Kendall: USAF to Discard 386-Squadrons Goal, Skip Demo Phase for New Autonomous Aircraft

May 2, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he is more interested in quality systems that are able to deter an adversary than the size of the force structure, signaling an end to USAF’s pursuit of 386 squadrons as a force-sizing goal.

Speaking during a May 2 Brookings Institution webcast, Kendall said he’s “not focused on” the 386 squadrons goal, officially unveiled in 2018.

“I’m not focused on counting endstrength or squadrons or airplanes,” Kendall said, but rather on “the capability to carry out the operations we might have to support [toward] … defeating aggression. If you can’t … deter or defeat the initial act of aggression, then you’re in a situation like we’re seeing in Ukraine: a protracted conflict.”

Kendall said “nobody knows” how long Russia and Ukraine will “grind away at each other,” but “we don’t want to be in that mode.” Having a large force is aimed at such a prolonged conflict, but USAF “really needs, first and foremost, to deter that act of aggression, and if necessary, defeat it, and so I am more focused on that than I am on quantity right now.”

Kendall voiced high respect for former Defense Secretary James Mattis, but said he disagreed with Mattis’ emphasis on lethality of existing forces, saying it’s more important that forces be capable and resilient and be able to survive long enough to “get to the fight” and get home. “I put that very high on my list” of priorities.

He acknowledged that USAF is asking to spend a record amount on research and development this year, and reiterated that while he’s “comfortable” with the fiscal 2023 budget request, “I’m warning Congress … that hard choices are ahead” in 2024, in the form of more equipment retirements in favor of new development or production.

The future Air Force is also not far off, he said, noting that B-21 production money is in the FY’23 budget and that the Next-Generation Air Dominance aircraft and its family of supporting systems are “not far out,” as are programs like the Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, or JATM, which will equip USAF’s fighters mid-decade. These systems will “phase in” over “the next few years.”

As an example of the new approach, Kendall said the E-7 Wedgetail USAF will buy to replace the E-3 AWACS “is going to dramatically lower the cost of sustainment. So I’d rather have that platform, which also gives us a lot more capability … than the current fleet, even though the current fleet might be larger. So size isn’t … important to me. It’s quality and getting as much quality into the force as I can as fast as I can.”

Kendall noted that “an awful lot of the equipment that we have is old,” saying the average age of USAF aircraft is 30 years and rising.

The 386 squadrons goal—up from 312—was promoted by former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and former Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein. However, the goal was couched as an aspirational one and was not programmed with budget dollars.

Kendall’s also has little interest in technology demonstrations that don’t lead to “meaningful operational capability in the hands of operators as quickly as possible.”

Getting in the Game

Among Kendall’s seven operational imperatives are uncrewed aircraft that will escort manned aircraft. “I want to go directly to EMD [engineering and manufacturing development] on that,” he said. “The technology is mature enough that we can gamble on that, take some risks there, and move out quickly. So we’re not going to wait for a round of risk reduction experiments. We will conduct them in parallel with the work we need to do to get a platform moving forward.”

The Air Force will try to “synchronize efforts on things like mission systems—that can be upgraded over time—and software, that can be upgraded very easily over time, with hardware, which basically forms the basis by which you can then move forward and incrementally improve.”

Kendall said he wants to “get in the game, with something that makes a difference operationally, and then build on that.”

He said he envisions a three-year process between getting funded for a new capability and having something operationally usable. It’s riskier, though, because “the more aggressive you are with the risk you’re taking on design, the harder it is to be sure you have a stable design.” That’s needed, though, because China is moving out aggressively in fielding new systems, he said.

China’s timetable for fielding new equipment is “not better than ours. It’s probably not as good as ours. But they started earlier and they’ve been working aggressively on a larger number of things,” Kendall said.

He also said China is “not waiting to see what we do. They are basically figuring out what they need and what technology might offer them to meet their needs, and they’re moving forward.”

In Kendall’s experience with the old Soviet Union, Russia would not pursue a system if the U.S. was not already doing so, “because they figured we were so much ahead of them intellectually on weapon systems.”

The Chinese, however, “aren’t doing that. If they think something’s going to be operationally effective, they’re going to have it whether we’re doing it or not. So we have a tougher problem today than we had during the first 20 years of my career, unfortunately.”

Kendall believes China “has ambitions to be the great power on the face of the Earth,” and to do it, they must “displace the United States.” China’s ambitions have changed with its capability, he said, shifting from being a regional power to a global superpower. While not, perhaps, as interested as much in “territorial expansion,” China wants “as much influence as possible,” evidenced by their One Belt, One Road initiative.

“They want to set the rules for the economy, as much as anything.”

