with EDI funds, the Army was able to preposition “very modern equipment—brigade combat team sets”—in Europe and train how to transport troops over to the continent and get the equipment out of storage fast.

So when the call came for thousands of troops to deploy to Europe to respond to Russia’s invasion and bolster NATO’s eastern flank, “we moved all the troops in about four days by aircraft. And those troops, the first of them, were putting rounds downrange in less than a week,” Cavoli said. “And by the end of three weeks, every single screwdriver in the brigade had been issued.”

Cavoli’s enthusiasm for pre-positioning Army equipment has been shared by EUCOM’s current commander Gen. Tod D. Wolters, who testified to its impact in March. But, in his written responses to Advance Policy Questions, Cavoli said he would consider expanding the concept.

“If confirmed, I foresee this strategy continuing in all domains (e.g., Air Force Deployable Air Base Sets (DABS), special operations forces equipment) because it enhances our ability to respond swiftly and decisively to assure our Allies and deter further Russian aggression,” Cavoli wrote.

The Air Force’s Deployable Air Base Set, sometimes referred to as an “air base in a box,” is a package that includes equipment, facilities, vehicles, and health service support that is prepositioned so it can be used to quickly establish base operations and generate sorties without needing to airlift in supplies.

The Air Force was set to begin procurement of DABS, but the Defense Department’s inspector general released a report in January 2019 faulting the effort for a lack of coordination or designated program manager, resulting in delays.

Since then, there hasn’t been much public discussion about DABS, but pre-positioning equipment to support rapid deployments would seem to dovetail with the Air Force’s own efforts in Agile Combat Employment, the operational concept of relying on small teams of multi-capable Airmen to operate in austere locations and move quickly. And work has continued in places like Campia Turzii Air Base, Romania, to build the infrastructure needed for DABS.

Nahom: F-35s Must be the Aggressors at Nellis and JPARC, Contract AdAir Not Enough

May 26, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

“Adversary Air” companies are no longer able to provide a worthwhile opponent to Air Force fighters at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex (JPARC) Alaska, so Air Combat Command is letting contracts lapse and working toward creating a permanent F-35 Aggressor capability.

“What we’re finding, now … is these contracts aren’t very effective at Nellis at the high-end training environment,” Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 17. “What they provide is not giving us what we need.”

Draken International has the adversary air contract for Nellis. The current contract, let in 2018, is for $280 million. Layoff notices from the company prompted Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) to question Nahom on USAF’s plans, telling him she is “concerned” there will be an AdAir gap while the Air Force establishes an F-35 Aggressor capability, saying that “63 percent” of Aggressor hours are supplied by contractors. Rosen quoted to him his response to a query, received by her staffers, that USAF will perform AdAir “completely organically … while ACC builds an F-35 Aggressor capability. But timing of this growth and capability is yet to be determined.”

Nahom explained that, “five, six years ago,” the Air Force didn’t need a fifth-generation adversary aircraft, but China now fields such fighters, and that has increased the sophistication needed for sparring partners at USAF’s two marquee fighter training ranges.

“As the China threat has stepped up, we have to step up our replication,” Nahom said, “And, what the contractor’s providing there at Nellis … is not what we need … for that high-end piece that we get at the NTTR (Nevada Test and Training Range) … and JPARC in Alaska … [They] are the only two places that you get that high-end training anywhere in the world.”

He said adversary air companies “do wonderful work for the Air Force, especially at our Formal Training Units, or FTUs, where we train basic fighter pilots how to fly.” The work at the FTUs is sufficient—“the contracts are very effective”—and Nahom suggested that this work will continue.

“While the Nellis training range is a national treasure—and it’s very important that we obtain that high-end capability—there’s also a transition that our service is making to more and more virtual training,” Nahom added. “And it’s critical because a lot of things cannot be replicated in ‘real.’” He emphasized that while flying hours in real-world aircraft are critical, so is USAF’s investment “in a virtual simulation environment.” It will “ensure that our aircrews maintain that edge.”

Draken has built a for-hire adversary air force that includes Russian MiG-21s, U.S. A-4 Skyhawks, French Mirage F1s and the derivative South African Atlas Cheetah, as well as Czech Aero L-159A Honey Badgers and MB-339s. Recently, it began acquiring ex-Dutch F-16A/Bs.

