Space Force’s Top Spouse Wants to Connect With Loved Ones of Guardians

Oct. 4, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The wife of the Space Force’s first Chief of Space Operations is opening up channels of communication to try to connect with the loved ones of members, including an email newsletter to which she hopes to add subscribers.

The newness of the Space Force provides “an opportunity to build a culture of care, and connection, and support with our family members and our loved ones,” said Mollie Raymond, wife of Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, during a town hall talk on families during the Air Force Association’s 2021 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

And because of its small size, she suggested that the service could “do things a little creatively.”

Mollie Raymond’s October 2021 newsletter includes a rundown of recent developments in the service including the publication of the USSF’s talent management plan, The Guardian Ideal; the previewing of uniform prototypes; and the transfers of five units from the Army and Navy into the Space Force.

She invited loved ones to subscribe to the newsletter and to connect with her on her official LinkedIn page, Facebook, or Twitter, where she encourages followers to contact her with any questions.

As of the town hall, she had about 1,300 addresses on her mailing list. “Tell your spouses,” she said. “Tell your loved ones. Tell your extended family members.” She hopes recipients will feel “supported and informed and connected,” she said. “I have parents reaching out—moms and dads—and I couldn’t be more pleased about that.”

During his earlier conference keynote speech, Gen. Raymond took the opportunity to provide some advice on the family front.

“Do me a favor: When you’re done today,” he said, “call back home and say thanks.” Because, he added later at the town hall: “When you’re done—when your career is all over—the only thing you have is your family.”

Lockheed Martin Opens New Hypersonic Missile Factory

Oct. 4, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin opened a new “smart” factory in Alabama where the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) will be manufactured, along with hypersonic systems for the Army and Navy, the company announced Oct. 4. The opening of the factory is noteworthy in that the ARRW has yet to make a successful flight.

The 65,000-square-foot facility, to be called Missile Assembly Building 4 (MAB 4), in Courtland, Ala., will also be used to build the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) missile, Lockheed Martin said in a press release. Those two systems have major components in common, including the hypersonic glide body vehicle itself. The Air Force was also a partner on that project—under the name Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon, or HCSW—until it decided to pursue the ARRW exclusively in February 2020.

The move “represents Lockheed Martin’s commitment to establishing northern Alabama as the base of the company’s hypersonic strike programs,” the company said. MAB 4 is actually the second facility at the site for building the CPS.

Air Force leaders at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September said a root cause analysis of the ARRW’s failure in a July test is still underway. The missile was originally to fly before the end of 2020 but has only succeeded in captive-carry tests so far. Getting the missile into production by the end of fiscal 2022, as the service has long planned, will require a “quick resolution” to the July failure and two successful flight tests, USAF’s program executive officer for weapons Brig. Gen. Heath A. Collins said in August.

If the root cause analysis is “prolonged” or drives an “excessive … redesign” it will affect the Air Force’s ability to make the next test window, Collins said at an Air Force Life Cycle Industry Days program. The Air Force has requested $161 million in the fiscal 2022 budget for 12 missiles. The cause of an April 2021 ARRW failure is understood and was corrected, and it did not manifest in the August re-attempt, Collins said.

He also said that if ARRW proves unworkable, “we can always go back to HCSW.”

Lockheed Courtland — An example of a digital tool used for assembly processes at Lockheed Martin’s recently opened Missile Assembly Building 4 in Courtland, Ala. Lockheed Martin photo.

The new facility is one of four “intelligent factory” sites Lockheed Martin is opening this year. In August, it opened one at its “Skunk Works” advanced development unit in Palmdale, Calif., for manufacture of secret prototype and operational systems, presumably unmanned vehicles, and the Air Force’s new Next Generation Air Dominance system. Skunk Works head Jeff A. Babione told reporters at the opening ceremony that Lockheed Martin will build the initial examples of ARRW at Palmdale then hand off production to the company’s Missiles and Fire Control unit in Alabama.