Kendall said his job is to provide the capability to deter and if necessary defeat “what a potential adversary might do.” And while the immediate threat might seem to be against Taiwan, “there are other places, like the Senkaku [Islands] in the South China Sea, where … aggression is possible also. So those are certainly within their near abroad.”

China has “articulated … pretty clearly … where they want to be my mid-century,” Kendall noted.

“I think we have to take them at face value. I made the mistake a few times during the Cold War, not believing what the Soviets were saying. Turns out that they meant what they were saying.”

Asked what technologies “excite” him as having the greatest potential, Kendall said, ”autonomous behaviors.” Artificial Intelligence is both a near-term capability and one that must be introduced as quickly as possible as a “decision-making” enhancement, he said.

Autonomous systems will “open up a whole range” of new tactical capabilities, he said, “and I don’t think we need to wait for more development on that.”

However, the technology “does invoke some really interesting questions about human control, and the degree of autonomy you’re really going to tolerate operationally.” If the U.S. doesn’t pursue this, “we’re going to lose” and “some of our competitors are not going to be as constrained as we are by those things.” The Air Force needs to “work those problems as we mature the capabilities.”

Kendall noted that he has worked as a human rights attorney and, “I am absolutely committed to the law of war and the assurance that we follow those rules. But we’re going to have to figure out how to vet that capability and hold people accountable for what they do … even though a machine may be acting as a proxy for the humans to some degree.” He added, “There’s work to be done there.”

‘Challenge the Status Quo’: Top Airman Calls for More Diversity in Aviation While Visiting HBCU

May 2, 2022 | By Hope Hodge Seck

From an auditorium lectern at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University, 1st Lt. Dontae Bell invoked a scene from Richard Wright’s 1940 novel “Native Son.” In it, two young Black men look up to see a skywriting plane.

“Them white boys sure can fly,” one says.

It’s 2022, and Bell, an Air Force helicopter pilot, is moderating a discussion with four other Black pilots representing nearly every platform the service flies. But a troubling reality underlies the conversation:

Only about 2 percent of Air Force pilots are Black, and that proportion hasn’t increased much in the past three decades. In fighter aviation, the imbalance is even more stark: Just 60 fighter pilots in the entire Air Force are Black, and one is the service’s top officer, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.

The challenge of changing that ratio was a key theme of “We Fly Too” on April 30, a half-day event at the historically Black Howard University that was co-organized by Bell, a distinguished alumnus. With about 100 attendees, mostly from Civil Air Patrol and ROTC programs, it kicked off with a town hall conversation between Brown and Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick, Howard’s president.

Days before his Senate confirmation, Brown set the tone for his tenure by releasing a passionate and personal video discussing the killing of George Floyd. Brown has made equity a priority. He’s created working groups to develop more equitable policies for Airmen in matters ranging from hair regulations to promotion packages, and he’s overseen servicewide studies and surveys on racial disparity.

Brown said on April 30 that he was considering other changes within the aviation community to level the playing field between those with the resources to accumulate private pilot hours before coming to the Air Force and those who don’t. And for those who can’t get private pilot time, he said, the service wants to evaluate other options, such as simulator and synthetic training, that might help to better prepare prospective pilots for success.

“We want to take a look at, do some of the programs we have [that] prevent or discourage diverse backgrounds,” he said.

From his personal experience as an F-16 pilot, Brown also exhorted his audience to be bold and push for change.

“When you’re one of only one or two African-American pilots out of 70-100 pilots in a fighter wing, that’s a lot of pressure,” he said. “But I think there’s so many opportunities to open the door for yourself or for others … you’ve got to challenge the status quo. You’ve got to push a little bit.”

Panelists at Howard also understood that the timeline for steering young minority students toward Air Force careers is short; most of the teens and college students in the room were there because they had found the path already.

For 16-year-old Caleb Smith, an event attendee who made headlines last year when he became the nation’s youngest glider pilot, there was another point of indecision: whether to attend the Air Force Academy or the Naval Academy. When he put the question to the panel of four Air Force pilots, all but one of them academy grads, they chuckled.

“Is this thing on?” said Maj. Saj El-Amin, a C-37 Gulfstream VIP special air mission pilot with 89th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Andrews, Md., tapping his microphone with a wry look. But later, he added some advice: Start early in pursuing the academies, and check out “summer seminar” programs that offer students a taste of life at the schools.

“Seek those activities out—seek some of us out,” he said. “Allow them to put you in contact with a mentor, someone to be able to invest in you so you can really see which of the service academies that you want to be a part of.”

1st Lt. Darian Haynes, an MQ-9 Reaper pilot and Howard alumna, spoke in a panel focused on increasing diversity in aviation about the need to reach young people in underrepresented communities earlier in their education.

