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.

How the 10th Air Force Hopes to Boost Readiness with ‘Carnivore Hunger Games’

How the 10th Air Force Hopes to Boost Readiness with ‘Carnivore Hunger Games’

April 4, 2024 | By David Roza

Brig. Gen. Regina Sabric had just taken command of the 10th Air Force, the combat arm of Air Force Reserve Command, when her boss, AFRC head Lt. Gen. John Healy, urged his troops to make readiness their top priority.

As Healy described it in a task order issued in August, a ready force is fully manned, trained, equipped, and medically fit so that it can respond immediately to a conflict.

“All Airmen must actively engage in generating personal and unit readiness with adherence to standards and orders,” Healy wrote. “DO NOT wait on your units to coordinate. Understand and leverage every tool and resource available.”

Healy is not the first or only Air Force official to push for readiness. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin recently unveiled a sweeping reoptimization plan in part to make the force ready for war faster. But readiness can be a challenge in the Reserve. The Active-duty Air Force increasingly relies upon it, but the component lacks adequate and predictable funding, according to a 2022 RAND report.

“Our MAJCOM continues to face challenges in the current and upcoming fiscal years—with little or no growth in top line budget authority, continuing resolutions, rebalancing [reserve personnel appropriation] and [operations and maintenance] funds to enable needed training, development, and re-missioning of some of our units,” Healy wrote. 

A few months into her tenure as 10th Air Force commander, having had a chance to assess all her units, Sabric decided it would take some creative thinking to meet the challenge.   

“Nobody has enough money and everybody would like more, but we’ve got to start thinking outside the box: How can we do things better?” she told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “What could be motivating to people?”

A Reserve Airman assigned to the 307th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron marshals a B-52 Stratofortress at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, May 6, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Ted Daigle)

Sabric decided to tap into the military’s competitive nature through a contest called Carnivore Hunger Games. “Carnivore” refers to the 10th Air Force’s mascot and its motto ‘Never the prey,’ while Hunger Games refers to the dystopian book and movie series where teenagers fight to the death with limited weapons and resources. “Hunger Games” is also a term that emerged on unofficial Air Force social media forums to describe the large spending reduction after the 2013 U.S. budget sequestration, but Sabric said that use of the term was unconnected to Carnivore Hunger Games.

In Carnivore Hunger Games, the 17 units assigned to the 10th Air Force have 90 days to show the highest percentage of growth across 19 categories of readiness. The categories include how many enlisted troops in the unit have reached their 5- and 7-level training; how many Active-duty status quotas filled; how many Airmen passed their PT test, checked off all their education requirements, are qualified for duty world-wide, and have their paperwork and performance briefs filled out.

“I want to make sure no Airman is coming to work worrying about ‘hey, I haven’t gotten paid,’ or ‘I haven’t done my travel voucher,’” Sabric said. “If we can take care of some of the financial readiness, that in turn takes care of the Airmen.”

Other categories involve closing out deficiencies flagged by the wing Inspector General and clearing outstanding travel orders and payments for goods and services. The prize: up to $100,000 in Reserve Personnel Appropriations (RPA) funding. RPA covers travel and other costs associated with bringing Reservists on duty.  

“When a Reserve Airman is brought onto Active-duty status, whether for training, operational support, or participation in exercises, RPA funds may be utilized,” 10th Air Force spokesperson Christopher Wilson said. 

More RPA funding could mean more opportunities for training, which makes it “critical to maintaining a high level of readiness within the Reserve components,” he added.

Congress provides Reserve units with enough RPA funding through the regular appropriations process, Sabric said, but the 10th Air Force had some extra funding left over this year.

“I could have peanut butter spread this among 17 units and given everybody a very small slice of it, but my hope is that competition will drive results,” she said. “By doing this, I think I’ll be able to move the needle further on readiness and then share across the units how they improved on these 19 different areas.” 

920th Rescue Wing pararescuemen render care to a patient simulating injuries as HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters land at Avon Park Air Force Range, Florida, Nov. 18, 2022. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Kelly Goonan)

The 10th Air Force took a baseline of its units before the Hunger Games kicked off on Feb. 15. Each unit will track its performance on the 15th of every month until May 15. Sabric hopes the emphasis on percentage growth in each category, rather than just topline percentage, will encourage middle-of-the-road units. Slides breaking down the contest were posted to the popular unofficial Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco shortly after it began. 

