Tens of Thousands of Airmen, Guardians Report Some Form of Interpersonal Violence

Nov. 9, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Tens of thousands of Airmen, Guardians, and civilians within the Department of the Air Force reported experiencing some form of interpersonal violence that resulted “in psychological or physical harm or that detracts from a culture of dignity and respect,” according to the results of a survey released Nov. 9.

In the fall of 2020, the Air Force’s Interpersonal Violence Task Force sent out a survey that garnered some 68,000 responses, roughly 10 percent of the department. Of those 68,000, 55 percent of respondents—more than 35,000—reported experiencing some form of behavior in the past two years that the task force identified on a “Continuum of Harm.”

Those behaviors, 81 in total, included everything from physical violence to sexual harassment to workplace bullying and hazing.

“Some of the experiences are not what we would traditionally be tracking, based on the Department of the Air Force’s definition of interpersonal violence, but we want to understand what is going on, especially at that left side of the continuum, so that we can get after that,” said Brig. Gen. April D. Vogel, the Interpersonal Violence Task Force lead. “Because it is proven that when lower-level behaviors that are inappropriate are allowed to flourish, it creates an environment where worse, more egregious types of behaviors can happen.”

In a briefing with reporters, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall noted that those who responded to the survey were self-selecting, likely pointing to an over-representation of those who said they had experienced such behaviors.

“But if you only take the fact that in the 10 percent that reported, roughly half reported some type of interpersonal violence, that’s still 5 percent of the total people all by itself, which is too much,” Kendall said. “So we know we’ve got a problem to address.”

The survey also found that the majority of those who experienced interpersonal violence did not report the behavior. When asked to select the reasons they did not, a quarter of respondents said they didn’t think anything would be done, and roughly a fifth said they thought it would make things worse for themselves.

Of those who said they did report it, the majority indicated they were not satisfied with the support services provided. This stood in contrast to more than 80 percent of command team members who indicated they felt they had the “resources, training, and authority” necessary to address interpersonal violence in the chain of command.

From those findings, the task force formulated three recommendations:

Complete a cross-functional database review to improve data awareness and sharing.
Pursue a one-stop policy for victims of interpersonal violence.
Establish a cross-functional team to examine barriers to reporting.

Undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones has advocated for a “no wrong door” policy, with one office of primary responsibility within the department to address domestic violence, harassment, and stalking. That policy, leaders said, will be included in the one-stop policy recommendation, rather than duplicate efforts.

Intersectional Addendum

Also on Nov. 9, the Air Force released an addendum to its two previous disparity reviews. The addendum identified further disparities facing female minorities.

The most recent disparity review, released Sept. 9, found that women were generally equally represented or overrepresented when it came to promotions, enlisted leadership positions, and professional military education designations.

But the addendum, drilling down on the intersection of race and gender, found that some disparities “were basically masked or hidden by better performance of white women, for example, relative to women of color,” Kendall said.

Specifically, white women were promoted at or above the overall rate for the Active-duty force from E-5 through E-8 and O-4 through O-6 from fiscal year 2016 to 2020, with the exception of O-6 below the promotion zone, while Black women were underrepresented at E-5, E-6, and E-7; Native American women at E-5 and E-6; and Asian American woman for E-8 and E-9 promotions, as well as most officer promotions.

The disparities were particularly apparent in operations career field officers, where most Air Force leaders get their start—white men remain by far the most common group in that category, while “except for Hispanic/Latino female [company grade officers], all female minority groups had below 1 percent representation of the entire operations career fields’ force for all rank groups.” In particular, there were no Black, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, Native American, or multiracial female general officers.

Other disparities also came to light, Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said told reporters. As an example, he cited a finding that while Black Airmen as a whole are underrepresented in wing commander positions, Black men are actually overrepresented in those leadership roles—Black women, more specifically, face the disparity.

“In this slice and dice of the addendum, you could see the disparity becoming much more pronounced at higher officer ranks on the female side of the house, and that’s critically important for the folks trying to deal with those problems instead of just aggregating male and female,” Said said.

The addendum was championed by Ortiz Jones, herself the first woman of color to hold her position within the Air Force. When the second disparity review was released, she said it “very clearly talks about some of the disparities for minorities and for women. But it’s not talking about disparities for female minorities. And when we think about having a very targeted approach to ensure that we are addressing some of the unique challenges, some of the unique barriers faced by some of our Airmen and Guardians, we have to understand the intersectional challenges that are presented.”