“I had zero opportunities to fly. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the means to, I just didn’t know anything about them,” she said. “By going and talking to people in middle school and elementary school, you’re planting the seed a lot earlier. So that way, it can help out with the future of aviation.”

Bold and fearless mentorship is another piece of the equation, said co-panelist Col. Alison Gonzalez, chief of the Strategy Division for Space Force.

“I’ve mentored anyone that approaches me … and I do it out in the open,” Gonzalez said. “Another way to eradicate that stigma is having open, frank, honest conversations in public. So it’s going to make people uncomfortable, but you have to be able to do that and hold those conversations.”

The most emotional moment of the day at Howard came at the conclusion of a panel on women in Air Force aviation headlined by Maj. Gen. Jeannie Leavitt, the Air Force’s very first female fighter pilot.

“Are you going to pilot training?” Leavitt asked the moderator, 21-year-old Isabella Mollison, commander of Air Force ROTC Detachment 130 at Howard.

“I want to be a C-17 pilot,” Mollison responded. “But … “

“As it turns out, I know something that you don’t know,” Leavitt said. She rose and presented Mollison with a certificate she’d signed marking the cadet’s place in Air Force pilot training. Mollison hadn’t known if she’d be permitted to go due to imperfect eyesight requiring a LASIK procedure.

She did her best to direct attendees to the next session while beaming through her tears.

Observing the entire event from the front row was retired Col. Ron McGee, son of Col. Charles McGee, one of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. Like his father, McGee served in the Air Force, flying the F-4 Phantom in Vietnam. McGee said he felt an underlying belief that Black people were not as capable as their white counterparts still presented an obstacle to equality.

“I’ve met people today who have never ever heard of the Tuskegee Airmen at all,” he said.

McGee said he was encouraged by the day’s event and the candid discussion about the need for more diversity, but emphasized that it would take a broader effort to solve the problem of equal representation.

“This is a pretty small group with a bigger outreach, and you can feel in this auditorium an attempt to really get the story out and get more and more people involved,” he said. “But most people here already have a desire and interest. We need to be reaching those who don’t know that that interest or that desire even exists.”

In addition to discussion panels, the event included mentoring opportunities and an impressive wrap-up, with aircraft from 1st Helicopter Squadron out of Joint Base Andrews landing on the football field at Howard’s Greene Stadium.

Air Force Academy Gets Its First Space Force Permanent Professor

May 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The U.S. Air Force Academy got its first Space Force permanent professor on April 29, as Col. Luke Sauter transferred over to the new service.

Sauter, the Academy’s astronautics department head, joined the Space Force in a transfer ceremony presided over by Brig. Gen. Linell A. Letendre, dean of the faculty, according to a USAFA press release.

“It has been an incredible point of pride for our entire Astronautics Department to play a role in developing space-focused officers for decades here at the Academy,” Sauter said in a statement. “It is certainly a historic day to have our first Space Force permanent professor assigned; I hope there will be many more to follow. To say I’m incredibly honored would be an understatement.”

“It’s important that our cadets see Guardians across our academy and that they have the opportunity to speak with Colonel Sauter and other leaders about the Space Force as they consider which branch of military service they would like to join,” Letendre said in a statement. ”As our first Space Force permanent professor, Colonel Sauter will bridge the gap between the needs of the Space Force and our curriculum as we build future leaders of character.”

Sauter’s transfer marks the latest milestone as the Space Force continues to integrate into the Air Force Academy. Incoming freshmen participate in a space introduction day that teaches them about opportunities in the Space Force. A Space Force detachment has stood up to help educate and interact with Cadets. And a new summer program called “Azimuth” is intended to recruit and evaluate Cadets in a similar way to how the Marine Corps’ “Leatherneck” program evaluates Naval Academy midshipmen who may become Marines.

In 2020, the academy graduated its first cohort of 86 Cadets into the Space Force, expanding that to 115 in 2021. Roughly 10 percent of every graduating class moving forward is expected to commission into the Space Force.

While Sauter is the Space Force’s first permanent professor at the Academy, he isn’t the first faculty member to be a part of the new service—as of November 2021, roughly 20 Space Force officers are authorized at USAFA, including Maj. Jamil Brown, a fellow in the Institute for Future Conflict who works as instructor in the political science department.

Col. Jeffrey Greenwood isn’t an instructor but serves as Space Force liaison to the Academy and commands the detachment that will one day include “academy military leaders and faculty members within the cadet wing, athletic department, Center for Character and Leadership Development, and prep school,” he said in a statement.

