New Report: Pilot Error, Overbearing Supervisor Caused MQ-9 Crash

July 15, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

An inexperienced pilot’s errors exacerbated by an overbearing supervisor caused a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 to crash into the sea in the Middle East last September, a new accident investigation board report has found.

The Sept. 3, 2023, accident destroyed the $26.1 million aircraft, and had not been disclosed until now. It was among three unrelated Class A mishaps across the service in a five-day span that month.

According to the investigation report, the MQ-9 was launched by a Launch and Recovery Element in Africa, but controlled for its mission by a crew from the 162nd Attack Squadron at Springfield-Beckley Air National Guard Base, Ohio. The mission was within U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility.

After completing the mission, the MQ-9 was returning to Africa when something in the electrical system malfunctioned. The drone pilot correctly diagnosed the malfunction as a “Starter-Generator failure,” investigators said. But then the pilot failed to follow the malfunction checklist for electrical system issues, making “numerous errors” in the process, and the operations supervisor created confusion over whether the malfunction was something worse that it actually was.

An MQ-9’s electrical systems are usually powered by two independent sources: the starter generator and the permanent magnetic alternator, or PMA. The PMA powers flight-critical avionics, while the starter generator powers things like satellite communications. If the starter generator dies or malfunctions, batteries can power SATCOM and other systems for a little while, and the crew can set a new emergency mission profile to have the aircraft return to base even after SATCOM dies.

In this case, the MQ-9 had enough power from the PMA to fly back to the original launch and recovery element, but the pilot accidentally calculated how much longer the aircraft could fly based on a dual generator failure.

Meanwhile, while the pilot was still working on the checklist, the operations supervisor added to the confusion by telling the pilot to conduct a generator reset—a maneuver that should “only be attempted if the aircraft was assessed unrecoverable,” investigators noted. This created uncertainty about the nature of the malfunction.

Initially, crew members decided to conduct a crash landing at a forward operating base, but the operations supervisor directed the drone pilot to climb and drop the aircraft’s landing gear. That slowed down the aircraft, reducing its ability to reach the base on its remaining power. Pivoting, they decided to crash the MQ-9 into the water near a U.S. vessel.

The pilot guided the drone to a patch of water near the vessel and set it to loiter there shortly before the crew lost connectivity as the battery gave out. At any point before the battery gave out, investigators wrote, the aircraft could have been saved—if the crew had set its emergency mission to return to the launch and recovery element. But when connectivity was lost, without an emergency mission set, the aircraft continued to loiter over the water until it ran out of fuel. That took more than two hours in this case. The bulk of the wreckage was not recovered.

Investigators laid most of the blame on the pilot and operations supervisor:

The pilot did not properly run the electric systems malfunction checklist, which would have confirmed the starter generator as the cause of concern and ensured the crew set the launch and recovery element as the emergency mission profile.

The operations supervisor, meanwhile, “was the only voice to the [launch and recovery element] and the Combined Air Operation Centers and in that role was the source of confusion” about the nature of the malfunction, the aircraft’s recoverability, and whether the launch crew could recover the aircraft.

The inexperienced pilot “exhibited poor general knowledge of the electrical system,” investigators added. During a training simulation, the pilot “was slow to recognize and act on emergency management, … made multiple errors and omissions to checklists, … made frequent incoherent statements, and finally … demonstrated scattered skills and below average performance.” He was required to retake the necessary training.

The operations supervisor, meanwhile, “provided excessive advice and direction” and, despite being an evaluator pilot, did not follow the malfunction checklist correctly either. The supervisor was too quick to focus on crash landing, the investigators said, instead of assessing the source of the malfunction and whether a standard recovery was possible.

The Air Force suffered a string of MQ-9 mishaps and downings over the past 18 months.

In January 2023, a contractor crashed a drone, causing $16 million in damages in California. In May 2023, engine failure led another MQ-9 to crash at an undisclosed location in Africa, where it was destroyed. And in September, another contractor was killed after she walked into the propeller of an MQ-9 during ground testing.

On top of that, the Air Force has disclosed at least one MQ-9 crash in 2024—U.S. Air Forces in Europe announced a Reaper crashed in Poland in January.