On Nov. 9, Ortiz Jones noted that further parsing the data meant dealing with smaller sample sizes—roughly 10 percent of Airmen and Guardians are women of color—“but given the challenges we face as a country, we’re not going to write off the experiences of 10 percent of our force.”

Said echoed those comments, saying that while the smaller groups made determining statistical significance from year to year more difficult, “when that disparity—when you look back 10 years, and it’s consistently there—that’s very meaningful.”

Dynepic Offers One-Stop Shop for USAF Augmented, Virtual Reality Training

Nov. 9, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

Air Education and Training Command has validated a new platform to keep track of disparate augmented and virtual reality training programs across the command with the goal of speeding up the training pipeline and creating a digital training record that will follow Airmen throughout their careers.

The new technology, developed by Dynepic and dubbed the Member Operations Training Analytics and Reports (MOTAR) platform, will soon be distributed to AETC wings—and the rest of the Air Force is taking notice.

“Basically, what we are is the glue that pulls all these augmented reality, virtual reality mobile applications” into a “central portal,” said Krissa Watry, co-founder and CEO of Dynepic Inc. MOTAR enables applications from various companies to be “distributed into courses,” creating a “seamless user experience for the student and instructor.”

It also collects user data into a single interface, creating digital training records for Airmen, and includes live learning dashboards so instructors can monitor students’ progress.

The company won the AFWERX Mixed Reality Challenge in 2019 followed by a series of Small Business Innovation Research Phase 1 and 2 contracts then a multiyear Phase 3 contract supporting AETC’s Maintenance Training Next program, which has since evolved into Technical Training Next.

During the pilot program, MOTAR powered a revamped Crew Chief Fundamentals Course at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, with a single login and consolidated dashboard for various AR/VR applications, according to a company release. The web-based, device-agnostic platform also hosted 360-degree videos, documents, and assessments so participants in the crew chief course could learn whichever way suited them best.

Dynepic also won AFWERX’s 2020 Recruiting, Reimagined Challenge, adding recruiting elements to the MOTAR platform for both the Air and Space Forces, and it was one of seven companies to win AFWERX’s Accelerating Pilots to Combat Ready Aviators Challenge, adding another 15 products to the MOTAR platform in support of aircrew training.

Andrea Hagen, a program analyst with Air Combat Command’s Capability Development Engine Room, told Air Force Magazine that although the command is much earlier in the process than AETC, the platform could one day play into ACC’s Reforge fighter pilot training plan. Reforge looks to cut in half the time needed to transform a recently graduated student pilot into a fighter flight lead by pairing the new T-7 Red Hawk’s in-jet simulation capability with ground-based virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

“One of the things we are missing is a [Learning Management Sytem] we can use across different FTU school houses,” Hagen said. “We have multiple around ACC. They’re kind of all doing their own thing, but we’re looking for one common platform, and MOTAR kind of fits that bill.”

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Simulators Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, also selected MOTAR for its new Lightweight Simulators Ecosystem (LSE) during its Simulators Pitch Day, according to a company release.

Margaret Merkle, AFLCMC’S chief innovation officer for simulators, told Air Force Magazine the service is striving to bring together various digital training assets and capabilities into one platform so Airmen can access them from anywhere anytime they need it.

“Today, things are stovepiped in certain areas where they are developed, and that’s very hard to … reach back into those records from different disparate systems,” she said. “This gives us a platform to make that connectivity of all that performance data for those Airmen across the commands,” and though training remains with the individual major commands, Merkle said, “We see this as a tool to enable that to be done easier and delivered more quickly.”

Merkle and Hagen were among the 300 people from various commands, including AETC, ACC, Air Force Special Operations Command, and AFLCM, to attend the MOTAR Expo at Joint Base San Antonio’s Kelly Field on Nov. 4.

The expo offered Air Force units a chance to share how they are using the platform and showed those considering adopting AR/VR tech in the future ways it might be useful for them. Air Force representatives had a chance to interact with 28 different MOTAR vendors and learn how they are advancing immersive technologies and using the MOTAR platform to rapidly distribute it.

“What we’re looking to do here is to get cross communication between all of the different parties … and learn lessons from each other, share progress with each other,” Merkle said. “What MOTAR brings to bear on this is the fact that we can share digital assets underneath these various projects to allow each project to build faster towards their end point and not repeat steps early in the development cycle.”