The Latest Adaptive Cycle Engine Testing is A Significant Step Forward

May 2, 2022

On March 26, 2007, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) publicly announced an effort to develop a new type of jet engine “that will enable pilots to switch from high speed combat maneuvers to long-range persistence mode as effortlessly as a bird in flight.”

That program was dubbed Adaptive Versatile Engine Technology, or ADVENT, and it was aimed squarely at pioneering the next generation of combat jet engines. Unlike the fixed, two-stream turbofan engines that had powered (and continue to power) the Air Force’s fighter fleets since the 1970s, ADVENT would seek to develop the technology necessary for a revolutionary three-stream adaptive cycle engine.

ADVENT proved the concept was feasible, leading the Air Force to move forward with industry on two more programs to further mature three-stream adaptive cycle engines. Almost exactly 15 years to the day after that first AFRL announcement, a flight-weight, adaptive cycle engine fired up for the first time in an Air Force test cell.

Engine manufacturer GE and the Air Force achieved the milestone on March 25 at Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tennessee with GE’s XA100 engine. Ongoing tests there will be the most significant to date, with the goal of capturing engine performance data across the full flight envelope.

“It’s difficult to overstate just how important our collaboration with the Air Force has been throughout multiple adaptive engine programs,” says David Tweedie, GE’s general manager of Advanced Combat Engines. “It’s a joint success. The Air Force has been a true partner with GE the entire time.”

Tweedie says that the start of testing in an Air Force test cell is meaningful for several reasons.

“A significant amount of taxpayer dollars have been invested in this program. We don’t take that responsibility lightly and are demonstrating a tangible return on that investment.” More than $4 billion has been invested across industry since 2007 to mature this next generation of engines. Following ADVENT, the Air Force also initiated the Adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD) program and is now administering the ongoing Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP). GE has been part of each of these programs.
“This testing also allows GE to build on our success to date and continue maturing the technology that separates this engine from anything that comes before it.” In December 2020, GE became the first engine manufacturer in the world to bring a flight-weight, three-stream adaptive cycle engine to test. Testing on a second example of this engine began in August of 2021. Both campaigns demonstrated engine performance that met the Air Force’s lofty goals of 25% better fuel efficiency, 10% more thrust and double the thermal management capacity of existing engines.
“Finally, we’re delivering what the Air Force challenged industry to do: build and test a product-relevant engine that can provide game-changing performance for the F-35.”

GE’s XA100 engine translates to 30% more range for the Air Force’s F-35A, 20-40% faster acceleration, and double the power and thermal management capacity versus existing engines. GE’s engine is also designed to bring these performance impacts to the carrier-based F-35C with no structural modifications to the aircraft.

That performance Tweedie says, “simply cannot be matched by legacy propulsion systems,” and preserves the asymmetric advantage the U.S. has held in propulsion over its adversaries—a critical strategic advantage in an increasingly competitive global environment.

An F-35A Lightning II from the 354th Fighter Wing, Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, receives fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 117th Air Refueling Squadron, Forbes Field Air National Guard Base, Kansas, over the Indo-Pacific, March 10, 2022. Aircrews routinely fly missions aimed at sharpening the necessary skills needed to respond to emerging situations at a moment’s notice. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Yosselin Perla)

So, what’s next? Testing will continue in the coming months in the Air Force’s test cell as they work to gather performance data throughout the flight envelope, Tweedie says. Once the testing in completed there, GE is “ready to transition” to a low-risk Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) program—the last step before a fielded product. With a Fiscal Year 2024 EMD start, production engines would be available in Fiscal Year 2028.

“There are no shortcuts in this business,” Tweedie adds. “The Air Force had the foresight 15 years ago to begin the process of fielding the next generation of jet engine. GE was all-in to help achieve that reality in 2007, and we’re here today, still all-in. We’re ready to get this engine into the hands of the Warfighter, and now is the time to make the decisions to provide this operational capability.”

Air Force Ending Program for Career Airmen to Apply for Preferred Bases

April 29, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Four years after first announcing a program meant to help career Airmen have a chance to move to their preferred base in the U.S., the Air Force is suspending the program starting June 1, citing budgetary constraints and a low rate of Airmen actually getting to where they wanted to go.

The end of the Base of Preference program was first detailed in a memo from Chief Master Sgt. Claudia Carcamo, the Air Force’s chief enlisted manager, leaked on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco page. An Air Force spokesperson subsequently confirmed the memo’s authenticity to Air Force Magazine.

Base of Preference was first introduced in April 2018 as a pilot program—Airmen with certain Air Force Speciality Codes could see openings available at other bases before they requested moves within the U.S., theoretically upping their chances of getting their preferred base by matching it to where a need was. Prior to that, Air Force Times reported, they submitted their preferred locations with no idea of whether there would be any job for them to fill.

