DOD Finalizing First-ever Digital-only Tech Conformance Plan for New Satcom Terminals

Sept. 10, 2021 | By Shaun Waterman

The Department of Defense is finalizing a new technical reference architecture (TRA) for satcom terminals it will buy—a highly detailed description of the engineering requirements for the devices, which maintain global two-way satellite communications for aircraft and other deployed forces.

And for the first time, the TRA, typically a document hundreds of pages long, will instead be produced in digital form, according to Michael Dean, who heads the satcom team for the DOD’s chief information officer.

The digital tool being developed in partnership with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) was “pretty cool,” he told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the Satellite 2021 conference. Potential vendors could load in data about the terminals they manufacture and quickly understand where their products might fall short, rather than having to pore over hundreds of pages of a PDF. “You just click … and it kind of tells you that, ‘no, you’re out of tolerance, or yes,’” you’re in conformity, Dean said.

The digital TRA tool uses the same model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach that powers digital twin technology—already used by the Air Force to predict engine performance, test satellites for cyber vulnerabilities, and teach artificial intelligence to fly planes.

The TRA tool will also gather data required for the DOD’s rigorous certification process, which ensures satcom terminals actually conform to their own specifications. “That can take a long time,” Dean said, so the tool was designed to capture as much of the data required for certification as possible. When vendors “build their terminal design, and they plop it in [to the digital TRA], then when the folks that do the assessments … look at it, a lot of the work is already done for them.”

The TRA is currently undergoing an internal approval process, Dean said, but he hoped to have it finalized by the start of 2022. “So we’re in the final stages—it seems to be on track,” he said, adding that he’d know by November if they would make their end-of-year target.

One new requirement in the TRA, Dean said, would be for an automated registration function for new satcom terminals, part of an effort to get a better handle on DOD satellite communications called the satcom enterprise management and control environment.

Dean explained that the DOD currently relies on manually compiled spreadsheets to keep track of its terminals: “It’s a data call—it’s a manual process. It’s very labor intensive.” Because all the data was manually entered, it was not authoritative. “It’s hand jammed—you can make mistakes. And so you’ve got bad data. You’ve got duplicated data,” he said.

That matters because terminals need access to a limited resource—satellite bandwidth—which has to be apportioned out. Different terminals have varying capabilities and might employ different frequencies. Without authoritative data on which terminals are out there and what capabilities they have, commanders can’t prioritize resources efficiently, Dean said.

“Our terminal segment is the tail that wags the [satcom] dog … I’ve got a lot of terminals that aren’t very interoperable. Some of them are digital. Some of them are analog. Some of them speak certain protocols—some of them don’t.”

An authoritative catalogue of terminals, compiled automatically as the new terminals come online, would let the DOD “leverage certain enterprise capabilities—automatic resource allocation, for example,” Dean said, allowing algorithms to dole out bandwidth.

The 9/11 Mission was to Take Down Any Unresponsive Aircraft. The Only Option: ‘Fly Into It’

Sept. 10, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The first day back at work wasn’t supposed to go like this. The 121st Fighter Squadron had returned on Saturday from a Red Flag deployment in Nevada; Monday was a day off.

Now, on Tuesday, District of Columbia Air National Guard squadron leaders were meeting at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., to set training priorities. Heather Penney, a green first lieutenant, was in the meeting because her secondary duty was squadron training officer.

The session was interrupted when someone opened the door a crack to let the assembled officers know an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center.

“And we all looked outside, and it was a crystal-clear, blue September Tuesday morning,” Penney recalled. The weather was likely the same in New York, and the pilots speculated that either “someone totally pooched [fouled up] their instrument approach,” or some small aircraft sightseeing on the Hudson had made a really bad turn.

The group returned to its meeting. A short while later, the door was opened again, this time wide, and a noncommissioned officer said a second aircraft had flown into the WTC, “and it was on purpose.”

With urgency but professionalism, the group looked at each other and asked, “What do we do now?”

Over the following hour, unit leaders tried to get orders to act. While state Air Guard units get instructions from their governors, D.C. has no governor, so the Guard takes orders directly from the President. Further, the base was not an alert facility, so it was not tied in with the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The Secret Service has a heavy presence at Andrews, however, because it is the operating base for Air Force One.

Brig. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr., 113th Wing commander, ordered his Airmen to begin preparing for a possible launch. He called his Secret Service contacts, seeking authorization for an improvised combat air patrol mission.

