F-35 Completes Final Test for Nuclear-Capable B61 Series Weapons

Oct. 5, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

American deterrence efforts came one step closer to a critical new level when the Air Force proved a stealth fighter is capable of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon inside hostile territory, Air Combat Command confirmed Oct. 4.

The F-35A is the first fifth-generation fighter to near certification as a nuclear-capable platform after completing the first full weapon system demonstration and completing the nuclear design certification process. During the demonstration, two F-35s dropped B61-12 Joint Test Assemblies (JTAs), which mimic a real-world tactical gravity nuclear weapon, at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

“It makes our potential adversaries think more about their game plan before launching it,” Air Combat Command deputy director for strategic deterrence Lt. Col. Douglas A. Kabel told Air Force Magazine.

“It can get closer to, further inside a combat area that may otherwise be impossible for non-stealth assets,” Kabel added.

Air Combat Command’s 422nd and 59thTest and Evaluation Squadrons, based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., flew the final flight test exercise for the aircraft to receive nuclear design certification. Test data is now under review at the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to ensure the F-35A and B61-12 JTAs performed correctly.

The next step is nuclear operational certification to ensure training and validation of maintenance and air crews at desired wing locations where nuclear-capable F-35 missions exist. Approval would mean the United States has a fighter capable of hitting targets with tactical nuclear weapons inside hostile territory without detection.

“What happened was for the first time, an operationally representative F-35 aircraft executed a drop of a B61-12 Joint Test Assembly, which is basically exactly like a B61 that comes out of the nuclear stockpile without the physics package in it—the part that makes it go ‘boom,’” Kabel explained. “It can get closer, and with a gravity type of weapon, the closer you can get to your actual target, the more likely it is you’re going to hit it.”

Lt. Col. Daniel Jackson, headquarters ACC strategic deterrence and nuclear integration division chief, said the B61 series weapons can be used on other dual-capable aircraft such as the F-15E and F-16 C/D.

“Having a fifth-generation [dual-capable] fighter aircraft with this capability brings an entirely new strategic-level capability that strengthens our nation’s nuclear deterrence mission,” Jackson said in an Oct. 4 press release.

The F-35s used for the JTA test required two major hardware component modifications to take on the nuclear weapon, a nuclear consent switch in the cockpit, and a mission select switch in the weapon bay.

“The switch has to be in a certain position for the aircraft to recognize that it’s a new capable type of configuration,” Jackson said of the mission select switch, which must be engaged on the ground. “There is kind of an extra added safety measure, I would say, added to the jet as well.”

The nuclear certification process is broken into two phases: nuclear design certification and nuclear operational certification. This test conducted is considered the graduation flight test exercise for the F-35A’s nuclear design certification.

Jackson said that right now, the B-2 bomber is the Air Force’s only nuclear-capable stealth aircraft.

However, once certified, not every F-35 will become nuclear capable, Kabel said.

“At the end of the day, once the aircraft is design certified, it still has to be operationally certified,” he said. “That will be done at the location, the operational wing, that has the mission to utilize this.”

The two ACC officers declined to disclose a timeline or location for the operationally certified aircraft but indicated it would come soon.

“There’ll be an initial design certification here in the not-too-distant future,” Kabel said. “Then, follow on after that is the operational certification, which completes the process, making the F-35 a fully certified, dual-capable aircraft, and that capability is one that now we can put in the hands of the combatant commanders.”

SpOC Receives First Army Transfers Amid Concern Over Congressional Delays

Oct. 4, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Space Operations Command welcomed its first six Army Soldiers at a transfer ceremony Oct. 1 at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., amid concerns that units slated for transfer to the Space Force will be held up until Congress passes a fiscal year 2022 defense budget.

The six enlisted Soldiers from the 53rd Signal Brigade at Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., are now Guardians responsible for satellite communications as part of SpOC’s Space Delta 8.

The service members are part of an initial cadre of just 50 Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines approved for transfer to the Space Force during the 2021 fiscal year, chosen from more than 3,700 applicants. But hundreds more future Guardians whose units are transferring from other services will not move until Congress acts.

Space Force spokesperson Lynn Kirby told Air Force Magazine that the first round of 50 transfers and a second round of 455 transfers will not be affected by the National Defense Authorization Act delay, but the service members who are part of the unit transfers will not move.

“The [continuing resolution] does not affect our ability to continue transferring personnel from the other services except for the members encumbering billets at the Army and Navy units slated for transfer,” she said. “Those units and billets do require authorization in the NDAA to transfer.”

Some 215 additional uniformed service members and 259 civilians are held up from transferring to the Space Force until Congress passes the 2022 NDAA.

Those individuals are part of Army and Navy units slated to move to Space Force, part of a department-wide push to reduce duplication and create better unity of effort.

Speaking at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., SpOC commander Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting highlighted the important role SpOC personnel play.

“We sit at the nexus of the new Space Force and U.S. Space Command because we are the service component, the Space Force service component to U.S. Space Command,” Whiting said at a media roundtable Sept. 20. “We’re the largest of those service components, and we present capability and personnel to Gen. [James H.] Dickinson at U.S. Space Command for operational employment.”

Congress passed and President Biden signed, just hours before a midnight deadline Sept. 30, a continuing resolution to keep the government open until Dec. 6. Congress must pass an FY22 NDAA to start any new programs, including paying for the unit transfers, many of which are in-place, such as those at Schriever.

That also means the Department of the Air Force is capped at fiscal year 2022 end strength numbers.

Space Force announced Sept. 30 that 670 additional military members had been chosen for transfer in fiscal year 2022.

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the ASC conference that service members and units waiting to transfer will still do their jobs for their home services, but that the NDAA passage would help the continued standing up of the Space Force.

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.