B-52s Simultaneously Operate in Europe, Middle East, and Indo-Pacific Theaters

May 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

B-52s deployed to Morón Air Base, Spain, on May 17 for a bomber task force deployment, making Europe the third area of operations where Stratofortresses are operating.

The bomber task force of B-52s from the 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, will participate in joint and allied training in both Europe and Africa. B-52s are also deployed to the Middle East for combat operations out of Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, and there also is a task force of B-52s deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

B-52s are picking up the majority of bomber taskings in the Air Force as the B-1 struggles with readiness. Air Force Global Strike Command ordered a fleet-wide safety standdown last month to inspect fuel problems. Some of the Lancers have since returned to flight, but the command has not said how many.

The day before the bombers touched down in Spain, six Barksdale B-52s from both the U.S. and deployed bases conducted a “global power projection event” called Apex Charger, flying simultaneously in the Arctic, North America, western Europe, and the Indo-Pacific, according to U.S. Strategic Command.

The command did not specify the scenario that the exercise focused on, saying “this mission demonstrates the Department of Defense’s ability to command and control its bomber forces for any assigned mission anywhere in the world at any time.”

“The speed, flexibility, and readiness of our strategic bombers play a critical role in our ability to deter potential adversaries and signal our unwavering support to our allies and partners,” STRATCOM boss Adm. Charles “Chas” A. Richard said in a release. “Missions like this provide invaluable training opportunities with our allies and partners to improve our interoperability and demonstrate that our forces are capable of operating anywhere, anytime, to meet any challenge decisively.”

USAF Picks Candidates for the Next Round of Active, Reserve KC-46 Bases

May 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force is considering two bases for the next Active-duty KC-46 component and six bases for the next Pegasus Reserve unit, with a decision expected this fall.

The service announced May 13 it is looking at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, and MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, as candidate locations. One of the bases will be selected to host 24 KC-46s. The USAF is also looking at Beale Air Force Base, California; Grissom Air Reserve Base, Indiana; Joint Base Andrews, Maryland; March Air Reserve Base, California; Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York; and Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, as candidate bases. One of the six will be chosen to host 12 KC-46s.

All the bases currently fly the KC-135 Stratotanker, which the KC-46 is slated to replace. The Air Force will now conduct site surveys at each location over the summer, which “will be assessed against operational requirements, potential impacts to existing missions, housing, infrastructure, and manpower,” the Air Force said in a release.

The Air Force already bases Active-duty KC-46s at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas; Reserve tankers at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, South Carolina; and Air National Guard aircraft at Pease Air National Guard Base, New Hampshire. Air Education and Training Command hosts KC-46 training at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma. Construction for future operations is underway at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, and Travis Air Force Base, California. Tinker will also host maintenance for the aircraft.

Fairchild recently became a “super” tanker wing as it received 12 more KC-135s in 2019 and reactivated the 97th Air Refueling Squadron. “Super” tanker wings include four squadrons, and the base was expected to operate a total of 60 of the tankers. MacDill’s 6th Air Refueling Wing and Reserve 927th Air Refueling Wing operate 24 KC-135s.

The Air Force recently received its 45th KC-46, as deliveries have slowed in recent months.

Air Mobility Command and U.S. Transportation Command are working to free up KC-46s to fly some limited operational missions, in a step to alleviate stress on the legacy KC-135 and KC-10 fleets.

USAF to Cut F-35 Buy in Future Years Defense Plan

May 14, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force will propose about a 10 percent cut in its planned F-35 purchases in the upcoming future years defense plan, citing sustainment costs for the jet well above what was expectd, and because the service prefers to wait for the more advanced Block 4 model. Budget talking points obtained by Air Force Magazine appear to show the USAF giving the F-35 program an ultimatum: Get costs under control over the next six to eight years or the overall buy will be sharply reduced.

According to the talking points, which were prepared for Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown. Jr., the Air Force plans to request 48 F-35s in fiscal year 2022, but only 43 aircraft a year from fiscal 2023 to 2026. The effect over the five years would be to buy 220 jets versus 240 under the previous plan.

Whether Brown has signed off on the new plan is unclear. “The information outlined in the talking points regarding future Air Force fighter force structure is pre-decisional,” said Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Air Force public affairs chief, who declined further comment about pending budget or resourcing decisions.

In the last three budget years, the Air Force requested 48 F-35s and Congress added another 12. That 25 percent increase on USAF’s depot and spares capacity has hurt mission capable rates and prompted some members of Congress to declare they will fight any further such “plus-ups,” to let the sustainment enterprise catch up.

