PACAF: China May See Opportunity in European Crisis, Calls for Upgrades Now

PACAF: China May See Opportunity in European Crisis, Calls for Upgrades Now

March 3, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

As the world watches Russia in Eastern Europe, concerns are rising that China could find opportunity in crisis when it comes to Taiwan and the South China Sea, Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said March 3 at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla.

“I’m watching them like a hawk,” Wilsbach said at a media roundtable, noting the Chinese could see the crisis as “dangerous” while also acknowledging “there might be an opportunity here.”

He said he hopes global condemnation of Russia’s actions in Ukraine will deter China but that PACAF still needs to be ready to deter and fight. This includes everything from improving agile combat employment operations to upgrading detection and the fifth-generation weapons systems of allies.

“The first thing that I need is a way to establish and maintain air superiority,” Wilsbach said.

Enhancing U.S. capability in the air-to-air fight includes the ability to reach support aircraft with fifth-generation weapons systems, he said. It also “means stealthy capabilities, and extending a long-range kill chain, and … breaking the long-range kill chain of the adversary,” he said. Fifth-generation weapons and tracking capabilities that can reach an excess of 200 miles are needed, and Wilsbach wants to see policies lifted that limit the selling of the latest weapons technologies to allies.

The replacement for the E-3 Sentry AWACS is one focus area for the commander, who supports a move to the E-7 used by Australia, South Korea, and soon, Great Britain, for better detection and tracking of airborne moving targets.

“The E-3 is challenged with maintenance, reliability. But once it even gets airborne, it can’t see that far out, especially when you start talking about stealthy platforms,” he said. “The E-7 gives us a very quick capability.”

America’s European allies are increasing their participation in the Pacific “as a result of the nefarious activities that they’re seeing China execute over time that could be impacting their interest in the Pacific,” Wilsbach said.

Germany is one of the countries increasing its participation in Indo-Pacific exercises following the release of its own Indo-Pacific strategy in September 2020.

“This is the whole government comprehensive approach, because a lot of our trade [is] going into this region,” German air attache Brig. Gen. Frank Graffe told Air Force Magazine at an AWS pull-aside interview.

“We enforce the free and open Indo-Pacific with this strategy,” he said. “This year, we will send Eurofighter to Australia, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan.”

Graffe said Germany will also deploy its A330 MRTT refueler and A400M transport aircraft to the theater.

Wilsbach commended Great Britain’s sailing of the Queen Elizabeth II aircraft carrier in Indo-Pacific waters, even though it roiled the Chinese, and he called on the French to increase their presence in the region.

“You see the value of having like-minded nations coming together in mass and acting with solidarity to create effects,” he said. “We see information effects. We see political effects. We see economic effects. We see defense and weapons effects.”

The PACAF commander said the same could be done in the Indo-Pacific to mount pressure on the Chinese modus operandi.

“It bothers them because we’re challenging their claims,” he said. “We are challenging the Chinese way of doing business versus the accepted international rules-based order. That’s why they don’t like it. Because we’re challenging their illegal assertions.”

First B-21 Moves to New Hangar for Loads Calibration

First B-21 Moves to New Hangar for Loads Calibration

March 3, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The first B-21 expected to fly is largely assembled and has moved to a calibration facility, one of the last steps before powering systems and making final checks ahead of first flight, Rapid Capabilities Office Director Randall Walden reported.

On the sidelines of the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Walden noted that “we’ve taken the first one out” of the production facility. 

“It’s got landing gear. … It’s got wheels on it. … It’s got the wings on it. It really looks like a bomber,” Walden said. Six B-21s are now under construction at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif., facility, he said.

The loads calibration test is a “normal thing you do” and ensures the structure “is designed and built to what we actually meant it to do.” Once that’s done, “that gives us great insight into, ‘Did the actual design meet our needs, and did the manufacturing of that meet our needs?’”

The calibration test aircraft has not yet been assigned a tail number or name, he said, but it’s expected to be the first to fly. Walden said supply chain issues have not significantly affected the production program, but he declined to predict when the rollout and first flight would occur.

Though Walden said it’s “not my final call,” he thinks there will be a formal rollout “with senior leaders and press” because “it will be an historical event.”

Then, there will have to be some “event driven, data driven” activities, such as putting power to the aircraft, starting the engines, testing the hydraulics, “everything you normally do in a ground test to make sure it’s working properly.” There also will be slow- and high-speed taxi tests, he added.