The MAB 4 “integrates critical digital transformation advancements, such as robotic thermal protection application capabilities; smart torque tools and mixed-reality capabilities for training and virtual inspection,” the company said. It will link digitally with the other new facilities for production and other activities “to enable unprecedented insights into the health, status, and optimization of operations.”

Lockheed Martin continues to “make significant investments in the development and manufacturing of hypersonic systems to counter rapidly-emerging threats from near-peer adversaries,” it said in a press release.

The company has added 117,000 square feet of manufacturing space at its Courtland plant over the past two years, and the opening of MAB 4 will add 70 jobs to the local economy, the company said. Lockheed Martin has about 2,600 employees in Alabama already. It makes the Air Force’s AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Missile in Troy.

Van Ovost Confirmed to Lead TRANSCOM; AMC Change of Command is Oct. 5

Oct. 4, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

The Senate on Oct. 1 confirmed Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost to be the next head of U.S. Transportation Command, making her just the third woman to lead a unified combatant command.

Van Ovost, the Defense Department’s only female four-star general and the commander of Air Mobility Command since August 2020, is a command pilot with more than 4,200 flight hours accumulated in more than 30 aircraft, including the KC-46A Pegasus, KC-135R, C-141B, C-17A, and C-32A. The 1988 Air Force Academy graduate has commanded at the squadron, wing, and major command levels. She’s also served as director of staff for Headquarters Air Force, vice director of the Joint Staff, director of mobility forces for U.S. Central Command, and vice commander of the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center, according to her bio.

She will assume command from Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons.

Lt. Gen. Mike Minihan, deputy commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, will pin on his fourth star in a private ceremony the morning of Oct. 5 and then take command of Air Mobility Command from Van Ovost in a ceremony at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., at 10 a.m. CST. Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. will officiate the ceremony.

During her Sept. 24 confirmation hearing, Van Ovost said the U.S. addressed its aerial refueling capability gap when the KC-46 Pegasus was cleared for limited operations. But she said the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve tanker fleets will need to continue an increased operational tempo until the Pegasus reaches initial operational capability and is cleared for combat ops.

President Joe Biden nominated Van Ovost on March 6 along with Army Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson, who was tapped to lead U.S. Southern Command.

“Each of these women have led careers demonstrating incomparable skill, integrity, and duty to country,” Biden said at the time as Van Ovost and Richardson stood by his side at the White House. Having both of them lead combatant commands shows young girls and boys that “this is what generals in the United States armed forces look like,” Biden added.

Richardson was confirmed for her fourth star and to be the next commander of U.S. Southern Command by unanimous voice vote in August. That change of command has not yet taken place.

Pratt Testing XA101 Adaptive Engine, Has Two Offerings for F-35 Propulsion

Oct. 1, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Pratt & Whitney is testing its new XA101 Adaptive Engine Transition Program powerplant and expects to conclude testing its two examples by the end of next year, company military engines division president Matthew Bromberg revealed in an interview. He expects that two-thirds of the technology developed from AETP could find its way into earlier engines now flying with the Air Force.

The company is “thrilled” to have two options available for the Air Force and F-35 partners to choose from for an upgrade to the fighter’s propulsion system, Bromberg said. GE Aviation has developed the XA100 AETP engine as a competitor to Pratt & Whitney’s version.

Testing of “our first new fighter engine in 30 years … was successful,” Bromberg said. The first XA101 and its twin will shuttle back and forth between Pratt & Whitney’s facilities and the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Center in Tullahoma, Tenn., for the next year or so, generating more data. The Air Force and F-35 Joint Program Office will use the data to help decide whether the F-35 should get an all-new powerplant—one of the AETP engines—or take Pratt & Whitney up on its offer of an enhanced version of the F135 engine already in the F-35 fighter.

Pratt & Whitney succeeded in achieving the AETP’s goals, which were to obtain 10 percent improvement in thrust and 25 percent improvements in both fuel efficiency and thermal management, Bromberg said. “We know we can do that,” he said.

