Air Force to Retire Half Its AWACS Fleet, Most JSTARS, Leaving ‘Small Gap’ in ISR

Air Force to Retire Half Its AWACS Fleet, Most JSTARS, Leaving ‘Small Gap’ in ISR

March 28, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Air Force plans to retire half its AWACS fleet of E-3 Sentries and most E-8C JSTARS in fiscal 2023 and 2024, but it anticipates a delay between the retirements and new space-based ISR capabilities that could replace them, Air Force leaders said as the 2023 budget request rolled out.

JSTARS aircraft “are not survivable—they’d be gone in a minute,” said Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III, deputy assistant secretary for budget, explaining why the Air Force plans to retire 12 of 16 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, aircraft by the end of fiscal ’24. The first eight of those aircraft would be retired in fiscal ’23, with four more aircraft going in 2024. Those funds would be redirected to develop more survivable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, capabilities.

Similarly, the Air Force plans to retire 15 E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft from Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., also because of reliability and survivability concerns. “We’re going to a new capability,” Peccia said. The E-3 is “not survivable in a future fight, so it doesn’t bring us the capability we need.”

The Air Force intends to invest $227 million into E-3 AWACS recapitalization development, almost certain to be an acquisition of Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail. Australia already operates a version of that aircraft.

Peccia admitted there will be a capability gap as new capabilities, including space-based ISR, are being developed. “There may be a small gap, but not anything we can’t manage,” he said.

Both fleets are about 40 years old, and readiness and maintenance are growing challenges.

For now, however, the 16 remaining AWACS aircraft would be retained at Kadena Air Base, Japan, and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Peccia said.

He said the Air Force will decide in 2023 on a new platform to provide the airborne moving target indicator, or AMTI, capability that JSTARS historically has offered. The Air Force will continue to operate multiple ground surveillance ISR platforms, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk, “across the duration of the coverage reduction caused by JSTARS retirement.”

Peccia said a space-based solution is still in an option: “We are researching space-based capabilities.”

Air Force Would Reduce Fleet by 250 Old Aircraft, Bring on 82-plus New Ones

Air Force Would Reduce Fleet by 250 Old Aircraft, Bring on 82-plus New Ones

March 28, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is asking Congress to retire 150 airplanes in its fiscal 2023 budget, including 33 of its advanced F-22 fighters, but it would also hand off 100 MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft to another government agency and buy more than 82 other new airplanes, including an accelerated buy of F-15EX Eagle IIs. Its planned buy of the F-35 fighter would be pared back by 15 aircraft as the service waits for a more advanced model.

For the fiscal 2022 budget, out of 201 legacy types the Air Force asked to retire, Congress allowed the service to divest all except 42 A-10s.

Air Force leaders signaled that after “due diligence” and market research, they will likely seek to buy the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail as a replacement for the E-3 AWACS. They threw cold water on the notion of a competition for a second modern tanker, indicating they’ll likely stick with a modified version of Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus. And, it will also curtail purchase of the HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter at 75 aircraft instead of 113, saying it will have enough aircraft for the mission after this year, given the changing nature of combat search and rescue.

Two new unmanned aircraft among Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s “operational imperatives”—a tactical unmanned escort for fighters and a strategic-range unmanned bomber—feature in the budget only as research and development projects. Together, they are called the Autonomous Collaborative Program, and are funded at $113 million, but are not yet a program of record.

Divestments

The fiscal 2023 budget request seeks retirements of the following aircraft:

A-10

The Air Force asks to retire 21 jets from the Fort Wayne, Ind., Air National Guard facility and transition the unit to 21 F-16s.

F-22

Of its 36 Block 20 F-22s—which are used for training and not configured as frontline combat jets—USAF is looking to retire 33, which will bring the F-22 fleet down to 153 airplanes. Kendall, in an embargoed March 25 budget brief for the press, said upgrading the aircraft to full combat capability would not be cost effective given that the F-22 is set to phase out in about 10 years. He said the savings will be applied directly to the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems, which will backfill the F-22.

The affected aircraft “are being used for training right now but are not combat capable,” Kendall said. “So, we see an efficiency, effectively, in removing those aircraft at this point.” However, USAF asked for $344 million to upgrade the sensors and other systems on the remaining Raptors in fiscal 2023.

E-3 AWACS

The Air Force wants to retire 15 aircraft at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. The E-3 has become difficult to maintain, with poor mission capable rates, and Kendall said the service will do market research “due diligence” and will make a decision “within the next several months” on whether to pursue the E-7 as a replacement. Only 16 AWACS will remain, but the Air Force did not say when they will phase out completely.

E-8 Joint STARS

The budget plan calls for retirement of eight JSTARS in 2023 and four more in 2024, with funding “redirected to emerging ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capabilities that can operate in highly contested environments,” a service spokesperson said. Kendall has suggested these capabilities can largely be supplied by space-based assets.

“Basically, both the JSTARS fleet and the AWACS fleet are aging out and need to be replaced,” Kendall said.  