Just a year ago, a Draken F1 crashed at Nellis, killing the pilot. Another F1, this one belonging to Airborne Tactical Advantage Company (ATAC), crashed at Luke Air Force in February, but the pilot ejected to safety. Two other contract AdAir accidents have occurred since 2018, but Nahom did not indicate that safety plays any role in USAF’s decision to bring high-end Aggressor work back in-house.

Draken, ATAC, and Tactical Air Support were awarded contracts in July 2020 worth up to $433.6 million to provide 5,418 annual sorties at five ACC bases. ACC envisioned contracting as much as $6.4 billion of adversary air work at 12 bases, including 40,000 hours of air-to-air and 10,000 hours of close air support work. It’s not clear how much of that work will not be awarded given ACC’s decision to make Aggressor work at Nellis and JPARC organic. Other companies authorized to bid on the AdAir work include Air USA, Blue Air Training, Coastal Defense, and Top Aces Corp.

An industry source said Draken was given only 60 days notice of the contract lapse, after the Air Force “led them to believe they would still be in high demand.” There is “no published Air Force vision” for AdAir or electronic warfare aggressors, he said, and the service will “struggle to find” enough training resources as a result of “its choice to drastically cut contract AdAir.”

This story was updated at 8:59 a.m. Eastern time July 5, 2022, to correct the state and party affiliation of Sen. Jacky Rosen.

New Commanders Tapped for Air Force Sustainment Center, 16th Air Force

May 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A pair of Air Force generals are set to receive third stars and take over new commands. The Pentagon announced a new slate of nominations May 25.

President Joe Biden nominated Maj. Gen. Stacey T. Hawkins to become a lieutenant general and the new commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The Air Force Sustainment Center oversees most of the service’s maintenance and installation support enterprises and monitors supply chain activities. Weapons system sustainment accounts for tens of millions of dollars every year in the Air Force budget.

Hawkins currently serves as director of logistics, engineering, and force protection at Air Combat Command. With a background in maintenance operations, Hawkins previously served at Tinker in 2012 and 2013 as the deputy commander for maintenance at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, a unit within the Air Force Sustainment Center.

The Air Force Sustainment Center is currently led by Lt. Gen. Tom D. Miller, who has held the job since August 2021.

Also nominated for a third star May 25 was Maj. Gen. Kevin B. Kennedy, with an appointment as commander of the 16th Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

The 16th Air Force was activated in 2019, the result of an effort within Air Combat Command to merge its intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, cyber, weather, and other units into one “information warfare” numbered Air Force. The digitally-focused NAF has taken the lead in areas such as cyber and spectrum warfare, areas of conflict in the so-called “gray zone” short of kinetic attacks.

Kennedy, if confirmed, would replace Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, the NAF’s first commander. Kennedy currently serves as director of operations for U.S. Cyber Command and has previously worked in several positions under the Air Force’s chief information officer.

In addition to Hawkins and Kennedy, the Pentagon also announced two nominees for promotions. Brig. Gen. John J. Bartrum and Brig. Gen. Richard L. Kemble are to both receive second stars.

Barnum currently serves as the mobilization assistant to the surgeon general of the Air Force, while Kemble is the director of plans, programs, and requirements for Air Force Reserve Command.

Austin Warns Academy Grads of Adversary Tests; Kendall Says Transformational Change Is Coming

May 25, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

Blue skies graced Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colo., where 973 Air Force Academy cadets graduated May 25 and began careers facing unprecedented challenges and technological advances. There, commencement speaker Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III warned that adversaries are testing America’s values.

“Today, America’s adversaries are testing the very values that you swore to defend,” Austin told the new second lieutenants. “You’re here to defend America’s security and win America’s wars. But we’re also here to safeguard America’s values.”

Austin pointed to two examples: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggressive behavior in the Pacific.

The defense Secretary gave five pieces of advice, including the importance of teamwork, which he described in terms of U.S. allies and partners.

“America’s unrivaled network of allies and partners is so important,” Austin reflected. “They’re crucial to what I call integrated deterrence. They extend our strength; they magnify our power; and they deepen our security.”

Austin commended the graduates for withstanding the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted graduates to their dorm rooms during their sophomore year, and told them that the world they face will require discipline and innovation.

Of the 973 graduates, 16 represent 15 countries, including lesser-known American partners on the African continent such as Cameroon, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Niger; and Central Asian and Indo-Pacific countries including Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, and Thailand.

Graduates were 73 percent male and 27 percent female, and 31 percent represented minorities. Of the graduates, 461 were rated, including 417 pilots, 11 combat systems officers, nine air battle managers, and 24 remotely piloted aircraft operators. Another 382 graduates were non-rated, and 94 graduates commissioned into the Space Force. Three graduates cross-commissioned into the Army and six into the Marine Corps.

