B-52 Bomber Task Force Deploys to RAF Fairford

B-52 Bomber Task Force Deploys to RAF Fairford

Feb. 10, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

Four B-52s from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., deployed to RAF Fairford, U.K., on Feb. 10 for a notional three-week stay, during which they will exercise with NATO allies and partner nations.

En route to Fairford, the bombers, from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot, were intercepted by British Typhoon fighters and Portuguese F-16s exercising under the Icelandic Air Policing mission, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe release. Afterward they conducted a bilateral Joint Tactical Air Controller close air support exercise with British ground forces.

“The mission focused on enhancing readiness and interoperability for the controllers responsible for coordinating airstrikes to support ground forces,” USAFE said.

A U.S. Strategic Command spokesperson said the bomber task force was “long planned” but not previously announced. Such deployments typically last about three weeks, she said, but “could move to the right or left” depending on the security situation. Due to operational security, she could not discuss planned training engagements with NATO allies or other partners during the BTF.

Neither USAFE nor STRATCOM linked the bomber deployment to the unfolding security situation in Ukraine.

Air Force Global Strike Command confirmed that the bombers arrived in the U.K. but could not say how many support personnel deployed with the B-52s. Such deployments can involve as many as 200 people.

USAFE-AFAFRICA commander Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said that “with an ever-changing global security environment, it’s critical that our efforts with our allies and partners are unified.” Consistent collaboration and integration “is how we strengthen our collective airpower.”

A bomber task force of B-1Bs from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, deployed to Fairford for 45 days in October 2021, during which the aircraft conducted operations in the vicinity of the Black Sea and Baltic Sea, among other locations, practicing agile combat employment, Harrigian said at the time. The Lancers also practiced cooperative missions with F-35s from Norway.

The last B-52 bomber task for to deploy to Europe was from the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., in May and June 2021. During that deployment, the bombers operating the European, Indo-Pacific, and Middle East theaters.

Ramstein Air Base is Ready for a Russia Contingency, but Not a ‘Worst-Case Scenario’

Ramstein Air Base is Ready for a Russia Contingency, but Not a ‘Worst-Case Scenario’

Feb. 10, 2022 | By Abraham Mahshie

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany—The two 10,000-foot runways at Ramstein Air Base were quiet and the flight line was calm under overcast skies and a blistering winter wind Feb. 4 as base commanders from three wings juggled priorities from two theaters and prepared for a Russia contingency.

“That’s an ever-changing, crazy chess match in a lot of ways,” Brig. Gen. Joshua M. Olson, commander of the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein, told Air Force Magazine when asked if the air base is prepared to support contingencies related to tensions in the east.

“As contingencies go right now, again, I think we’re doing it, unfortunately, on the backs of our Airmen,” Olson added, describing demands by both U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command.

“As tensions in the East rise, that’s interesting, but there’s a lot of tensions in the South,” he explained. “We’re getting stretched thin as we’re pulled into all the things going on in AFRICOM, all the things going on in EUCOM, and then having to prioritize, OK, what one’s more important?”

Three wings at Ramstein—the 86th, the 435th Air Expeditionary Wing, and the 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing—support two theaters under United States Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa jurisdiction. With U.S. forces beginning to move to NATO’s eastern flank to reassure allies in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine, the 86th is preparing for what may come.

“We’re always ready,” the commander assured. “We have some tools. But again, it’s a full array of options that we have to be ready for, right? So, do we have worst-case scenario tools? No. Do we have the fight-tonight tools? Absolutely.”

U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said planning and movement of assets is already underway to defend NATO allies in the event of Russian aggression.

“We’ve been moving airplanes in support of NATO activities,” Harrigian told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the African Air Chiefs symposium in Kigali, Rwanda. Harrigian also leads U.S. Air Forces Africa and is dual-hatted as commander of NATO’s Allied Air Command, which is co-located at Ramstein.

“We’ve been able to work that between USAFE and AIRCOM because the planners are talking to each other,” Harrigian said. “It’s not only been the people,” he said, “but we’ve sorted out a lot of the interoperability challenges we’ve had of sharing info from our classified systems … to the NATO systems.”

USAFE public affairs chief Col. Robert A. Firman told Air Force Magazine at his Ramstein office that the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing has already moved forward to assist the Army’s deployment on the eastern flank, bringing multidisciplinary command and control and combat enablers to Poland and other locations. A NATO Baltic air policing rotation led by U.S. F-15s that ran Jan. 26-Feb. 4 also increased the frequency of its sorties.