C-130H

USAF would give up 12 C-130s from Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., but is buying four new C-130-J30s, for a net reduction of eight aircraft. USAF budget director Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III said the C-130s would be backfilled with the new MH-139 helicopter.

T-1 Trainer

The Air Force is introducing new simulation and training techniques to obviate the need to re-engine or replace the T-1, relying on the T-6 for the newly-determined actual flying hours. Aircraft will be redistributed among Undergraduate Pilot Training bases and will phase out as new simulation and training gear is brought online.

KC-135

The Air Force is looking to retire 13 KC-135s from the Guard and Reserve, converting the losing units to the KC-46A Pegasus. The service will take “a measured amount of risk” in the gap between the departure of the old aircraft and arrival of the new, a spokesperson said. Four of the KC-135s will come from March Air Reserve Base, Calif., and nine from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. Kendall referred to this divestiture as a “modest” reduction, but acknowledged, “we’re going to need some cooperation from Congress on that.”

MQ-9

Kendall said the Air Force is “taking 100 MQ-9s and moving them to another government organization.” He did not specify the organization. “It comes up as a divestment, but it’s not a change in capability,” he said.

Procurement

The Air Force’s list of new aircraft buys is a bit shorter than the list of divestitures.

F-35

After several years of requesting 48 F-35s—and being given up to 12 more each of those years by Congress—the Air Force is requesting only 33 F-35s in 2023.  

There’s “a whole collection of reasons” for the reduction, Kendall said. First, the performance of the F-35’s Tech Refresh 3 update is “not what we wanted,” he said, and the TR3 is the basis for the Block 4 version of the jet, which USAF has long said it prefers to buy. The Air Force is investing some additional money in the Advanced Engine Technology Program (AETP) that could power an upgraded F-35. It sees an opportunity to accelerate the F-15EX and is continuing to put money against the Next Generation Air Dominance program. After investing in those areas, in the context of “the whole TacAir portfolio,” Kendall said the F-35 reduction makes sense.

Moreover, “if you look further out in the FYDP (Future Years Defense Plan) that we’ll provide, the numbers come back up,” he said.

Asked if the Air Force remains committed to the fighter, Kendall said, “Of course.”

“We’re 15 years into production, and we’ll be building F-35s probably another 15 years. So, absolutely.” Kendall said the F-35 will continue to be, as Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has said, the “cornerstone” of the tactical fleet “for the foreseeable future. So there’s no question about that.”

Kendall noted that the AETP is a costly development program and that USAF is still courting “partners” among the other services to share the cost and the benefit of a new powerplant.

F-15EX

The Air Force doubles its 2022 request, from 12 Eagle IIs to 24 in 2023.

Kendall said Brown wants to “replace F-15Cs as quickly as possible,” and the availability of the F-15EX makes that possible. “He did say it was on the order of six months to a year in terms of time to replace those aircraft, which are aging out very quickly,” Kendall said, referring to the time it takes to transition an F-15 squadron to an F-15EX, rather than the F-35.

“It also provides some operational features,” Kendall added. “It’s really a 4.5 generation kind of an airplane, but it provides more weapons carriage capabilities, writ large, than the F-35 does. So, for the homeland defense mission, and for some defensive counterair applications overseas, it has features that are desirable, operationally.”

Peccia said the F-15C/Ds will retire completely by fiscal 2026.

“One of the fundamental things motivating me on the operational imperatives in the TacAir area is the affordability of the future force,” Kendall noted. If we’re only buying NGAD, which is a very expensive platform; F-35s at $80 million a copy; and F-15EXs at $80 million a copy; we can’t afford the Air Force. So we’ve got to get a mix of lower-cost platforms, as well.” These, he said, would fall under the research effort toward Autonomous Collaborative Programs.

B-21 Bomber

The FY’23 budget grows by $1.7 billion to start low-rate initial production of the B-21 bomber, but Peccia said he could not reveal how many aircraft that will entail. At the time of the program’s unveiling, USAF officials said low-rate would probably entail five aircraft a year for several years.

KC-46A

The Air Force upped its 2022 buy from 14 to 15 in 2023, adding $220 million for the additional aircraft and getting the KC-46 rate up to where it was already planned to be. Kendall said he thinks the Air Force will likely stay with the KC-46 as it plans its next tranche of tanker buys.

“We had a KC-X, Y, and Z” scheme, Kendall said. “As we look at our requirements further out, [they] start to look more like a modified KC-46 than they do a completely new design.” Although the Air Force will do its “due diligence” and market research on other options, such as Lockheed Martin’s LMXT version of the A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport, Kendall didn’t offer optimism about a new tanker contest.

“I want to be very transparent about this,” he said. “I think there’s still a possibility of competition out there, but as we’ve looked at our requirements, the likelihood of a competition has come down.” He said USAF will come to some decisions “over the next several months” and “decide where we want to go.”

HH-60W

The Air Force’s plan was to buy 113 HH-60W helicopters for Combat Search and Rescue, but USAF said it will “complete the buy” with 10 more aircraft in 2023.