Three cadets received scholarships for advanced degrees in the United Kingdom, including two Marshall scholarships and one Holaday Scholarship, while two more cadets received fellowships at Stanford University.

“I know that you’re ready because I see Academy graduates shine every day,” Austin said. “When I travel the world from Eastern Europe to the Indo-Pacific to remote bases, I see young lieutenants and captains just like yourself.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said cadets will face transformational change in their careers.

“You begin your service just as we are entering a new and more dangerous strategic era,” Kendall said.

“You are at an inflection point in history,” he added, noting the shift from counterinsurgency to great power competition in the past two decades. “You must be prepared to do your duty in an environment that features the greatest strategic challenge we’ve seen in a lifetime, my lifetime at least. And some of the most significant technological changes in the history of warfare.”

Kendall said graduates’ Air Force careers will be dominated by the National Defense Strategy‘s pacing threat of China, just as he faced the Soviet threat when he graduated from the Army’s U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1971.

“You, too, will face a strategic, well-resourced threat that is doing all it can to be able to defeat the Air and Space Forces that you joined today,” Kendall said. “I believe that you are ready.”

Air Force Medical Service Reviewing How Teams Can Be ‘Lighter, Leaner’ in Future Conflicts

May 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

As the Air Force presses forward with its concept of agile combat employment, relying on small teams of multi-capable Airmen to operate in austere locations and move quickly, the service’s surgeon general is considering ways the Air Force’s medical personnel can also become “increasingly modular, lighter, [and] leaner,” he told lawmakers May 25.

The Air Force Medical Service, led by Lt. Gen. Robert I. Miller, has been repeatedly tested in recent years, first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the evacuation of Afghan civilians in the summer of 2021. And in those crises, medical Airmen “played a crucial role in supporting the demands of the Department of Defense and our Nation,” Miller said in his written testimony to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

AFMS helped to transport patients critically ill from COVID-19 and established field hospitals at multiple locations to assist Afghan refugees.

But moving forward, Miller wrote, the medical service is “re-imagining the design and future of our readiness capabilities.”

“We must build on past success, but be willing to break the cultural norms that say, ‘things have always been done this way,’” Miller wrote. “We are exploring and challenging our previous decisions about the size and types of clinical teams, and how to best train and sustain their skills. We believe innovation and fresh ideas will enable us to be more resilient and expand these teams’ capacity within the current AFMS end strength total.”

As part of that re-imagining, AFMS is undertaking a pair of reviews on critical medic response capabilities: forward-deployable teams and the Expeditionary Medical Support system.

In the first case, the service is looking to move away from a “one size fits all” approach for its ground deployable medical teams so that they are more adaptable to combatant commanders’ needs, Miller said. As part of the review process, Miller said, AFMS wants to “validate [teams’] size, scope and capabilities relative to the future fight and technological changes.”

On the second front, the Expeditionary Medical Support System (EMEDS) is essentially a tent-based field hospital, equipped with “modular, medical response packages and equipment” for use in humanitarian aid, disaster relief, or in wartime. The Air Force Medical Service has kept the system ready to go for both the COVID-19 pandemic and for assisting Afghan refugees, Miller noted.

Still, “the EMEDS was initially designed two decades ago,” Miller wrote. “It is time for a full review of the capability, exploring needs related to increased modular functions, operations in contested and degraded environments.”

Both review processes will be completed before the end of 2022, Miller wrote, with a goal of providing commanders “with greater flexibility and range of options with advanced care that is highly mobile and ready to operate in the most challenging of environments.”

Operating in contested and degraded environments is precisely what the Air Force has said agile combat employment, or ACE, is aimed at accomplishing—creating so-called “multi-capable Airmen.” AFMS has its own version of multi-capable Airmen as well—the Medic-X program.

Medic-X has been going for several years now, aimed at teaching Airmen in non-patient care career fields “to provide base-level medical support” in events like mass casualty scenarios where traditional medical capabilities are overwhelmed, by taking vital signs, administering IVs, or documenting care.

Such skills could be necessary in future conflicts, Miller argued, when medics may need “to hold and treat patients in deployed settings for longer periods than in the past. We are actively evaluating how our teams can remain agile and leverage technology to provide trusted care.”