The 3,000 Army Soldiers that made their way to the eastern flank did not pass through Ramstein but transited Germany at U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr at Vilseck on Feb. 3.

Firman said Ramstein was positioned to support President Joe Biden’s orders and the needs of the NATO alliance.

The spokesman pointed out the close level of coordination.

“We are working hard to stay in close touch with our NATO partners—we’re 200 meters away,” Firman said, noting the flurry of meetings taking place. “We’re getting ready for 24-hour ops, postured to be prepared for whatever happens.”

Olson shared the assessment that Ramstein is ready for whatever the Secretary of Defense or NATO partners require, whether that be loading C-130s, aeromedical evacuation, airlift, or airdrop needs. All will be ready.

“We are more than prepared for whatever Russia decides in Ukraine, and NATO decides to do,” he said.

Air Force Deploying F-22s to UAE, CENTCOM Boss Says

Air Force Deploying F-22s to UAE, CENTCOM Boss Says

Feb. 10, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force is sending a squadron of F-22s to the United Arab Emirates “over the next week or so,” U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. told the official UAE news agency Feb. 8.

The F-22 Raptors will be tasked with helping the UAE respond to recent drone and missile strikes by Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels that have killed several and threatened American personnel stationed in the Gulf nation.

“We’re going to bring in a squadron of F-22 fighters, the best air superiority fighter in the world, and they will also work with their UAE partners to defend the nation of United Arab Emirates,” McKenzie said in an interview with Emirates News Agency (WAM) during a visit to UAE.

In addition to the F-22s, the U.S. is also deploying the USS Cole, a guided missile destroyer, to help defend UAE, McKenzie said.

McKenzie’s comments follow up on a pledge by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III during a Feb. 1 phone call with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to deploy fifth-generation fighters to the country.

In his interview with WAM, McKenzie said, “we would like to work against drones what we call ‘Left of Launch,’ [which means] before they can be launched.”

“And if you can’t do that, you will certainly be able to shoot them down as they reach their intended target,” he added.

U.S. Central Command has yet to respond to an Air Force Magazine inquiry as to how many F-22s will be deployed to UAE and in what capacity the stealth fighters will be used.

Their arrival will come at a moment of high tension in the region. Houthi rebels have increased their launches into Emirati territory, though the UAE has been able to shoot several of those missiles down. McKenzie has pointed to Iran as the suppliers of those missiles. 

U.S. troops are stationed in UAE at Al Dhafra Air Base and have had to shelter in bunkers during some of these attacks. There have been no American casualties thus far.

F-22s haven’t deployed to UAE for several years now. In 2019, the service pulled the stealth air superiority fighters back from the region in an attempt to mend the fleet and reassess how it based the Raptors. Prior to that, F-22s had been based out of Al Dhafra in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.

How to Watch the Air Force’s First Olympian Since 2016 Compete in Beijing

How to Watch the Air Force’s First Olympian Since 2016 Compete in Beijing

Feb. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

In the morning hours of Feb. 11 in Beijing—which will be during the evening of Feb. 10 in the U.S.—Airman 1st Class Kelly Curtis will take to the ice at the 2022 Winter Olympics, sliding headfirst down a frozen course at breakneck speeds in the women’s skeleton.

Curtis, stationed out of Aviano Air Base, Italy, is the Air Force’s lone representative in this year’s Games. Here’s all you need to know about Curtis, her event, and how to watch.

Who is Kelly Curtis?

At 33 years old, Curtis is a member of the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program, which allows athletes to train full time in their sport while still completing training, professional military education, and other military requirements. 

Skeleton isn’t Curtis’ first sport. At Springfield College in Massachusetts, she was a heptathlete. According to a Team USA release, her coach at the time suggested she try bobsleigh. She did and was invited to a bobsleigh driving school program in Lake Placid, N.Y.

“During driving school, I saw and slid Skeleton for the first time and was intrigued right away,” Curtis said in an Air Force release. “After completing graduate school, I joined the USA Bobsled team for a season before switching to Skeleton full time.”

After several years of competing in skeleton as a civilian, Curtis joined the Air Force in 2020 as part of the WCAP, and is a cyber Airman. She was transferred to Aviano, and from there she was able to compete in skeleton’s World Cup circuit across Europe.