“Job 2” is to determine whether the engine will last, and further testing will assess Pratt &Whitney’s use of new materials, created both in traditional ways and through additive methods, to demonstrate that the powerplant can go “years between scheduled maintenance events.” Continued testing will assess how those “structures and materials are performing,” he said.

However, “we’re not going to test everything you would do in a full-blown” engine development program, he said. “We’re going to test items we want to risk-reduce; we want to make sure we understand how the engine will perform at this point in the program.”

The intent of the AETP was “always … to create a sixth-generation propulsion system and an adaptive engine,” Bromberg said. “Now the debate is focusing on modernizing the Joint Strike Fighter. And we think it’s a good time to have that debate.”

Bromberg said he expects that up to “70 percent … of the technologies we’ve developed in the adaptive architecture … will go into other engines as derivative technologies.” This will not include the third-stream adaptive technology itself, but the materials, accessories, and “other mechanical systems” that go with the engine, Bromberg said. “It’s a big part of how you drive efficiency of the engine and control the entire cycle.”

He cautioned that these technologies would need to “buy their way in” to upgrades to the F100 and F119, used on the F-15 and F-16, and F-22, respectively, but “two-thirds-ish could be leveraged” for those earlier systems, and “obviously, every future engine that we design will leverage that entire technology suite.”

The AETP, as sixth-generation engine technology, is “the future of Air Force propulsion,” Bromberg said. It has been “an incredibly successful program” in advancing the state of the art in engine technology.

The AETP achieves better thrust while also improving fuel efficiency by adding a third air stream, which can also be used for cooling. Air Force and JPO leaders have said they will need more thrust and cooling in the F-35 in order to get full capability out of the Block 4 version of the fighter, set to start coming off the production line in 2023.

The House Armed Services Committee, in its markup of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, directed the JPO to develop a plan for mating AETP engines to the F-35 fighter by 2027.

Neither Pratt & Whitney’s XA101 nor GE’s XA100 will fit in the F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing version, however. Bromberg said the reason has to do with the three-bearing swivel nozzle employed by the F-35B being “incompatible” with the third-stream architecture. It might be possible to use the AETP engine in the Navy’s F-35C carrier version, Bromberg said, if the arresting hook system could be moved to accommodate it. He said Pratt & Whitney has had discussions with Lockheed Martin to that effect.

“We could modify it to fit around some of the unique elements of the adaptive engine, but that’s work to be done,” he said.

What happens now is “up to the services,” Bromberg said. “There’s a recognition that we need to modernize the propulsion system in the Joint Strike Fighter,” and Pratt is “unique” in having two solutions to that requirement. But each has its “advantages and disadvantages.” An upgraded F135 wouldn’t have all the advantages of adaptive technology, but using the AETP would require establishing multiple engine support lines for the fighter.

Air Force Research Lab Prototyping DevSecOps Approach for Avionics Hardware

Oct. 1, 2021 | By Shaun Waterman

To build aircraft and weapons systems that are cybersecure by design and hardened against hacking during development, the Air Force plans to take the radical new DevSecOps approach it has pioneered in its software factories and apply it to avionics hardware and embedded systems.

Prototyping that approach is one of the the objectives of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Agile and Resilient Platform Architectures (ARPA) program, launched last year, which began issuing task orders in August, awarding two, each worth up to $200 million, one to Ball Aerospace and the other to Booz Allen Hamilton.

“Just like what the Air Force is doing with Platform One for software, the AFRL vision is to be able to do this for avionics, writ large,” Booz Allen Hamilton Vice President Kevin Coggins told Air Force Magazine.

The BAH task order envisions an end-to-end multivendor digital design and development architecture called an Open Digital Automated Architecture. ODA2 “combines digital engineering, software factories, and current AFRL advanced avionics architecture technologies to advance warfighting capability for current and future Air Force weapon systems,” according to a “statement of objectives ” from AFRL.

ODA2 is important, Coggins explains, because contemporary aircraft, often referred to as platforms, are complex systems of systems—airframe, engines, flight control, weapons—each built by different vendors, which means different, often geographically distant, or even competing, teams of engineers.