In addition, six reapers have been damaged or destroyed by Russian fighter jets and Iranian-backed militias since March 2023:

February 2024: Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, downed an MQ-9 off the coast of Yemen into the Red Sea

January 2024: An MQ-9 crashed in Iraq. U.S. officials said the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi militias supported by Iran, likely shot down the drone with an Iranian-provided surface-to-air missile.

November 2023: Houthi rebels shot down an MQ-9 over the Red Sea.

July 2023: In the span of a few days, Russian fighters intercepted MQ-9s over Syria twice, both times releasing flares that damaged, but did not destroy, the drones.

March 2023: A Russian fighter collided with an MQ-9 during an intercept over the Black Sea, causing it to crash and be destroyed.

For the Air Force, Warrant Officers Will Be a Critical Link in Digital War with China

July 15, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

The Air Force’s first cohort of warrant officers in 65 years will be already skilled cyber or IT specialists, and their training is designed to teach them how to become the critical link between warfighters and their leaders on technical issues, according to the officer in charge of training them.

“They’re there to advise the operators, their commander, and higher-level leadership on how to use these [cyber and IT] capabilities, and to be on the front lines, using those capabilities themselves,” Maj. Nathaniel Roesler told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The warrant officer program, unveiled in February, creates a new layer of leadership in the Air Force—a way service members can progress their careers without having to broaden and generalize their skills to rise up the ranks of NCO leaders. It’s also meant to equip the service to compete against China and other great powers in the digital domain, where technical skills can be decisive.

“As an NCO progresses in their career, they tend to become more of an organizational leader, a people manager, and so their skills broaden,” said Roesler, the commandant of the newly minted Warrant Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

“We’re a technical service. … We want our warrant officers to be a foot wide and a mile deep in their expertise,” he said. “They’re really there to grow in a particular skill. As they progress in their career, become even more specialized, we want to increase their level of knowledge and their ability to operate in the Air Force.”

The eight-week program the Warrant Officer Training School has developed is not just the first Air Force warrant officer program for more than 65 years (the last USAF warrant officers were created in 1958), Roesler said—it is effectively the first ever.

“Remember,” he said, “the Air Force inherited its warrant officer program from the Army,” so in designing their training, the school had to start from first principles. They began by deriving five “Warrant Officer Foundational Principles”—communicate, advise, influence, innovate, and integrate—from the service’s 24 Foundational Competencies for Airmen.

It is no accident that “communicate” comes first.

Twenty-first century warrant officers, Roesler explained, need to be “exceptional communicators under stress, they need to be able to credibly advise their commanders who are leading these operations,” while also having the specialist technical knowledge to understand the capabilities they are bringing to bear. The school aims to turn out individuals who can work across services, he added.

“We’re not trying to make warrant officers into better cyber operators,” he explained. “They come to us with those skills, with years of practical experience. What we’re doing with them is building them into …the Air Force’s leading professional warfighters, technical integrators, and trusted advisors.”

Those three targets he lists are the three “program learning outcomes” for the school. They were derived, along with the five foundational principles, from the service’s 24 foundational competencies.

The credible advisor role includes training in “legal awareness,” “ethical decision making,” and “change management.” Technical integrators need to understand “deployment operations,” “great power competition,” and the “international environment.” It also requires “emotional intelligence.”

Professional warfighters also need to study “dress and appearance,” “physical readiness,” and “core values,” as well as “force structure,” “chain of command,” and “U.S. Constitution.”

Some of these elements will be included in a 10-14 day “on-ramp” being designed for civilians with specialist skills recruited directly into the warrant officer program if that’s required in the future, said Roesler.

“Right now they are all prior service, E-5 and above” he said of the school’s prospective trainees, but once the on-ramp proves out, the school would be ready to expand to include these so-called “Street-to-seat” candidates.

In the meantime, Roesler explained, the on-ramp would be valuable for the experienced NCOs in the initial cohorts, too. “It’s always good to brush up on those skills: Air Force history, culture, and chain of command. It’s valuable training for anyone, but particularly for people who don’t have prior Air Force experience,” he said.

Program learning outcomes are the key to “outcomes-based military education, which is how the Department of Defense does education,” said Roesler. “They think about military education in a way that can be measured, that can be trained to, that can be assessed: How well we’re doing and how well the service member is doing in that education.”