INDOPACOM Condemns ‘Destabilizing’ North Korean Missile Test as Biden Returned From the Pacific

May 25, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

North Korea conducted it’s 17th round of ballistic missile tests of the year May 24, including a believed intercontinental ballistic missile, in the skies over the Pacific while President Joe Biden was returning to the United States from the region.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command reported that the tests did not pose an “immediate threat” to the U.S. homeland, while Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III called his South Korean counterpart to reassure the ally.

Biden concluded his five-day Pacific trip to Japan and South Korea May 24 under high alert that North Korean may conduct another ballistic missile test, and the north fired three rockets in violation of UN Security Council resolutions according to press reports. The first was believed to be an ICBM, the second failed in mid-air, and the third was a short-range ballistic missile.

“The missile launches [highlight] the destabilizing impact of the DPRK’s illicit weapons program,” read a May 25 statement by INDOPACOM. “The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad.”

Likewise, Austin called his South Korean counterpart May 24 to discuss responses to the DPRK ballistic missile launches.

“The two leaders strongly condemned today’s missile launches and pledged to work closely together to address the serious threat the DPRK’s provocative actions pose to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula, the region, and the global community more broadly,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The White House was prepared for the possibility of ballistic missile tests by North Korea, and Biden’s travel itinerary highlighted U.S. and Pacific ally readiness with a May 22 stop by the president to the Air Operations Center’s combat operations floor at Osan Air Base, South Korea, where the threat from North Korean ballistic missiles is tracked.

“The fact is that deterring threats and underwriting stability is as vital today for not only the Peninsula but for the world,” Biden said during the visit.

In a May 21 joint statement with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Biden emphasized the U.S. commitment to defend the Republic of Korea.

“President Biden affirms the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities,” the statement read.

Three Cadets Receive Degrees—But No Commissions—After COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal

May 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A grand total of 973 Cadets graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy on May 25, with the vast majority commissioning into either the Air Force or the Space Force. But for three in particular, the day was destined to end with a degree but no immediate future in military service.

Those three Cadets have continued to refuse the COVID-19 vaccination, putting them at odds with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s order that all service members get the shot or receive an accommodation.

As a result, the U.S. Air Force Academy Board, made up of Academy leaders, decided during their standard review of the class of 2022 to let those Cadets graduate with a bachelor of science degree but not allow them to commission into the Air Force or Space Force, the Academy confirmed in a statement.

The statement, however, does include the caveat that the Cadets won’t be able to commission “as long as they remain unvaccinated.” Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark, superintendent of the Academy, has set a deadline of Aug. 1 for Cadets to begin a COVID-19 vaccine regimen or face disenrollment, potentially leaving a small window for the refusers to reverse course.

Originally, the number of seniors refusing the vaccine was reported to be four, but one of the Cadets decided to take the vaccine.

Because of their inability to commission into the Air Force or Space Force, the three remaining Cadets could be on the hook to reimburse the government for their tuition costs, similar to how other Cadets removed from the Academy as juniors or seniors owe either service obligations or tuition repayment.

That decision, however, has yet to be made and will be determined by the Secretary of the Air Force, the Academy said in its statement.

According to the Department of the Air Force’s most recent statistics, the department has separated 399 service members over their vaccine refusals. Thousands more have seen their requests for religious accommodations be denied, leaving them with limited options—get the shot, appeal to the Air Force surgeon general, or start the separation/retirement process. If their appeal is denied by the surgeon general, as more than 2,700 already have been, the service members have five days to start the vaccination process or face separation.

The overwhelming majority of Airmen and Guardians, however, have gotten vaccinated—some 98.6 percent of those on Active duty.

Joining their ranks May 25 will be 937 Cadets commissioning as well as graduating—843 into the Air Force and 94 into the Space Force.

Of those 843:

417 are scheduled to attend pilot training.
11 are scheduled for combat systems operator training.
9 are scheduled for air battle manager training.
24 are scheduled to be remotely piloted aircraft officers.
382 will be in nonrated career fields.

Also included in the graduating class are 16 international Cadets—appointees from foreign countries that have spent four years at USAFA.

Guam Would Get Command Center With Integrated Air Picture in Missile Defense Agency Budget

May 25, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The strategically important U.S. territory of Guam would get 360-degree sensor coverage, missile defenses, and a command center in a plan put forth in the Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal 2023 budget request.

MDA director Vice Adm. Jon A. Hill made the case for the array of new defensive systems during a May 23 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., after highlighting all the capabilities that would be located on the island if Congress approves the plan.