As they hurried to pull on their flight gear in the life support shop, Penney and her flight lead, Maj. Marc Sasseville, had a perfunctory conversation about what they would do if they found the inbound airliner they had been told was on its way toward Washington.

They would be launching with nothing on board but about 100 rounds of training ammunition—simple bullets with lead tips, not the usual 20 mm high-explosive incendiary rounds used in combat. AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles were being unpacked and built up at Andrews’ weapons area, but it took time to assemble the missiles, and the cart that transported them from the far side of the base moved at a top speed of just nine miles per hour. The Sidewinders would have to wait for a second flight.

Penney, remembering an accident investigation that her father had participated in, recalled that 737s simply dropped from the sky if they lost their tails, leaving “a very tight debris field.”

The mission here would be to bring the airliner down causing as few casualties as possible on the ground, but primarily to make sure that it did, indeed, crash without reaching its target.

The training ammunition wasn’t going to be enough to do the job, Penney explained, “even if you’re a perfect shot.” There was really only one way to take down a large airplane under these circumstances.

“Fly into it,” Penney said.

Sasseville said he would ram the cockpit; Penney intended to take out the tail. “I know for sure that if I take off the tail, that it will just go straight down,” so she intended to “aim the body of my airplane” at the empennage.

Penney was hoping to have enough time to eject after the impact, but was keenly aware that she’d have to stay with the F-16 until it struck the airliner.

“It was very clear that, yeah, this was”—Penney declined to finish the thought—probably going to be a one-way mission.

Wherley soon received orders from the Secret Service to intercept any approaching aircraft and keep them away from an eight-mile circle around downtown. “That allowed an ROE-build,” said Wherley in a 2004 interview, referring to rules of engagement.

Penney and Sasseville powered up immediately.

Normally, an F-16 preflight took 10 to 20 minutes. Now, she and Sasseville were rolling within seconds; the crew chiefs were “still under the jet, pulling pins” even as the fighters surged forward, she said. In two minutes, at full afterburner, they were airborne.

It was about 10:40 a.m., just an hour after American Flight 77 had struck the Pentagon, and Sasseville and Penney knew they had a grim mission. At least one airliner was still believed inbound toward Washington, D.C. Their job was to get over the city as soon as they could and act as the “goalie” CAP: to bring down any aircraft ignoring orders to turn away.

As Sasseville and Penney screamed skyward, banking toward the Potomac River and Washington, Penney said the whole scene was dream-like. In the center of an extremely congested triangle of commercial airports—Reagan National and Dulles in Virginia, and Baltimore-Washington in Maryland—D.C. was typically abuzz with airliners, business jets, and general aviation airplanes. Sometimes, it could take two minutes to get departure clearance from Potomac Control—an eternity in a gas-guzzling F-16.

By midmorning on 9/11, however, nothing else was up. “It was eerily silent,” Penney recalled. “That part was very surreal.”

Sasseville and Penney flew over the Pentagon, then proceeded west-northwest, as instructed, looking for the inbound airliner. In the confusion of the morning, they were looking for United Airlines Flight 93, which, unknown to them, had already crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

F-16s from the North Dakota ANG soon arrived and also took up station, having flown up from Langley Air Force Base, Va. The D.C. and North Dakota F-16s set up a high-low CAP, with the Fargo jets staying above 18,000 feet, looking for inbound threats from over the ocean, while Penney’s flight stayed low, on the lookout for threats trying to sneak in at low altitude, as the previous attacks had done.

Because they had been dispatched by NORAD, the Fargo Vipers were joined by a tanker, and all the F-16s over Washington took turns refueling.

They remained up for four hours, and when Penney and Sasseville landed back at Andrews they left plenty of other interceptors over the city. Upon landing, they were whisked to a room “with more generals than I’d ever seen in my lifetime,” Penney said.

“We stood at the head of an oval table in front of the entire group, and it was standing room only, and they asked us all sorts of questions about the morning and the sorties, and what we had seen,” she said. It was heady stuff for a first lieutenant who had only been assigned to the base for nine months.

Almost immediately, the two F-16s relaunched—now fully armed—to fly another four-hour mission over the capital.

During this second sortie, they received instructions over the encrypted radio to escort Air Force One, which was inbound on its way to Andrews. “I then flew point, leading the package back,” Penney said. “The first sortie, we were far more focused on doing the task at hand,” she said. Hours later, it was still “hard to believe” what had happened.