The Air Force set an operating cost goal of $4.1 million per airplane per year—in fiscal 2012 dollars—early in the program, expecting the cost would be in line with that of the F-16. It has failed to hit those marks, however, and Air Force leaders have recently expressed hard skepticism that the goal can ever be achieved. Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly said in February he was not “brimming with confidence” about reaching F-35 support cost goals, and he reiterated that sentiment after a late March tour of F-35 sustainment facilities.

In fact, according to the USAF talking points, the service expects sustainment cost per tail per year to be $7.8 million in 2036 (again, in 2012 base year dollars).

“This is an unaffordable sustainability model, if the F-35 were to become the majority of [the Air Force’s] fighter fleet,” the document said. “The Air Force needs the F-35’s advanced capabilities, [but] in affordable capacity.”

The service expects to retain the F-16 into the 2030s and needs to backfill it with something to perform “missions short of high-end warfare,” the document said. If the F-35’s operating and support costs could be “brought significantly lower,” the USAF would prefer to buy it for this mission, reducing the number of logistics tails and expanding operational flexibility. “Otherwise, the Air Force will have to look for an alternative platform,” according to the talking points. It added that this “decision point is at least six to eight years away.”

The service further noted that the Marine Corps and Navy—which have more complex versions of the F-35—set a cost per tail per year of $6.8 million and $7.5 million, respectively, “which are more realistic but likely still unachievable.”

The Air Force noted that the F-35’s procurement price has come down steadily over the last decade, now below $80 million a copy, but that sustainment “will be the overall cost driver.”

Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric T. Fick, program executive officer for the F-35 Joint Program Office, acknowledged the numbers in the McAleese and Associates defense conference May 13. “I see cost as the program’s greatest enemy. I see high cost as an existential threat to the F-35,” he said.

Sustainment is “where we really have the biggest mandate and the biggest challenge,” Fick said.

The cost per flying hour has come down 10 percent in the last year, from $37,000 in base year dollars to $33,000, Fick said; calling it a sign of progress.

He also put the sustainment metrics in context, noting that numbers can be confusing.

“I can reduce my cost per flying hour by flying more hours,” he said. “You increase the denominator [and] the overall cost per flying hour dips down. On the other side, that actually increases the cost per tail per year that the services have to pay,” because they’re flying more hours.

“Alternatively,” he continued, “I can fly less—maybe offload some of that work to simulators, … and that would increase the cost per flying hour, because I’m now amortizing all my fixed cost to a lower number of flight hours.” Only by looking at both numbers together, he said, “can you get a really clear view of the work that you’re doing.”

Fick said the JPO is “laser focused” on reducing sustainment costs by standing up more organic depot support, building better quality into parts so they spend more time on the aircraft and require less repair, and looking to economize on the Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney “polo-wearing folks” who are “doing great work, but they’re very expensive.”

Those areas are “what we’re targeting” for cost improvement, he said, and are “at the heart” of discussions about a potential long-term Performance-Based Logistics contract with Lockheed that may get started with a request for proposals this summer.

Also ongoing are negotiations for the Lot 15-17 contract with Lockheed Martin, Fick said. He called the Lot 14-16 agreement an “awesome deal for the taxpayer” and said he is expecting a contract on the next lot by the end of this fiscal year.

The Air Force talking points continue to describe the F-35 as the “cornerstone of the high-end fight.” It was originally supposed to replace all the F-16s and the A-10s, but “whether the Air Force is able to afford to replace the majority of the fighter fleet with F-35s is a decision point that is still a few years off. In the near term, we must concentrate on achieving the F-35 capability needed for advanced threats (high-end fight).”

For the near future, and through the decade, the talking points say the Air Force will concentrate on “prioritizing” the Block 4 fleet and building it “to desired capacity; finaliz[ing] basing laydown; [and] continu[ing] advanced weapon integration.” Block 4 “must be affordably realized,” the Air Force said.

Fick said that the Block 4 improvements, previously planned to come at a rate of two per year, will now be annual only, due to the complexity of software integration.

The service will also explore manned/unmanned teaming arrangements between the F-35 and autonomous escort aircraft.

“While the F-35 is a formidable platform today, it has some significant challenges to ensure it stays capable against an evolving future threat,” the Air Force document said. Operating costs and sustainment “are areas of concern that need continued focus and work to address affordability.”

Making the Air Force’s Case for Big Fighter Cuts

May 14, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

To ensure it can compete—and win—against peer adversaries such as China and Russia in the future, the Air Force must divest its aging equipment and instead invest in more capable and advanced aircraft, said Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements.

The challenge is convincing Congress to give up aircraft today for something else later on, something lawmakers have consistently resisted in the past. Hinote said during a May 13 interview with Air Force Magazine editors that the idea of “swapping iron for iron” comes up in every discussion the USAF has on Capitol Hill, but that this time the argument will be more convincing.