“Location does matter,” Hill said. “If you just go look at where Guam is on the map, it is inside an area that is absolutely tactically relevant,” Hill said of the Pacific island that is 2,500 nautical miles from mainland China and home to U.S. military installations including Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam with its Polaris Point Submarine Base.

“You’ve got repair facilities there. We’ve got the Marine Corps there. We’re going to be stationing long-range fires there. It needs to be defended,” Hill said.

He said Guam is not yet defendable against ballistic, cruise, or hypersonic missiles. The fiscal 2023 budget request, which is now before Congress, seeks to close that gap and to prepare Guam to be the most forward Pacific site in the defense of the U.S. homeland.

“If you were to pluck out the most important thing about what we’re going to do on Guam, it is going to be that command center,” Hill said.

The planning and budget for Guam answers the needs outlined by the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. John Aquilino, he added.

Guam’s Command-and-Control Center

Hill considers the defense of Guam to be the MDA’s second-most-important priority behind homeland defense against ballistic missiles from rogue nations. MDA’s budget requests $539 million for architecture work and for design and development of multiple land-based radar systems and procurement of weapon system components.

“If you look at how you fight the battle in the INDOPACOM region today, it’s fairly dispersed in terms of command and control,” Hill explained. “So, you really need to have an area that brings in all the space and land-based and sea-based assets from a sensor perspective and fuses that data and then selects the appropriate way to go after it.”

Aquilino and his team will be part of the development process, ensuring that the command-and-control center is appropriately laid out for mature technologies and the technologies of the future.

Part of MDA’s vision is giving the INDOPACOM commander a single integrated air picture.

The Air Force already has the data streams, he said, and the command-and-control center will bring them together in a way that is operational to the warfighter.

“Yes, it is a challenge. I think it is the hardest thing we’re going to do, and that is the most important aspect about Guam,” Hill said. “You could talk about radars and launchers and weapons all day long, but if we don’t get command-and-control right, none of that will matter.”

Defense of Guam

Guam is currently protected by the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense systems and a Navy ship at sea providing forward defense.

Building on Guam’s layered defenses would add Patriot missile defenses to the THAAD battery and relieve the three to four Navy ships required on rotation for protection of the island.

“What MDA will do from a mission space perspective is leverage the Aegis fire control for ballistic missile attack and for hypersonics,” said Hill, referencing the SM-3 and SM-6 sea-based missiles now used for ballistic and hypersonic missile defense, respectively.

Patriots and THAAD would be part of an Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) along with Sentinel radars and Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment (IFPC) missile interceptors.

“So, we’ve got it from top all the way to bottom in terms of that layered defense,” Hill said.

Finding sites for all the new military infrastructure remains a challenge for defending Guam. Only 27 percent of Guam’s land is available for use, Hill said, and all the services are competing for space.

The island is the size of the city of Chicago, and maintaining its beauty is vital to the tourism sector that forms its lifeline. But MDA has installed radars, interceptors, and missile systems while preserving the natural beauty of Hawaii and Alaska.

“When I say difficult, I’m talking about siting—the fundamentals of where you’re going to place this equipment,” Hill said. “I’m also talking about respecting the beautification of that island, right? We don’t want to go into a major tourist area and just overmilitarize.”

Likewise, an adversary can target static systems, so missile defense systems will be a modified version of current mobile offensive varieties. Likewise, studies are underway to determine if the command-and-control center will be made mobile.

“When I lay it out, in the end, I think it’s good for Guam to have that capability,” Hill said of the decision to go with mobile launchers, which have fewer missiles and add logistical considerations, such as fire control and reloading.

Hill said MDA is in the final stages of selecting some 19 sites to position assets, but defense of Guam can fully operationalize under the fiscal 2023 budget request.

“You’re going to have to deal with ballistic missiles. … You’re going to deal with cruise missiles, and you’re going to deal with hypersonic threats,” Hill said of the challenges of defending Guam. “So, that’s really what’s reflected in [the budget] is that sort of capability on the island because it deserves to be defended.”

General Electric—A Reliable Partner from the Very Beginning

May 25, 2022

In 1941, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold of the then-U.S. Army Air Corps, personally reviewed a jet engine patented by Sir Frank Whittle flying on a Gloster E.28/39 aircraft. Impressed by its design, Arnold arranged for a Whittle engine to be brought back to the U.S. and tasked General Electric (GE), known for its work on turbosuperchargers, to use the Whittle design as the foundation for developing the first U.S. jet engine. Arnold’s request for a new jet engine launched a partnership that continues today, with the ongoing development of GE’s XA100 designed for the F-35, along with thousands of GE engines that power the current Air Force fleet.