She offered the example of taking an aircraft offline to make digital scans of it. Those scans can then be shared with different entities looking to build training programs centered around that aircraft. One group may be looking to build a training program to teach the proper way to load weapons on that aircraft, while another will teach how to maintain it, and yet another could use the simulation for pilot training.

“We could take that one digital model and share it with all three of those projects,” Merkle said. “And each one of them will progress a little faster because they don’t have to do the same things over and over again.”

GE Aviation to be Standalone Company

Nov. 9, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

GE Aviation, which primarily makes military and commercial engines, will become the main focus of the GE conglomerate after it spins off its health care and energy businesses, the Boston, Mass.-based company announced Nov. 9.

Three new companies will result from the action: GE Aviation, focused on military and commercial engines; GE Healthcare, focusing on advanced diagnostic gear and patient data; and GE Renewable Energy and Power. The moves will take effect by early 2024.

According to a company press release, “Following these transactions, GE will be an aviation-focused company shaping the future of flight.” The company doesn’t expect any regulatory or labor issues attending the split, and GE said there was no investor pressure behind the move.

In a statement, CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr. said that “by creating three industry-leading, global public companies, each can benefit from greater focus, tailored capital allocation, and strategic flexibility to drive long-term growth and value.” The move was spurred by a desire to focus and simplify its businesses, reduce debt, and improve share price.

Culp will initially head the GE health care company as “non-executive chairman … upon its spin-off. He will continue to serve as chairman and CEO of GE until the second spin-off, at which point he will lead the GE Aviation-focused company going forward.”

The company said GE Aviation’s focus will be “helping customers achieve greater efficiency and sustainability, and [to] invent the future of flight.” It aims to offer “global leadership in propulsion and systems with the most competitive and innovative engine value.” GE has the “youngest and largest commercial fleet and most diversified services portfolio” and “powers 2/3 of commercial flights.”

Stock analysts value GE Aviation at anywhere from a low of $30 billion to a high of $100 billion. Culp has praised the company as the bright spot of the GE conglomerate, and leading analysts have said the bulk of GE’s value is in its aviation business.

GE’s major military business centers around the F110 engine in Air Force and export F-15s and F-16s; F404 and F414 engines in the Air Force T-7, Saab Gripen fighter, Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and Navy EA-18G Growler; and the T408 engine in the Marine Corps CH-53K. It recently won a $1.6 billion Air Force contract to supply F110 engines for the Air Force’s F-15EX, although it’s unclear if competitor Pratt & Whitney will challenge the award.

For commercial applications, the company makes the GE90, GE9X, GP7-200, CF-6 and GEnx, the latter of which may power the next Presidential Transport. GE was not selected in the recent Air Force competition to power the re-engined B-52 bomber.

The company said it fields 37,700 commercial aircraft engines and 26,500 military aircraft engines.

GE is also working with South Korea and India on the KF-X and Tejas fighters, respectively.

Another potential avenue of future GE business is the Adaptive Engine Transition Program, which has created two versions of a future fighter engine for the U.S. Air Force and potentially the Navy. GE’s version is the XA-100, while Pratt & Whitney’s in the XA-101. The Air Force has not said whether its acquisition strategy for the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter will call for a single engine supplier or two, on a competitive basis, but GE is also hoping to capture some of the work for future propulsion of the F-35 fighter, on which Pratt & Whitney has been the sole supplier.

While GE said it will take a one-time charge of $2 billion related to separation costs, it also said it would reduce its debt “by more than $75 billion by the end of 2021, compared with 2018.” The aviation company would carry the largest share of debt but is also the most profitable of the three.

Just 20 months ago, Pratt & Whitney became part of Raytheon when that company merged with United Technologies/Collins Aerospace. Analysts said it’s unlikely that another major defense prime would seek to merge with or buy the new standalone GE aviation before mid-decade.

GE’s stock price initially gained seven percent on the announcement, but by midday, that bump had declined to 2.18 percent, trading at $110.92 per share.

AFRL Tests Google Workspace Suite of Apps to Collaborate with External Partners

Nov. 9, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Air Force Research Laboratory is using Google Workspace to collaborate with its “worldwide network of research partners” in a pilot program that has already “dramatically enhanced engagement,” while reportedly saving researchers an average of three hours a week, according to AFRL.