“We think we see a change in the debate, in the conversation, when it comes to the willingness of Congress as a whole,” he said. “I’m not talking about Congress as the individual [advocate for] a district or a base or a platform—but we think we see movement in Congress, as a whole, to contemplate getting rid of some things we really like so that we can get to the new tools that our Airmen need.”

Hinote cited two recent examples:

An April 5 letter from 14 members of the House of Representatives to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III that called out combatant commanders’ insatiable request for forces, saying, “We have serious concerns that these near limitless [requests for forces] are driving readiness costs to unsustainable levels, servicemembers and platforms are getting burned through at breakneck paces, and much-needed modernization efforts are getting delayed as restricted funds are directed to addressing short-term requirements and risks.”
The congressmen praised the service Chiefs’ “plans to modernize and revolutionize their respective services,” but added, “We fear, however, our ability to modernize the services for future great powers competition and conflict will be undermined by the COCOM’s failure, unwillingness, or inability to make do with their approved [Global Force Management Plan].”
The 2020 final report from the Future of Defense Task Force. “If you look at it, it clearly has this message of, ‘Let’s get to the new so that we can buy down the future risk,’” Hinote said. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks has acknowledged the need to balance short-term and long-term risk.

Still, it’s not going to be an easy road.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. caught many by surprise May 13 when he announced the service’s intent to reduce its seven-fighter fleet over the coming 15 years to “four plus one,” with the one being the A-10. Under the plan, the Air Force would begin to retire its fifth-generation F-22 in the 2030s, by which time it could begin to acquire the Next-Generation Air Dominance aircraft. In the meantime, Hinote said, the Air Force will continue to maintain and upgrade the F-22 as a bridge to NGAD but not invest in overhauls that would extend its life beyond 25-30 years.

MacKenzie Eaglen, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Air Force Magazine Brown’s plan “makes tremendous sense.”

For “the past two decades, the operations and support costs tail has outpaced new equipment purchases by two to one,” she said. But the plan “also is a big bet on NGAD and the future of autonomous, semi-crewed and uncrewed systems.”

Eaglen said the Air Force has for decades retired fighter aircraft “far faster” than it could replace them, a track record that’s likely to give Congress pause. “Congress will not accept the promise of two birds in the bush over one in the hand,” she said. “NGAD simply must deliver on time and in sufficient quantity for this goal to become a reality.”

Hinote believes it will. He said he can’t wait for classification levels to ease so he can brag about the highly secretive program. The Air Force has brought several leading lawmakers and Department of Defense officials to see the aircraft and to talk to the Airmen who are flying it. “It’s made a big difference,” he said. “Seeing is believing.”

Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Maryland), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and an Army veteran, said at a May 13 Center for Strategic and International Studies event that the Air Force must clearly explain its reasoning and provide the analysis that backs it up.

Many lawmakers were caught off guard and “confused” by the service’s decision to acquire up to 144 F-15EX fighters, he said, a plane the Air Force says it needs to replace rapidly deteriorating F-15Cs. As a “big believer in the F-35,” Brown said he can see a role for the Eagle II, but “they’ve got to be as open and transparent [as possible] to make their case to Congress, whether they want to retire a system or whether they want to, you know, modernize and move to another platform.”

Eric Fanning, the former Pentagon official who now leads the Aerospace Industries Association, said the cut-now-to-buy-later strategy is always hard to execute.

“This sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way,” he said. “The longer you go with that gap … the worse it becomes, year after year after year, because the existing fleet can become increasingly expensive to maintain, to modernize, [until you get] to a point where you can’t SLEP it anymore.” (A SLEP is a service-life extension program.)

The Air Force can’t continually “kick a bigger problem down the road,” he said. “You know, modernization is future readiness, and what’s our readiness posture going to be in the future if we don’t figure out how to bridge these gaps?”

AFCENT Can Now Generate Air Tasking Orders in the Cloud

May 14, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The 609th Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in early May became the Air Force’s first AOC to operationally use the Kessel Run All Domain Operations Suite to build an air tasking order. The new cloud-based system allows planners to build an air tasking order from anywhere and uses automation and advanced software to accomplish what usually takes dozens of personnel using stove-piped systems.

KRADOS, developed by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Detachment 12, also known as Kessel Run, uses the same principles behind the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System push to bring in new technology to improve the air war planning and execution process.

“This is an extremely important moment for the command and Air Force,” said Lt. Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of 9th Air Force (Air Forces Central), in a release. “Improving the Air Tasking Order process makes AFCENT and our distributed command and control capabilities more efficient, and this innovation will also help improve AOC operations across the Air Force and in other combatant commands.”

The AOC has been using the Theater Battle Management Core System to build the air tasking order—the daily battle rhythm for fighters, bombers, and tankers in the area—for decades. The TBMCS needs large numbers of personnel and different computer systems, with walls of screens and dozens of workstations packing the large CAOC at Al Udeid.