“That’ll get us to 75 helicopters,” Peccia said. Kendall said that, given the shift in focus toward the Indo-Pacific, the need for the HH-60W diminished.

“It’s been reduced,” he said. “The scenarios we’re most worried about are not the same as they once were.” The HH-60W was a good solution in counterinsurgencies but doesn’t match the requirement against peer adversaries.

“The acts of aggression like we’re seeing in Europe, or we might end up seeing in the Pacific with the pacing challenge, puts us in a very different scenario, from a combat rescue point of view.”

Last August, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark D. Kelly said Airmen who go down in contested areas of the Pacific may have to get themselves to a place where they can be picked up, given that the air defense threat will be so challenging to manage a rescue.

MH-139

The Air Force is buying five MH-139s in fiscal 2023. Peccia said they were in the 2022 budget but had several certifications yet to be completed. Those are now done, or will be in “the next couple of months,” and the program can proceed, he said. The goal remains to buy 80 of the Gray Wolf helos. The helicopter will replace the aging UH-1Ns, which are used for security at the Air Force’s nuclear missile fields, VIP transport in the Air Force District of Washington and Japan, and survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training.

USAF Seeks ‘Transformational’ Change in 2023 Budget as It Looks to Keep Pace With China

USAF Seeks ‘Transformational’ Change in 2023 Budget as It Looks to Keep Pace With China

March 28, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie and John A. Tirpak

The Department of the Air Force is requesting $234.1 billion in its 2023 budget request, of which $40.1 billion is “pass-through funds,” or money the services will never see, while $169.5 billion is for USAF and $24.5 billion is for the Space Force. The budget request looks to cut 240 aircraft, including 33 fifth-generation F-22 stealth fighters and the majority of the AWACS fleet, to pay for additional research and development, long-delayed nuclear modernization programs, and the growing Space Force. It also significantly reduces the F-35 buy.

The 2023 budget request represents a $12 billion increase over the $182 billion enacted by Congress in 2022—one of the largest increases in years. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the 2023 request attempts a “transformational” change in the services, motivated by China’s rapid modernization and taking into account Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Service leaders view the 2023 request as a prelude to even more profound “transformational” changes in fiscal 2024.

Research, development, test, and evaluation would get a 20 percent boost when compared to the 2022 budget request, while procurement would get a 15 percent increase. Operations and maintenance would go up four percent, while military personnel accounts and military construction would increase by 2.3 percent and two percent, respectively.

The service would pay for much of the R&D increase by retiring some 140 aircraft, including the bulk of the E-3 AWACS and E-8 J STARS fleets, and about a sixth of the inventory of Air Force’s premier air superiority fighter the F-22. USAF would also transfer 100 MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft to an unnamed federal agency, so its total reduction comes to 240 airplanes. On the plus side, it is buying 82 new aircraft, for a net change of 158 fewer airplanes.

In last year’s budget request, USAF wanted to retire 201 airplanes and buy 91. Congress allowed all of the divestments, with the exception of 42 A-10 Warthogs.

Kendall said the service can’t afford to wait for transformative change achieved in small, incremental steps.

“What drives that is the threat,” he told reporters in an embargoed March 25 budget briefing. “We need to move aggressively.” Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown’s “accelerate or change” motto “is very apt,” Kendall said. “What you’ll see in the budget is part of the transformation that we’re trying to achieve.” Despite the “acute concern” over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China remains “the pacing threat,” he emphasized.   

Kendall said the budget was built expecting “aggression” from Russia against Ukraine or China against Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. “Those of us who had access to the intelligence were not surprised by what happened,” he said. “And so, our planning took into account that this type of event could occur.”

While the services for many years funded their war consumption and recapitalization of lost assets under the “Overseas Contingency Operations” account, such funding is now either funded through the base budget or a special congressional appropriation.

The boost in R&D, however, is only a “down payment” on future capabilities, he said. There will be more “hard choices” coming in the fiscal year 2024 budget and the outyears, Kendall warned.

The budget makes a big payment on the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) increasing funds by $1.1 billion as the service moves toward an initial operational capability date of 2029. It also adds $354 million to the B-21 bomber program to continue engineering, manufacturing, and development and to support nuclear certification. The Space Force budget, meanwhile, invests heavy in missile warning and tracking, air and ground moving target technology, and space domain awareness, senior Air Force leadership told journalists at the budget preview briefing.

While air mobility is largely set, Kendall noted, “the transformation is more focused” on “the tactical side and the global strike side.”

The budget only provides for 33 F-35 fighters, versus previous years’ requests for 48, and Congress’ frequent adds above even that level. Kendall said the reduction was to buy some time for Lockheed Martin to fix problems with the Technical Refresh 3 upgrade that makes the Block 4 version possible. He insisted that the Air Force “remains committed” to the F-35 and to the total buy of 1,763. “We’ll probably be buying the F-35 another 15 years,” he said.

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the F-35 buy is the “smallest number in years.

The budget also calls for a speed-up in the acquisition of the F-15EX, which doubles from 12 bought last year to 24 in FY’23. Kendall said there’s an “opportunity” to replace the existing F-15C fleet with F-15EX, and the plan is to buy them as swiftly as possible.