Penney spent some of the time on the second sortie above the Pentagon, looking down at it with her jet aircraft’s infrared targeting pod, trying to get the events of the day to seem more real.

The D.C. Air Guard served as Washington’s CAP resource for the following two weeks, but of the 32 pilots assigned to the unit, only about eight were full-timers. Many of the traditional Guard pilots were airline pilots “stuck in different parts of the country” when air travel was abruptly halted on 9/11. For the D.C. Guard, the air defense mission represented “24-hour operations with decreased manpower,” Penney said, “very work intensive.”

The situation didn’t leave much time for reflection. While it was a “dramatic experience,” she became turned off by “the melodramatic media attention,” and postponed much personal reflection.

“I really didn’t process or think through all of that until a couple of years ago,” Penney said. However, as to the notion of having to take down an airliner with innocents aboard, “it was so abundantly clear in the moment that, while it would have been tragic and unfortunate, the moral choice was obvious.”

She said that at no point “did I feel conflicted, like, ‘Could I really do this?’”

The “total heroes” of the air action, she said, were the passengers on Flight 93 who ultimately made the goalie CAP unnecessary.

“What they did was courageous,” Penney said. “And I think for them it was also obvious, once they realized what was going on.”

Editor’s Note: Heather Penney is now a senior resident fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. This article originally appeared in the September 2011 edition of Air Force Magazine.

Space Force Readies Long-Delayed Cybersecurity Standards for Commercial Satcom Providers

Sept. 9, 2021 | By Shaun Waterman

Within 30 days, the Space Force office that buys commercial satellite services for the Department of Defense will publish a timeline for the implementation of new cybersecurity standards that private-sector satellite communication providers must meet if they want to compete for contracts to supply the Air Force and other military services, according to officials and industry executives.

“By the end of September, we want to put that [timeline] out to industry so that they can start planning internally to be able to accommodate for any cost impacts it might have for them,” Jared Reece, a program analyst with the Space Force Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO) told Air Force Magazine on the sidelines of the Satellite 2021 conference.

First publicly mooted in 2019, the much-delayed Infrastructure Asset Pre-Assessment (IA-Pre) program will require satcom providers to get on-site, third-party assessors to validate their compliance with cybersecurity standards before they can bid on CSCO contracts to sell their services to the U.S. military, Reece said.

The Space Force already maintains a list of certified third-party assessors—known as Agents of the Security Control Assessor (ASCA)—who help validate contractor compliance with existing security standards under the DOD’s Risk Management Framework. “The preference is to use those,” said Reece, “because they’re validated providers of those assessment capabilities.”

The move to finally implement IA-Pre comes amid growing concerns that near-peer adversaries could use cyberattacks to blind or cripple commercial satellites on which the U.S. military increasingly relies for its communications.

The IA-Pre standards have yet to be published, but industry sources said they will be based on those set by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in its Special Publication 800-53, with an overlay of additional measures specific to the space sector. Reece said the standards would cover spacecraft, ground stations, teleports, and vendors’ business IT networks.

Industry representatives have been involved in drawing up the plans for IA-Pre and welcomed the news. “We’re very encouraged that from the national level down, we’re actually seeing this emphasis on ensuring that we’ve got a [satcom] network, which is provided in the most secure posture, and is evaluated accordingly,” said Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, senior vice president of U.S. government strategy and policy for U.K.-based satcom provider Inmarsat. IA-Pre would provide CSCO the capability to “actually discriminate between those [providers] that have made the investments versus those that are just providing bare minimum [security] capability.”

Indeed, Reece said, the aim of IA-Pre was to “level the [cybersecurity] playing field between MilSatCom [the military’s own satellite communications] and ComSatCom [the commercial capabilities it buys in from the private sector], as they start to be integrated more and more in the warfighter’s toolbag.”

By creating a kind of “approved products list” of space assets that are pre-certified as cyber secure, CSCO also hopes to speed the acquisition process and reduce the administrative burden on both the contractors and the Space Force, Reece said.

“We need to have a good understanding of [the security posture of] what we’re going to be buying,” he said. “And we need to do it beforehand. So that we have it and, when we need [to buy services], we can do it quickly.”

Currently, he said, the self-assessment required as part of the acquisition process is slow and repetitive. Because CSCO often issues contracts for an individual customer—a particular combatant command, for instance—that are bid on by the same group of suppliers, “We end up doing assessments of the same solution over and over again in the acquisition cycle, which slows us down.”