That outcomes-based approach was also informed by research into optimizing human performance, according to Lt. Col. Andrew Wonpat, the interim deputy Principal Cyber Advisor to the secretary of the Air Force.

“There’s this idea: We’re just gonna run,” he told AFCEA’s recent TechNet Cyber event in Baltimore. “We’re just gonna run stronger, harder, faster, longer. And that’s not how it works. That is not how Olympians train. That’s not how you identify, assess, and develop Olympians. It’s not how industry develops its high performers, it’s not how the [Special Operations Forces, or] SOF community does it.”

A key attribute for warrant officers will be the correct cognitive approach, Wonpat said, “When you receive new information, can you update your model to get you to a new and novel solution?”

So far the program is only for Air Force personnel, not Space Force, but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has talked about expanding it to other specialties besides IT and cyber if the program is a success in those two fields.

“The awesomeness about the Warrant Officer [program] is, it’s new,” Wonpat said, “They don’t come with a lot of baggage, of traditions. They haven’t got to break through a lot of ‘We’ve always done it that way.’”

Working with the DOD CIO Workforce Innovation team, Wonpat said he’d sought to understand about the warrant officer program, “how does this scale across the service or the DOD?”

The Air Force has announced two cohorts of 30 trainees, Roesler said, the first starting in October and graduating in December, the second reporting for training in January and graduating in March. A planning document, posted on the web and verified by Air & Space Forces Magazine earlier this year, said the service plans to be able to scale up to 250 graduates per year.

”We’re postured to scale to whatever size, essentially, the Air Force needs,” said Roesler. But he added that individual warrant officers, because of their skills and their critical positions at the hinge of new capabilities, would have an asymmetric effect. “They will have an outsize impact,” he said.

ACC Boss on Inspections: ‘Pay Attention to the Details’

July 14, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The head of Air Combat Command was not exempt from the order he issued last month directing inspections for tens of thousands of ACC Airmen to ensure they’re dress and personal appearance meets Air Force standards. On July 9, he said, he endured his first “open ranks” inspection since college.

“The headquarters at Air Combat Command lined up in the parking lot, I was leading the formation, and I got inspected myself,” Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said July 10, during a visit to AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “It was the first inspection I’ve had since I was in ROTC. That was a long time ago.”

Wilsbach’s order called out “a discernable decline in the commitment to, and enforcement of, military standards,” generating consternation and pushback from some Airmen. But the ACC commander said standards are essential, and enforcement is necessary to prepare the force for potential peer conflict with the likes of China.

“One of the things that we started with very early in my command is an emphasis on standards and discipline,” said Wilsbach, who took command of ACC in February. “There’s been a bit of controversy, but mostly it’s been positive in that regard.”

Steeling the force to win in battle is like girding a championship football team to win on the field. The players must meet a standard, and learn to expect their teammates to meet those standards too. The NFL Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs didn’t achieve their win on chance alone. They needed to face and overcome tough situations first.

“That’s what I’m talking about with taking care of Airmen; making them strong, making them resilient,” Wilsbach said. “Because if we do end up having to have this fight, the American people are going to expect for the Airmen of this country to do some horrifically difficult things. And if they’re not resilient, and if they’re not strong, they won’t be able to do it. So we’re going to plan on doing hard things together and we’re going to give opportunities to fail. And then leaders are going to coach and mentor.”

While some Airmen argue that open-ranks inspections are “wasting time,” Wilsbach countered that doing little things well is preparation for doing bigger, harder things well.

“What I learned many years ago is if you pay attention to the details, when it gets hard and you need to do something difficult, because you’ve been disciplined to pay attention to the details, you can be good and you can succeed,” he said.

Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, Commander of Air Combat Command appeared on Aerospace Nation, a virtual event series produced by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. The July 10 interview was hosted by Mitchell Dean Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.). Photo by Mike Tsukamoto/Air & Space Forces Magazine

ACC units have until July 17 to complete unit-level standards and compliance inspections, Wilsbach said.