Curtis is not just the only Airman competing in the 2022 Olympics—she’s also the first Airman to compete in any Olympics Games since 2016. The WCAP has only recorded two other Airmen in the Winter Olympics since 1998, both of whom were alternates in the bobsleigh and didn’t compete.

On top of that, Curtis is also making history as the first Black athlete to represent the U.S. in the sport of skeleton.

Curtis Skeleton
Airman 1st Class Kelly Curtis making a run down the track on her sled as a member of USA skeleton team. Curtis recently enlisted in the Air Force under the service’s World Class Athlete Program, which will enable her to compete in her sport now and set her up for a career in the Air Force while she is competing. Courtesy photo.

How Does Skeleton Work?

Skeleton is a sliding sport that takes place on the same icy course as the bobsleigh and the luge. 

But while those in the bobsleigh get inside a sled and those in the luge slide on a sled feet first, athletes in skeleton lie on top of a sled and go face-first. Speeds can reach up to 90 miles per hour—in training heats, Kelly got past 75 miles per hour.

Each athlete is given four runs during the competition, with their place determined by cumulative time.

How to Watch A1C Curtis

The first heat for the women’s skeleton competition is scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 10—in Beijing, it will be 9:30 a.m. Feb. 11. Curtis is scheduled to go 17th out of 25 competitors.

The second heat is set to take place the same day after the first heat, tentatively at 10 p.m.

The third and fourth heats will take place the morning of Feb. 12—7:20 a.m. Eastern for Heat 3, 8:55 a.m. for Heat 4.

The first two heats will be televised live on the USA network, with the third and fourth heats scheduled to be broadcast a few hours after their conclusion, starting at 10:45 a.m. Eastern, also on USA.
All four heats will be streamed live on NBCSports.com and Peacock.

Six B-21s in Production, Fuel Control Software Already Tested

Six B-21s in Production, Fuel Control Software Already Tested

Feb. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The B-21 Raider continues to be a “model” program for the Air Force, with six of the new bombers currently in production and some of its software already validated through digital testing, a top general at Air Force Global Strike Command said Feb. 9.

Speaking at the 2022 Nuclear Deterrence Summit, Maj. Gen. Jason R. Armagost said the new stealth bomber will likely fly in 2022, echoing previous predictions by other Air Force officials.

“The B-21, going into the future, is going to be our penetrating, get inside the anti-access, area of denial, dual-capable aircraft,” said Armagost, the director of strategic plans, programs, and requirements at AFGSC. “There are now six of those in existence. The rollout will probably be some time this year. I’m not at liberty to give the likely date of that, but [it will be] quickly followed by first flight.”

In September 2021, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall stated that five B-21s were in production. In the past few weeks, another started, Armagost confirmed to Air Force Magazine.

The development of the B-21 has been aided by the Air Force’s embrace of digital technologies to speed up the process, Armagost added. 

“We are capitalizing on the revolution in digital—models-based systems engineering, open mission systems architecture software,” Armagost said. “As an example, the software for the fuel control system, which is a pretty complex thing, is completely done on an aircraft that hasn’t even flown yet as a test article, because of how we’re able to do models-based systems engineering. And they actually built a fuel systems model and tested the software, and the software is ready to go.”

It’s not the first time digital engineering has played a role in the modernization of the Air Force’s bomber fleet. Late last year, Rolls-Royce North America President and CEO Tom Bell said the company had digitally “built” a B-52’s wing with the company’s F130 engines installed to demonstrate its advantages and win the contract for the B-52 Commercial Engine Replacement Program.

Armagost noted that digital technologies have also been integrated into the B-21’s future sustainment.

“One of the things that I’m most excited about is the requirements for new systems that haven’t even flown … yet. The fact that there’s a modernization effort built into those already, right?” Armagost said. “So in the B-21, for example, there’s technologies that are explored that we can risk-reduce through other platforms, potentially, and integrate ahead of the aircraft even flying. And so it’s kind of an exciting way to get back to that models-based systems engineering [that] has kind of opened up some possibilities on sustainment, interacting with the environment in ways that are really useful to the future systems.”

At the moment, the development of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent to replace the Minuteman III system “is the No. 1 program in the Air Force,” Armagost said. But the B-21 is right up there with it, he added.