Earlier this year, Space Force Vice Chief of Space Operations Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson told the 2021 C4ISR Conference that the role of CSCO could be expanded to cover the purchase of remote sensing, data analysis, and ISR services, as well as communications.

Reece noted that, as it prepares for that change, CSCO is weighing whether it needs to create specific new IA-Pre standards for Earth observation imagery and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellite services. But he said the aim would be to maintain a common framework for all satellite services, with new requirements only where additional services diverged from satcom in the technologies they used.

“They’re still spacecraft. There’s still data. There are a number of things that apply [to both satcom and ISR services], so the only thing you really have to look at in depth is the deltas,” he said.

Pratt Pushes Alternative to New Adaptive Engine for F-35

Sept. 9, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Modifications Pratt & Whitney is proposing to its F135 engine can improve thrust and efficiency and would be far less costly than giving the F-35 fighter a new powerplant developed through the Adaptive Engine Transition Program, the engine maker said.

Jennifer Latka, Pratt & Whitney’s vice president for the F135 engine program, said the AETP technology is not compatible with the Marine Corps’ F-35B. That would necessitate two different alternative engines for F-35. The whole effort could add up to $40 billion over the 50-year life of the program, she said in an interview with Air Force Magazine..

The House version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would require the F-35 Joint Program Office to pursue a strategy to incorporate an AETP engine into the F-35 fleet beginning in 2027. Congressional sources said one of the goals is to drive down the cost of F-35 engines by creating a competitor to Pratt & Whitney. GE, which is high on the AETP technology, is eager to offer its XA100 as an alternative. Pratt, owned by Raytheon Technologies, has also developed an AETP engine, the XA101.

The Air Force invested in AETP to try to get more range and thrust from an engine about the size of the F135. The idea is to have both the fuel economy advantages of the turbofans used by large airliners with the high-pressure compression needed to maximize speed for a fighter. By enabling the engine to adapt on the fly, the program sought to gain the best of both worlds.

Latka said the F-35B’s unique short take-off and vertical landing lift system can’t accommodate the AETP engines. To create competition with GE, she said, two variants of each company’s engine would be needed, with parallel repair and supply chains. That contributed to Pratt & Whitney’s $40 billion cost figure, she said.

The Air Force’s Program Executive Officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, Brig Gen. Dale R. White, was similarly skeptical in an August press conference. Although he has no role in the F-35, he said, “trying to change a powerplant in … a fielded system is extremely complex. … You have to think about what the return on investment might be.”

Pratt & Whitney submitted a pair of proposals for modernizing the F135 engine to the JPO in March. The plans would improve thrust and range by more than 10 percent each and give the F-35B a 5 percent boost in vertical lift and a 50 percent improvement in thermal management, the company said. Heat damage has been a concern with these engines, and less heat could also potentially improve stealth performance.

The JPO asked for the study “at the end of 2020,” Latka said. The proposals can be “tuned” based on JPO requirements, she said, and the changes can be “cut in” to production in 2028. Once installed, there will also be “some margin” for growth.

There would be little industrial impact, as the Enhanced Engine Package, or EEP, could “drop into production as a retrofit … So it relies on the exact same infrastructure, and the same sustainment network, that we currently … rely on.”

“It is very well understood, now, across the board” that the F-35 needs an engine upgrade, Latka said. “We will need to modernize the engine, hopefully, one time over the life of the JSF program,” she said. Engine capabilities “have to be commensurate with the capabilities of the aircraft.”

While she could not discuss the Block 4 improvements that are contributing to the need for greater performance, it is understood that the F-35 needs to carry heavier payloads and weapons and that powerful sensors and electronics need additional cooling. Without a better-performing engine, “they can’t use the jet the way it was intended,” she said, quickly adding that “there are no deficiencies” in the F135’s performance as it stands today. “If anything, the engine is already overperforming on the original spec … This is all about growth.”

One advantage of the AETP engine, according to GE, is its third airstream, which its officials say can be used to help cool the F-35’s electronics.

Pratt & Whitney is investing millions, meanwhile, to try to drive down sustainment costs for its engine, a major contributor to the F-35’s high operating costs. “We get it,” she said. “Affordability is the existential threat to this program.”

She continued: “We’ve taken 50 percent out of the unit cost” of the F135, she said. Improvements would reduce costs further, taking 36 percent out of the cost for the initial shop visit, she added. “That’s where the big bills come,” she added, because parts of the hot section hardware have reached end of their service lives.