“Given an F-35A production line that today can build 80 F-35As annually, this is truly high-risk to a vital program,” Deptula said. “The choice to accelerate purchases of the F-15EX—a valuable, but technologically inferior airplane—is helpful, but not adequate to shore up the Air Force’s declining combat capacity. USAF’s FY23 budget request results in numbers less than those required to sustain existing force structure. Congress should not allow that to happen.”

The 33 F-22s being retired are of the Block 20 model, and are used as training airplanes. It would be too costly to modernize them to a combat-capable configuration, said USAF budget director Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III. Even so, the F-22 fleet would get $344 million for sensor upgrades and other improvements.

“When you put it all together, we ended up deciding to take a reduction of F-35s,” Kendall said of the overall tactical plan.

There’s also $113 million in a line item for “Autonomous Collaborative Programs,” the unmanned tactical and strategic platforms Kendall sees as complementing the B-21 and Next-Generation Air Dominance fleets. Though he noted it’s not yet a program of record.

Kendall explained that while Russia posed “an acute concern,” in planning the budget, “the pacing challenge is still China.”

Research and development accounts for 25 percent of the total Department of the Air Force budget, or $49.2 billion, divided between $33.4 billion for the Air Force and $15.8 million for the Space Force.

GBSD tops the Air Force category with a $3.6 billion investment, followed by the B-21 at $3.25 billion.

Research, Development, Test and Evaluation investment also calls for a $1.66 billion investment in the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation fighter and $1.08 billion in the F-35A. The NGAD investment is for advanced sensors and air vehicle technology.

Hypersonics research is proposed to receive $577 million divided between fighter-launched Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) and the bomber-launched Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). Kendall has said he plans to reduce the emphasis on hypersonics because while they are an asymmetric necessity for China, USAF has different priorities. Peccia said that most of the $138 million increase would be directed toward HACM.

The Space Force will absorb the Space Development Agency (SDA) budget in 2023, and invest an additional $1 billion for the ground and geosynchronous orbit space segments of the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) missile warning system, a constellation of new satellites. In all, Next Gen OPIR would be slated for $3.48 billion.

Another $1 billion would go to resilient missile warning and missile tracking to address hypersonic weapons and maneuverable reentry vehicles. Meanwhile, $987 million would go toward missile warning and tracking. On the acquisition side, the Space Force proposes a $1.1 billion investment in three additional National Security Space launches and $314 million for three SDA launches.

The Air Force end strength will decrease by 4,900 to 510,400 in fiscal 23, with Kendall indicating that would happen by attrition. The Space Force will add 200 Guardians to its ranks.

Airmen will receive a 4.6 percent pay raise, a 4.2 percent basic allowance housing raise, and a fund of $300,000 will be created for basic needs allowance that Airmen can apply for under special economic circumstances. Inflation in the budget accounts for some $6.3 billion, or a rate of 2.2 percent, in line with government standards.

While the President’s Budget is a wish list until it passes Congress, Kendall was hopeful that like last year he will get the divestments he needs to transform the services for the future.

“As we go forward, I think they’re going to be some hard choices. We are going to do some divestments,” said Kendall. “That change will continue, we have to do that. We have to really get rid of what I’ll call legacy equipment in order to have the resources to modernize.”

The Air Force Association praised the decision to fund long-delayed strategic nuclear modernization programs, such as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent and B-21 bomber, as well as the boost in R&D funds. However, AFA president, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, said the budget is insufficient to meet the growing demand for airpower around the globe.

“The Air Force budget remains flat at a time when it is shouldering costs for two legs of the nuclear triad and three decades of deferred modernization,” Wright said in a statement. “The United States justifiably surged investment in our land components funding to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq; to do that, the nation took risk and deferred investment in air and space. Now it is time to surge air and space to solve today’s threat-based demands.

US, Ukrainian leaders Meet in Warsaw as Russia Ramps Up Air Attacks on Ukraine

US, Ukrainian leaders Meet in Warsaw as Russia Ramps Up Air Attacks on Ukraine

March 26, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

As Russia ramps up its air campaign on Ukraine, U.S. and Ukrainian leaders met in Warsaw to find ways to fight back Russian aggression.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted a photo on March 26 of U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III meeting with himself and other Ukrainian leaders. “This special 2+2 format allows us to seek practical decisions in both political and defense spheres in order to fortify Ukraine’s ability to fight back Russian aggression,” he said.

The meeting comes after President Joe Biden called a NATO leaders summit, followed by meetings with European and G-7 counterparts, to unite allies and partners in the ongoing sanctions against Russian leaders.