“Really the premise is the percent increase in this 90-day sprint for readiness,” she said. “The better you do, the more points you get.”

The first place prize is up to $100,000 in RPA funding, the second place prize is up to $50,000, and the third place prize is up to $25,000, but the exact size of the purse is tailored to the size of the unit that wins it, Sabric explained. There are wing, group, and squadron-sized units among the 17 that form the 10th Air Force. But more than the prize, the competition is about incentivizing good habits and sharing lessons learned from the experience.

“Everybody should be doing these tasks to begin with,” the general said. “If something happens in the world, we’re not going to have time to train, so we need to always hold onto basic readiness, and that’s what this is driving for.”

Almost two months into Carnivore Hunger Games, the contest has been “an outstanding success so far,” Wilson said. 

“The consistent progress we’re witnessing speaks volumes about our team’s strong work ethic and dedication,” he said. “We’re excited to see this level of commitment and anticipate that the high standards set will continue to climb as the competition progresses.”

Sabric’s idea and Healy’s call for readiness reflect a trend that started after 9/11 where the Air Reserve Component (ARC) is relied on as an operational force, rather than as a strategic one. 

“There is inherent tension and contradiction in the operational force construct, for it insists on having reserve components—which are, by definition, a part-time force to be held in ‘reserve’—that are also ready for conflict at any time,” RAND noted in its 2022 report.  

The Active-duty Air Force does not have enough troops or equipment to meet all its requirements alone, RAND wrote. But the growing reliance on the Reserve components often comes into conflict with policies on how to pay Reservists, some of which date back to colonial times as a way of preventing overuse of the Reserves. For example, legal structures dictate rigid funding streams for each component, funding is often not aligned with end strength, and the policies restricting Reservists’ service are often ambiguous.

“As one interviewee said about the often unclear and ambiguous processes associated with the evolution toward frequent or long-term use of the ARC for active-duty missions, ‘We’re building the plane as we’re flying it,’” RAND noted.

The long-term reliance on ARC does not appear to be changing anytime soon, which could make a case for clarifying the Air Force’s vision for the Reserve component.

“This may be a good time for the U.S. Air Force to revisit the ongoing dialogue about the purpose and appropriate employment of its ARC—especially with regard to sustained operational support” to the Active-duty force, researchers wrote.

Navy Shoots Four LRASMs in ‘Graduation Exercise,’ as Air Force Ramps Up Multiyear Buy

Navy Shoots Four LRASMs in ‘Graduation Exercise,’ as Air Force Ramps Up Multiyear Buy

April 3, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Navy recently launched four AGM-158C-3 Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles at once, in what’s being billed as a “graduation exercise for the latest configuration” of the stealth LRASM. The event follows closely the Air Force beginning multiyear procurement of the joint-service missile.

Lockheed Martin revealed the milestone in an April 3 release, saying it took place during the “12th Integrated Test Event,” but provided no details on where and exactly when it was conducted. However, the contractor stated that the test showed LRASM’s “inherent high-end lethality from mission planning through kill chain integration and its effects on the target.” The Navy touted the test as having met all mission objectives.

The missile is intended for use “against heavily defended surface combatants that no other weapon in the inventory can provide,” Lockheed said, and the test marked “‘the next big step in LRASM’s evolution.” The test “lays the foundation for increased capabilities to come.”

In its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Air Force asked Congress to ramp up a multiyear buy of LRASM, aiming to acquire 549 of the weapons through fiscal 2029 at a cost of $1.7 billion. The higher production rate follows the fiscal 2024 buy of just 27 missiles, at a cost of $87.8 million. The unit cost for FY24 was $3.24 million per round, while the five-year buy reduces that unit cost slightly, to $3.22 million per missile.

Air Force budget documents project 115 missiles bought in fiscal ’25, followed by 99 in ’26; 111 in ’27, and 112 each in ’28 and ’29. No LRASMs are planned to be acquired after that. Production of the C-3 variant for the Air Force cuts in during FY26.