Armagost’s counterpart in the Navy, Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe, said during the panel discussion that his service is “line to line” with its nuclear modernization efforts, with new systems scheduled to hit the field just as the old ones hit the end of their service lives. Even though the Air Force isn’t quite there in its nuclear modernization plans, Armagost said the service is working to smoothly transition from one capability to the next over time.

“The transition is how we build in the flexibility within the existing capabilities to have an on-ramp that proves the viability of the oncoming system,” Armagost said. “ … Obviously, you know, when things happen or sustainment challenges arise, it can affect that, but we’re pretty comfortable right now with how we’ve planned for that, and how that on-ramp, off-ramp looks across those systems.”

The nuclear modernization effort, however, does face one potentially significant hurdle, particularly for missiles such as the GBSD and the Long Range Standoff Weapon: the production of plutonium “pits” that go in the center of nuclear warheads.

The National Nuclear Security Administration had set a goal of producing 30 pits per year by 2026 and 80 by 2030. But, “I think NNSA will readily admit they’re not going to make that requirement,” Wolfe said.

“We’re going to have to have some really tough discussions about, if we can’t get the requisite number of pits that we need for warheads in the future … at some point, we’re going to have a tough discussion about how many pits can we reuse? And if we reuse those, what does that mean to the design?” Wolfe said. Armagost added that “we have multiple paths for warheads within systems.”

E-8C JSTARS Battle Management Aircraft Spotted Operating from Ramstein

E-8C JSTARS Battle Management Aircraft Spotted Operating from Ramstein

Feb. 9, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak and Abraham Mahshie

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany—Two E-8C Joint Surveillance Attack Radar System aircraft used for watching large swaths of terrain for ground vehicle movements have been seen at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Ramstein is not a frequent operating location for the E-8C, and no exercise including JSTARS in the area has been announced.  

A spokesperson for the 461st Air Control Wing at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., home of the JSTARS fleet, could not discuss E-8C movements or operational activity.

However, a February 2021 USAFE-AFAFRICA  story indicated that the platforms would participate in training exercises and events to demonstrate “U.S. commitment to NATO allies, enhance interoperability with multinational partners, and deter any actions that destabilize regional security.”

Asked about the presence of the aircraft Feb. 9, USAFE spokesperson Col. Robert A. Firman could not describe the jets’ specific mission but told Air Force Magazine “it is certain that we have more ISR than normal now.”

The aircraft were observed and filmed during a visit to Ramstein by Air Force Magazine on Feb. 4. U.S. European Command did not immediately respond to inquiries from Air Force Magazine asking why the E-8Cs were present at Ramstein.

The Pentagon said the Air Force regularly conducts “fully coordinated” intelligence missions in allied and partner air space in the region.

“The U.S. routinely operates aircraft in the Black Sea region in support of various U.S. and coalition intelligence objectives,” Defense Department spokesperson Lt. Col. Anton T. Semelroth told Air Force Magazine in a statement.

“These missions demonstrate our continued commitment to safety and security in the region,” he added. “We will not comment on further operational details or possible future operations.”  

The aircraft may have been operating out of Ramstein for some time. Publicly available flight tracking services noted a solo E-8C flight over the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on Dec. 27 under the callsign Redeye 6. The same services tracked an RC-135V Rivet Joint, callsign Homer 19, operating in apparent conjunction with the E-8C in the same general area.

The JSTARS would be the ideal and a critical capability if NATO wished to observe the movements of the 150,000-strong Russian forces encircling Ukraine on three sides. Its 24-foot-long belly radar can scan hundreds of miles of terrain, building time-lapse and real-time imagery of the movements of large numbers of vehicles. It has the granularity to surveil the movements of individual vehicles, but its principal mission and battle management value is in observing the movements of large numbers of armored vehicles, providing battle data to Air Force and Army commanders.

A fact sheet provided by the Air Force said the JSTARS can provide U.S. forces with “detailed battlefield information on ground forces,” which can be relayed “in near-real time to Army and Marine Corps common ground stations, and to other ground command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence, or C4I nodes.” Its radar can be angled to provide a 120-degree field of view “covering nearly 19,305 square miles,” and it is capable of detecting targets “at more than 250 kilometers.” USAF said the JSTARS has the ability to detect helicopters, rotating antennas, and “low, slow-moving aircraft.”