“They’re all made by different design teams who didn’t talk to one another; they’re made in different years; they’re built thinking about different cyber or other threats. And then they all come together on the platform,” Coggins said.

But that integration, the way the systems connect together, can create or reveal previously undiscovered vulnerabilities. “So you do an assessment of the platform, right after you start to fly it, and you find out you’ve got all these threats and vulnerabilities now. But to fix them, you’ve got to go back to the same vendors and their individual processes. Each one is trying to fix the same vulnerability, and it’s just not coordinated. And you are going to start spending money.

“How do you ever stay in front of the threat like that?” he asked.

ODA2 will be a collaborative environment, Coggins said: “The work we won is to set up an environment that allows you to solve that problem of time and geographies and different vendors, because they’re using common model-based system engineering [or “digital twin”] approaches, common testing procedures against known threats, and even common [software] libraries for certain things.”

Those common elements were a key part of the ODA2 value proposition, Coggins explained, because it enabled centrally devising a fix for a new vulnerability in some widely used component, for example, and then allowing it to ripple out “in a unified way across vendors and platforms. That’s what we lack today.”

Fixing a single vulnerability once, rather than separately in every different program and platform it affects, would have big cost implications, Coggins pointed out. In the current environment, “Sometimes we decide not to address a vulnerability because it’s not affordable.” The common code libraries and standardized architectures of ODA2 would “bring a lot more [vulnerabilities] into that affordable bucket.”

Common or reusable components could also help speed certification requirements and other red tape that might delay new capabilities, he said. “Through this reuse, and through this ability to test once and deploy anywhere, you can really accelerate that testing timeline.”

ODA2will have three elements, Coggins said.

The digital development environment (D2E) will enable cost savings by rigorously testing software packages and then reusing them across different avionics systems.
The digitally integrated collaboration environment (DICE) is where the Air Force can lay down baseline standards, provide common software libraries or components, and test out how vendors’ solutions interact with each other.
The digitally integrated flight environment (DIFE) is where digital twins of the finished platforms are put through their paces and tested. “It creates this digital environment that enables you to buy down risk across multiple avionics design projects, versus one at a time,” said Coggins.

“In the D2E, I build it,” explained Coggins. “In the DICE, I integrate it with everyone it talks to. But in the DIFE, I prove that I integrated it right and built it right.”

The five-year award is worth up to $200 million, and the work will be done in Beavercreek, Ohio, outside Dayton.

Air Force Activates First F-35 Squadron in Europe Ahead of Fighters’ Arrival

Oct. 1, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

In a move more than five years in the making, the U.S. Air Force activated its first squadron of Europe-based F-35As at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., on Oct. 1, as the service prepares to deliver the first fighters in the coming months.

The 495th Fighter Squadron was activated exactly 30 years after it was designated as a fighter squadron in 1991. Just a few months after that, though, the squadron was inactivated.

In 2015, the Air Force announced that Lakenheath would be the first base in Europe to get the new F-35 fighter, and in September 2020, U.S. Air Forces in Europe announced it was reactivating the 495th under the 48th Fighter Wing.

The 495th will consist of 27 F-35s and around 60 personnel, according to a 48th Fighter Wing release announcing the squadron’s activation. The Air Force plans to eventually base a total of 48 F-35s at Lakenheath in two squadrons.

The first F-35s were originally slated to arrive in Europe in 2020, but construction delays bumped the activation to 2021.

Lt. Col. Ian D. McLaughlin assumed command of the 495th on Oct. 1. The squadron will be nicknamed the Valkyries, after the female figures in Norse mythology who choose who will live or die in battle.

The F-35s are set to start arriving in December, U.S. Air Forces in Europe boss Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian told reporters at a media roundtable at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in late September, a timeline McLaughlin echoed in a statement released Oct. 1.

“Today is an exciting day. There has been a great deal of work done to get us this far, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done prior to getting jets this winter,” McLaughlin said. “The 495th has a proud history, and we’re excited to take the guidon forward to start building the foundation for [the] first USAF F-35As stationed in Europe.”