In December 2018, the program was extended to all career fields. Airmen not in their first term of service needed at least 41 months on station before they could apply; and a full 48 months before they could PCS.

But according to Carcamo’s memo, the program failed more often than not in terms of actually getting Airmen to their preferred location.

“The BOP program has historically matched less than 30% of applicants to their desired location,” the memo states.

In response to a query from Air Force Magazine as to why that rate was so low, Air Force spokesperson Laurel Tingley cited several reasons why Airmen’s preferred bases aren’t always granted. For example, there may be no need for the Airman’s grade or AFSC at the new base; a move might cause manning issues at the old or new base; or the service member could be ineligible to PCS or already selected for another assignment.

There can also be too many Airmen applying for too few spots. Florida is especially popular as a requested locale—MacDill Air Force Base, Eglin Air Force Base, and Hurlburt Field were all among the top five requested BOP locations.

The memo gives no other reason for the program’s suspension, but when asked by Air Force Magazine, Tingley said that doing so will save the Air Force $8 million, “which will allow us to operate within the projected FY23 budget.”

Until May 31, career Airmen will still be able to submit Base of Preference applications to the Air Force Personnel Center. And Tingley noted that Airmen will still have a chance to voluntarily move after that by utilizing programs such as the EQUAL Plus Advertisements and Developmental Special Duty.

But while BOP is going away for career Airmen, it is still in place for first-term Airmen—they must complete eight months on station before applying and 12 months on station before moving; have satisfied certain time-in-service requirements based on their enlistment term; have a Career Job Reservation; and must reenlist within 30 days of being approved.

While career Airmen will have one less path to potentially move to a new location, top officials have said that they are looking to increase stability and limit PCS moves in hopes of retaining more talent.

Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, told Congress in February that the Air Force is emphasizing permanent change of assignment, in which Airmen change jobs without changing location, and its new remote work and telework policies.

Nearly All Airmen Discharged Over COVID-19 Vaccine Get General Discharges

April 29, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force has now separated 287 Airmen for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and nearly all of them have received general discharges.

Of those booted from service, 281 received general discharges under honorable conditions—just shy of 98 percent. Five others received honorable discharges, and one got an entry-level discharge, acting deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services Gwendolyn R. Defilippi told the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee April 27.

The Space Force, meanwhile, has yet to discharge a single Guardian for vaccine refusal, USSF Chief Human Capital Officer Patricia Mulcahy told the congressional panel.

Every other service has kicked out more service members over the vaccine than the Air Force. The Marine Corps has separated 1,968 Marines; the Navy has discharged 798 Sailors; and the Army has booted 345 Soldiers.

The 287 Airmen separated represent roughly 0.05 percent of all Active-duty, Reserve, and Guard Airmen.

Under the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, service members who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine cannot receive anything less than a general discharge under honorable conditions.

The services, however, have taken very different approaches beyond that. The Marine Corps has given 78 percent of those it separated a general discharge, while the Navy has given all honorable discharges. The Air Force has granted the fewest honorable discharges.

The differences between an honorable discharge and a general discharge under honorable conditions carry implications for the kinds of benefits the separated Airmen can take advantage of. While those with a general discharge can usually still receive medical benefits and home loans from the VA, they do not have access to the educational benefits from the GI Bill.

Normally, those with a general discharge are also prevented from being able to re-enlist in the service. However, Defilippi told Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) that “we … are interested in making sure that those who separate solely for the reason of a vaccine are able to re-enlist if they are able to comply with our vaccination requirements.”

According to the Department of the Air Force’s most recent statistics released April 25, 96.9 percent of the Total Force—including the Air Force and Space Force; Active-duty, Guard, and Reserve—are at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19.

That still leaves roughly 15,500 Airmen and Guardians unvaccinated. More than 1,000 of those individuals have received a medical exemption, and more than 1,200 have an administrative exemption. The department has approved 46 religious accommodation requests while denying more than 5,500. Another 3,500 or so are still pending or under appeal.

What is EUCOM’s Ukraine Control Center?

April 29, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany—Within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. European Command stood up a 24/7 operations center to coordinate the rapid delivery of defense assistance from dozens of nations to the front line inside Ukraine.

For the first time, the Defense Department described how the EUCOM Control Center Ukraine (ECCU) works during a briefing for journalists covering the Ukraine Defense Consultative Workshop at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on April 26, signaling a rapid evolution to changing battlefield needs.

“Quite simply, it’s a near soup-to-nuts of all things security systems [to be] delivered,” a senior defense official said of the Stuttgart, Germany-based ops center. “It’s a combination of a call center, a watch floor, meeting rooms. They execute a battle rhythm to support decision-makers as well as 24/7 engagement and coordination around the globe with about 40 to 60 people at any given time.”