“Once all that data informs where we stand from a design [standpoint] is when we’ll schedule that first flight,” Walden said. The first flight will likely be a hop to nearby Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

Service Chiefs on Pattern of Continuing Resolutions: ‘We Can’t Keep Doing This’

Service Chiefs on Pattern of Continuing Resolutions: ‘We Can’t Keep Doing This’

March 3, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

With just over a week left before the latest continuing resolution to fund the federal government runs out, the service Chiefs of the Air Force and Space Force bemoaned the frequent use of CRs to keep the Pentagon funded, calling the practice “bad,” “frustrating,” and “absolutely devastating.”

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, making a joint appearance at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., didn’t appeal directly to Congress to pass a new budget for fiscal 2022 like they did during a January hearing in front of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

But they painted a grim picture for the Department of the Air Force if continuing resolutions continue to be commonplace in the years to come.

“I almost want the whole audience to repeat after me: CRs are bad,” Brown told former Chief of Staff retired Gen. John P. Jumper, who served as moderator for the discussion. “They’re frustrating, just the aspect of what we’re not able to do because of a CR.”

Under continuing resolutions, funding is frozen at the previous year’s spending levels. In the past 13 fiscal years, the Pentagon has started the year operating under a CR 12 times.

“If you add up all the time we’ve been in a CR, it’s been over three years,” Brown said. “ … If we’re in a race with somebody, we’ve just spotted them three years. We can’t keep doing this.”

As continuing resolutions have become a regular feature in the budgetary process, “we’ve gotten good at bad behavior,” added Raymond. “We’ve gotten good at pushing contracts to the end of the year. We’ve gotten good at doing things that we had to do because we didn’t have the resources or a law that allowed us to do it.”

A Government Accountability Office report from September 2021 found that across the Defense Department, the services “tended to obligate … a lower percentage of their total annual obligations in the first quarter of the fiscal year—when DOD is most likely to be operating under a CR.”

The impact is especially key for the Space Force, Raymond said.

“A yearlong CR for the Space Force is a $2 billion hit on the top line,” but for the new service, which Raymond likened to a startup company, “if … you can’t do new starts, it’s really difficult,” he noted.

The continuing resolutions are also preventing the startup Space Force from expanding. Raymond warned back in September 2021 that without a budget, the transfer of 350 new Guardians, as well as units and missions, including satellite communications capabilities from the Navy and Army, would be delayed.

More than five months later, those units and missions are still waiting.

“I’ve been on the road here recently visiting them overseas and in CONUS,” Raymond said. “They’re eager to come. We can’t bring them in until the law is passed. So it’s something that we’ve got to get done. A yearlong CR would be absolutely devastating to us.”

And though the Air Force may be more established, it needs funding to acquire new systems and build up its capabilities, Brown argued, especially as demand for those capabilities continues to grow.

“I feel like a chew toy between different combatant commanders, where they’re pulling and asking for more Air Force capability to go to different places because the Air Force is the one service that can get there faster than anybody else, except for the space portion,” Brown said. 

To that end, Brown said the service needs to be “a little more bold.”

“We’ve got to speak up for ourselves and show what the impact is. And that’s something I don’t know that we’ve done very well,” Brown added. “It’s something I’m focused on. … We’ve got to do a better job of talking about what happens to our readiness if we continue to use our capabilities at the rate we do and we don’t modernize.”

Beyond modernizing and building out new systems, CRs bring other, more intangible effects, Brown said.

“We’ve got to get past this because it slows us down from being able to have trust and confidence with our Airmen, trust and confidence with industry, and trust and confidence with allies and partners to be able to provide the capability we’re going to require as we move forward,” Brown said.

With the latest CR set to run out on March 11, Congress is currently reckoning with how to finally push through an “omnibus” package funding the entire government. 

Democrats and Republicans previously announced they had reached a “bipartisan breakthrough” on such an agreement, but following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two sides have differed on how to go about passing an aid package for the Ukrainians. Democrats want to include the package in the omnibus, while Republicans want the two separated. There is also debate as to whether the aid will go to the Pentagon to cover previous spending or for the purchase of new weapons.

Yet the need for such aid underscores the danger of more continuing resolutions, Jumper argued from the stage.

“It’s hard to accelerate change or achieve the speed of relevance if you don’t have the means to do the acceleration,” Jumper said. “And I just hope that you know the current events of the world can help us realize that this acceleration and these developments … we need to move on with it.”

Kendall on How the Air Force Plans to Modernize its Force to Compete With China

Kendall on How the Air Force Plans to Modernize its Force to Compete With China

March 3, 2022 | By Amy Hudson and Amanda Miller

The Air Force is closely monitoring the unfolding war in Ukraine and is committed to deterring—and defeating—further Russian aggression, but the forthcoming National Defense Strategy will maintain that despite the current threat environment, the pacing threat is still China, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said March 3.