This old system “was at the end of its lifespan,” 609th AOC Commander Col. Frederick “Trey” Coleman II said in an interview. Its systems were localized to the computers in the CAOC and based on old coding. “You put a comma in a wrong place, it would crash the entire system when you’re entering data,” he said.

Kessel Run began working on new systems to improve the ATO process, including developing Jigsaw, a software package that streamlines refueling tanker planning, and Slapshot, which is used for fighter and bomber operations.

KRADOS is the overall system that links Jigsaw, Slapshot, and others into a cloud-based system that can be accessed from anywhere like a website. “They’re all very intuitive. They’re all very simple. It’s like something you see on an iPad. They’re all connected,” Coleman said.

For example, by being able to access Slapshot and Jigsaw, KRADOS can link the range and armament of F-15s with the availability of KC-135s to quickly plan operations and build the ATO from anywhere with less people.

“[Kessel Run] took a 20-year-old software application that existed only on the computers at the facility at Al Udeid, and they gave us an operating system that is state of the art, is highly automated, and it is cloud based,” Coleman said. “And that’s the biggest thing about KRADOS for us is, it resides in the cloud. … So when we are planning F-15 sorties, or when we’re planning tanker sorties, or when we’re building airspace, all that is done as you’re working those systems. It’s all done on a website … and it’s saved automatically, and anybody can access it.”

The 609th AOC developed a close working relationship with Kessel Run and “asked them to accelerate” because of the operational need in the AFCENT area of operations.

“We took some risk in AFCENT because it’s not the system of record yet, not programmed as a system of record,” he said. “We’re taking a little risk or a little trial and error to get there, but it’s really effective, and it’s working.”

KRADOS was implemented in the 609th AOC in a beta version in December, with Kessel Run coders and software engineers on site to work with personnel to fix issues and brainstorm improvements. In May, the 609th AOC used it for the first time to do operational planning. It has not yet produced a specific ATO, though that will come in the near future. Coleman expects it to be fully operational in about a year.

Because the CAOC has several partner nations involved in planning, Kessel Run is “engaged in delivering a coalition solution via the mission partner environment,” though there isn’t a timeline for that development, spokesman Richard Blumenstein said in a statement.

While the 609th AOC is in the lead, other AOCs across the Air Force are also going to adopt the system. Kessel Run is focused on the CAOC and expanding access to the rest of the AOC enterprise. “There are a number of foundational steps we need to accomplish in order to make enterprise-wide delivery effective, and we are currently working through those steps,” Blumenstein said.

KRADOS comes as the CAOC and AFCENT are looking at more ways to disperse operations. For example, the 727th Expeditionary Air Control Squadron began full operations at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, after 10 years at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates. The 727th EACS, known as “Kingpin,” provides a real-time picture of air operations in the region.

Coleman said this ability to distribute is key as large-scale bases and systems in the region could be under threat.

“The need for distribution is incredibly clear today,” he said. “As adversary capabilities grow, as the operational environment changes, we cannot have all of our operational C2 housed in the same vulnerable facility.”

While KRADOS will make building an ATO faster, and require fewer people, there will still be a need for a team of experts in the loop, he said.

“There’s this notion that one day, a single person can sit in a Starbucks and make an ATO on their own. You still need people, you still need facilities, you still need a team of experts who can come together and advise the commander … who’s going to make the operational decision,” Coleman said. “You still need all those things. But, the ability to pick up and plan, produce, and execute your ATO … one day at Al Udeid and the next day at Shaw Air Force Base, or even between 8 a.m. and 3 o’clock in the afternoon from Al Udeid, then from 3 o’clock in the afternoon until 10 p.m. at Shaw, and then maybe you do it at Langley Air Force Base (Virginia) for the next shift. To be able to distribute those functions using similar systems with cloud-based data brings the Air Force an incredible degree of resilience that we’ve never had before.”

Air Force Wants to Cut 421 Old Fighters, Buy 304 New Ones

May 14, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force will ask Congress to retire 421 legacy aircraft through 2026, replacing them with just 304 new fighters, according to fiscal 2022 budget talking points obtained by Air Force Magazine. The savings derived from operating a smaller fleet will be put toward acquiring new systems such as the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter later this decade, and a new Multi-Role fighter, called MR-X, in the 2030s.

“The information outlined in the talking points regarding future Air Force fighter force structure is pre-decisional,” said Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, an Air Force spokesperson. The document was not labeled as such, however. He declined further comment about potential future budget or resourcing decisions.