Large rooms at EUCOM have been converted to the active watch floor, which tracks logistics, movements, timing flow rates, and communications with military commands such as U.S. Transportation Command.

A U.S. two-star Naval officer from EUCOM’s J-4 logistics directorate runs the ECCU with staff from 15 donor nations. Since March, it has worked in parallel with the United Kingdom’s International Donor Coordination Center (IDCC), run by a British one-star officer.

Ukrainian military liaisons also make up “fewer than five” of the ECCU staff.

“This robust, fast-evolving international effort has focused on the speed of delivery that ensures a credible, resilient, and combat-capable Ukraine military,” the defense official said.

Prior to President Joe Biden’s call for a $33 billion Ukraine supplemental security package April 28, the President had signed eight presidential drawdowns and provided $4 billion in defense aid. The ECCU worked with TRANSCOM to move each of those orders of war material from Defense Department warehouses in the United States to staging grounds in Europe and onward to NATO eastern front positions, where the material is trucked across the border into Ukraine.

Often, that has meant C-17s departing from Dover Air Force Base, Del., landing at Ramstein, and then repackaging to smaller C-130s for flights to front-line airfields. That way, the larger aircraft can quickly return to the U.S. and refill with additional defense assistance, an Air Mobility Command official told Air Force Magazine.

Initially, flights departed every other day, but the pace quickly ramped up to eight to 10 flights per day.

“At some points, it has spiked to nearly double that as we ramped up our coordination and logistics efforts to ensure that we’re meeting the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in near real time,” the senior defense official said.

“Our support has also expanded from a single path via air to a multimodal effort [including] air, ground, and rail over multiple routes,” the official said. “Once it crosses that border, [the Ukrainians] have a very diverse route—paths to getting their equipment to the fight—and they clearly seem to be very effective.”

The last point has taken on outsize importance recently. Following the visits of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken by rail to Kyiv, Russia bombed supply routes, hitting five rail stations in central and western Ukraine.

Another senior defense official at Ramstein told Air Force Magazine that as of April 27, the railway attacks had not impacted the transfer of defense assistance.

Defense and humanitarian assistance is known to flow through southeastern Poland, northern Romania, and Slovakia, although apart from the Poland route, it is not public to what degree the U.S. coordinates transfer through the other NATO countries bordering Ukraine.

The ECCU official said initially there was concern the assistance would fall into the wrong hands as it is not tracked once it crosses the Ukrainian border. But force protection and operational security are “baked into the equation” and have ensured timely delivery to the battlefield.

The front line, however, has shifted to the easternmost region of Ukraine, some 800 miles from the Polish border, to the Donbas region. The most recent $800 million in U.S. defense assistance to Ukraine announced April 21 includes 72 155mm Howitzer artillery pieces and 144,000 artillery rounds, along with 72 tactical vehicles to tow the weapons.

Despite the distance, the defense official was optimistic the Howitzers would be firing on Russian targets in short order.

“If you’re not seeing Howitzers shooting in the eastern part of Ukraine within a week, then there’s a problem. But I’ll bet you’re going to see them shooting within a week,” the official said.

As Ukraine’s defense needs have shifted to long-range weapons, the official told Air Force Magazine that while air defenses such as Stingers are still “part of the mix,” they are being requested “at a lower priority level.”

The defense official pointed to the 40 nations meeting with Ukraine’s defense minister and senior military in a nearby room at the Ramstein Officer’s Club that same day, noting the constant evolution of the ECCU to respond to the perceived next phase of the war.

“Needs-based is important, but staying ahead of the problem is really important,” the official said.

“They need this aid,” the official added of Ukraine’s war effort. “There’s a lot of capacity in the Russian military, even if they’re performing badly. There’s a lot of depth there.”

Ukraine Wants F-16s, But USAF Officials Say That’s ‘Not A Recipe for Success’

April 29, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany—Ukraine is calling for modern American fighter jets to face Russia’s overwhelming air advantage in the contested skies over the war-torn country, but senior Air Force officials say American F-16s, which require lengthy training, are not yet part of the aid picture.

More than 40 nations gathered at Ramstein Air Base , Germany, on April 26 to consider what type of weapons to supply, including air power assistance such as F-16s, to Ukraine. The war is now shifting to the eastern front in the Donbas region, an area where long-range weapons are desperately needed.

Recently, however, the Ukrainian Air Force has expanded its request beyond Soviet-era jets they already know how to fly, such as MiG-29s and Su-24s. Ukraine is asking for modern American jets, including F-15s, F-16s, and “maybe” F-18s, to shift the air advantage to their side, according to a video posted on the Ukrainian Air Force Twitter page April 26, the day of the Ramstein meeting.