The Pentagon said March 25 that Russia had dug into defensive positions around Kyiv, instead focusing its land and air effort on “liberating” the Donbas region. But Ukraine may have taken back Kherson from Russia and the Ukrainian Navy blew up a re-supply ship at the port of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine’s recent moves could drive a wedge in Russia’s effort to lockdown the eastern region of the country, home to a large minority of Russian speakers. Russia has surrounded the port city of Mariupol for days, a missing link that would connect occupied Donbas with Crimea. For weeks, Defense Department officials have pointed to a perceived effort by Russia to lock down the south and pin down Ukrainian forces in the Joint Forces Operation area, where they have operated since Russia invaded in 2014.

“The Donbas is really where they’re … focused right now, on the ground and in the air,” a senior defense official told reporters March 25.

“They have tried to make up for the fact that they haven’t been able to move well on the ground by the increasing use of airstrikes, and missile strikes, and artillery strikes on population centers,” the official added. “They don’t appear to want to pursue Kyiv as aggressively, or frankly, at all.”

Moscow has fired more than 1,250 missiles into Ukraine, and despite reporting about high fail rates for its air-launched cruise missiles and a depleting missile inventory, DOD assesses that Russia still has over half its fire power.

Russia claimed March 25 that its first wartime objective has been achieved.

“The combat potential of the armed forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal—the liberation of Donbass,” Sergei Rudskoi, head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, said in a statement.

The Defense Department rated Russia’s combat power as 85 to 90 percent of its pre-positioned strength. Recent DOD assessments of Ukraine’s combat power were estimated at 90 percent, based on constant replenishment from Western partners.

The defense official said parts of the $800 million defense package signed by President Joe Biden March 16 have started arriving in Ukraine, with additional shipments of anti-tank Javelins and anti-aircraft Stingers arriving in Europe in the coming days.

“Another flight arrived in the region today,” the defense official said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.

Long-range air defense systems promised by Biden in a public address following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech to Congress have yet to arrive. Likewise, after the U.S. rejected an offer by Poland March 8 to help transfer MiG-29s, the official clarified that “the United States is not putting a veto on people giving the Ukrainians aircraft.”

Even without the SAMS and aircraft it says it needs, Ukraine is still holding off the Russian advance.

Ukraine appears to be making headway in the south of the country, where Russian forces moving north from Crimea made their strongest advance and took the city of Kherson early in the month-long war.

“Kherson is actually contested territory again,” the official said.

Losing Kherson would split Russian forces and hinder an attack on Odesa. Russia also suffered a blow in another city it controls in the south, the port city of Berdyansk, where a Russian warship that had been resupplying troops was blown up pier side by the Ukrainian Navy.

DOD asserted that the Russian aim in the east could be motivated by an effort to consolidate gains, unless they are undone.

“They are putting their priorities and their effort in the east of Ukraine. And that’s where still, there remains a lot of heavy fighting,” the official said. “We think they are trying to … secure some sort of more substantial gains there as a potential negotiating tactic at the table.”

Air Force Stands Up New Information Warfare Training Unit

Air Force Stands Up New Information Warfare Training Unit

March 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is looking to revamp the way it trains Airmen for information warfare with the establishment of a new wing-level organization.

The Information Warfare Training and Research Initiative Detachment, known as Det. 1, stood up by Air Combat Command in a March 22 ceremony at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. It will connect Airmen from different locations to conduct training and research on IW, according to an ACC press release.

The organization is the product of several years of collaboration between ACC, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Secretary of the Air Force’s Office of Concepts, Development, and Management, as they worked with academic groups to develop new ways of training for information warfare.

That push is part of a broader overall trend within the service to beef up its capabilities and expertise in electronic warfare. Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. warned in January that the Air Force has been “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to electromagnetic spectrum warfare.

Maj. Gen. Daniel L. Simpson, Air Force assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, remarked in February that the service has to “make up for 20 years of neglect,” and experts have agreed that over the course of time, the Pentagon has not invested enough in training for EW.

The new detachment is aimed at accelerating and boosting the training programs and opportunities already in place, ACC said, by “designing and building training environments and linking Airmen across the world to enable operators and researchers to experiment, test, and train in the information environment and electromagnetic spectrum,” according to a release.

As a hybrid wing-level organization, the detachment will be a subordinate unit of the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and will maintain operating locations at Davis-Monthan, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and at the 67th Cyberspace Wing in Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.

Distributed across multiple locations, the unit will be able to connect to more Airmen for more regular training.

Already, ACC and its partners have hosted 22 information warfare-focused events, with Airmen, Guardians, joint partners, and members of academia and industry joining in experiments and training. The events have enabled information warfare training for larger Air Force missions like air superiority or ISR.

“We’ve adapted a ‘build, learn, correct, repeat’ model,” Col. Christopher Budde, chief of ACC’s information warfare division, said in a statement. “We are experimenting with sustainable processes and events in quick succession to scale conceptual ideas, operationally test them, then integrate these processes across the larger federated enterprise.”

These events can span locations, allowing for IW-focused units and Airmen to get training no matter where they are. They will also help Det. 1 to “rethink traditional training and research models,” ACC said.

“If we want to be a resolute world power, we must not only compete in the global commons but also compete and win in contested sovereigns,” ACC commander Gen. Mark D. Kelly said in a statement. “Most competition, if not all combat, will take place in the electromagnetic spectrum. Focusing our offensive and defensive capabilities in the digitally-enabled domain is critical to honing our lethality in strategic competition.”