“What I told the team there after we finished our inspection was that I hope that the captains and lieutenants and the staff sergeants will embrace this, and they’ll make it [part of] their day-to-day operation,” Wilsbach said. “Because frankly, the commander of Air Combat Command doesn’t really have time to be making sure that people have boots that are clean and uniforms that look good and a haircut, etc. Those are things that other people can do. They need me, and the nation needs me to do things that only the commander can do. And so I asked the youngsters to take this on and to police themselves up and to give everybody feedback.”

As part of that trust, Wilsbach said Airmen will be empowered to enforce standards with their peers, subordinates—and even their bosses.

“If we police ourselves, we won’t have to worry about this, but we’ll be paying attention to the details and it will allow us to have discipline to do some very difficult things,” he said.

In addition to open ranks, Wilsbach also said ACC will conduct inspections to see how well units accomplish their missions.

“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to say, ‘Hey, you’re having an inspection today,'” he said. “You generate, you deploy, you employ and you redeploy. And that’s what you’re going to get inspected on.”

The Pentagon Needs a Strategy for Deep Space

July 14, 2024 | By Charles Galbreath

Nestled within the 720 pages of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2025 are a few short paragraphs directing a briefing “on a strategy for DOD’s activities and interests in cislunar space.”

Senators recognize how important this crucial region of space is, where the gravitational pulls of the Earth and Moon conflict and the future of space operations grow more complex.

There are grave national security risks at play if the United States cedes any advantage in the cislunar regime to China or others with ambitions to dominate lunar or deep space exploration.

Establishing a DOD Cislunar Strategy is the first step in aligning the military resources, capabilities and requirements to accelerate and secure scientific and economic ventures on and around the Moon. The report directs the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, in coordination with the Chief of Space Operations and the Commander of U.S. Space Command, to brief congressional defense committees on the new strategy by May 31, 2025. It’s an ambitious schedule, but achievable and necessary to inform the fiscal 2025 budget timeline.

While this will be a DOD-wide strategy, the bulk of the work will fall to the Space Force.

The Senate committee laid out nine goals for the strategy, but the most important ones are to define DOD’s goals and priorities; assess potential threats; identify key partnerships; specify required investments; and enumerate necessary force structure changes. These last two elements are critical to the Space Force, which is not quite five years old, but already stretched too far and given too little. Indeed, the President’s proposed fiscal 2025 budget included a cut for the Space Force.

Directing a cislunar strategy affords the Space Force a huge opportunity to define its future and the resources it will need to make that vision come true.

Yes, competition in cislunar space is a long-term game, and there are numerous near-term challenges the Space Force faces now. It will need additional resources to address those, let alone what’s needed in the cislunar region.

The proposed funding cut for 2025 will delay the U.S. military’s ability to achieve space superiority, a huge risk at a time when China and Russia are both showing increasing aggression in space. Such an ill-timed cut must be corrected, and soon.

Defining a clear strategy for future missions can help make that clearer to the decision makers who hold the purse strings. It takes years to develop and field any capability in space, and the challenges will be even greater in the cislunar regime. But the stakes could not be higher: China is racing ahead, most recently completing a sample return mission from the far side of the Moon.

In the ongoing competition with China, there are sprints and marathons. The Space Force must be prepared to win both.

The Mitchell Institute Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence (MISPACE) examined the cislunar challenges in a recent report, which likened the region to “the First Island Off the Coast of Earth.” That’s how China sees it, just as it sees Taiwan and the first island chain off its coast as part of China. The People’s Republic is competing to win the new race to the Moon as the first step in its quest to overtake the United States and become the world’s technological, political, and economic leader.

The United States must compete to ensure that quest never becomes reality.

A concerted, whole-of-government effort is required now to ensure free and open access to space and that no nation, especially a rival, can take a dominant position in such a critical region. A DOD cislunar strategy will be a key first step in that direction, one that will undoubtedly drive the necessary further expansion of our Space Force.

The Senate should embrace the wisdom displayed here by the Senate Armed Services Committee and approve the measure. The House should likewise embrace the effort. It costs little to develop a strategy, but the payoffs to having one will be unparalleled.

The race for space is on again. DOD and Congress must work together to ensure that the Space Force has the resources it needs to win.

B-52 Maintenance Might Get A Lot Easier Thanks to This Airman

July 12, 2024 | By David Roza

Keeping a 60-year-old B-52 bomber ready to fly takes hard work, and poor tools make that work even harder. At the 307th Maintenance Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., Tech Sgt. Jermey Vickers noticed one tool in particular was slowing down the process: the metal stands maintainers use to get up close to the wings and engines.