“We know how to take cost out … Our whole commercial profile is ‘power by the hour,’” Latka noted.

Absent such improvements, the services will need to run the engines hotter to make use of Block 4 capabilities, and while they can handle it, “that means … the engines come in for maintenance” more frequently, increasing sustainment costs.

Latka said Pratt & Whitney’s proposed improvements have nothing to do with achieving the Air Force’s goal of cutting operating costs to $25,000 per hour by 2025. The upgrades are also not specifically intended to create more electrical power for onboard systems, she said.

The JPO holds a meeting of F-35 partners, operators, and other stakeholders twice a year to discuss future plans, and propulsion is likely to be on the agenda for the next meeting.

“We need to crystallize on what the requirement is,” Latka said. “And then we figure out what the most cost-effective solution is once we understand that requirement.”

Latka did not comment on the suitability of Pratt & Whitney’s XA101 for the F-35, except that the engine was “always intended … to be a sixth-generation” powerplant for sixth-generation fighters. The F-35 is a fifth-generation fighter. A Pratt & Whitney official said it began testing the XA101 this spring; GE said it began testing its XA100 in December 2020.

“There’s a significant amount of risk that comes with brand-new technology, and that would require a … tremendous amount of validation to be done,” Latka said. “We’re saying, the AETP is not the right fit for the F-35.”

Austin Warns Al-Qaida May Reemerge in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

Sept. 9, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Capping his Gulf state tour in Kuwait, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III visited Marines present during the Aug. 26 Kabul airport attack and warned that Al-Qaida may emerge in the chaos now enveloping Afghanistan.

On the final day of his visits to Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, Austin thanked the crucial partners responsible for helping to transit 124,000 evacuees from Afghanistan in 17 days. The feat, Austin said, required those partners to surge their capabilities and make quick adjustments so the Defense Department and interagency partners could respond to the humanitarian needs, including providing food, water, shelter, and medical attention to the Americans, endangered Afghans, and third-country nationals flowing through American air bases.

Austin stressed the successful operation while downplaying the havoc witnessed on the tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where the Taliban provided perimeter protection. But the Defense Secretary also acknowledged the danger of a reconstituted terrorist group under a permissive governance by the Taliban.

“The whole community is kind of watching to see what happens and whether or not Al-Qaida has the ability to regenerate in Afghanistan,” Austin said. “The nature of Al-Qaida and ISIS-K is they will always attempt to find space to grow and regenerate.”

Austin told traveling journalists in Kuwait City that the Taliban had been put “on notice” and that the international community was watching to see how they will act under the scrutiny.

“One of the ways the Taliban can demonstrate that they are serious about being a bona fide government and respected in an international community is to not allow that to happen,” he said.

Austin said the United States would retain an “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism capability in the region, understood to be the ability to fly intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions as well as conduct armed strikes from the very Gulf bases he visited this week.

He did not describe any new capabilities closer to Afghanistan. Currently, drones must commute four hours each way from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to reach Afghanistan, giving them little time to hover over the country.

Austin declined to describe the nature of over-the-horizon basing relationships with the Gulf countries, saying it was not part of his discussions.

“We’ve maintained capability in the region,” he assured. “We maintain capability from other places. We have the ability to do a heck of a lot more now from greater distances than we could 20 years ago.”

With the Taliban announcing a new interim government of hardline loyalists in recent days, Austin was questioned on his assessment of Afghanistan.

“The landscape has changed a bit with the Taliban taking over,” he said. “We’ll continue to watch and make sure that we remain vigilant on any type of capability that’s being developed in the region that can export terror to the homeland.”

Austin said Al-Qaida and ISIS-K will seek ungoverned spaces where they can grow but that the Taliban will be cut off from international recognition and the resources it needs to govern if it harbors terrorist groups.

“If they demonstrate that they’re going to harbor terrorism in Afghanistan, all of that will be very, very difficult for them to achieve,” Austin said.

“It’s the Taliban’s government. We don’t get a vote in that,” the Secretary said when asked about the government composition of Haqqani network fighters who have targeted American Soldiers in the past. “These are people that I don’t look favorably upon personally. But again, it’s the Taliban’s government.”

While in the Gulf, Austin visited American interagency personnel at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, Crisis Response in Kuwait who helped with the evacuation in Kabul and were present during the ISIS-K terrorist attack.

Those units were more concerned with how their comrades were doing back at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Austin said.