The 421 aircraft described in the talking points include a total phase-out of the aged F-15C/D fleet, numbering about 234 aircraft, by the end of fiscal 2026. The F-16 fleet would be reduced by 124 aircraft, mostly from what are called the “pre-block,” or oldest models, leaving a force of 812, also by the end of 2026. The A-10 attack plane would be reduced from 281 total aircraft to 218, for a reduction of 63 tails, but on a more aggressive timeline ending in fiscal 2023.

Over the future-years defense plan ending in fiscal ’26, the Air Force would also bring on 84 new F-15EX and 220 F-35A fighters, resulting in a net reduction of 117 jets over the five-year period. The downsizing would be the largest since the “CAF Redux,” or Combat Air Forces Reduction of the early 2010s, in which the USAF trimmed its fleet by about 250 airplanes.

Air Force leaders have been pushing for several years to be allowed to retire legacy systems in order to pay for new ones that will be more relevant to the future fight, particularly in the Indo-Pacific theater. Service officials in recent days have said they plan to start phasing out the fifth-generation F-22 in 2030, to be replaced by the classified NGAD family of systems, known to be at least one manned fighter and potentially several unmanned variants. Like the NGAD, the new MR-X would also be designed using new digital methodology to drastically reduce design, development and fielding timelines, while sharply reducing sustainment costs by baking in a short service life, with the expectation that successor aircraft will follow swiftly.

“To just keep pace with the threat would require an additional $6- to $7 billion per year to modernize our current force projected into the future,” the USAF talking points say. “Even if affordable, this force falls well short of the capability required to counter a future peer threat.” The document goes on to argue that no technology can transform “our fourth-generation fighters into fifth-generation fighters, or fifth-generation fighters into NGAD.”

The paper also points out that legacy systems are becoming “significantly more expensive to sustain” and that the USAF fields one of the oldest fleets serving worldwide. The Air Force’s fleet averages 28.6 years, the document points out; by comparison, the Navy’s fleet averages 14.4 years; the Army’s aviation arm averages 15.3 years; the Royal Australian Air Force, 8.9 years, and the U.K. Royal Air Force, 16.5 years.

Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said this week that the USAF’s operating and sustainment costs are “skyrocketing,” and increasing at double the rate of inflation, due to the age of the aircraft. He said 44 percent of the USAF’s fleet is operating beyond its planned service life. The F-16 was initially expected to serve until only about 2005.

The F-22 fleet of about 180 aircraft would remain intact through the FYDP, receiving continuing funds for sensor upgrades and to remain fully viable until it begins transitioning out of the force in 2030. According to the talking points, though, the F-22 “cannot be made competitive against the threat two decades from today.”

The NGAD “family of systems” represents “our ability to fight and win in the highly contested environment in the future,” the document says. The new methodology of developing the NGAD “at a pace future threats cannot match” will allow the Air Force to maintain its advantage.

Even so, however, the Air Force seems to have accepted that broad control of the air in a high-end conflict is no longer achievable. It is aiming, rather, for “temporary windows of superiority” in “highly-contested threat environments,” with “complementary capabilities” for the Joint force and U.S. allies. To achieve this, the USAF needs “full-spectrum survivability, high speed, advanced weapons, and extended ranges.”

To perform the “global strike” mission, the USAF adds to those characteristics “sufficient payload” and resilience achieved through “the use of human-machine teaming and a mix of manned and unmanned systems.”

The F-16 and A-10 fleets would also continue to receive funding for structural modifications and capability enhancements to keep them relevant until they fully retire.

The plan reflects the results of “extensive gaming and analysis using the most difficult problem (China) and the most difficult scenario (Taiwan) at the most difficult time (2035),” according to the document. “It is clear that the Air Force must change the future fighter force structure mix by changing investment priorities to provide the capability, capacity, and affordability required to meet a peer threat,” they said.

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said May 12 the service must neck down from seven fighter types to “four plus-one,” the “one” being the A-10, in order to reduce the costs of maintaining so many logistics trains.

The A-10 is “very effective in current conflicts, but it is not viable in the long term,” according to the talking points. “Its lack of survivability in the evolving global threat environment and its singular capability set renders it ineffective in the needed role of affordable capacity.” The A-10 cannot perform the defensive counter air, suppression of enemy air defense, or homeland defense missions, the documents said. The service has tried to retire the A-10, unsuccessfully, several times, thwarted by enthusiasts who say it is an unmatched close air support machine.

However, the Air Force plans to prosecute the CAS mission in a different way, Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements, told Air Force Magazine on May 13. Hinote did not describe the new CAS concept but suggested it would involve unmanned aircraft.