“The maintenance stands we were using had been purchased in 1994 and you couldn’t get parts to fix them anymore,” Vickers said in a July 11 press release. “They also were purchased used, so it’s difficult to know how old they are.”

The stands are a headache during a B-52 phase maintenance inspection, a weekslong process where dozens of maintainers have to work on the plane at the same time. The problem is that the current stands can support only two people at once, so Airmen must keep setting them up, taking them down, and setting them up again as they inspect different parts of the jet.

“Those stands were heavy and required a couple of people to move them, so there was a lot of potential for safety risks,” Vickers said.

But the tech sergeant had a solution: design his own stands. The process began six years ago, when he drew up the first blueprints and reached out to a company that could produce them. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed the effort, and it took three years to fund the project, but after working with the 307th Bomb Wing Safety Office and Air Force Reserve Command, Vickers eventually managed to secure more than $6,000 in National Guard and Reserve Equipment Appropriations (NGREA) funding.

“He was extremely persistent and stayed the course,” David Griffore, the wing’s occupational safety supervisor, said in the release.

An Engine Pod Stand runs the length of a B-52 Stratofortress wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, July 3, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. Ted Daigle)

When the Engine Pod Stands arrived earlier this year, Vickers put the segments together and ensured the hydraulics lifts worked correctly. The stands finally debuted on July 1 for a phase inspection, and they are already making a difference.

“With the old stands, it took over an hour to get ready just to work on an engine,” Vickers said. “With the Engine Pod Stand, we are ready to go in five minutes.”

The stands can be set up in different configurations: one arrangement provides a fixed platform stretching the length of the roughly 90-foot wing, while another uses a hydraulic lift to raise a smaller platform up to the engines or other components.

Still, Vickers plans to refine the stand if other maintenance squadrons want to adopt it too. Whether the 307th will buy more is yet to be decided, said wing spokesperson Senior Master Sgt. Ted Daigle.

“Although the stands are very effective in their first use, Vickers wants to ensure their long-term viability before committing to more,” Daigle told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

b-52 maintainer — Senior Airmen Alexander Orta, with the 2nd Maintenance Squadron, and Tech. Sgt. Michael Starkey, assigned to the 307th Maintenance Squadron, use a new Engine Pod Stand to perform a Phase inspection on a B-52 Stratofortress at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, July 3, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. Ted Daigle)

Vickers is the latest in a long line of inventive, persistent maintainers improving on Air Force platforms and processes. Airmen at the Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Wing, for example, manage to keep 40-year-old F-15C fighter jets flying with spare parts made in-house at the wing’s metals technology shop.

Meanwhile, Airmen at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, saved the Air Force millions of dollars by inventing 3D-printed magnetic sensor covers for the F-35 fighter, a vast improvement over the fragile, expensive sensor covers that originally came with the jet.

Inventions like these help make maintenance a little easier, which helps make for healthy aircraft.

“We’ve already halved the engine-top inspection time,” Vickers said. “So our maintainers are loving it.”

Get Space-Based Targeting Data ‘to Right People at Right Time,’ Says Nominee

July 12, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The prospective next head of the Pentagon’s intelligence enterprise will face dicey challenges guiding how space-based tracking and targeting duties will be split among multiple agencies, but at her July 11 confirmation hearing she promised to stress the importance of collaboration and sharing.

Tonya P. Wilkerson, deputy director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and nominated to become undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, was questioned re[eatedly by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee about how intelligence and military agencies can better deliver moving target indication (MTI) from space.

With the Pentagon phasing out older airborne platforms, like the E-3 AWACS and E-8 JSTARS, space-based sensors are needed to assist in directing fires against enemy targets. But turf disputes over who owns what and what data can be shared with who, and how fast, remain, frustrating military commanders.

The Space Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency all gather space-based intelligence. All have expressed interest in both new targeting satellites and leveraging commercial satellite data for targeting. But reports and public comments make clear tension and disagreement remains.

At the GEOINT Conference in May, Space Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. David N. Miller Jr. argued against “anything that introduces delay in data being provided to commanders and shooters to either defend themselves and their team or prosecute, close with and destroy the adversary.”