The Navy’s nomenclature for the LRASM is “Increment 1” of the “Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) weapon development program,” but it’s not clear if the Air Force plans to follow up its LRASM buy with Increment 2, which the Navy has said will be the Hypersonic Air-Launched OASuW, or HALO.

The Air Force said LRASM “addresses an air-launch capability gap by providing flexible, long-range, advanced anti-surface capability against high-threat maritime targets.”

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters when the 2025 budget request was rolled out last month that “fiscal constraints” meant that not all programs could be bought as efficiently as USAF would have liked in the coming years, and “we pay a bit more for the same number” of items in some categories. He described this as the “buy to budget” approach.

While the multiyear buy technically begins with Lot 8 in 2024, Congress only recently appropriated funds for that fiscal year, and the increase in quantities does not begin until fiscal 2025. The higher quantities are in Lots 9-12.

A multiyear buy permits the contractor to buy materials in economic quantities while hiring workforce and building tooling to produce at the most efficient rate, knowing how many units are to be produced over several years.

Taking a multiyear approach can also create “synergies in production across different but related programs [that] can generate efficiencies and result in greater production capacity, accelerated delivery, and lower unit costs,” USAF said.

The LRASM is described as belonging to the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) “family,” and the two weapons are produced in the same facility by Lockheed Missiles and Fire Control at Troy, Ala. While the Air Force pays for development of the JASSM variant, the Navy pays for development of the maritime-specific model. The Air Force buys missiles on behalf of both services, but they are funded separately.

The Navy certified an early version of LRASM on the F/A-18EF in 2018, and the Air Force on the B-1B bomber in 2019.

Three F-16s Arrive at Eglin, Ready to Be Modified to Test Autonomous Tech

Three F-16s Arrive at Eglin, Ready to Be Modified to Test Autonomous Tech

April 3, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Three F-16 fighters landed at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., on April 1. Soon enough, they’ll be modified and flying again to test autonomous technologies key to Collaborative Combat Aircraft and other key programs, the Air Force said April 2.

The plan is to convert six F-16s under the Viper Experimentation and Next-gen Operations Model – Autonomy Flying Testbed program, or VENOM-AFT. Maj. Ross Elder, VENOM developmental test lead at Eglin, said that the program marks a “pivotal chapter” in the aerial combat advancements.

“This transformative program holds the potential to redefine air combat paradigms by fostering novel autonomous functions for current and future crewed and uncrewed platforms,” Elder said in a release. “We look forward to the culmination of years of engineering and collaboration, as VENOM leads a measured step towards a new age of aviation.”

VENOM first came to light last year, when the Air Force requested nearly $50 million for it 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, the latest in a string of programs meant to test autonomous capabilities. Skyborg, led by the Air Force Research Laboratory, developed aircraft-agnostic autonomous flight software, and the X-62 VISTA was a modified F-16 used to explore maneuvering and tactics of autonomous aircraft, able to simulate the behavior of various designs.

VENOM will take the next step in trying to rapidly expand the service’s knowledge base about autonomy, to ultimately speed up the development of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), which will integrate unmanned drones with manned platforms.

“With regards to VENOM-AFT, rapid tactical autonomy development focuses on ‘speed-to-ramp,’ meaning, go as fast as you can, safely, to ensure we get CCA flying as quickly as possible,” said Lt. Col. Joe Gagnon, 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron commander of the 53rd Wing at Eglin.

The Air Force plans to build at least 1,000 CCAs, with the first ones ready for combat in 2028. Earlier this year, the service selected five companies for the project, of which only two or three will receive follow-on contracts in the next months.

CCAs will play a crucial part in the Air Force’s planned Next Generation Air Dominance “family of systems” centered around a manned fighter. The service plans to dramatically ramp up its investment in NGAD and CCAs in the coming years, allocating $28.48 billion for fiscal 2025-29. Experts have described CCAs 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.

Upon modification, the VENOM F-16s will undergo developmental and operational testing at Eglin under a collaborative effort led by the 96th Test Wing and 53rd Wing.

“Having both developmental test and operational test pilots working and flying from the same location allows for daily collaboration and reduces the stove piping of knowledge and lessons learned,” said Lt. Col. Jeremy Castor, VENOM operational test lead.