Beyond the FYDP, and potentially into the 2030s, the Air Force expects about 600 “post block” F-16s—C/D models from Block 40 on—to remain in the force with with some upgrades, useful in both permissive and some competitive environments. The transition to the MR-X is expected “in the mid-30s.” This new airplane will be a “clean sheet” design, created by digital methods, and the “decision point” to launch the program is now expected to be “six to eight years away,” according to the document. The MR-X “must be able to affordably perform missions short of high-end warfare.” The F-35 could potentially fill this role, but only if its operating costs could be “brought significantly lower.”

The F-15E/X is described in the papers as “an outsized weapons truck,” useful for carrying standoff weapons in a contested theater or performing air superiority in less-contested airspace. Interestingly, while the Air Force has mentioned that the F-15EX could launch the hypersonic, air-to-surface AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, the talking points say it can also carry an “outsize … air-to-air” weapon, as well. Presumably, this is a long-range weapon meant to counter China’s long-range PL-15 air-to-air missile, but the documents don’t say whether the weapon referenced is the AIM-260, a classified developmental air-to-air missile revealed two years ago.

The Air Force plans to buy 11 F-15EXs in 2022, followed by 14 in 2023 and 19 annually thereafter through the FYDP. If that ramp rate extends through the decade, the USAF would buy its 144th F-15EX in 2030. Contractual documents released last year show that the USAF has options to buy up to 200 F-15EXs.

Brown told a defense symposium this week that his tactical aircraft study, announced in February, is not meant to be a product delivered to Congress, but is an internal assessment of the right future fighter force mix, which will inform the fiscal 2022 budget request but would be implemented in the fiscal ’23 budget and Program Objective Memoranda.

The White House is expected to release its full budget May 27. The Biden administration released a “skinny” budget last month, which calls for $753 billion for national security programs, including $715 billion for the Department of Defense.

DOD Eases Mask Rules to Follow New CDC Guidance

May 14, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

The Defense Department no longer requires masks at DOD facilities for fully vaccinated personnel. The guidance applies to everyone who is at least two weeks past receiving their final dose, and covers both indoor and outdoor activities, according to a May 13 memo from Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks.

The memo was released the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance for limiting COVID-19 transmission. The new CDC guidance says fully vaccinated people can resume pre-pandemic activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, “except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.”

The CDC recommended masks continue to be worn on public transportation, airplanes, and at hospitals and medical facilities.

“All DOD personnel should continue to comply with CDC guidance regarding areas where masks should be worn, including within airports,” Hicks wrote. “Personnel who are not fully vaccinated should continue to follow applicable DOD mask guidance, including continuing to wear masks indoors.”

Commanders and supervisors can still make exceptions to “ensure a safe workforce,” Hicks wrote, but “commanders and supervisors should not ask about an employee’s vaccination status or use information about an employee’s vaccination status to make decisions about how and when employees will report to a workplace instead of teleworking.”

President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Jan. 20 requiring all federal workers to wear a mask when around others, to social distance, and to follow CDC guidelines. Speaking from the White House on May 13, he called the CDC’s new guidance “a great milestone, a great day,” and strongly urged all Americans to be vaccinated. “It’s going to take a little more time for everyone who wants to get vaccinated to get their shots,” Biden said. “So all of us, let’s be patient with one another.”

Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place, director of the Defense Health Agency, told reporters in late March he expected every military member who wants to receive a vaccine to be able to get one by mid-summer.

“Based on projections that we have, both supply side and vaccination side, we do fully expect to be open to all … of our DOD eligible populations on or before the first of May,” Place said in a March 31 briefing. “At current uptake rates for those who want to get it, we think by the middle of July or so … the department will be vaccinated.”

DAF Will Devote Office to Digital Engineering as Advances Gain Steam

May 13, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Department of the Air Force will set up a permanent office dedicated to digital engineering within Air Force Materiel Command that the Air Force and Space Force will share.

The department is “putting some resources and personnel in place to move from what has been a wonderful and fantastic campaign of a coalition of the willing, if you will, about 900-strong … to move to a more structured activity that can really be providing assistance and responsiveness and provisioning this journey,” said Kristin Baldwin, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology, and engineering.

An emphasis on digital engineering in its acquisition and research and development programs is part of the USSF’s vision, announced this month, to be a “digital service.”

Described simplistically, digital engineering leaves blueprints behind in favor of continuously evolving digital models. To provide an update on the department’s efforts to transition to digital engineering, Baldwin appeared on The Aerospace Corp.’s “The Space Policy Show” on May 13 along with Air Force Maj. Gen. Kimberly A. Crider, who is mobilization assistant to Chief of Space Operations Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond.

Baldwin and Crider shared some of the lessons learned from pathfinder programs that are testing out processes, and they predicted some forthcoming changes, including what to expect in new and existing programs, trends in training and education, and the vision for a shared digital environment where all of the department’s future engineering development will take place.