The JSTARS requires a flight crew of four and an operator complement of 18 (15 Air Force, three Army) persons to run and process the radar imagery it collects. NATO contemplated buying its own JSTARS in the early 2000s but opted instead for a small number of RQ-4D Allied Ground Surveillance unmanned aircraft.

The Air Force has 16 JSTARS left of an original 18-aircraft fleet. The service abandoned a plan to replace them with the Boeing 767-based E-10, which would have also eventually adopted the E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System), but that program ended in 2007. The Air Force has subsequently indicated that, rather than replace JSTARS with a new aircraft, it prefers a networked system of sensors called the Advanced Battle Management System, which also will rely substantially on space sensors.

Congress has prevented the Air force from retiring JSTARS until the ABMS is operational, though the Air Force is anxious to retire the E-8C because the system was built on secondhand commercial 707s that suffer from a host of maintenance and “vanishing vendor” problems. The Air Force is moving ahead with re-engining plans after having previously dropped the effort when it announced the shift toward ABMS. New powerplants should aid in maintenance and availability, and provide more electrical power.

The 116th Air Control Wing, which operates the JSTARS, was the first “blended” wing in the service, putting Active-duty and Air National Guard Airmen in the same unit.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 3:05 p.m. on Feb. 10, with additional information from U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

Bloomberg Picked to Lead Defense Innovation Board

Bloomberg Picked to Lead Defense Innovation Board

Feb. 9, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has nominated media magnate and former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to be the chair of the Defense Innovation Board. 

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby announced that Bloomberg would lead the volunteer civilian advisory board during Kirby’s public briefing Feb. 9. At the same time, he announced that Austin had approved the DIB and several other boards for “resumption of operations.”

Board members must be approved for security clearances.

Kirby said Austin selected Bloomberg “to leverage his experience and strategic insights on innovation, business, and public service.” Bloomberg “brings a wealth of experience in technology, innovation, business, and government,” and his leadership will help ensure the department “has access to the best and brightest minds in science, technology, and innovation through the team of diverse experts he will lead as the chair of the board,” Kirby said.

University of Colorado Boulder scholar-in-residence and aerospace industry adviser Mark Sirangelo had succeeded past Google CEO Eric Schmidt as the DIB’s chair in 2020. 

Shortly after Austin’s confirmation as Defense Secretary in January 2021, he halted the work of more than 40 civilian advisory boards and their subcommittees, including the DIB, for a “zero-based review” of the boards’ usefulness. He ended the terms of what the DOD describes as “several hundred” civilian subject-matter experts in doing so—all those within the Secretary’s purview.

The Defense Department has not announced any changes from the review. Austin has since approved the resumption of 36 boards for reinstatement, including the following eight boards announced on Feb. 9:

  • Defense Innovation Board
  • National Security Education Board
  • National Security Agency Emerging Technologies Panel; the Advisory Board for the National Reconnaissance Office
  • Army Education Advisory Committee
  • Education for Seapower Advisory Board
  • Board of Visitors for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
  • Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Scientific Advisory Board
  • Board of Regents, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Defense Innovation Unit Closes In on $1B in Contracts

Defense Innovation Unit Closes In on $1B in Contracts

Feb. 9, 2022 | By Amanda Miller

The Defense Innovation Unit and its partnering Defense Department organizations transitioned six projects to programs of record in 2021, awarding contracts to eight companies in categories that ranged from assessing cyber threats to launching rocket payloads. 

A part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the DIU seeks out “commercial solutions” to DOD needs in hopes of rapidly prototyping, fielding, and scaling up the availability of the technology or service.

Transitioning the six projects brought the DIU’s total to 35 since its creation in 2015, according to the office’s 2021 annual report. The DIU works with other DOD entities such as combatant commands, the Missile Defense Agency, and the individual services to award the contracts.

The total value of all contracts awarded since June 2016 amounted to $892.7 million by the end of fiscal 2021. The DIU posted 26 new solicitations on DIU.mil during the fiscal year.

Contracts awarded in fiscal 2021 for DIU projects varied in type and included four executed by other transaction authority, or OTA. The prototype projects transitioned in fiscal 2021 include: 

Commercial Threat Data: LookingGlass Cyber Solutions received an OTA contract with a $14 million ceiling for “commercial cyber threat intelligence and analytics,” according to the annual report. “LookingGlass’ solution synthesizes global internet data with adversaries’ capabilities and motivations to provide a threat modeling environment that speeds up the cyber intelligence cycle and reduces the skill-barrier for advanced cyber analysis.”