“Operational headquarters and agencies back in the rear don’t win or fight conflicts,” Miller added. “It’s not about offline analysis. It’s providing that directly to the shooters so that they can provide the effects on the battlespace that we need.”

Soon after, NGA Director Rear Adm. Frank Whitworth—Wilkerson’s current boss in her role as deputy director—told conference attendees that “for anyone who suggests we’re not moving as rapidly as possible—in our actions and our products—let me be clear: That’s a complete myth.”

Wilkerson, if confirmed, would bring years of experience at NGA and NRO to her new role, which would also entail working out the kinks between those agencies and the Space Force. Congress designated the Secretary of the Air Force as the primary authority for for presenting tactical ISR to combatant commanders. But how that happens, and who owns the sensors generating that ISR, is still being worked out.

In both his opening statement and questioning, SASC chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) pressed Wilkerson on how the NRO, NGA, and other agencies can “continue to assist the Space Force in providing space-based ISR support to the combatant commanders for their tactical level operations.”

Wilkerson responded: “I am very, very much tracking the current direction and am supportive of the decisions that have been made to date by the Secretary and the [Director of National Intelligence],” she said. “What I would look to do, if confirmed, is ensure that we don’t take our eye off the ball of ensuring that the right information is getting to the right people at the right time, which is really the outcome that we’re trying to drive with respect to the new architecture.”

Officials from both the Space Force and NRO said recently that the NRO will lead the acquisition process and the Space Force and NRO will jointly fly satellites “shoulder to shoulder,” and that the combatant commands will have authority to task the Space Force and NRO. The Space Force chose command and control for MTI as a “quick start” program recently, using new authority to proceed with a program without specific congressional approval. Also recently, the NRO launched two batches of satellites into low-Earth orbit. Although their exact mission remains unclear, a constellation in LEO could provide effective MTI.

Some experts want the Space Force to go its own way, however, and build its own targeting satellite constellation from scratch. That would provide a tactica/strategic divide, with the Space Force focused on support for troops on the tactical level and the intelligence community focused on strategic-level ISR.

Wilkerson disagreed with that approach. “I think there’s always opportunity space to continue to strengthen the interaction between organizations,” she said. “I wouldn’t necessarily indicate that it’s a problem. I would rather note that there’s an opportunity space for continued engagement.”

Sen. Mark Rounds (R-S.D.) urged Wilkerson to ensure space-based targeting is done under military “Title 10” authorities, not the intelligence community’s “Title 50” authorities.

Wilkerson agreed to do so, noting that MTI is “a topic of high interest at this time.”

Wilkerson also faced questions from senators worried about the Pentagon’s security clearance processes, which have come under scrutiny with the massive leak of intelligence from Senior Airman Jack Teixeira, a subsequent Pentagon-wide review, and a GAO report on years of mismanagement when it comes to modernizing the system.

Pledging to foster a “culture of individual and collective accountability” to stop leaks, Wilkerson also acknowledged that the GAO report identified many problems and recommendations to work on as she hopes to oversee the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.

Warrant Officer Selection Rates Will Be Low with Fierce Competition, Few Spots

July 12, 2024 | By David Roza

The application process for the Air Force’s first batch of warrant officers in 66 years looks to be a fiercely competitive one, with nearly 500 Airmen applying for just 60 slots.

About 490 Airmen across the Active-Duty, Reserve, and Guard components applied to attend Air Force Warrant Officer Training School, which will train two eight-week classes of about 30 candidates each. The first class starts this October and the second starts in early 2025.

The Air Force and Space Force are the only military services currently without warrant officers, who fill technical rather than leadership functions in the other military branches. But today the Air Force sees the reintroduction of warrant officers as a way to maintain an edge in two fast-moving technical fields: information technology and cybersecurity.

Since only 60 spots are available, the rejection rate for the 490 or so applicants will be around 88 percent just to land a spot at the warrant officer training school.

Of the 490 applications, about 57 were quickly turned away due to not meeting eligibility requirements or having incomplete application packages. That means the remaining 433 applicants face a slightly-better 86 percent rejection rate for a chance of landing a spot at warrant officer school.