Kicking off the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Kendall touted the resiliency of Airmen and Guardians who have weathered a tumultuous two years and “never stopped working,” but he also lamented the department’s aging aircraft, which now average 30 years old, and said that despite recent pushes to improve operational capability rates, they remain too low.

The Air Force is “stretched thin” as it tries to meet “combatant commander needs around the globe,” Kendall said. And, though he appreciates the funding Congress has provided, the Air Force must finally be able to shed some legacy equipment so it can properly invest in the technology of the future, he added.

“We’re not flying and training enough, sacrificing in part a significant historical advantage of superior flying experience for our pilots and aircrews,” Kendall said. “We’re carrying the costs of a roughly 20 percent excess capacity of real estate. We have a significant number of programs in the Air Force that are not fully funded beyond the budget year. We have a Space Force that inherited a set of systems designed for an era when we could operate in space with impunity.

“Overall, we start more programs than we can afford, and we don’t prioritize the most promising ones early so that we can ensure they cross the valley of death to production and fielding,” Kendall said.

There is an urgent need to modernize to keep up with the pacing threat—“China, China, China,” Kendall emphasized.

To do that, he outlined seven imperatives and encouraged members of the defense industry in attendance to “please pay attention. This is where the DAF will be investing, and this is where we need your expertise, intellectual capacity, and creativity.”

Defining a resilient and effective space order of battle

Kendall acknowledges that of all the imperatives, this is the broadest, but also could have the biggest impact.

“The simple fact is that the U.S. cannot project power successfully unless our space-based services are resilient enough to endure while under attack,” Kendall said. “Equally true, our terrestrial forces, joint and combined, cannot survive and perform their missions if our adversary’s space-based operational support systems, especially targeting systems, are allowed to operate with impunity.”

The department intends to build on efforts already underway by the Space Warfare Analysis Center and the Space Development Agency; and is working closely with the Intelligence Community and “especially, the National Reconnaissance Office.”

Achieving operationally optimized ABMS

The Advanced Battle Management System is the department’s component of the overall joint all-domain command and control effort and is intended to use modern networking and communication capabilities, along with new technologies such as artificial intelligence, to improve how the Air Force collects, analyzes, and shares data.

“But we can’t invest in everything, and we shouldn’t invest in improvements that don’t have clear operational benefit,” Kendall said. “We must be more focused on specific things with measurable value and operational impact.”

Specifically, Kendall said he wants to see a program aimed at modernizing the command, control, and communications battle management systems “more generally.”

“This imperative will finish the job of defining that program,” he said.

Defining the Next Generation Air Dominance system of systems

“On its current trajectory, the tactical air force is not affordable,” Kendall surmised.

The department needs a next-generation manned fighter to be paired with a “much less expensive autonomous uncrewed combat aircraft, employing a distributed, tailorable mix of sensors, weapons, and other mission equipment operating as a team or formation.”

Achieving air and ground moving target identification at scale

Without the ability to timely and efficiently acquire air, ground, and maritime mobile targets—in an “act of violent aggression, such as the one we just saw in Europe or an invasion of Taiwan”—ABMS and JADC2 won’t be worth much, Kendall pointed out.

The DAF’s current inventory of “aging and vulnerable legacy systems” such as the Joint STARS and Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft provide air and ground moving target indication, but ABMS will require “the ability to acquire targets using sensors and systems in a way that allows targeting data to be passed to an operator for engagement,” Kendall said.

“Ideally we’d prefer to do these functions from space, which should be more cost effective as adequate resilience could be provided, but that isn’t the only possibility.”

Defining optimized resilient basing

The Air Force’s dependence on a few forward operating bases hasn’t been lost on competitors, Kendall said.

“China, in particular, has acquired a large number of precision conventional rockets and is working on fielding large numbers of hypersonic weapons, which are even harder to defend against,” he said.

The Air Force’s concept of agile combat employment “is absolutely an important step in the right direction” to “make forces less easily targetable because of their disbursement.”

The B-21 long-range strike family of systems

Although the technologies exist to introduce an unmanned bomber escort, more study is necessary to determine not only a “cost-effective approach” but also the right operational concepts, Kendall said.

“One of the things that people often miss about uncrewed systems is that if you’re going to use an autonomous platform with a crewed system, it has to have the range capability to go as far as the crewed system goes and support that system with a reasonable payload when it gets there,” he said. “We’re looking for systems that cost nominally on the order of at least half as much as the manned systems that we’re talking about for both NGAD and for B-21. Together, with the B-21 and NGAD platforms, uncrewed systems would provide enhanced mission-tailorable levels of capability. They could deliver a range of sensors, payloads, and weapons, or other mission equipment, and they can also be attritable or even sacrificed if doing so conferred a major operational advantage.”