Arctic Hasn’t Gotten Enough in Past Pentagon Budgets, VanHerck Says. Will That Change in 2023?

Arctic Hasn’t Gotten Enough in Past Pentagon Budgets, VanHerck Says. Will That Change in 2023?

March 25, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Northern Command boss Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, who has pushed for the Pentagon to allocate more resources to the Arctic region in its annual budget, hopes to see a “significant” funding boost for domain awareness in 2023.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 24, just four days before the 2023 budget request is released, VanHerck fielded plenty of questions from lawmakers concerned about the Arctic, a region of increasing importance where the melting ice cap, natural resources, and shipping lanes are all contested by the U.S., Russia, and even China, among other nations.

In June 2021, VanHerck told the Congressional panel that the budget only “inched” progress forward in the region, adding that “we didn’t move the ball very far down the field this year in the budget with regards to resources in the Arctic.”

Nine months later, his concerns about investments remain.

“We have not seen the funding that I would like to see with regards to the Arctic,” VanHerck told Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).

Sullivan then noted, as VanHerck also has, that the services are at least paying more attention to the region—the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Department of the Air Force have all released strategic plans for the Arctic, some for the very first time, in the past few years.

But thus far, the money hasn’t matched those strategies, Sullivan and VanHerck said.

“I look forward to seeing the ‘23 budget,” VanHerck said. “The Arctic is strategic in nature. We must be persistent there to compete. That’s a part of … integrated deterrence.”

The Pentagon will rollout the fiscal 2023 budget request on March 28, and VanHerck indicated he hadn’t yet seen what it entails for the Arctic.

“Without seeing the ‘23 budget, I really can’t give you a full assessment of what we’re going to see for infrastructure support. I believe we will see additional domain awareness capabilities significantly funded with the ‘23 budget, but I look forward to seeing that,” VanHerck said. “I would assess that there may still be some work to do with regards to the strategies that each of the services have … put out, and the department strategy. But when the budget comes out, I’ll give you the final assessment.”

Domain awareness in the Arctic has been a stated priority for DOD for several years now. Billy Mitchell famously said that, “Alaska is the most central place in the world for aircraft operations.” It is closer to China than Hawaii, where Pacific Air Forces is headquarters is located, and when the ice freezes over in the winter, there are places where you can actually walk from U.S. to Russian territory.

But operating in the Arctic is always a challenge due to the harsh conditions and relative lack of infrastructure. There are actually more roads in the state of New Jersey, than there are in all of Alaska, even though if if placed Alaska on a map of the lower 48 it would stretch from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Francisco, Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm, the most senior military officer in Alaska, told Air Force Magazine.

Infrastructure is one area where VanHerck sees a need for investment, so the U.S. can continue to be a persistent presence in the region.

“We do need a presence, and fuel north of Dutch Harbor would do that, as would infrastructure and communications capabilities,” VanHerck said. “I look forward to working with the Canadians on their part of this. They need to be part of it as well, not only the Department of Defense, especially on the infrastructure piece.”

Both Russia and China, which is not technically an Arctic nation, have become increasingly aggressive in asserting their presence in the region.

“The Chinese are active in the Arctic,” VanHerck told lawmakers. “Each of the last five years, they’ve sent a vessel under the guise of a research vessel into the Arctic for military purposes, we assess. … And so they’re there. They’re influencing nations, they want to change and influence international norms and behavior as well.”

There is also the threat that Russia and China could pose by launching a missile to fly over the region to strike the U.S. In such a crisis, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) pressed VanHerck on how he would coordinate with other combatant commands.

“I’m comfortable with the way the unified campaign plan is currently laid out. We have outstanding relationships with Canada, outstanding relationships with [U.S. European Command] and [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command]. I do think we need to look at, based on threat changes, how we would command and control those capabilities,” VanHerck replied.

“The threats to the homeland today do not reside in my area of responsibility. They are actually existing in other areas of responsibility, such as the INDOPACOM area of responsibility and the EUCOM area of responsibility. So I do think there’s potential gaps and seams that we need to make sure that we close those in a time of crisis and conflict to ensure we don’t have challenges that were unaccounted for.”

Gen. Charles G. Boyd, Former POW, Dies at 83

Gen. Charles G. Boyd, Former POW, Dies at 83

March 24, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Gen. Charles G. Boyd, the only Vietnam-era prisoner of war to become a four-star general, died March 23 at the age of 83. Boyd was also a former vice commander of 8th Air Force, commander of Air University, and deputy commander of U.S. European Command.

Born in Iowa, Boyd entered the Air Force in 1959 through the aviation cadet program. He learned to fly the F-100 Super Sabre and F-105 Thunderchief, and was deployed to Southeast Asia in November 1965.