The data per component, broken down by rank, gender, and age, when available, is listed below:

Eligible Air Force Warrant Officer Applicants By Rank

Component	E-5	E-6	E-7	E-8	E-9
Active	73	132	93	3
Reserve*	10	16	16	2
Guard	16	42	26	2	1
Total	99	190	135	7	1

*The Reserve applicants included one O-3

Eligible Air Force Warrant Officer Applicants By Gender

Component	Male	Female
Active	277	24
Reserve	42	3
Guard	74	13
Total	393	40

Eligible Air Force Warrant Officer Applicants By Age**

Component	20-25	26-29	30-34	35-39	40+
Active	12	63	110	99	17
Reserve		6	11	17	11
Total	12	69	120	116	28

** Data on the age of Air National Guard warrant officer applicants was not available.

The applicants came from a range of career fields including cyber defense and cyber warfare, intelligence analysis, cryptologic language analysis, aerospace ground equipment specialists, health services management, mental health services, special investigations, and military training instructors.

Applicants had to be at the rank of staff sergeant and above, at the age of 42 or younger, and with a minimum five years’ time in service by July 24. Though applicants could come from any career field, they had to meet a range of qualifications in cybersecurity and information technology.

The application period opened on April 25 and closed on May 31. The selection board met from June 24-28, and selectees will be notified in late July. Upon graduating, the new warrant officers will be assigned to units supporting both the Air Force and joint force operational requirements, according to a press release late last month.

Future classes will be announced each year. It is unclear at this point how many warrant officers the Air Force hopes to train, but planning documents obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine in February show that the pipeline could scale up to 200 junior warrant officers and 50 senior warrant officers per year. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in March that he expects the program will eventually expand to other career fields, pending how successful it is in cyber and IT.

NATO Sounds Alarm on China’s Advances in Space and Nuclear, Ties with Russia

July 11, 2024 | By Chris Gordon and Unshin Lee Harpley

NATO leaders gathered in Washington D.C. for the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit said they were alarmed by China’s ambitions and aggression in nuclear, space, and cyberspace on top of its deepening ties with Russia, calling on the People’s Republic of China to act more responsibly.

“The PRC continues to rapidly expand and diversify its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems,” the Washington Summit Declaration, released July 10, stated. “We urge the PRC to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions and promote stability through transparency.”

The declaration also said allies were concerned about “developments in the PRC’s space capabilities and activities.”

China’s advancements in nuclear weapons and space in recent years have sparked widespread apprehension, with U.S. analysts and military leaders frequently highlighting Beijing’s extremely rapid progress. China currently operates nearly 500 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites, forming a formidable “sensor-shooter kill web” that poses significant risks to U.S. forces, and the Pentagon estimates China could possess over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, many of which will be deployed at heightened readiness levels, with plans for continued expansion.

NATO leaders said China’s cyber ambitions exacerbate the threat. The declaration condemns Beijing’s “malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation,” targeted at both the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. and its allies have reported increasing espionage and hacking attempts from China this year. Early this week, NATO allies raised red flags about a Chinese government-linked hacking group targeting business and government information.

“If we as a group of industry and nations don’t take steps to secure cyberspace now, we could find ourselves in a very bad place,” Robert Blair, senior director for national security and emerging technology at Mircosoft, said at NATO’s public forum on July 11. He added that NATO needs a common pact on cybersecurity, focusing on both attribution and cyber deterrence, labeling the increasing risk as an “immediate threat.”

Beijing’s growth in these sectors, coupled with its ties with Russia, remains a “profound concern” and a security challenge for NATO, officials said, as they work to build resilience, preparedness, and protection against China’s “coercive tactics and efforts to divide the Alliance.”

The official declaration saw strong condemnation of China, labeling Beijing as a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine” due to its “large-scale support” for Russia’s defense industrial base.

“We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort,” the declaration stated. “This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defense sector.”

“China is propping up Russia’s war economy,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg added July 11. “This is not just a temporary coalition of convenience, it is a major strategic shift.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said the declaration’s language on China is purposefully “harsh” because while China may not be providing Russia directly with weapons like North Korea or Iran, it is offering “industrial assistance and maintaining trade” with Moscow.