Google Workspace links together Google Cloud’s apps—Docs, Sheets, Chat, Meet, and the like. The company said when launching Google Workspace in October 2020 that it knewmany workplaces were “implementing a mix of remote and in-person work environments” and the apps had “become more integrated, so much so that the lines between our apps have started to disappear.”

“Our mantra is ‘collaborate to innovate,’” AFRL Commander Maj. Gen. Heather L. Pringle said in the release. “We want our alpha nerds to be very connected, and we really want to up their proficiency as a digital workforce.”

AFRL said the pilot is taking place “among a segment of its workforce of scientists and engineers.” The lab pointed out that it is a “global research enterprise” doing research ranging from “laser-guided optics enabling telescopes to see deeper into the universe than ever before, to fundamental science that has spawned innovation in quantum computing and artificial intelligence.”

It said collaborating with outside scientists, businesses, and other government agencies is essential to its strategy.

“AFRL teams are using integrated Google Workspace and cloud-based tools like Google Smart Canvas to simultaneously share, discuss, and chat about critical information—eliminating the toil of email chains and hours-long data file exchanges,” according to the release.

Several aspects of the pilot were unclear in a news release published Nov. 5 by AFRL, such as how much scientific work had taken place over Google Workspace since the pilot. AFRL did not provide comments on possible implications in connection with the Department of the Air Force’s Cloud One Program; whether any classified work is being done over Google Workspace; the extent of the initial deployment, such as total numbers of internal and external users; whether the lab was aware of other military organizations that had used the platform; or other options it may have tried or considered.

In addressing security, the lab cited safeguards including Google Workspace’s client-side encryption, which the company says has “made it easier to keep your files safe from prying eyes by using encryption keys that only you and the file collaborator would have access to.” AFRL said the security measures are “invisible to end users” and implied that the measures abide by Defense Information Systems Agency standards.

COVID-19 “significantly limited the physical presence of researchers,” said research physicist Joshua Kennedy in AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate in the news release. “Google Workspace eliminated what would have otherwise been almost a total work stoppage. In fact, new insights into 2D nanomaterials, critical to future Department of the Air Force capabilities, were discovered using Workspace that would have otherwise been impossible.” The release did not elaborate on the discovery.

The release did mention that 240 researchers involved in the “preliminary deployment” of Google Workspace “revealed an average time savings of three hours per week” in a survey. “For AFRL’s highly trained workforce of PhDs, this means more time to dedicate to the mission,” it said.

Dynetics Predicts Gremlins Will Soon Be Ready for Potential Users

Nov. 8, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Gremlins drone swarming technology program needs to prove a C-130 can reel in four flying drones in 30 minutes before moving on to testing potential uses for the system.

Engineering, avionics, and program leaders for prime contractor Dynetics briefed reporters on the progress of the Gremlins program Nov. 8. Dynetics program manager for Gremlins, Tim Keeter, called the most recent test “a major milestone not just for the program but for unmanned aviation in general.”

For the past year, Dynetics and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have tested aspects of the flight of the Gremlins vehicles, or GAVs, and the mechanical arm and tether that capture the drones and stow them onboard the C-130. Earlier tests verified safety systems and attempted docking, after which engineers addressed how to better mitigate aerodynamic interference. In a captive carry test, an X-61 was reeled out from the C-130 and back in.

Dynetics’ chief engineer for Gremlins Brandon Hiller said “making that mechanical connection, shutting down the Gremlins Air Vehicle, and reeling it in to the C-130” in the final test demonstrated “a very good process” that “matched our simulation predictions extremely well and demonstrated that it is, in fact, safe to conduct that sort of airborne recovery operation.” However, Hiller added, “We do still have some work remaining to improve the robustness of the system to get to the DARPA objective for recovery in the space of 30 minutes, so we’re not there yet, but … we know what needs to change in the system, both from a hardware and a software perspective, to get us to that point.”

The Gremlins avionics lead at Dynetics, Morgaine Kim, said the drones are designed to fly in assigned spots behind the C-130 until someone pushes a button, indicating the X-61s are ready to be picked up. At that point, each of the GAVs will get in line to be recovered.

Keeter indicated it’s possible that all three remaining GAVs will take part in the next test, in which case they would have to launch from two different C-130s.

He estimated that if the program proves it can haul in four GAVs within the 30-minute window by early 2022 and “that it is feasible, reliable, [and] repeatable for multiple vehicles and at an operationally relevant rate,” he said, “then you could expect a very short delay to get the next phase underway.” With just three Gremlins vehicles left in the inventory, however, success will be measured according to the rate of recovery of those that do take part.