Ready to transition to a wartime posture against a peer competitor

The U.S. has never had to mobilize against the cyber threats it might face against a peer competitor, “or even the kinetic threats we might face,” Kendall said. The department will “analyze the entire mobilization and support ecosystem” and prioritize secure networks as well as transportation, logistics, and troops’ physical security.

“Languishing in never-ending, small-scale experimentation does not get the warfighters what they need, but neither does wasting time and money on dead ends,” Kendall said.

DOD Adding 63,500 Virtual Mental Health Appointments for Troops, But ‘a Whole Lot More’ Can Be Done

DOD Adding 63,500 Virtual Mental Health Appointments for Troops, But ‘a Whole Lot More’ Can Be Done

March 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Pentagon plans to ramp up its use of telehealth to help service members with mental health concerns as the number of service member suicides continues to trend the wrong way, leaders told a Congressional panel March 2.

Dr. Richard Mooney, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for health services policy and oversight, and Dr. Karen Orvis, director of the Defense Suicide Prevention Office, faced sharp questioning from the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee, with lawmakers and activists criticizing the military for not doing enough to support service members.

“The military’s suicide prevention effort is failing, and we must find out why,” said subcommittee chair Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who noted a recent string of suicides among Soldiers stationed in Alaska. According to the most recent Pentagon data, the total number and the rate of suicides among Active-duty service members has increased by a statistically significant amount since 2015—in 2020, 580 service members killed themselves.

There is no one solution to the suicide issue, Mooney and Orvis told the panel. But one area where the Defense Department is looking to expand its efforts is telehealth—providing counseling and mental health resources to service members virtually.

“The tele-behavioral health expansion is going to be key and essential in the future,” Mooney said. “[Experts] agree that 50 to 75 percent of behavioral health diagnoses can be treated effectively, depending on acuity, through tele-behavioral health. And the Defense Health Agency, by the fall of 2022, is going to add 63,500 annual appointments virtually for tele-behavioral health to be used across the system. They’re central appointments used across the system to be able to deliver this needed care.”

Telehealth, especially for mental health services, has expanded dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, and many experts have touted its benefits. What effect it might have on the issue of service member suicide is unclear but worth pursuing, said Dr. Craig Bryan, the director of the Suicide Prevention Program at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

“When we look at mental health services as a whole outside of suicide, …  we don’t see any differences [with telehealth] as compared to face-to-face,” Bryan told lawmakers. “There are no published trials, however, focused on suicide. The reason being is that most people think it’s too dangerous to provide telehealth services to actively suicidal patients. So in essence we have defaulted towards: No treatment is less dangerous than providing treatment via a technology-based platform.”

Bryan said his own research team is conducting an unfunded research study about the effects of telehealth for suicidal patients compared to in-person treatment, with promising early results. 

Specifically for service members, virtual mental health services could be helpful during PCS moves or deployments to ensure members continue to see the same provider with whom they are familiar, Rep. Sara Jacobs proposed.

“Certainly I would think that utilizing tele-behavioral health would be a very good option to pursue and that deserves further discussion and consideration,” Mooney agreed. “You could see a time where a behavioral health provider could continue their career and maybe, perhaps, maintain a cadre of patients that are managed via tele-behavioral health.”

Telehealth could also prove to be of use for the military in locations where mental health professionals are not stationed or readily available.

“I do think that when there is no other method, … the outreach with mental health by telemedicine is [of] some benefit,” said Dr. Beth Zimmer Carter, the mother of an Army veteran who killed himself in 2015. “And I’ve seen that in my local civilian life here in the Missouri area, where we have areas where we have no mental health providers at all. And so we are able to get mental health access to those by telehealth. But I think in-person is always better.”

Even though the DHA is expanding its use of telehealth in the coming year, Speier expressed skepticism that the agency was doing enough, noting that presuming a standard seven- or eight-session course of treatment per service member, the 63,500 annual virtual appointments detailed by Mooney would only reach between 8,000 and 9,000 troops.

“We need to do more, and I think as part of the NDAA this year, we’re going to have to do a whole lot more because they’re not able to accept access to services, and the providers are leaving because the conditions are so difficult and the workload or the caseload is so high,” Speier said.

US Air Force Discusses Tactics with Ukrainian Air Force as Russian Advance Stalls

US Air Force Discusses Tactics with Ukrainian Air Force as Russian Advance Stalls

March 2, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

U.S. and NATO intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets on NATO’s eastern flank are providing tactical information to the Ukrainian Air Force as new air defense assistance arrives inside Ukraine, though the U.S. is being careful to avoid steps that might be seen as escalatory, a defense official told Air Force Magazine.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III postponed a previously scheduled Minuteman III test in order to prevent possible escalation with Russia. The postponement followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “dangerous and irresponsible” announcement Feb. 27 that he had placed his nuclear forces on special alert, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said March 2.