“The first question from them is, ‘How is so and so doing?’ and they’re talking to them on a daily basis, cell phone, and that sort of stuff,” Austin said.

“When I visited the Marines in the hospital, half of them were starting to do push-ups even though they were injured. They were still trying to do P.T. in the hospital. But that’s to be expected with these young warriors,” Austin added. “They always go above and beyond the call.”

Second Inspector General Review Identifies Disparities Facing More Minorities, Women

Sept. 9, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Less than 10 months after the Air Force Inspector General released an Independent Racial Disparity Review detailing numerous disparities facing Black Airmen, a second review recorded still more disparities facing other racial and ethnic minorities, as well as women, in the Air and Space Forces.

Released Sept. 9, the 208-page report details disparities in recruitment, retention, and promotions among women, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and Pacific Islanders when compared to white men. On top of that, one in every three female service members said they had experienced sexual harassment during their careers.

The report “basically points out very clearly, and I think very convincingly, that there are a lot of disparities within the Air Force, in a number of facets of the Air Force experience,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters in a briefing.

While not every racial and ethnic minority faces the same disparities across all areas, a common theme in the report was a lack of minorities and women in leadership roles. In particular, those groups are especially underrepresented in the operations field.

“Our operations people reflect on an enormous amount of disparity,” Kendall said. “And being part of that segment of the Air Force has a lot to do with all the other aspects of how your career works out. And we definitely need to address that.”

Just as the initial Independent Racial Disparity Review found that Black Airmen and Guardians were underrepresented in promotions to the ranks of E-5 through E-7 and O-4 through O-6, the second study found that:

Latinos are underrepresented in promotion to E-5, E-6, E-9, and O-4 through O-6
Asian Americans are underrepresented from E-7 through E-9 and O-4 through O-6
Native Americans are underrepresented from E-5 through E-8 and O-4 through O-6
Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in E-5, E-8, and E-9.

The operations field is the least diverse specialty code in terms of race, ethnicity, gender. And within that career field, the pilot speciality is the least diverse of them all. Just 14 percent of Air Force pilots are racial or ethnic minorities, with no one racial or ethnic minority overrepresented in the field. Women make up just 7.7 percent of pilots, despite making up more than 20 percent of officers and of the overall force.

That specific disparity carries an added impact, said Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, the Air Force’s Inspector General.

“If you’re a pilot, you have a much better chance of reaching higher ranks, getting command opportunities,” Said said. “There’s a lot of our organizations [that] are by nature operational, so you have more opportunities to compete for them, so it makes you more competitive to get promoted. So it builds on itself.”

Indeed, the report found that all racial and ethnic minorities besides those who identify as multi-racial were underrepresented as wing commanders and as general officers—more than 90 percent of Active-duty Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard general officers are white.

Besides promotion, there were other disparities noted. Latino service members were 33 percent more likely to have been subjects of Air Force criminal investigations. Native Americans, based off Rates Per Thousand analysis, were more likely to face court martial, be administratively discharged, or to separate prior to 10 years of service, though Said did caution that because Native Americans make up the smallest minority in the service, sample sizes were especially small and it can be hard to draw any “convincing conclusions” from the data.

However, the report did note there appeared to be less of a disparity among all minority groups when it came to disciplinary action.

Asian Americans, meanwhile, were significantly underrepresented in both enlisted and officer accessions, highlighting a larger issue, Said said.

“The answer is absolutely yes,” said Said when asked if the department has an issue recruiting a diverse force. “The problem starts with accessions. And that’s where the ball starts rolling, where we start building disparity. Because if you’re not gaining a percentage of the population that’s reflective of the broader population, you start with the problem.”

There are also issues, Said said, with perception. The first review found that many Black Airmen do not trust the chain of command to handle instances of racial discrimination nor believe they will be given the same opportunities or the benefit of the doubt. The second review found similar sentiments among other ethnic and racial minorities, though to a lesser extent.

Many women, meanwhile, expressed skepticism at the idea that they receive equal treatment to their male counterparts. Nearly half of female Airmen and Guardians surveyed said they “face challenges or barriers that constrain their ability to perform their duties, which male peers do not face” and that “maintaining work/life balance and taking care of family commitments adversely impacts” their careers more than men’s. On top of that, 45 percent said they have to work harder at their job than men to prove their competence.

More than a quarter of female troops also said they have experienced sex-based discrimination, with a third saying they have witnessed or experienced sexual harassment. Female officers reported the highest rates in response to both questions.