Keeter said that in the next phase, Dynetics and DARPA hope to demonstrate the ability to put everything together “with payloads [and] single operators controlling multiple vehicles in a live constructed environment, performing different aspects of missions for the stakeholders to be able to say and showcase what this capability can really do and how it can help transform the military.”

In terms of how a system such as Gremlins might be used in the field, Keeter mentioned situations ranging from a small number of vehicles going into a denied area with “some sensors … to allow some standoff capability” to one in which “you need many more of these to really provide the decision to limit and then overwhelm an adversary with numbers.”

“A lot of that is going to be directed by the initial stakeholders and who that ends up being in terms of what mission they want to fly, and number, and host vehicle,” Keeter said. “It doesn’t have to be a C-130A,” he added. “We can adapt our recovery system to lots of different types of vehicles—as well as our launches.”

Talks With Taliban Restart as US Worries About Al-Qaeda Threat in Afghanistan

Nov. 8, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The U.S. and NATO are concerned about the reemergence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the need to rely on the Taliban to fight ISIS-Khorasan as talks with the Taliban restart and regional basing agreements are slow to come.

Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Thomas West told journalists Nov. 8 the regional alliance that committed two decades to fighting terrorism and keeping the Taliban at bay has made “no final decisions” regarding how it will continue to fight terrorists in the country. Instead, the senior U.S. diplomat said by phone from Brussels that allies are trusting the Taliban’s own will to fight ISIS-K.

“We want the Taliban to succeed against ISIS-K,” West said. “I think they have a very vigorous effort underway against that group.”

ISIS-K is known to be responsible for the Aug. 26 terrorist attack at the Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members.

West also expressed concern about al-Qaeda.

“Al-Qaeda continues to have a presence in Afghanistan that we are very concerned about,” West said. “And that is an issue of ongoing concern for us in our dialog with the Taliban.”

West was part of an initial rapprochement with senior Taliban officials and U.S. intra-agency representatives in Doha Oct. 9-10. The meeting was followed by a U.S.-European meeting Oct. 12 with numerous NATO partners about the way forward after the recent withdrawal of U.S. and allied partners from the countries.

“Allies are going to continue to play a heavy role in Afghanistan: Germany, the United Kingdom, France,” he said.

West said outside of the NATO framework, European Union member countries have “heavy interest in Afghanistan as well.”

“We will all engage forthrightly and in a clear-eyed manner with the Taliban and with shared interests and objectives,” he added.

West said it was imperative the U.S. work with other regional partners, including China, Russia, Iran, and the Central Asian states to assure a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, but he did not provide details.

Thus far the United States has made no announcements about over-the-horizon basing agreements with the Central Asian countries that border Afghanistan to the north. Diplomacy continues with countries such as Uzbekistan.

“Without disclosing specific timelines, locations, or individuals, suffice it to say DOD is participating in a delegation to Uzbekistan to discuss ongoing security cooperation efforts,” DOD spokesperson Maj. Rob Lodewick told Air Force Magazine on Oct. 21.

Overflight agreements with Pakistan are known to be in place, but that country’s at-times testy relationship with the U.S. restricts a more robust partnership. West said he would be traveling to Pakistan in the near future.

For now, the U.S. will not reopen the doors to its embassy in Kabul, relying instead on another upcoming dialog in Doha. Likewise, Hamid Karzai International Airport remains closed to regular commercial flights. Since the fall of the country to the Taliban, commercial airlines have run charter flights with daytime visual flight rules. Runway lights remain damaged or non-operational.

Despite the challenges, West said the Taliban have cooperated with the U.S. on continued evacuation efforts.

“The Taliban have delivered by and large on their commitment to us to allow Afghans to whom we owe a special commitment and American citizen and LPRs [lawful permanent residents] out of the country over the past several weeks in particular,” he said.

U.S. partners such as Qatar have operated unscheduled commercial flights at “great financial and operational risk” until now, West said, noting that situation may change come winter.

“The airport’s ability to operate in the winter months, I think, is in question,” he added.

U.S. foreign assistance to Afghanistan has been frozen since the Taliban took over, but the U.S. plans to give $474 million in humanitarian aid to the United Nations to administer in the country.