With American F-35s arriving in Europe for the first time, the Air Force will be able to integrate and operate with its partners in the region, who also operate the F-35, like never before, Harrigian said at the AFA conference.

“We’ve already got some pretty good plans as we start thinking about how we leverage that capability, particularly with many of our partners that already have F-35s in the theater. I really think it’ll be a truly important step as we continue to demonstrate the importance that the F-35 has baked into it from an interoperability perspective,” Harrigian said.

A number of American allies and partners have already received F-35s from Lockheed Martin, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Israel. Switzerland announced in June that it would buy the stealth fighter as well.

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, speaking at an event in June, predicted that between the U.S. and its allies and partners, there will be 450 F-35s in Europe by 2030.

Aerospace: ‘A Story Every Airman and Guardian Should Tell’

Oct. 1, 2021 | By Scott King

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John E. Hyten explained the history of the term “aerospace” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 22, as well as his view on why air and space, even when represented by separate military services, must remain inextricably linked.

Read also John T. Correll’s article, “Air and Space and Aerospace” from the October 2016 issue of Air Force Magazine.

Building on a Proven Platform, Salesforce Eases IT Modernization

Oct. 1, 2021

Paper-based processes are giving way to digital solutions across the military, but the transition from spreadsheets to apps can be tricky. IT modernization efforts “frequently fail to deliver capabilities in a timely manner, incur cost overruns, and/or experience schedule slippages,” noted an April 2021 Government Accountability Office report. Often, the mission gets lost.

One reason many programs go off the rails is that contractors and IT departments try to reinvent the wheel rather than leverage available solutions. Digital platforms, such as Salesforce, offer an express route to problems by providing low-code and no-code solutions using proven, secure cloud technologies.

If you’ve ever used TurboTax or ordered a Domino’s Pizza online, then you’ve used the Salesforce platform without even knowing it. Chances are, your bank and favorite online retailers are also running their systems on the Salesforce platform. Loaded with built-in analytics and artificial intelligence, that same platform can answer a host of defense requirements.

“Anything that can be done manually—spreadsheets, emails, clipboards, checklists—can be converted into a digital workflow,” said Tahera Zamanzada, a principal in digital strategy at Salesforce. That’s true whether you’re running an Air Force logistics program or managing personnel.

Use Cases

The terms “platform” and “platform-as-a-service” can sometimes be confusing. Salesforce is a computer architecture that lives in the cloud; because it’s in the cloud, organizations don’t need to buy or build out the hardware they need to use it. Rather, they can run applications on top of that platform in the cloud and scale to whatever their need is now or in the future. Rather than build those applications from scratch, government IT managers can pick and choose from existing apps and automated processes, accelerating the pace of modernization.

Consider personnel-use cases, such as recruiting, transitioning, separations, and retirements, for example, said Michael Parker, former CIO and for the Air Force’s Manpower, Personnel and Services Department, and a business development VP at Salesforce. “Every interaction can be managed and handled as a single entry point through the SalesForce platform. You’re simply utilizing repeatable workflows to support those business services.”

Board management processes can use the same tools. “Any case that’s managed can be easily and seamlessly built out on the Salesforce platform,” Parker said.

Logistics is another common-use case, simplifying inventory management. Parachute management is a notoriously paperwork-heavy process with the need to carefully document what happens every time that parachute is touched. A digital platform like Salesforce is a natural fit, Zamanzada said. “There’s a digital workflow for it which allows you to do our end-to-end processing, packing, repacking, inspection,” she said. “You know everything from start to finish.”

Platform Approach

Built into the Salesforce platform is a coordinated set of tools, proven security meeting a range of federal requirements, and baseline configurations with a built-in governance model. Those tools enable “drag-and-drop” development rather than a coding task, Zamanzada said. “Sometimes you feel like coding, but most of the work can be done without any type of heavy lift and shift.”

Development then becomes a no-code or low-code process, using existing building blocks. Once the foundational capability is in place, repeatable workflows support incremental development efforts and help ensure timely delivery of needed capabilities.