Within the pathfinder programs, a common theme to emerge has been the importance of thinking ahead.

“We’re learning a lot about how the architecture needs to work, how you need to design for this up front, how you need to plan ahead to think through the kinds of architecture you require, the kinds of modeling that you need, the kinds of modeling tools and how to string these tools together in an open and modular kind of way,” Crider said.

It’s helped that the department had already introduced the “e” designation for programs that meet certain thresholds.

“As we’ve come along in the Space Force and looked to accelerate our efforts … we have found that having those capabilities available to us and starting from that instead of having to build all that out has saved us an immense amount of time,” Crider said.

Baldwin acknowledged that existing programs may not be able to incorporate many of the forthcoming changes, such as the common digital environment. An assessment will help determine what’s possible. New programs, meanwhile, are expected to go all in on digital engineering from the start.

Crider described how the shared engineering environment will work: “The government owning the development environment and the tech baseline that goes along with that and making that available to industry and programs throughout,” she said.

“We have become much more attuned to the importance and the value of common enterprise services and standards … this idea of common enterprise services that we want all programs to be able to leverage and use and industry partners to be able to leverage and use,” Crider said. “Many of you out there have heard about Cloud One and the government’s program to deliver enterprise cloud services leveraging commercial industry products and toolsets and integrating that into a set of services that are secure. …”

Eventually the environment will include more components, including Platform One, Crider said:

“Platform One deployed on Cloud One—to provide that environment, that tech stack—for continuous development of models, integration of models, and then infusion of data associated with those models. And that data is brought in from Data One—so a common enterprise set of services for hosting, storing, managing, securing, and protecting data.”

The digital vision won’t come to pass without a more skilled workforce, Crider said. While she’s noticed that higher ed institutions are teaching digital engineering more often, the department has another plan—namely, Digital University—to offer content with which members can continuously build on digital skills.

They cited data security and interoperability of the shared environment as challenges going forward, but those may not be the biggest.

“It’s one thing to build out the environment,” Crider said. “It’s another thing to actually make it part of how you work. So the whole cultural evolution, really getting in the pool and doing your program review, your test reviews, your capability development—all in this rapid, integrated fashion, where all day, every day, we can do a program design review with our partners right on the fly, and we can dive deep on different design options and think through things with our partners across industry …

“Actually shifting our culture … that can’t be understated.”

New Force Design: NGAD Needed Soon, F-22 Sunset Begins in 2030

May 13, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is preparing to unveil a new 30-year fighter force design that includes at least two all-new fighters, a much greater use of autonomous and unmanned aircraft, a new way of providing close air support, and a narrowing timeline for retiring aircraft such as the A-10, F-16, and F-22, said Lt. Gen. Clinton S. Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements.

Hinote said the F-22 will begin to phase out in about 2030—the exact timeline will be situation-dependent—and the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter will be needed soon to defeat a Chinese stealth aircraft and missile threat that is “closer than we think.”

In a May 13 interview with the editors of Air Force Magazine, Hinote said Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s revelation that the USAF is planning to reduce its fighter fleet from seven types to “four plus one” is the kickoff of a “transparency” campaign to explain choices to be unveiled in the fiscal 2022 budget submission.

Brown said the future fighter fleet will include the F-35, F-15EX, late-model F-16s, and the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD family of systems; the “plus one” being the A-10. Brown did not mention the F-22, and “this was something you all rightly picked up on very quickly,” Hinote said.

The Air Force plans a “transition” from the F-22 to the NGAD, and “we felt like, now is a good time for us to be able to talk about how we’re going to bridge” between the two systems.

While the F-22 is a good airframe—it has been updated and will continue to receive upgrades, “mostly sensors,” Hinote said—the Air Force is anticipating “the sunset of the F-22 … in about the 2030-ish timeframe.” That won’t be the full retirement of the type, but the beginning of its phase-out, he said. By then the F-22 will be 25 years old and the Air Force should be deep into a new cycle of fielding NGAD and its successors on what could be as rapid as a five-year cycle.

“Our Chief of Staff Gen. Brown has it exactly right: We must ‘accelerate change or lose,’” said AFA President retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright. “If he says it’s time to start thinking about retiring the F-22, then he understands something about what’s coming with NGAD. The Air Force has led the way in developing and fielding the most advanced technologies on the planet and integrating them into complex weapons systems. They’ve done that from the F-117 a generation ago to the B-21 today. We have to respect Gen. Brown’s confidence and that proven capability to deliver.”

The F-22 fleet is small and suffers from vanishing-vendor problems, senior USAF officers have said recently. A recent high-level USAF planning document said the F-22 won’t be competitive two decades from now. Hinote said the F-22 “has its limitations and we can’t modernize our way out of the [air superiority] problem with just using an updated F-22.”