“The primary challenge of the day was that engines lose power at higher altitudes where air density decreases,” said Darin DiTommaso, vice president of engineering for GE Edison Works, GE’s advanced military products organization. “GE had developed a turbosupercharger that demonstrated the ability to reduce the amount of power loss at higher altitudes, so the U.S. Army Air Corps selected GE to develop an engine we called the I-A.”

At the time, GE’s development of the I-A engine was a secret program. So secret, in fact, that the engineers tasked with the project became known at GE’s Lynn, Mass., plant as the “Hush-Hush Boys.” The engineers succeeded, as the I-A engine first ran on April 18, 1942, and flew six months later in October 1942, powering the Bell XP-59.

The rapid development of the I-A engine put GE on its trajectory to becoming a world leader in jet propulsion technology. The investments made into the I-A’s research and development laid the foundation for the future success of several engines, including the J47, the world’s most-produced engine.

“Jet engine development is one thing, but it’s another to mass produce it on a regular basis,” DiTommaso said. “We developed a supply chain and cultivated the relationship between our engineering and manufacturing organizations, enabling the J47 program to produce more than 35,000 engines, primarily for the F-86 and B-47.”

General Electric employees work on the J47 engine at the company’s Lockland plant in 1950. General Electric photo.

Longevity soon became a trademark of GE’s engines.

By 1959, GE’s J85 engine powered the first flights of the T-38 trainer, an aircraft that remains in service today. Another GE engine, the J79, famously powered the F-4 Phantom for the Air Force, a handful of which still fly today internationally.

“That longevity validates the quality of the J85 and J79 designs, which reflects on the quality of our engineers, product support team, supply chain, and operators on the manufacturing and assembly lines,” said DiTommaso. “Technology continually improves, and key deliverables and requirements change. We’ve adapted our designs as requirements asked for much more fuel efficiency and thrust, but the true value of an engine like the J85 is really in its simplicity and low cost.”

GE further benefited from its participation in the 10-year “Great Engine War” competition with Pratt & Whitney from 1984-1994.

“Competition forces you to collaborate with the customer in order to fully meet their needs across a variety of challenging requirements,” DiTommaso said. “As a manufacturer, you have to listen to the customer—in this case the Air Force—to deliver what they want at the time they want it. Our collaborative relationship builds trust so that when things don’t always go perfectly, you can still work through issues together.”

GE’s advanced F110-129 engine has been significantly improved to adapt to the unique demands of the F-15EX, with increased airflow, jet engine efficiency, a three-stage chord blisk fan, and an advanced radial augmentor to reduce complexity, improve maintainability, and increase the life span of parts.

The trust developed between GE and the Air Force directly empowers pilot success in major military air campaigns, such as Operation Desert Storm.

“About 80 percent of the U.S. and Allied aircraft in Operation Desert Storm were powered by GE, more than 5,000 engines in all,” DiTommaso said. “We supported the F-16s, F-117s, F-18s, A-10s, Blackhawks, and Apaches as well as military transports. No matter the aircraft, our goal is for the pilot to never have to think about the engine so they can focus on their mission.”

GE is continuing that mission today, innovating to develop the world’s first-ever flight-weight three stream adaptive cycle engine—the XA100—to bring next generation technology to the cornerstone of the Air Force fleet, the F-35.

“The Air Force expressed the need for better fuel efficiency, more thrust and thermal management, and the XA100 delivers, bringing 25 percent better fuel efficiency, 10 percent more thrust, and twice the thermal management capability,” DiTommaso said. “The first engine-to-test campaign is complete and we’re now in the second phase of our second engine-to-test campaign at Arnold Engineering Development Complex. We’re very pleased with how it’s performing and looking forward to an opportunity to bring that capability to the field.”

DiTommaso is confident that GE’s military business, because of the relationship it has cultivated with the Air Force over its 75-year history, will continue to flourish into the future.

“Our relationship with the Air Force is built on a series of successes and close collaboration,” DiTommaso said. “Today, GE and its joint venture partners power around 40 percent of U.S. Air Force aircraft, and we continue to be a key strategic partner in improving their existing fleet’s sustainment and readiness. We’re going to continue listening, collaborating, and delivering innovative technologies and products that will keep our Air Force leading the world. GE is honored to play our part and looking forward the next 75 years.”