“Everything is agile and iterative, and constantly being improved upon, versus the kind of long-term waterfall approach to delivering yesterday’s requirement tomorrow,” Parker said.

Moving to the cloud has its costs, but Parker points out that staying put with a legacy system is no bargain, either. “Legacy portfolios are costly and contain technical debt,” he said. “It’s the data center costs, managed-services cost, it’s integration, sustainment, maintenance. A lot of that technical debt can be avoided when you move to Software as a Service and the Salesforce platform.”

Supporting Security

Security and compliance are built in and updates are managed centrally.

“Customers really do inherit the majority of the security controls from Salesforce,” Zamanzada said. “We provide numerous enabling resources, training, and implementation. We help them feel comfortable knowing that their data will be safe and secure on our platform.”

Forensic capabilities are also baked in to ensure compliance with government regulations for data retention and auditability. “We do everything from platform encryption to event monitoring,” Zamanzada said. “The auditing logs are all there, they’re archived and available for up to 10 years.”

Human-centered Design

Salesforce built its success by focusing on the customer, rather than the IT manager, and Parker said that focus is central to its strategy today. It’s about easing the modernization process, which inevitably involves overcoming cultural resistance to process or other changes that come with new digitally enabled processes.

“Culture is everything, It’s the structures and the rituals of an organization. And you have to understand the culture in order to transform the workforce and business environment with modern technology by utilizing change management principles,” Parker said. “Concepts like human-centered design and leveraging the voice of the customer are so important, because that is how you pull everyone in.”

Whose Data is it Anyway?

Central to any modernization strategy is protecting intellectual property—that is, the organization’s data—and ensuring that data is accessible and portable should a time come in the future when another change is necessary. IT managers have learned from experience to beware of vendor lock-in, which can keep them in an unhappy marriage because moving is too hard or expensive, as well as data ownership.

Zamanzada acknowledges this. “Vendor lock-in is a real fear,” Zamanzada said. People don’t want to be trapped in a single pathway or solution set.

“We get that,” she said. “Your data is your data at Salesforce. We consider ourselves the guardians of the data, but it’s your data. You become an annual subscriber to our platform. If for any reason you feel unhappy—which I doubt you will—you can say, ‘Give me my data,’ and you’re on your way.”

Contractor Logistics Services: A Way of Life

Oct. 1, 2021

Service to God, Country, and Family fuels Texas-based King Aerospace. Winning a contractor logistics support contract in 1992 launched King Aerospace and, from that day, established it as a mission-ready, no-excuses aviation services provider.

King’s first CLS contract supported U.S. Air Force E-9A information-gathering aircraft at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. The aircrews of these airborne surveillance/telemetry data-relay aircraft evaluate the air-to-air capabilities of Air Force fighter aircraft and collect data on fired missiles. E-9As also sweep the Gulf of Mexico to ensure it is clear during live missile-test launches. The King team supplied parts, maintenance technicians, mission equipment operators, and engineers.

“CLS isn’t just a job for us. It’s a privilege, an honor, and a calling,” says King president Jarid King. “For three decades we’ve witnessed countless providers get into—and out of—contractor logistics. We stayed and doubled down, refining our services to deliver greater and greater value. Whether we’re serving as a prime contractor or subcontractor, we view CLS responsibilities as our patriotic duty as Americans.”

Part of that duty means delivering maximum value. One of King’s first deliverables for the E-9A contract was to purchase $2 million of spare parts. King shopped for the best prices and came back with the needed parts for half a million under budget. The result: The government asked King to purchase another $500,000 in parts. King did and once again found savings, this time securing 25% more parts for the budget.

It’s About the Mission

Over the years, the company has gained performance-based experience supporting the U.S. government and all branches of the military—Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy/Marine Corps, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security. CLS remains a primary focus.