However, the Air Force will not allow any gap in its ability to achieve air superiority, he insisted.

“We believe … we have a good story,” he said, which is that the F-22 will be kept “viable as a bridge to get to the new capability. This is not an area of the Air Force where we feel we can take a lot of risk.” Though he thinks some mission areas might tolerate gaps or risks—he didn’t name them—air superiority “is not one of them.”

One of the reasons senior leadership is talking about the F-22 and NGAD is because the budget request to be presented in the coming weeks will show a “large … commitment” to the NGAD, Hinote said.

The service expects to have “a tight transition plan” between the F-22 and NGAD, he added. Until NGAD is available, “We feel like a good use of our resources is to keep the F-22 viable as we are developing this sea change in the way we field capability.”

Depending on the threat and hedging against problems in NGAD, the USAF may consider a service-life extension program for the F-22, but Hinote said that seems unlikely because the NGAD is making swift progress.

“I was surprised at how well it’s doing,” he said. He has escorted a number of members of Congress to see the jet—which former USAF acquisition chief Will Roper revealed last September has already flown—and they have come away “at a minimum, fairly impressed,” Hinote assessed. Members of the Office of the Secretary of Defense have similarly visited the program, and “seeing is believing,” he added.

“We still have to make it real, and there’s a lot to do in the program, but when you see what is going on, and you hear it from the Airmen who are flying it, you get a chance to really understand … where we’re going.” He said he wished he could “brag on” the contractors who have brought the program so far, so quickly, but much of the project remains classified.

The NGAD timetable will be “event driven,” but Hinote doubts it will be 10 years before it is in operational service. The “long pole in the tent” right now is integrating “the most important things onto that platform with a government reference architecture.”

He also noted that NGAD is a family of systems and will be “optionally manned,” meaning several versions of the jet may be built and employed with or without crews.

When the budget comes out, “it may not look like a 100 percent” replacement of F-22s with NGADs because “you’re talking about a set of capabilities, … some of that may be unmanned [or] optionally manned. So it’s not one-for-one.”

Broadly, he expects the Air Force to embrace autonomous aircraft as force multipliers. “We’re really working hard at identifying the true value propositions” in missions where unmanned systems may be used, he reported. He noted the Skyborg autonomous aircraft test earlier this month, which did not require the use of a runway for launch or recovery—something that could be a game-changer as the Air Force seeks to complicate the targeting problem for adversaries.

The NGAD concept calls for rapid turnover in technology, such that when one is about to be deployed, the next version will already be in design, if not development. Hinote suggested that the second NGAD type is already in design, then said, “I can’t confirm or deny that one.” But the Air Force is embracing the concept because it will allow “the great companies of our industrial base to re-enter the competition at the design phase, as opposed to crowding them out in the sustainability phase” as a consequence of what has recently been coined “vendor lock.”

It hasn’t been decided what the optimum cycle of NGAD platform turnover should be, but the hardware and software will be in a perennial spiral, Hinote said.

“As you’re allowing that program to mature, through a spiral series, you’re designing the next platform” with new software and sensor technology, he said. As these are integrated into the existing version, “you jump over that one” to the next one. “It could be every five years,” he said. “It could be every eight years.”

The A-10, which also is expected to fly until the 2030s, will be superseded by a “new way” and “new concepts” of delivering close air support, Hinote said.

“We’re not looking at building another non-survivable close air support aircraft like it,” he explained. “The lines on the battlefield are not necessarily where you’re going to be. In fact, it’s probably going to look much more distributed … [that’s why you’re seeing the] long-range fires discussion … play out in the press and in the Pentagon.” This is a “big, big deal,” he said. Close air support will “feel much different.” The new aircraft will be used “typically” in the counterterrorism environment, Hinote said, and the new concept is “pretty compelling.” He didn’t give details, but said that when the new capability becomes available “it’ll be pretty evident that we need to just go ahead and divest the A-10 and move to the new” construct.

As for the F-16, Hinote confirmed what Brown has suggested, that it will likely be a “clean sheet design” created in much the same way as the NGAD, using digital methods. The role envisaged for the new airplane will be homeland defense and missions “that don’t necessarily require a high level of survivability.” For example, it may not need to have “radar stealth.”

However, this is not a pressing decision, as “our F-16 ‘new’ blocks are actually still in decent shape; we can upgrade them and keep them viable for some time.” When it comes time to “sunset” the F-16, “a clean sheet design using digital tools is the way to go,” Hinote said.

Fielding the NGAD is urgent, Hinote added. While he would not say when the threat will overmatch USAF’s current capabilities, “the time is absolutely coming where the combination of something like a [Chinese] J-20 with an advanced … missile is a threat to air superiority for the United States. … It’s something we’ve got to address.”