Senior defense officials, including U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, spoke about the possibility of supplying American-made F-16s to Ukraine.

“That doesn’t happen fast,” Harrigian told Air Force Magazine during a pull-aside interview at the Ramstein Officer’s Club where the meeting was taking place.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to leverage what they have and offer them some other unique capabilities to make the problem challenging, and then there’s the longer-term view,” he added. “Clearly, they want to migrate from Russian capabilities to U.S., but that takes some time.”

On March 8, Poland offered to transfer its inventory of 23 MiG-29s to Ramstein, for the United States to give to Ukraine. The suggestion, made publicly by Poland’s foreign minister, was turned down by the Defense Department. Commander of U.S. European Command Air Force Gen. Tod. D. Wolters later issued a statement saying the move could be seen as “escalatory.”

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told Air Force Magazine that making the MiG delivery would now require a consensus among NATO nations.

“It should be a decision taken by all [the] alliance, the NATO alliance,” Błaszczak said during a pull-aside interview before the start of the Ramstein meeting.

“I’m sure that more defense assistance is needed for Ukraine,” he said, adding that he believed the meeting would provide an avenue for getting more weapons to Ukraine. “My opinion, this meeting is a success, and it’s a very good initiative. So, I’m optimistic.”

Ukrainian officials have said their Soviet-era jets are not enough to evade modern Russian weapons.

“To effectively protect our territory, Ukraine requires at least one squadron of modern fighter jets, such as American-made F-16s or F-15s,” former commander of the Ukrainian Air Force Serhii Drozdov wrote in an April 19 opinion piece.

“According to our estimates, our pilots can learn to fly such jets at an accelerated pace of two to three weeks,” he added.

That’s an extremely accelerated timeline. The Basic course at the F-16 schoolhouse at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., takes about 9 months and includes academics, simulation training, and flight sorties. But even before students arrive at Luke, they must complete six months of basic flight training in the T-6, seven months in the T-38, and six to eight weeks learning basic fighter fundamentals and advanced fighter maneuvers in the AT-38.

Drozdov said the Soviet-made Polish MiGs had received some upgrades to meet NATO standards but that they still have “outdated radar and missile technologies.”

“Pilots would continue to be sitting ducks in these planes—easy targets for the enemy,” he wrote.

The U.S. Air Force’s 2023 budget plans to retire more than 200 F-15s, but the Air Force considers the aircraft to be beyond their useful service life, and in some cases, the aircraft have safety of flight issues and can no longer fly.

At an April 28 background briefing, a senior defense official told Air Force Magazine that the United States continues to provide or facilitate the transfer of Soviet-era spare parts to keep Ukrainian jets flying.

“This is an air force that relies principally on old Soviet aircraft. That’s what they’re used to flying. That’s what they’ve got in their fleet. That’s what we’re trying to help them keep in the air,” the official said. “I’m not going to speculate about the future of aircraft deliveries one way or the other.”

At a Ramstein background briefing, defense officials revealed that a variety of training activities are taking place in Germany and other countries outside of Ukraine.

The senior defense official said April 28 that the trainings are typically short, such as the six-day training for how to use Howitzers, enabling fighters to quickly return to the front line.

Still, a defense official from the EUCOM Control Center Ukraine (ECCU) at EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, said at a Ramstein background briefing for journalists that enhancing Ukraine’s air power was a topic of conversation at Ramstein.

Harrigian confirmed that air power conversations were going on, but he cautioned that training on American jets might be a step too far.

“Collectively, we’ve got to step up and understand what the Ukrainians’ requirements are and find a way to get it to them and get it to them quick,” Harrigian said.

“You just don’t throw somebody an F-16 and wish them good luck,” he said. “That is not a recipe for success, and we want to set them up for success.”

F-35 Sustainment Is Improving, But Lawmakers’ Patience Is Growing Thin

April 28, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The troubled F-35 sustainment enterprise is getting better but is still falling short of the services’ goals for the program, officials told Congress on April 28. And lawmakers are running out of patience.

Leading the charge, House Armed Services Committee readiness panel chair Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) offered sharp criticism of the F-35 Joint Program Office, the Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney, and even others in Congress who he said “get off on buying new planes” without considering their sustainment.

“The message for me—and I hope from my committee, and I know I’m going to raise hell in the full committee—is we’re not going to buy more planes until we figure out how to maintain them,” Garamendi warned. “It is a fool’s errand. It is a waste of money by the taxpayers. It’s a bright, shiny machine until it doesn’t work.”