On April 22, 1966, Boyd volunteered for an unusually dangerous mission to attack surface-to-air missile sites around Hanoi, the North Vietnamese capital, in an F-105D. According to his citation for the Air Force Cross—the highest decoration after the Medal of Honor—Boyd, on his 105th mission over the North, bravely pressed the attack repeatedly through heavy enemy fire, including close calls with two SAMS. After repeated passes, he was hit. Ejecting at high speed, the force of the wind tore his helmet off, and shortly after landing in a rice paddy, he was captured.

Boyd spent the next seven years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, enduring torture, brutal interrogation, solitary confinement, malnutrition, and illness. For 18 months, he was imprisoned adjacent to Navy flyer John McCain, who later became a U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate.

Boyd was among the 50 or so prisoners forced to walk through the capital in the 1966 “Hanoi March,” a propaganda event in which downed pilots were humiliated and struck by civilians lining the march route, showing that Hanoi refused to be bound by the Geneva Convention banning such treatment.

Boyd was repatriated in 1973 after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. He resumed his Air Force career, taking four years to heal up from his injuries, earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and attend the Air War College. Due to malnutrition during his captivity, Boyd’s eyesight wasn’t good enough to allow him to resume USAF flying duties, although he flew private aircraft for many years afterwards.

Over the next 12 years, Boyd rose rapidly through the ranks, holding staff and command assignments in the Pentagon and Europe. From December 1986 until June of 1988 he was vice commander of 8th Air Force; from 1990-1992 he commanded Air University; and in his last post he was deputy commander-in-chief of U.S. European Command, retiring in August 1995 as a four-star general.

Boyd remained an active voice in national security after his Air Force career. He served as a strategy consultant to Rep. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House; and in 1998, he served as director of the Hart-Rudman commission assessing U.S. security needs for the 21st century. Seven months before the 9/11 attacks, the panel presciently called for the creation of a federal department much like the eventual Department of Homeland Security to monitor terrorism and protect against it.

He later became senior vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, as its Washington program director. He also worked as a director at various defense and intelligence-oriented companies, was CEO of the Business Executives for National Security, and was chair of the Center for the National Interest think tank.

Boyd wrote that fighter pilots were uniquely suited to endure the ravages of being POWs, as they were accustomed to facing battle relying almost entirely on their own wits and resources.

“It should not seem surprising that this breed of men would be as well-equipped as anyone to cope with the special problems of isolation,” Boyd said. The enemy “thought they could ‘divide and conquer;’ that without collective leadership we would not be able to maintain our resistance and resolve. But they did not reckon with the individual integrity of the American fighter pilot.” The endurance of American POWs in Vietnam is “a testimony to the individual spirit,” Boyd said. “We returned with our mental health …because the highest degree of achievement is possible only when man is imbued with a spirit of individualism.”

Air Force Association President, retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright, said “Gen. Boyd was an inspirational figure, in his warrior spirit, his incredible endurance under brutal conditions, and his intellectual gifts to the national security community. An exemplary leader for generations of Airmen, he inspired us in every encounter.”

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, worked for Boyd from 1988 to 1989 and remained in contact with him throughout his life. “Gen. Boyd was a giant of an Airman” who “exuded thoughtfulness in all the aspects of the word,” Deptula said. “From the perspective of complete evaluation of all aspects of a situation, to the empathy of man who had consideration for others’ perspectives. … He took me flying in his T-34 not that long ago, and he was at home in the air. May he Rest In Peace in his final resting place in the clouds. He was a true warrior, scholar, leader, Airman, and will be dearly missed.”

Hackers Attacked Satellite Terminals Through Management Network, Viasat Officials Say

Hackers Attacked Satellite Terminals Through Management Network, Viasat Officials Say

March 24, 2022 | By Shaun Waterman

The cyberattack that cut communications for thousands of European users of Viasat’s satellite broadband service last month was carried out by hackers compromising and exploiting the system that manages customer terminals, two Viasat officials told Air Force Magazine.

The attack, which happened as Russian forces rolled into Ukraine on Feb. 24, affected tens of thousands of terminals in Ukraine and across Europe, which were part of the KA-SAT network, a satellite broadband asset that Viasat bought last year from French satcom giant Eutelsat. End users affected included some in the Ukrainian military, and the attack dramatically demonstrated the vulnerability of commercial satellite communications capabilities on which the U.S. military increasingly relies.

“The terminal management network … that manages the KA-SAT network, and manages other Eutelsat networks—that network was penetrated,” said one Viasat official. “And from there, the hackers were able to launch an attack against the terminals using the normal function of the management plane of the network.”

The official added that Viasat shared information about the hack with DOD and law enforcement agencies. Viasat is one of the commercial satcom companies that are part of the Commercial Integration Cell, or CIC. Located at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., the CIC is based in the Combined Space Operations Center, part of U.S. Space Command, and exists to share “real‐time and near real‐time information … during daily routine operations and to enable rapid, informed response to critical unplanned space events,” according to a fact sheet from Vandenberg public affairs.

Under the transition agreement governing the KA-SAT acquisition, the KA-SAT networks had continued to be managed by Skylogic SPA, an Italian subsidiary of Eutelsat, along with other Eutelsat networks, the Viasat officials said.