Said and Kendall both noted that the report merely serves to record disparities, not identify or address the root causes of them. In contrast, a second report also released Sept. 9 as a follow-up to the Independent Racial Disparity Review recorded the Air Force’s progress in addressing the issues facing Black Airmen identified in the initial review.

“It essentially assembles a report on the actions that have been taken in response to that report. And the bottom line there for me is that we have made some progress, but we still have a lot of work to do,” said Kendall.

The initial review identified 16 disparities that the service is now working to address through root-cause analysis and implementing meaningful change. But the executive summary of the follow-up report notes that “it is unreasonable to expect to see substantive results in six months.”

Still, because that first review is further along in the process than the broader second one, Said said, there is an opportunity to speed up the process. Already, he said, leaders have noted similarities in the findings of the two reviews.

“A common theme … in the words of the Guardians and Airmen, is a lack of people that look like us, that can mentor us and advise us,” Said said. “There are many areas of overlap between the two, and we picked up on those … It’s going to make ongoing cause analysis applicable to this effort, rather than start from scratch.”

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Kristy Riley

Sept. 9, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Kristy Riley, 924th Maintenance Squadron Munitions Flight combat plans training supervisor.

Riley is an Air Force Reservist who served as the training supervisor for 189 Total Force munitions Airmen. At the same time, she filled the squadron unit training manager role for two squadrons with 741 personnel, scheduled 656 courses, and achieved a 99 percent current rating, the best in a 2,589-member maintenance group.

Riley’s ingenuity was instrumental in overcoming a four-month backlog due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, during which she taught nine virtual courses and trained seven non-local Air Force Reservists on 84 training tasks. She networked four field training detachment missile courses for 24 Airmen, eliminating a six-year certification shortfall, while saving $10,000 in travel costs.

She was awarded a superior performer and superior team award during the 2020 Air Combat Command unit effectiveness inspection thanks to her overhaul of the combat munitions training program, revision of the local explosive safety course, and oversight of the flight’s upgrade program.

Riley also is credited with saving two civilian lives by coordinating the recovery of a potential drowning victim and a failed rescuer to land, where she administered first aid.

“She outworks all her peers and has continuously done so since joining our team five years ago,” said Senior Master Sgt. James Pumarejo, 924th Maintenance Squadron munition flight chief, in an August Air Force release.

“She is ambitious to reach her full potential however she is not willing to do it at the expense of another,” Pumarejo said. “She wants to see her teammates succeed every bit as much as herself. She is a great team player and takes pride in the quantity and quality of work she does. She is brutally honest and will tell you exactly what she thinks, which in my opinion, brings stronger trust to the team. She is about getting stuff done and finding the most efficient way to get it done. In our TFI [Total Force Integration] environment, I’ve had Active-duty sections superintendents fighting to have her in their shop, she’s that good.”

2021 Outstanding Airmen of the Year honoree Staff Sgt. Kristy Riley, 924th Maintenance Squadron Munitions Flight combat plans training supervisor. Air Force photo.

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

Veteran Suicides Decline 7 Percent in 2019, No Sign of COVID Impact Yet

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Veteran suicides dropped significantly in 2019, with a 7.2 percent year-over-year decline in the adjusted suicide mortality rate marking the largest single-year decline since 2001, newly released data from the Department of Veterans Affairs show.

All told, 399 fewer suicides were recorded among veterans in 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, than in 2018. The 6,261 total suicides recorded were the fewest in a year since 2007. The average number of veteran suicides per day also declined—from 18.2 per day in 2018 to 17.2 in 2019.

Still, the adjusted rate of suicides among veterans continues to exceed that of the general population—in 2019, there were 31.6 suicides per 100,000 veterans, compared to 16.8 per 100,000 non-veteran adults. That gap, however, did narrow in 2019.

“Taken together, much work remains to be done. As long as Veteran suicide numbers are annually in the thousands, there is no sense of mission accomplishment or satisfaction within VA, despite being heartened by unprecedented decreases in Veteran suicide,” the VA’s 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, released Sept. 8, concludes.

The report also indicated that male veterans remain far more likely to die by suicide, with a rate of suicide more than twice the rate among female veterans. The overall decline in suicide rate in 2019 included declines for both male and female veterans, though, with the rate among male veterans in particular declining for the first time in nearly a decade.