West said the U.S. must see clear signs there is no leakage of resources to terrorists or to the Taliban government itself before the U.S. would consider assistance, such as paying the salaries of civil servants directly.

Pentagon: Allies’ ‘Views and Perspectives’ Being Considered in Nuclear Posture Review

Nov. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The U.S. has consulted with allies regarding its ongoing Nuclear Posture Review and will continue to do so, the Pentagon said Nov. 8 after a media report indicated other nations have been pressing President Joe Biden not to change American policy on the use of nuclear weapons.

“Without getting into specific details, I mean, for understandable purposes, what I can tell you is that we are, as appropriate, consulting with allies and partners in the course of this review and certainly remain open to listening to and hearing out their perspectives,” Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby told reporters during a briefing.

The Nuclear Posture Review, scheduled to be released in 2022, will likely set U.S. policy for its nuclear weapons arsenal and comes at a key moment. China has dramatically built up its array of intercontinental ballistic missile silos in recent months, while U.S. lawmakers continue to debate whether to modernize several aging legs of the nuclear triad or extend them.

Biden has said in the past that the U.S. should move to a policy of “sole purpose” whereby the sole purpose of American nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear use against the U.S. or its allies. Others, meanwhile, have pushed for a “no first use” policy, whereby the U.S. would pledge to never use nuclear weapons first in a conflict.

The Financial Times reported Oct. 29 that U.S. allies, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Australia, were all lobbying Biden not to commit to a “no first use” policy, arguing that doing so would weaken deterrence against China and Russia.

Citing two anonymous sources, the Financial Times also indicated that the U.S. sent a “questionnaire” to allies “who provided an overwhelmingly negative response to any changes in nuclear policy.”

On Nov. 8, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking members of the House Armed Services Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively, announced they had sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, requesting a copy of that questionnaire, as well as “copies of each response received from U.S. allies, and any other cables or memos conveying ally views regarding a potential change in U.S. nuclear declaratory policy.”

That same day, Kirby declined to comment on the letter sent by Rogers and McCaul, saying he had not seen it. Yet while he did not directly confirm the Financial Times report, he did indicate that partner nations were welcome to provide their input on the nuclear posture review.

“I think across the review itself, the views and perspectives of our allies and partners are important and consultations with them and hearing them out and their perspectives has been and will continue to remain important as the review continues down the path,” said Kirby.

“I’m certainly not going to speculate one way or the other about policies inside that review and what that’s going to look like,” Kirby added. “But I would tell you just two things. It has been and remains an inclusive, comprehensive process that’s looking at the broad swath of our strategic deterrent capabilities here in the United States. And number two, any policy decision of that nature is going to ultimately be made by the President of the United States.”

US and Japanese Air Forces Should Increase Training, Coordination, USAF General Says

Nov. 8, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

The U.S. and Japanese air forces should look to strengthen their coordination and training, potentially even staging a high-level exercise in Japan, to counter the threats facing both countries in the Indo-Pacific region, U.S. Air Force Director of Staff Lt. Gen. Kevin B. Schneider said Nov. 5.

Speaking during a virtual forum hosted by the Stimson Center, Schneider emphasized the importance of interoperability and complementing capabilities between the U.S. Air Force and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, also called Kōkū Jieitai.

Before he returned to the Pentagon this September, Schneider served as commander of U.S. Forces Japan and the Fifth Air Force, acting as the senior U.S. military representative to the island nation. In those roles, he said, one of his primary goals was “training and readiness now.”

“We’ve got to do more with what we have today. And while it’s great that we’re buying advanced systems, and looking forward into the future, we have to be ready today,” Schneider said.

Facing the triple threat of China, Russia, and North Korea all within striking distance, the JASDF and the U.S. Air Force should be training together more, Schneider said, suggesting Japan host a major exercise.

“Much of the training, much of the high-end training that we do between the U.S. Air Force and Kōkū Jieitai, takes place outside of Japan,” Schneider said. “So whether it’s Red Flag exercises we both participate in in Alaska, the fantastic Cope North exercises that take place down in Guam are great, but we have to go on the road to do that. Are there ways that we could do those types of high-end events in Japan? And I understand that that comes with a cost, and I understand local understanding and the sensitivities, but the challenges that are sitting on the front doorstep right now … ought to drive us to have those conversations.”

USAF and JASDF do regularly conduct some bilateral training exercises. The two services completed Exercise Southern Beach out of Kadena Air Base in Okinawa on Oct. 29, marking the first time a Japan-U.S. training program was conducted during nighttime hours.