“We did not take this decision lightly but instead to demonstrate that we are a responsible nuclear power,” Kirby said of the ICBM test delay. “This is not a step backwards in our readiness.”

Russia’s three-pronged military offensive to capture the major population centers of Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Mariupol is stalled due to logistical failures and heavy Ukrainian resistance, a senior defense official told Pentagon journalists March 3.

A 17-mile convoy of Russian military vehicles inching toward the capital from the north has been attacked by Ukrainian forces, DOD confirmed. Russian forces, meanwhile, have made progress in the south where they appear to move closer to the city of Mariupol from two sides, the Sea of Azov and Donbas, an apparent effort to cut off Ukrainian forces in southeastern Ukraine.

The slow advance in the north, Kirby said, is being used by Russia as a tactical “regrouping” as battles rage outside Kharkiv and Kyiv.

“They haven’t, from our best estimates, made any appreciable progress, geographically speaking, in the last 24 to 36 hours,” Kirby said at an afternoon briefing. “We believe the Russians are deliberately actually regrouping themselves and reassessing the progress that they have not made and how to make up the lost time.”

A Change in Tactics

A senior defense official told reporters earlier in the day that Putin had committed 82 percent of the forces that he had amassed on Ukraine’s borders since the fall.

“They remain stalled outside the city center,” the senior defense official said, summing up the lack of Russian progress in taking population centers after the first week of conflict.

The senior official confirmed that fuel and food shortages have ravaged the Russian military, leading to morale problems, including abandoned vehicles, and have prevented Russian forces from reaching city centers. As a result, Russia has increased its missile and artillery barrage of population centers, now targeting civilian infrastructure.

“Clearly, they’re hitting civilian targets. Clearly, they continue to cause civilian harm,” the senior official said while declining to confirm casualty numbers on either side. “At least in the media space, they’re doing it deliberately.”

On March 1, Russia struck a TV tower in Kyiv, limiting Ukrainians access to television channels. However, DOD said Internet access remains intermittent.

The senior official also said the Russian tactic of targeting civilian infrastructure has led to at times indiscriminate and imprecise artillery rocket fire into the cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv while ground troops failed to enter due to stiff resistance.

Russia has also failed to integrate its ground and air combat forces.

“They don’t appear to be integrating their combined arms capabilities to the degree that you would think they would do for an operation of this size and scale and complexity,” the senior official said.

Russia brought to the war in Ukraine combined arms capabilities, including armor, artillery, infantry, special operations, combat aviation, logistics, and sustainment.

“In addition to seeing some logistical and sustainment issues, [and] … a little bit of risk-averse behavior, … we are also seeing that the integration of these elements appears to be lacking,” the senior official said.

Meanwhile, U.S. defense assistance continues to arrive to Ukrainian forces.

“We are going to continue to flow security assistance to the Ukrainians, and we have done that, just even in the last 24 hours,” the official added.

Past defense assistance to Ukraine has included Stinger air defense systems, anti-tank Javelins, and ammunition.

ISR and Air Defense Assistance

“Ukraine needs additional deliveries of weapons, especially for our Air Force, now, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 3.

A defense official who spoke to Air Force Magazine on the condition of anonymity said the U.S. Air Force and NATO are conducting “a lot” of tactical-level discussions with the Ukrainian Air Force.

Earlier in the day, DOD confirmed that the air space over Ukraine remains contested with Ukrainian aircraft and air defenses still viable.

The ISR shared with the Ukrainian Air Force by the United States and NATO includes NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) data and data gathered by AWACS in NATO eastern flank air space as well as by satellites, radar systems, and radio and communications. The data is being used to help the Ukrainian Air Force develop an air picture of what’s flying and where, the official said.

Roughly 25 KC-135 and KC-10 refuelers from the United States, Turkey, and the Netherlands are supporting the effort, the defense official confirmed.

The U.S. Air Force is also sharing sensor data picked up by some 30 American fighter jets, including F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, and F 35s, operating on air policing missions on the NATO eastern flank.

“They can see a long way into Ukraine,” the official said.

The United States is not flying over the Black Sea, however, in order to avoid potential escalation with Russia, the official confirmed.

On Feb. 28, the European Union committed to providing $560 million in defense assistance to Ukraine, including transferring the same type of Soviet-era fighter jets that Ukrainian pilots fly. Discussions are underway for the transfer, which includes MiG-29s from Poland and Bulgaria.

The Defense Department is not involved in the fighter jet transfer.

“Our support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces right now is very largely in the form of security assistance, which continues to flow and gets into their hands,” Kirby said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine.