“Suicide prevention remains a top priority for VA, with the most significant amount of resources ever appropriated and apportioned to VA suicide prevention,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “Suicide is preventable, and everyone has a role to play in saving lives.”

The Department of Defense released its own report on suicide in the ranks in 2019 back in October 2020, finding that nearly 500 military personnel killed themselves that year. That number was also a decline from 2018, of about 50 service members.

It remains to be seen whether the 2019 declines continued into 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and upended millions of lives. But while the VA does not have finalized 2020 data on deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it has been monitoring suicide-related indicators for veterans receiving Veterans Health Administration care.

Analysis of that data, the report said, showed no sign of increases in suicide or other suicide-related indicators.

Those results follow other studies of the general population that showed no increases in the suicide rate during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, despite fears by some to the contrary.

The VA did find, however, an increase in “all-cause mortality”—deaths by any cause—among veterans receiving VHA care. And that increase, the study states, “exceeds the number of VA deaths that have been directly attributed to COVID-19.”

Again, those findings echo other academic studies of the general population that have observed excess death counts that are not all attributed directly to COVID-19.

“It … remains to be seen the impact of COVID-19 beyond the data and surveillance tools and means currently available to VA,” the report states. “Furthermore, the potential for a negative rebound effect in the proximal years following initial impact of wide-scale catastrophic or seismic events witnessed within modern history merits vigilance paired with aggressive prevention and intervention preparation and implementation.”

Military members and veterans experiencing a mental health emergency can contact the Veteran Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255. Veterans, troops, or their family members can also text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net for assistance.

Austin, Blinken Thank Qatar for its Role in Afghanistan Evacuation

Sept. 8, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken joined their counterparts in Qatar on Sept. 7 to acknowledge the transit and care of 58,000 evacuees from Afghanistan and to give a nod to the country’s strategic role in countering Iran as the American presence in the Mideast draws down.

In Pentagon remarks about the end of the Afghanistan War on Sept. 1, Austin said many countries helped the 124,000 evacuees, including Americans, endangered Afghans, and third-country citizens, to depart amid the danger and turmoil following the fall of Kabul, but he singled out Qatar for a visit.

Austin and Blinken both thanked the Gulf partner and described Qatar’s role in America’s desire for a continued over-the-horizon counterterrorism capability. Drone strikes in Afghanistan following the American withdrawal are believed to have originated from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“No operation is ever perfect,” Austin acknowledged, promising an after-action report about the precipitous drawdown and evacuation effort.

He confirmed a reporter’s question that ground intelligence operations had been withdrawn from Afghanistan, but that regional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, including that housed at Al Udeid, would be instrumental in America’s regional security efforts moving forward.

“There’s no question that it will be more difficult to identify and engage threats that emanate from the region, but we’re committed to making sure that threats are not allowed to develop and create significant challenges for us in the homeland,” he said. “We already have robust capabilities in the region … We’ve come a long way in the last 20 years in terms of the development of our capabilities.”

Austin added: “There isn’t a scrap of Earth that we can’t reach out and touch when we need to. We’ve demonstrated that time and time again.”

Austin thanked Qatar for serving 10,000 meals to evacuees three times per day during their transit through the country. Some 4,000 evacuees were still in the country when the two American cabinet members spoke.

Blinken said some 100 American citizens, mostly dual nationals, are believed to still be in Afghanistan and that the State Department is working to help them depart on charter flights, should they desire to leave. Several thousand Afghan special immigrant visa applicants are also believed to be in the country, although Blinken said an accurate tally had not been made.

Hamid Karzai International Airport remains closed to commercial flights, with charters and overland routes used to evacuate those now in danger. Blinken said Qatar and Turkey have been in touch with the Taliban to provide the assistance necessary to reopen the airport to commercial flights and that the Taliban is not blocking egress or holding hostages, contrary to reports.

Austin said he discussed a range of issues with Qatari officials, including malign behavior by Iran.

“Iran’s support for terrorism and its willingness to supply increasingly lethal weapons to non-state groups undermines the regional stability that we all seek,” he said. “We’re committed to working together to enhance regional defenses against destabilizing actions, including Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

Austin also acknowledged Qatar’s role as a regional mediator, citing several other areas where the two nations can work together.

“Our relationship goes deeper than just defense concerns,” he said. “We’re working with our regional partners toward some important shared objectives: to wind down conflicts, to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in need, to de-escalate tensions, and to encourage dialogue. We think that’s the right way to ensure regional security and stability, and we know that Qatar stands with us.”