But Schneider indicated that the air forces should collaborate on both large-scale exercises and smaller ones related to USAF’s Agile Combat Employment model, which is focused on quickly dispersing smaller contingents of multi-capable Airmen to remote bases. By doing so, he said, the American and Japanese forces can “build that connective tissue, exercise that muscle memory, put in place those systems so that when crisis or conflict happens, that we are not doing anything different. We’re just doing the same things that we do every day, but just at a higher volume.”

Gen. Shunji Izutsu, chief of staff for the JASDF, said his service is also working to implement the principles of ACE given the threats posed by nearby nations, though he noted that there are a number of difficulties in implementing that theory in real-world scenarios.

In addition to strengthening bilateral command and control systems, Schneider added that the U.S. and Japan should look to strengthen their ties in the acquisition realm as well. Buying the same system, like the two countries have done with the F-35, increases interoperability. But Schneider also suggested there could be value in coordinated but separate approaches.

“Looking at our long-range plan, does it make sense for us to buy the same stuff, or are there things that the United States can buy that has a certain capability, and Japan can buy complementary systems that have a different capability, but together, we’re able to cover the range of options and capabilities that we would need in conflict or crisis?” Schneider said.

Schneider’s push for even stronger ties between Japan and the U.S. come at a key moment in the Indo-Pacific. The Pentagon has increasingly emphasized China as America’s pacing threat in the world, and the Chinese recently conducted a joint naval exercise with Russia in which the two nations sent ships in a near circle around Japan’s main island.

As tensions rise, dialogue between the U.S. military and the People’s Liberation Army has deteriorated, Schneider said—in years past, USAF and the PLA Air Force would meet twice a year, “sit down in a room together, face to face, and go, ‘This happened on such and such a date. We felt this encounter was unsafe or unprofessional. What are you going to do about it,’ and vice versa.”

Those interactions weren’t always “completely satisfactory,” Schneider added, but they did have some effects and were generally helpful in ensuring incidents didn’t turn into full-blown conflict. Recently, however, the meetings have “dried up a little bit, … and that should cause us a little bit of concern,” said Schneider.

C-130 Catches an X-61 Gremlins Vehicle in Airborne Recovery Test

Nov. 5, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency crashed one of its four remaining Gremlins air-launched drones during a flight test in October but not without demonstrating some of the autonomous swarming program’s key objectives.

In tests, the X-61 Gremlins Air Vehicles, or GAVs, launch from the wing of a C-130. October’s test at the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, both “successfully validated all autonomous formation flying positions and safety features” and “ultimately demonstrated airborne recovery to a C-130,” according to a Nov. 5 DARPA news release. Dynetics is the prime contractor on the program, and Kratos Defense builds the X-61s.

A video posted to YouTube shows the recovery. It begins with an X-61 in flight. A mechanical arm and a tether with a node on the end, described by the program as a bullet, extend from the back of a C-130. The X-61 connects with the bullet then the vehicle’s wings swivel 90 degrees until they’re stowed parallel with the main body. Next the X-61 is reeled in by the tether until it’s secured in the grip of the mechanical arm, which hauls it the rest of the way inside the C-130.

Lt. Col. Paul Calhoun, the Gremlins program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, said in the release that the recovery operation “demonstrates the feasibility of safe, reliable airborne recovery” and “was the culmination of years of hard work.”

In addition to the autonomous formations and the recovery performed during the course of four flights of single X-61s, DARPA demonstrated that it could refurbish an X-61 after a flight and have it flying again within 24 hours. Plus, “many hours of data were collected over four flights including air vehicle performance, aerodynamic interactions between the recovery bullet and the GAV, and contact dynamics for airborne retrieval,” according to the release.

Intended to collaborate as a swarm, recoverable air-launched autonomous vehicles promise to “dramatically expand” the distances at which drones can be deployed and their potential uses, DARPA says.

The first airborne Gremlins test in January 2021 demonstrated some fundamental aspects such as data links and the vehicles’ ability to transition to powered flight. An X-61 also crashed in that test after a parachute didn’t deploy, but the parachute was only meant for the test.

A DARPA spokesperson confirmed that after the second crash in October, from an electrical system failure, the agency now has three working X-61s and those will be enough to prove, mathematically, the ultimate goal of flying and recovering four X-61s in under 30 minutes.