Believed to be at the helm directing the war, Putin has showed no indication he will let up despite international condemnation and strong Ukrainian resistance.

“We know that Mr. Putin wants to topple this government and replace it with his own,” Kirby said. “The Russians have a significant amount of combat power applied in Ukraine, and they still have some significant combat power that they have not engaged in the fight.”

Spark Tank Finalists: Turning Drones into Gliders with Aerial Towing

Spark Tank Finalists: Turning Drones into Gliders with Aerial Towing

March 2, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Department of the Air Force’s annual Spark Tank competition takes place March 4, when six teams will take to the stage at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla. Each team will pitch the most senior leaders in the Air and Space Forces on how their innovations can save money, improve the lives of Airmen and Guardians, and transform the department.

Air Force Magazine is highlighting one team each day from now through March 3. Today, we look at “Aerial Tow Rehookup—Novel Range Extension,” led by Cadet Grant Schlichting of the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Schlichting may be the youngest competitor among the Spark Tank finalists this year, but his idea has its roots deep in Air Force history.

Taking part in the glider program at the Air Force Academy, Schlichting noticed paintings of World War II gliders on the walls. Intrigued, he started doing research into the Air Force’s history with gliders and towing, ranging from D-Day to satellites.

“And I thought, ‘Well, gee, if we’ve done it in the past, why did we stop?’” Schlichting told Air Force Magazine.

Originally, Schlichting’s idea was to tow a battalion of tanks on a glider, but once he worked on it and found that “it’s kind of tough to make a glider that can tow a 200,000 pound tank,” he reshaped the concept, with encouragement from his mentors at USAFA.

The result is ATR—a system whereby drones can latch onto aircraft midflight using only a tow rope and mechanical connection and be towed to their destinations, extending their range. The idea would be especially vital, Schlichting argues, as the Air Force looks to develop autonomous drones to serve as “loyal wingmen” for fighters and bombers and as ISR assets.

Schlichting has been working on ATR for two years now, conducting research at the Academy, filing for a provisional patent, and using conferences and internships to learn more. The initial idea to enter Spark Tank, however, wasn’t his.

“I had a mentor of mine who was an upperclassman that got me interested in aero, he’s out doing great things in the big Air Force,” Schlichting said. “And he said, ‘Hey, you should throw your name in the hat.’ And I was kind of thinking about it. I didn’t really know if I had a chance just being a Cadet. But I said, ‘You know what, what the heck, let’s throw it out there and see if anybody thinks anything of it.’”

Schlichting is just the second Air Force Academy Cadet to be named a Spark Tank finalist—in 2019, Preparatory School Cadet Usama Bamieh reached the finals with a software program designed to help weather forecasters. Knowing Bamieh had made it that far, Schlichting said, encouraged him to enter the competition.

“And hopefully this will be an example for other cadets and other spark cells and people that may be new to the Air Force, that just because you’re new doesn’t mean that you don’t bring up a fresh perspective and a good idea that can help the future fight,” he said of making the finals himself.

For his Spark Tank pitch, Schlichting is asking for $1.2 million to fund a six-month program at the Academy for more research and testing. But regardless of whether his pitch wins or not, Schlichting already has the future path for the idea charted out.

“To continue with the risk reduction for flight tests, we’d like to go to the emerging technologies [Combat Training Squadron], which is at Edwards [Air Force Base, Calif.]. They’re well positioned to look at some autonomous docking and other application characteristics,” Schlichting said. “And then finally doing a manned flight test. So that would be using a C-130 or C-17 that is currently outfitted to do parachute drop tests, only we’d be testing their towing capabilities. 

“And then long-long-term, if it still has merit going through all these different stages, I’d like ATR to be a MIL-SPEC, so when new autonomous fighters and loyal wingmen come out, that they can either meet aerial refueling requirements or aerial towing requirements. So that way, I’m trying to get the system to be a methodology for the Air Force, not just for one drone [but] that any drone you can combine to it.”

At the end of the day, though, Schlichting said he doesn’t need to be involved in all of these future plans, something that going through the Spark Tank process taught him.

“I had to take a step back, going through all these rounds, and they’d give me feedback on how the pitch should go, and it was very useful. At first it was hard, because it’s my baby. I’ve been working on this for two years,” Schlichting said. “But once I kind of stepped back and said I’m just shepherding this idea along, this is to help the Air Force, that I was able to really grow.”