The first official contended that the attack would not have succeeded on the global network directly managed by Viasat. “The controls that we have on our … Viasat operated networks would have stopped this. These events that we saw on this [KA-SAT] network, the same effects would not have worked on our global network.”

The Viasat officials said that the attack did not affect users of the KA-SAT network who bought their broadband directly from Viasat, only users inherited as part of the Eutelsat deal.

“Even on that [KA-SAT] network, none of our mobility and none of our government customers were affected—the controls we have around those users kept them safe,” said the first official.

Although the timing of the attack—as Russian tanks rolled across the border—might appear highly suggestive, the Viasat officials said they were not in a position to attribute it to any particular actor.

This week, a senior White House official told reporters that the U.S. government was not yet making any public attribution, either. “We have not yet attributed that attack, but we’re carefully looking at it because … of the impact not only in Ukraine but also in satellite communication systems in Europe as well,” Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger said at a briefing March 21.

She added that the sophistication of the attack, along with its timing, were “certainly factors that … we’re looking at carefully as we look at who is responsible.”

The attack compromised the management plane—the part of the network that controls customer terminals to ensure they can communicate with the satellite, the Viasat officials said. The hackers had abused that functionality to change the software configuration on the terminals and render them inoperable.

But, contrary to some early reports, the attack did not brick the terminals. “It did not make them permanently inoperable,” said the second official. “Every single terminal that was knocked off the air can be brought back with a software update.” Although the network is generally capable of updating terminals over the air, by downloading new software via the satellite link, many of the terminals attacked cannot be brought back online by the customer, and so can’t get the required update over the air. Those will have to be updated by tech support staff, the first official said.

Viasat is replacing some terminals altogether, but only as a matter of convenience, the first official added. “In some cases, it’s easier to just ship new terminals than it is to send a tech out. So there’s a combination of some we’re restoring over the air, some where a tech has to come out and restore, and some where we’re just shipping new terminals.”

Viasat has not disclosed the exact number of terminals affected, but the second official said it was “tens of thousands.” The company said no customer or end-user data was compromised.

Viasat’s response to the hack had been complicated by a number of factors, the officials said. KA-SAT had been a “bandwidth wholesaler,” making deals with distributors and resellers in each European market.

“In the case of the Ukrainian military, in some instances, but also some other users in other countries, they bought commercial [satcom] services through the distributors and then used them for the military,” said the first official. “Because of the distributor relationship, there was a level of abstraction between us and those customers. And so we didn’t even necessarily know who the customers were, or how they were using these assets.”

Moreover, the fact that the distributors had the customer relationship with the end user complicated the process of refurbishing or replacing the inoperable terminals, the first official added. “As we restore the terminals, we send them to the distributors, and it’s the distributors’ responsibility to send them to the users.” Some distributors were “fantastic. And they get them right out to the users.” Others faced challenges due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic or other factors and are “sitting on them in their warehouses.”

Despite this, Viasat was now bringing “thousands of terminals back online per day, and will have the network completely restocked and back to full capacity within a few weeks,” the first official said.

The attack prompted a warning to U.S. satellite operators from the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, the DHS agency responsible for working with the private sector to protect vital American industries such as telecommunications and health care.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. on March 25 to correct some technical issues with how the KA-SAT network and other assets were described.

Whiteman B-2 Flies to Australia and Back, Conducts Training with RAAF

Whiteman B-2 Flies to Australia and Back, Conducts Training with RAAF

March 24, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

A B-2 bomber flew from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., to Australia and back over the course of more than 50 hours recently, integrating with five different fighter aircraft from the U.S. Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force along the way. 

The B-2 Spirit from the 509th Bomb Wing became on March 23 the first such bomber to land at Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Pacific Air Forces announced in a press release.

While in Australian airspace, the B-2 refueled from a KC-135 tanker from the Alaska Air National Guard, then integrated with American F-16Cs and Australian F-35s, EA-18 Growlers, and F/A-18F Super Hornets as part of training operations.

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command boss Adm. John C. Aquilino and Royal Australian Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Joe Iervasi were on hand to observe the B-2 on the ground after it landed. After a crew change, the bomber took off again, integrating with American F-22s from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, before returning home to Whiteman.

“This is the most consequential theater with the most challenging security issues, … and advancing our interoperability with critical allies like Australia is critical to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Aquilino said in a statement. “There are many aspects that are going on daily to continue to move the security relationship forward in a positive way to provide deterrence, prevent war, and maintain peace and stability within the region.” 

In a Facebook post, Whiteman officials said the B-2 was assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron and that the mission lasted a total of 53 hours.

B-2s have flown training missions over Australia several times over the past few years. In 2020, Whiteman B-2s deployed to Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia and then flew over Australian training areas while Marines and Australian troops trained together to control the strikes. In 2016, a B-2 from Whiteman landed at Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal.

A B-1B Lancer also flew over Australia in 2021 to train with RAAF tankers. B-1 Lancers also operated out of Diego Garcia for the first time in 15 years this past fall.