Concerns over China’s military ties with Russia have prompted NATO to increase its focus on Indo-Pacific partnerships. Member nations have expanded dialogue, increased economic cooperation, and staged joint military exercises with countries including Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan, who all attended the summit.

“China is an increasing concern for us, helping Russia with military equipment and doing a lot of things that the sanctions against Russia is aiming to stop,” said Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister of Sweden, which joined the alliance this year. “It also emphasizes the need to cooperate with the Indo-Pacific region. … Security nowadays is now a very global thing, not a regional thing.”

China is lashing out against the 32-member states’ collective statement. China’s foreign ministry said the Washington Summit Declaration is a “scaremongering piece about the Asia-Pacific,” denying responsibility for the war in Ukraine.

“Its paragraphs on China contain a load of biases, smears, and provocations,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on July 11. “NATO has been spreading disinformation created by the U.S. and blatantly smearing China to undermine China’s relations with Europe and hamper China-Europe cooperation.”

But NATO officials said China’s activities have also drawn Asian countries closer to the alliance.

“What happens in Ukraine today can happen in Asia tomorrow,” Stoltenberg said in remarks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida July 11.

F-35 Deliveries Can Resume Immediately With ‘Truncated’ TR-3 Software

July 11, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Lt. Gen. Michael J. Schmidt, F-35 program executive officer, has approved use of “truncated” Tech Refresh 3 software, clearing the way for deliveries of more than 90 F-35s sitting in storage to U.S. military services and foreign users, the Joint Program Office announced July 11.

Schmidt approved the move July 3. The JPO said Schmidt took the action “after extensive coordination with the services, Joint Strike Fighter Executive Steering Board, pilots, maintainers, and industry.”

Deliveries of the F-35 have been on pause for a year now, as the TR-3 software—meant to underpin a host of Block 4 improvements to the jet—remains in flight testing. The jets in storage were built with TR-3 processors and other hardware.

A few months ago, manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the JPO agreed to accept a “truncated” version of TR-3 to get deliveries going again. The F-35 steering group—comprised of partners and users of the multiservice, multinational fighter—approved the plan to release jets with an incomplete TR-3 software package.

Yet Schmidt had been waiting for clear evidence that the truncated software is stable and safe for flight. Test pilots reported as recently as May that the software was still unstable and required in-flight rebooting multiple times per sortie.

Schmidt’s action means Lockheed Martin can resume deliveries of the F-35s as early as July 11, government sources said. The JPO is expected to issue a statement when the first aircraft is delivered and accepted, a process named for the associated Defense Contract Management Agency form, the DD-250. This will happen in “the near future,” the JPO said in a brief press statement.

Lockheed has said it can deliver the F-35s at the rate of one plane per day, but the Government Accountability Office recently pointed out that the company has never before achieved that rate. Even if that rate is achieved, it will take more than a year to catch up on deliveries to where all stored aircraft have been handed over to their users. Complicating the math is the fact that F-35s are still being produced, requiring faster delivery than production. Lockheed has a goal to deliver 156 F-35s per year by 2025.

The hold on deliveries has thwarted absorption plans at user squadrons worldwide, disrupting the training of pilots and maintainers and delaying the divestment or retirement of older fighters, such as the F-16.

Denmark recently recalled F-35s it had stationed at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., in order to facilitate pilot and maintainer training at its domestic F-35 unit.

The TR-3 package of powerful new processors, displays and software is the basis for the Block 4 upgrade of the F-35 fleet; the configuration the Air Force has been waiting on to amp up its purchases of the fighter. However, delays in testing and development of some new capabilities prompted Schmidt to tell Congress this spring that the Block 4 will be “reimagined,” with some new features not coming until the 2030s.

Although neither Lockheed nor the JPO will discuss where the F-35s are being stored due to operational security, sources said the majority are parked at facilities near the company’s Fort Worth, Texas, manufacturing plant. The jets are still technically “owned” by Lockheed until they are delivered, but the DCMA has suggested the company’s liability for damage during the long storage period may be limited.

Lockheed has declined to disclose how the fighters have been stored; whether they’ve had their openings sealed to prevent intrusion of pests—akin to what is done with jets in long-term storage at the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.—or whether they are put in hangars to prevent weather damage, and whether they are occasionally run to lubricate their systems.