While many CLS providers average five to 10 years for contract retention, King Aerospace typically keeps contracts from 10 to 18 years. Because of this longevity, King often acts as the stabilizing factor as military forces rotate in and out. King shepherds the new personnel as they transition in. More work frequently comes King’s way, which only happens when you’re delivering at a high level.

At King, serving America’s men and women in uniform is a commitment greater than contractual. Talk to team members and you quickly discover a dedication to service greater than self and to the company’s cornerstone principles covering everything from mutual respect and trust to problem-solving and quality in everything.

Most of the military aircraft King supports are commercial-derivative aircraft not designed for military needs. King understands how to modify and maintain these aircraft for the military’s use. It’s also more cost effective for the government—and taxpayers—than building military-specific aircraft and maintaining special parts for them. Aircraft CLS programs cover a wide scope of services from field support technicians who provide maintenance at the flight line to supply-chain management. King does it all.

Meeting exacting military specifications isn’t easy, but King has developed processes and procedures to ensure it does. The military expects MROs to meet the highest standards as they manage and maintain government-owned aircraft fleets and subcontract work from major defense contractors. It helps that the expected highest-possible quality aligns with the operations King has in place for its corporate and VVIP aircraft, including the Boeing Business Jet. King was honored as the 2019 Boeing Supplier of the Year for collaboration.

This E-9A aircraft recently made an unscheduled fuel stop at King Aerospace’s facility in Ardmore, Okla. The contract to support this mission-critical aircraft for Tyndall Air Force Base launched King Aerospace in 1992. Pictured here: Founder and Chairman Jerry King.

Ensuring Troops’ Mission Readiness

King Aerospace operates AS9110C-certified facilities and FAA repair stations at Biggs Army Airfield, Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas; Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, N.M.; and Camp Humphreys, South Korea. It also operates 24/7 logistics outposts around the world, even in the most remote, hostile, and harsh locations. Hearing gunfire—or being shot at—is not unusual.

“Sometimes our CLS services take us to some pretty sticky places, so these programs are not for the faint hearted,” says Jarid King. “The men and women who wear the King Aerospace wings could use those challenges as an excuse, but do not. They get the job done.”

Troops can’t fly if aircraft don’t. King’s team rapidly deploys wherever and whenever needed. It’s no small thing to get parts and people into challenging environments where travel is restricted. It calls for dedicated, mission-focused people who do the right thing for the right reasons with the right attitude when no one is looking. Because many of King’s team members are themselves veterans, they embrace King Aerospace’s passion for God, Country, and Family. They treat each other like brothers and sisters.

“I witness acts of servant leadership everywhere I look,” Jarid King says. “Our team members have each other’s back—and our military’s.”

Equipping Warfighters to Win

As a privately owned, family-focused business, King has proven itself over time. Since 2017, it has maintained the Army’s Special Electronic Mission Aircraft (SEMA) fleet used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). These include highly modified King Air (C-12), De Havilland Canada Dash 7 (DHC-7) and Dash 8 (DHC-8) turboprop aircraft.

It’s also provided aircraft services for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) since 2019. The transportation of national security assets falls under NNSA’s Office of Secure Transportation (OST). The fleet of Boeing 737-400 and DC-9 passenger/cargo aircraft, housed at Kirtland Air Force Base, move national security cargo to NNSA customers, support DOE emergency capabilities and transport federal-agent task forces.

In March 2021, King Aerospace was recognized along with the Office of Secure Transportation Aviation Operation Division as the best aviation organization within the DOE for FY2020. Craig Campbell, King Aerospace flight operations specialist for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Secure Transportation, Aviation Operations Division, received the Federal Interagency Committee for Aviation Policy (ICAP) Aviation Professional Award for Operational Support. King Aerospace team member and nominee Arthur Ray earned the DOE’s Maintainer Award.

“The urgent nature of the aircraft support services we provide as a government prime contractor makes these honors extremely meaningful and gratifying,” says Greg Mitchell, King Aerospace vice president of government services. “Our no-excuses culture and proactive problem solving uphold the DOE’s overarching mission to ensure America’s security and prosperity. It’s a role we proudly fulfill.”