B-21 Temporary Shelters Could Also Shelter B-2s

B-21 Temporary Shelters Could Also Shelter B-2s

A temporary runway shelter being tested for the secret B-21 bomber will also be large enough to protect B-2 bombers from the elements, according to information provided by the Air Force.

An experimental, temporary shelter for the B-21 recently erected at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., which appeared in press release photos to be substantially smaller than B-2 hangars (and suggested a smaller size for the B-21), is actually 200 feet wide by 100 feet deep, the Air Force said in response to a query. That makes it large enough to accommodate the B-2, which has a wingspan of 172 feet and a length of 59 feet, and reveals nothing about the dimensions of the B-21.

The Air Force said the shelter was built by Brite Rigid Frame Buildings of Mosinee, Wisc. Two different shelters will be evaluated, but the builder of the second shelter has not yet been chosen. The second shelter will be “of similar size,” the Air Force said through a spokesman, and contracting will be conducted through the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Air Force wants the shelters to protect the B-21 from long exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, to reduce snow buildup and the need for de-icing in winter, as well as to offer a measure of weather protection for maintainers working on the jets at Stateside and deployed locations. Temporary shelters intended to protect the B-2 at overseas locations were inflatable, closable affairs that could be climate-controlled, to permit curative repairs to the B-2’s low observable coatings and treatments. Technology advances reportedly make such repairs less routine with the B-21.  

Air Force’s Weapon Swarming Project Fares Better in Second Test

Air Force’s Weapon Swarming Project Fares Better in Second Test

The Air Force’s “Golden Horde” weapon swarming project overcame its earlier technical difficulties in a second flight test last month, the service said March 5.

The Feb. 19 event featured four Small Diameter Bombs equipped with systems that let them work as a team, two more than the first test tried out. 

They “established communications with each other, identified a pop-up target, and followed the predetermined rules of engagement. They then proceeded to successfully evaluate and assign themselves to multiple targets, striking them in a time-synchronized manner,” the Air Force said in a release. It did not discuss what targets were involved in the event.

Steven Stockbridge, the Golden Horde team’s principal researcher, said the team resolved a software problem discovered during the first test that failed to tell the bombs to move in tandem.

USAF “incorporated changes to further improve integrated system performance and verified the new software” through simulations, the service said.

The Air Force Research Labratory, technology firm Scientific Applications and Research Associates, L3Harris, Georgia Tech Research Institute, and Boeing are partnering on various aspects of the project, from radios to autonomy algorithms to bomb integration.

A third test with the Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs is scheduled for later this spring. Earlier plans to try out a collaborative version of the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy, as well as a test with both MALD and SDB, were scrapped.

But a new phase in the cutting-edge program is coming.

“The Golden Horde program is now pivoting from inventory weapon demonstrations to developing and delivering a multi-tier digital weapon ecosystem: a live, virtual, constructive testing and demonstration capability known as the Colosseum,” the Air Force said. “The Colosseum will be a fully integrated simulation environment with weapon digital twins, or a real-world weapon and a virtual clone, to more rapidly test, demonstrate, improve, and transition collaborative autonomous networked technologies.”

USAF hopes digital twin technology will help get a final product out to the field faster by cutting down on physical testing time. Which weapons will carry the Golden Horde concept into battle remains to be seen, since the Air Force doesn’t plan to use the CSDB in real-life operations.

Golden Horde is one of three high-profile “vanguard” programs that pull resources and attention from across the Department of the Air Force to move faster than typical research projects. The department requested about $72 million for Golden Horde in fiscal 2021.

“The continued success of the Golden Horde demonstrations strengthens the foundation for integrating this technology into a variety of other weapon systems and helps the U.S. maintain a technological advantage over our adversaries,” Col. Garry A. Haase, head of the AFRL Munitions Directorate, said in the release.

USAF Planning Boss Pushes for Flexible Budgets to Keep Up with New Tech

USAF Planning Boss Pushes for Flexible Budgets to Keep Up with New Tech

As the Air Force pieces together its fiscal 2023 budget, due early next year, it must think not only about the immediate future, but also five years down the road.

That’s a challenge right now, said Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements.

“I should know what the requirements are in 2027. I don’t,” the planning boss said during a March 5 event hosted by the Hudson Institute.

Broadly, the Air Force knows what it wants: modern, artificially intelligent networking capabilities to connect its people, planes, and data in new ways; faster, stealthier, or longer-range aircraft and weapons; a fresh slate of nuclear weapons; disposable drones.

Hinote’s comfortable with how the Air Force is investing in military-specific technology so far. But it gets murkier when he tries to envision how commercial-sector innovation could bleed into the military realm.

“Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning—these are all things where there’s a great amount of progress being made in a very short amount of time,” he said. “When I talk to leaders in the tech world, they look at me like I’m crazy when we start to say, ‘What’s going to happen in 2027?’”

It’s tough to put a dollar figure on ideas that could change so drastically in the next half-decade. That lack of clarity can also complicate how the Air Force decides to allocate its money under the “Accelerate Change or Lose” modernization plan.

Later this year, the Air Force will have to pitch an updated funding plan for the Advanced Battle Management System, its piece of the Pentagon’s joint all-domain-command-and-control puzzle. That blueprint will need to work with the ideas submitted by the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force so each service’s systems can communicate in combat.

“We know the general requirements, and I think we know the general trajectory of the acquisition program, but what we don’t know is what we’re going to buy in 2027. If I was going to tell you, I can tell you, I’d be 100 percent wrong about that.”

The price tag for the multibillion-dollar ABMS project is still evolving. The Air Force stresses that it’s important to keep an open mind and avoid getting locked into certain technologies to remain flexible over time, while lawmakers have said they want to see more certainty in the program.

Keeping Congress in the loop as the service’s plans for ABMS and more evolve can help avoid programming whiplash, but Hinote said Capitol Hill is dubious about the Air Force’s ability to deliver.

Last week, Hinote said, he presented the findings from a recent set of major wargames to a congressional defense committee’s staff.

“I was talking through some of the new capabilities we played, some of the way that it worked,” he said. “I remember one of the staffers looking up and saying, ‘You know, this all sounds great, but I have no confidence that we can field these capabilities in the timeline you’re talking about.’”

Hinote slumped in his chair. “I said, ‘I share your skepticism on that, but China’s doing it. China’s doing it so rapidly that, literally, they’ll get two or three cycles in to our one if we don’t change something,’” he continued. “They began to realize, ‘Wow, we’re in this together.’”

That echoes recent remarks by Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly urging the U.S. to move faster on finishing the futuristic fighter capability known as the Next-Generation Air Dominance program, before China gets there first.

The solution to budgeting uncertainty in the military technology race may be to rethink the way the armed forces plan their finances, Hinote said.

In recent years, the Pentagon has advocated for more flexibility in areas like software development, so it can move money around as new updates roll out. Hinote envisions an even more malleable approach.

He called for a more adaptable process that keeps up with the tech sector without skimping on civilian and legislative oversight.

“What we’re hoping to be able to do is harness that power through a flexible-enough budget process that allows us to do that iteration,” he said. “I’m really excited that—maybe—we’re seeing some movement in this direction, even from people who I think have been very skeptical about the idea of flexible budgeting.”

First B-1 Deployment to Norway Shows Importance of Arctic, Cold-Weather Ops

First B-1 Deployment to Norway Shows Importance of Arctic, Cold-Weather Ops

The first-ever basing of B-1B Lancers in Norway is giving aircrews and maintainers Arctic experience, which is becoming more important as the U.S. military looks north.

The B-1s from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, deployed to Orland Air Base for joint training with Norway and other regional partners in the Arctic. While Lancers have integrated with Norwegian aircraft, it is the first time the bombers are based out of the country.

USAFE Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Steven L. Basham told reporters in a teleconference March 5 the bomber task force deployment is an important opportunity for the crews to operate out of a new, frigid location. USAF bombers have routinely deployed to other locations in Europe, largely RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom, but flying out of the different location brings new challenges.

“While flying out of the U.K. is great, if we don’t expand our horizon and look for other opportunities to work with other allies, other partners, then we miss true training opportunities to continue to develop ourselves and, even more so I would say, to learn from others,” Basham said.

The deployment is the first time the U.S. is generating flights with Norwegian partners and working with the command and control and air restrictions in the country.

On March 3, two B-1s flew a training mission in the North and Baltic Seas, integrating with fighter aircraft from Denmark, Poland, Germany, and Italy. The Lancers also flew over Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Throughout the deployment, the bombers will fly further into the Arctic, and conduct bombing training with Norwegian ground forces.

The deployment is a test more so for the crews than the aircraft. B-1s, which are also based at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., have already proven to be adept at operating in the cold.

“The aircraft doesn’t mind, it’s our great aviators and maintainers and support personnel who might not be as familiar with the rigors of the cold,” Basham said. “Our Norwegian partners are helping us along in that, but I would offer that the aircraft has performed exceptionally well, and we’ve been able to operate in many different environments.”