Cyber Asset Inventory Management: IntelliPeak Solutions received an OTA contract with a ceiling of $164 million for its Axonius platform to incorporate data from across DOD “to understand all deployed assets, their current software and firmware, and their configurations.” The DIU estimated that contracting for the existing platform saved three years vs. developing something from scratch.

Cyberspace Deception: CounterCraft received a sole-source General Services Administration contract with a $30 million ceiling for a “cyber deception” platform “to proactively provide warnings of unauthorized activity and hunt for threats.” 

Installation Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems: Anduril received an OTA contract with a ceiling of $99.9 million for a system combining artificial intelligence and sensors to detect and warn against commercially available small UASs that “pose threats … when weaponized or deployed for surveillance.”

Generative Modeling of Hypersonic Missile Trajectories: C3.ai received an OTA contract for $2.5 million to “simulate the real-world trajectories of non-ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The company’s AI application “provides a multi-faceted development studio for data integration, operations, and security to expand simulation capabilities for non-ballistic and hypersonic missiles. 

Responsive Launch: Rocket Lab USA, Virgin Orbit subsidiary VOX Space, and Astra Space received Orbital Services Program-4 Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contracts for launching spacecraft up to 1,200 kilograms. Eleven companies in total may compete for OSP-4 launches. 

Here’s How the Air Force is Looking to Increase Stability, Decrease PCS Moves for Airmen

Here’s How the Air Force is Looking to Increase Stability, Decrease PCS Moves for Airmen

Feb. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Striking a balance between mission requirements and Airmen’s preferences is one of the biggest challenges for the Air Force’s talent management, the service’s personnel boss told Congress on Feb. 8.

And one of the trickiest aspects to that balance involves the permanent changes of station, or PCS moves, that so often define the lives of service members and their families, said Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services. 

“We have these requirements around the world that we have to meet, right?” Kelly told the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee. “So not all of our locations are garden spots. Not all of our locations allow you to take a family. So how do you do that, and how do you balance it?”

Kelly’s comments came in response to a question from Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who asked each of the personnel chiefs from the various services to identify the two biggest challenges to recruiting and retaining talent.

“The first thing I would say is balance of individual desires and needs with the balance of our force,” Kelly said. “We’re working hard to make accommodations. … For instance, we have Sikh Airmen. We have Muslim Airmen with different hair policies. We have a women’s hair policy that we did to help us attract and retain. We changed rule sets on putting hands in pockets and silly things like that.”

But permanent changes in station represent a challenge across the entire force. Frequent PCS moves can disrupt children’s educations, result in spousal unemployment, and cause an overall lack of stability, something lawmakers and officials said needs to be addressed.

For the Air Force, in particular, there’s actually slightly more stability than the other services. A 2016 Rand Corp. study found that the service had the longest average tour lengths for both officers and enlisted troops—roughly 34 months for officers and 53 months for enlisted Airmen. Those numbers have stayed relatively steady since, Kelly indicated.

“Right now, we have a tour length of about 51 months on station. That’s over four years on station here in the [continental U.S.] for our enlisted members, 39 months for our officers,” Kelly said. “When you go overseas, [it’s] about 47 months enlisted, 35 for officers. So balancing that out and being able to do that and give that stability is one of the challenges that we have, and we work hard to sort of balance those things together.”

However, Airmen can potentially lengthen their time on station and increase stability in two ways, Kelly said.

Instead of PCSing, some Airmen can opt for a “permanent change of assignment … that’s where you change your assignment but don’t change your location. About 20 percent of our moves already are PCA,” Kelly said. “We’ve had that for a number of years, and we continue to emphasize that.”

There’s also the service’s remote work and telework policy, which was unveiled in May 2021 and allows for more Airmen and Guardians to work remotely. While the policy was first crafted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kelly said, “we learned something,” and it is now being used to help families by eliminating the need for PCS moves in some cases, “particularly for staff assignments.”

“I have a person on my staff who lives in Louisiana, one who lives in Texas, who are now assigned to the A1 here in the Pentagon, who never PCSed,” Kelly said. “They remote work from down there, they do their things. Every once in a while they come TDY to the Pentagon, but they never moved. We saved PCS dollars, and they live in the same location where they were.”