That’s not to say that he wants to walk away completely—Schlichting is hoping his first assignment will be to graduate school, where he would be able to serve as “innovation consultant, or the person that’s supposed to shepherd the idea.” After that, he hopes to go to Undergraduate Pilot Training, where he doesn’t anticipate much free time to work on ATR. Still, he wants to be “a reference for the program manager and the group that takes it forward.”

air force towing
U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Grant Schlichting poses with his invention, Aerial Tow Rehookup. U.S. Air Force Photo by Joshua Armstrong
  • Maj. Giselle Rieschick, 99th Medical Support Squadron, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.: “Blood Delivery by UAV”
  • Maj. Ryan Sheridan, 10th Air Base Wing, U.S. Air Force Academy: “Custom Facemasks for Fighter Pilots and Beyond”
  • Matthew Correia, Air University’s Eaker Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: “DAGGER: Developing Airmen and Guardians with Games for Enhanced Readiness”
  • Maj. Allen Black, 412th Test Wing, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.: “Project FoX (Fighter Optimization Experiment)
  • Senior Master Sgt. Brent Kenney and Tech Sgt. Matthew Connelly, 52nd Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany: ”Project Arcwater”
Senior Leaders’ Career Advice on How to ‘Be Ready’

Senior Leaders’ Career Advice on How to ‘Be Ready’

March 2, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Senior Air and Space Force leaders urged Air Force Academy cadets to be real and ready, during the Academy’s 2022 National Character and Leadership Symposium.

Four of the top officers and enlisted leaders from the Department of the Air Force answered cadets’ questions on the core topic of “Ethics and Respect for Human Dignity.” The yearly conference, held Feb. 25, exposes cadets to diverse perspectives from inside and outside the Air Force and Space Force.

Some of their insights:

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. on: 

Motivation out of failure: After reporting to Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, for his first operational assignment as an F-16 pilot, Brown failed his “check ride.” 

“You might imagine the impression you leave as you come into your new squadron as a brand-new lieutenant and failing the check ride,” Brown said. “And then I did the recheck. I passed, but I got some additional training because I didn’t quite make it all the way. And it was a motivator to me, for me to actually take a hard look at myself. … It’s not so much that you failed, but how you respond to the failure. It’s the attitude that you have. And I have a pretty positive attitude about a lot of things, and I was able to bounce back.”

Freedom to disagree: Brown said he encourages people to speak up when they disagree with him because, “I really believe iron sharpens iron.”

“I disagree with people all the time,” Brown said. “Sometimes as a leader, you really want to bring in those that disagree with you—because if you don’t, and you surround yourself with everybody who agrees with you, you’re going to have a blind spot. So I actually look for disagreement.

“One of the things I tell the deputy chiefs of staffs and our MAJCOM [major command] commanders: I want to have the meeting after the meeting in the meeting. Too often when we have a meeting, no one says anything because they don’t want to upset the Chief. And then what happens is, when they get in the hallway, when we turn off the video teleconference, now everybody has an opinion. I’d rather have those opinions in the meeting. I want to have the disagreements in the meeting. Because it’s going to help us to make a decision.”

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass on: 

Winning with diversity: When Bass looks to learn lessons from high-performing teams, she recognizes that “all of them value the diversity and the strengths and the talents for every single team member that’s on it.

“So as you’re getting ready to go out there and as you’re, you know, leading in the capacity that lieutenants might lead … I would offer: Go out there and know your folks and look at the talent and the strengths and the diversity that those folks bring to the team, and then consider those things.”  

Creating opportunities to connect with Airmen: Whereas Brown sets up breakfasts and brown-bag lunches to meet with troops where he travels, Bass likes to drop in unannounced:

“It’s about listening to your folks and providing opportunities to do that,” Bass said. “I love to just go in and visit places where they aren’t expecting me to be there and I’ll just cold pop in and be real and really ask, you know, what are some of the challenges you guys are going through—and also kind of humanizing myself.”

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson on: 

Focusing on today to be ready for tomorrow: When Thompson was a cadet at the Air Force Academy, he suspects he and the rest of his cadet squadron would have been “concerned” to discover the extent the country has now put the Air Force’s and Space Force’s “leadership in our hands.” He joked—but not entirely.

“And so what I would encourage all of you to do is: First, understand what your goals are—short-term goals, medium-term goals, and long-term goals. Understand what they look like. Think about the milestones and paths that you need to get there. But then don’t worry about them too much … 

“Don’t worry about the job you didn’t get. Don’t worry about your next job. Worry about what you’re doing today and what you need to do to prepare yourself for the future, and I assure you when that day comes—when somebody out there is sitting in this chair or that chair,” Thompson said pointing to his and Brown’s, “you’ll be ready.”

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman on: 

Getting input from everyone on the team: Whereas he supposes at one time “maybe leaders were best served by knowing the answers, I don’t think that time is now. 