Garamendi wasn’t alone in airing frustrations. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) called the program a “cash cow” for Lockheed Martin and argued that “we are incapable of turning off the spigot when something doesn’t work.” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), the subcommittee’s ranking member, cited a Government Accountability Office report also issued April 28 that found the F-35’s overall mission capable rate at less than 68 percent, calling it “unacceptable.”

In particular, lawmakers pressed Lt. Gen. Eric T. Fick, head of the JPO, and Steven J. Morani, acting assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, on two main issues related to F-35 sustainment—the F135 engine and the Autonomic Logistics Information System.

Starting in 2020, the F-35 program entered into what Fick termed a “power module crisis.” At one point, more than 40 fighters were grounded without an engine due to maintenance issues, then-acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Darlene Costello told Congress.

Engine Woes

The GAO report noted that as of February 2022, that number of grounded fighters is still at 36—and has stayed above 30 for months now. Those figures earned the ire of Garamendi, who blamed contractor Pratt & Whitney, the manufacturer of the F135 engine.

“If [Pratt & Whitney] is in the audience, and if they’re listening, watch out. I’m coming at you in a very angry mood,” Garamendi said. “You gave us an engine, and it doesn’t work. Or it worked for a little while until we get some dust around it, and then it doesn’t work. What the hell? What’s going on here?”

Fick previously said in July 2021 that the JPO is taking a three-pronged approach to address the issue of F-35 sustainment by shortening repair times at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., where the heavy maintenance center is, standing up repair operations at other facilities and keeping engines in planes longer. He reiterated that approach before the subcommittee, saying Tinker has reduced its turnaround time on engines by nearly half and that the “collective repair network, including our international facilities,” will deliver 122 power modules in 2022, compared to 77 in 2021.

Still, Fick also acknowledged that the fleet’s non-mission capable rate due to engine issues is too high, at 5 percent. And the new GAO report paints a grim picture of the future fleet if the Air Force and the JPO can’t get the engine problem under control. A baseline projection from January 2021 based off engine removal rates and depot capacity put the percentage of the F-35 fleet grounded in 2030 due to engine issues at 43 percent.

That figure would be much lower, a subsequent projection shows, if the Defense Department implemented its plans to reduce maintenance issues and funded solutions—down all the way to 3 percent. But the report warns that the projection is “highly dependent” on assumptions about funding, risk management, and that no more issues arise in the coming years.

Fick argued that the three initiatives from the program office are already having an effect and that the projections in the GAO report are outdated.

“The combined effect of those three initiatives all together brought our recovery from the power module crisis back from sometime in the 2030s to 2026,” Fick said. “So we have very, very deliberately worked … to back that crisis and turn it into something we can manage and not something that’s going to ground [43 percent] of the fleet. Now, a lot of those numbers weren’t in place by the time [GAO] wrote that report, because we have been moving that fast to make a difference across those three different lines of effort. So it’s not surprising to me that the report says what it does.”

The author of the report, Diana Maurer, also said “it looks like” the situation in 2030 will not be as “dire” as once feared. The director of the GAO’s defense capabilities and management team added that “we are waiting to see the full execution of what they want to do. But we have seen some improvements.”

ALIS Issues

Another major issue facing the F-35 sustainment enterprise has been the Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, the logistics system intended as a vast information-gathering system to track F-35 data in flight, meant to predict part failures and otherwise keep maintainers abreast of the health of each individual F-35.

Instead, the system was crippled by outdated technology, false alarms, laborious data entry requirements, and clumsy interfaces, and in January 2020, the JPO announced that it was dumping ALIS in favor of the new Operational Data Integrated Network.

At the time, Fick characterized the move from ALIS to ODIN as akin to flipping a switch. It’s a comparison he regrets now.

“Think of it as the dimmer switch now, instead of a binary light switch, as we move from one to the other—increasing capability, increasing cybersecurity, decreasing weight, increasing responsiveness—as we add those capabilities into the ecosystem,” Fick said.

That gradual process reached a key milestone recently, with the installation of 14 ODIN hardware systems to replace first-generation ALIS servers. And moving forward, Fick said, the JPO plans on delivering software updates faster and more regularly and “disaggregating the software from the underlying hardware” to reduce the labor associated with updates.

But while ALIS has been performing better, Maurer agreed, there is still no defined metric or goal for the program to meet, making any assessment of changes harder, she said. Establishing such standards is one of more than 20 recommendations the GAO has made on the F-35 that are still open.

“We do know that when we go out and we talk to maintainers in the field, they say that there’s still a good level of frustration in working with the system. … They will say that it’s getting better, but it’s not what it needs to be currently,” Maurer said.