During these tests, pilots will still sit in the cockpit to monitor autonomy functions, while operators will provide feedback during modeling, simulation, and post-flight to the developers to ensure flight objectives are met prior to and during flight. Gagnon stressed “there will never be a time these VENOM aircraft will solely fly by itself” without someone present.

“It’s important to understand the ‘human-on-the-loop’ aspect of this type of testing, meaning that a pilot will be involved in the autonomy in real time and maintain the ability to start and stop specific algorithms,” said Gagnon.

VENOM is also a part of Eglin’s on-going project called Autonomy, Data, and AI Experimentation (ADAx) that is pushing the limit of autonomous capabilities. Last year, Eglin witnessed the maiden autonomous flight of the Osprey MK III unmanned aerial system under ADAx. Like VENOM, a human operator oversaw the aircraft’s autonomous operation within designated airspace during the MKIII test flights.

AFCENT Boss: New Deployment Model May Require ‘More Sustained’ Key Positions

AFCENT Boss: New Deployment Model May Require ‘More Sustained’ Key Positions

April 3, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The sweeping changes the Air Force is proposing as part of its re-optimization initiative are intended to strengthen the Pentagon’s ability to deal with China’s growing military might. 

But they have important implications for American military posture in the Middle East as well, according to the top Air Force commander for the Middle East. 

A top example is the shift to a new deployment model in which larger teams of Airmen—with different specialities and possibly even operating multiple aircraft types—will train and deploy together in “units of action,” either as an entire combat wing or as a force element.

“Those deployable combat wings will be extremely useful in any theater as well if you have these intact teams that are able to go and open a base and operate a base and command airpower,” Air Forces Central (AFCENT) commander Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich told reporters at a Defense Writers Group event April 3. “It’s just going to be a much more coherent capability for us, just like it will be for the Indo-Pacific.”

AFCENT is moving towards the new model as the U.S. seeks to deter Iran and use airpower against the Islamic State group, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen. Doing so, however, is not without challenges, including when it comes to nurturing relationships with partners in the region. 

Some of the key bases AFCENT has relied on in the region for decades, such as the massive Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar—AFCENT’s forward headquarters—and Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia are commanded by one-star U.S. Air Force generals. Operating from these locations can be a delicate political balancing act, which AFCENT officials say is enhanced by relationships commanders build with their counterparts.

Yet the new deployment model will shorten the tours for some commanders, Grynkewich noted, with some rotations going from one year to six months.

“In some cases, we have leadership teams that were in place for a year that will go to six-month rotations,” Grynkewich said. “That will be something that we have to work on and double down on our investment in partnerships.”

Grynkewich, who is due to depart AFCENT later this month after nearly two years to become director of operations for the Joint Staff, said one way to keep ties strong might be to tweak the model so there are longer deployments for some critical headquarters staff. 

“We’re looking at how do we supplement the rotational forces with some key positions that will be more sustained over time,” he said. Grynkewich said such positions could be at the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid or involve host nation coordination at some significant bases, though the end state—like all of the Air Force’s re-optimization changes—is not yet fully defined.

One aspect of the Air Force’s re-optimization is particularly encouraging, he said: the Air Force’s push to more coherently develop new technology.

“One layer at the higher strategic level is trying to break down the stovepipes and build integrated capabilities as opposed to the combat air forces building a capability and mobility air forces building another one,” he said.

In 2016, the Air Force released an “Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan” that argued for a more comprehensive approach to technology development and which was co-authored by then-Col. Grynkewich.

“The main takeaway of that is you really needed kind of an integrated, holistic approach to fielding capabilities,” Grynkewich said of the study. “If your fighter was going to have a certain range, then you needed a tanker that could go certain places to extend that range. If the fighter range was shorter you needed a tanker that could go farther, just as a simple example.”

That is something the Air Force is trying to achieve through the new Integrated Capabilities Command and other efforts.

“I think that is just going to help warfighting capability be developed more holistically in the future,” Grynkewich said. “That’ll be a benefit, no matter where the conflict is. So even though it’s optimized for China … we’re pretty bad at predicting where we’re going to have a conflict. If we end up fighting somewhere else in the world, whether it’s the Middle East or elsewhere, I think it’ll have a benefit.”