“I think leaders now ask questions,” Towberman said. “Knowledge is all around you on that diverse team, and drawing that out—drawing those answers out—is probably the most important thing that you can do for the team. 

“And you can’t listen to everyone if you don’t pay attention to who’s maybe not voluntarily providing input and then drawing it out of them. There’s always going to be the person happy to give you a thought. If you’re really going to make your team effective, you’ve got to get thoughts from everyone.

“A diverse team is great—an inclusive team is what wins. And you’re inclusive when you get that input from everyone.”

Working through the ethical dilemma of what it means to kill: The military’s very existence poses an ethical dilemma, Towberman said, and being ready could come down to facing that fact upfront.

“We’re in the business of killing people, which we don’t think is OK, right?” Towberman said. “And I’ve had many instances in my career where seconds after I made a radio call, I knew someone was going to die. And they did. And I always, myself, knew that that was about saving lives and that there was a choice that needed to be made. But I’ll tell you, I never scrambled after the mission to find the video so I could high-five everyone over a life that was lost. 

“It’s a very serious business that we’re in, and the better that we wrap our heads around that from a very early age—the more open we are about talking about those hard choices—the more, the better we prepare for those, the easier we’ll navigate a real ugly, difficult business that we’re in.”

Biden’s Warning in State of the Union: US Will Defend ‘Every Inch’ of NATO Territory

Biden’s Warning in State of the Union: US Will Defend ‘Every Inch’ of NATO Territory

March 1, 2022 | By Amy Hudson

President Joe Biden, in his first State of the Union address, said Russian President Vladimir Putin “badly miscalculated” when he launched a “premeditated and totally unprovoked” attack on Ukraine a week ago. Instead of weakening NATO, Putin’s actions only strengthened the alliance, Biden said, and he vowed to protect “every inch” of allies’ territory. 

“Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways,” Biden said. “But he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he was met with a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.”

Ukraine’s strength and resolve in the face of Russia’s attack inspires the world’s democracies, Biden said, unifying and strengthening them. 

Putin “thought the west and NATO wouldn’t respond. He thought he could divide us at home, in this chamber, in this nation,” Biden said. “He thought he could divide us in Europe, as well. Putin was wrong. We are ready. We are united.” 

Noting that nearly 14,000 U.S. troops have either deployed or repositioned to NATO’s eastern flank, Biden emphasized they are not there to fight the war in Ukraine, but to protect NATO allies Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia and deter Russian forces from furthering their push west. 

“I’ve made it crystal clear,” said Biden, “The United States and our allies will defend every inch of … NATO territory with the full force of our collective power—every single inch.” 

Russian flights are now barred from U.S. airspace, he said, “further isolating Russia” and “squeezing” its economy. He said the U.S. Justice Department is forming a task force to go after Russian oligarchs, threatening to seize their “yachts, luxury apartments, and their private jets.” 

“We are choking Russia’s access to technology that will sap [it] of the economic strength and weaken its military for years to come,” Biden said. “Tonight, I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who built billions of dollars off this violent regime, no more.” 

Supporting Veterans Back Home

After 12 minutes on Ukraine, Biden spent the middle portion of his 62-minute speech on domestic affairs, pressing not just a Democratic agenda but exhorting non-partisan action on a range of issues from child care to tax fairness, the opiate crisis and prescription drug prices to the scourge of mental illness.

Then he pivoted again, praising America’s veterans as the “backbone and spine of this country,” and noting the nation’s “sacred obligation” to properly equip troops before they go to war and to care for them and their families when they return. He spoke of training, housing, and “debt-free” care for lower-income veterans. 

Biden also addressed illnesses tied to burn pits, once a controversial health care issue that the Pentagon sought to minimize. Burn pits were widely used to dispose of all manner of waste during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and Biden acknowledged that their fumes caused countless deaths and illnesses.  

“When [troops] came home, many of the fittest and best-trained warriors in the world were never the same,” he said. “Headaches. Numbness. Dizziness. A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin. I know,” Biden added: “One of those Soldiers was my son, Maj. Beau Biden. I don’t know for sure if a burn pit that he lived near in Iraq and earlier… than that in Kosovo was the cause of his brain cancer, or the diseases of so many of our troops. But I’m committed to finding out everything we can.” 

He announced the Department of Veterans Affairs will expand eligibility for care to veterans suffering from nine respiratory cancers and he called on Congress “to pass a law to make sure veterans devastated by toxic exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan finally get the benefits and comprehensive health care they deserve.” 

Biden concluded declaring that “The State of the Union is strong—because you, the American people are strong.

“We are stronger today than we were a year ago, and we will be stronger a year from now than we are today,” Biden said. “This is our moment to meet and overcome the challenges of our time, and we will, as one people. One America. The United States of America.”