For Norway, the deployment is important because Russia has been resurgent in recent years and is exerting pressure on the eastern edge of NATO. Training alongside U.S. aircraft, especially bombers, is important for Norwegian aircraft, especially its new F-35s, to be ready, said Lt. Gen. Yngve Odlo, chief of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters, in the briefing.

“This is a natural part of that, to be able to operate and defend our own territory,” he said. “For the Norwegian defense forces, it is important to more regularly exercise and train together with our close allies, and the bomber task force is an important asset to be able to conduct high-intensity, combined joint operations. So to do this in the Arctic conditions is timely.”

“As more countries are drawn to the Arctic region, some with competing interests, it’s imperative that we maintain free, fair access for all nations,” Basham said. “And we will continue to work diligently with our NATO allies and partners to ensure that stability.”

National Test Pilot School Trainer Crashes at Edwards, 2 Pilots Successfully Eject

National Test Pilot School Trainer Crashes at Edwards, 2 Pilots Successfully Eject

An Impala MB326 jet trainer from the National Test Pilot School crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on the morning of March 5, the school and 412th Test Wing both confirmed to Air Force Magazine.

The trainer took off from the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, Calif., before coming down “in an uninhabited area” of the California installation, the wing wrote in a release.

“At the time of the accident, the aircraft was providing flight test training,” the school wrote in a statement provided to the magazine. The jet’s two pilots, who haven’t been publicly identified, both successfully ejected and were transported to a nearby hospital, the base later tweeted.

The school, which is located on-site at the port, said that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was alerted to the incident.

“The mission of the National Test Pilot School is to educate and train military and civilian aviation personnel so that each graduate increases flight test competency, improves flight test and aviation safety, and enhances the aerospace profession world-wide,” the school’s homepage states

Editor’s Note: This story was updated on March 5 at 4:49 p.m. EST to include information from the National Test Pilot School.

New House Task Force to Examine Defense Supply Chain Threats

New House Task Force to Examine Defense Supply Chain Threats

House Armed Services Committee members are launching a task force to dig into defense supply chain issues, the panel said March 4.

“Committee leadership can initiate a task force to execute oversight of issues that cross multiple subcommittee jurisdictions or are deemed worthy of special attention by its members,” Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Ranking Member Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a release.

Pentagon officials, lawmakers, and military experts have sounded the alarm on supply chain problems for years, over concerns ranging from a shortage of domestic microelectronics expertise to the potential for crippling cyberattacks and digital theft.  

defense industrial base
The Fiscal Year 2020 Industrial Capabilities Report to Congress was released in January 2021. The report details the challenges faced by the U.S. defense industrial base, their effects on national security, and potential solutions.

Those worries have become particularly pressing as the Pentagon tries to stay technologically ahead of other advanced militaries.

Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) will co-chair the group as it looks at threats to and vulnerabilities in the defense industrial base.

Democratic Reps. Donald Norcross of New Jersey, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, and Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Michael Waltz of Florida, and Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma are also members of the task force.

Their work will last at least three months, but could run for up to six months if lawmakers feel there is more to do.

Editor’s Note: This article was corrected to reflect that Rep. Stephanie Bice is from Oklahoma.

Improving Guam’s Defenses is Top Priority for INDOPACOM

Improving Guam’s Defenses is Top Priority for INDOPACOM

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command boss Adm. Philip S. Davidson wants billions of dollars to build up infrastructure on Guam and across the region, saying air and missile defense of the island territory is his top priority.

Speaking March 4 at an American Enterprise Institute virtual event, Davidson called for construction of an Aegis Ashore system for Guam, which is home to Andersen Air Force Base, multiple other military installations, as well as 170,000 Americans.

“Their defense is homeland defense,” Davidson said, noting Guam is the U.S. military’s “most critical operating location west of the international dateline.”

The island is a “critical nexus” for command and control, logistics, and power projection across the Indo-Pacific and the Defense Department must continue to expand its investment and increase its footprint, Davidson said.

Construction of the Aegis Ashore system, which has already proven itself in Europe, would free up three destroyers and give Indo-Pacom a 360-degree protection from missile threats. China, for example, has already shown it has Guam in its crosshairs through a September 2020 propaganda video that showed H-6 bombers attacking Andersen.

Some defense analysts argue adding an Aegis Ashore system to Guam will make it a target, but Davidson said, “It is already one.”

The command has asked Congress for $4.68 billion in fiscal 2022 and $22.69 billion over the following five years for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, with the funding going both to building up these defenses and to bolster training and other infrastructure, USNI News reported.

Davidson said the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill required him to produce the document. In it, the command says it wants to spend the funding on joint force lethality; force design and posture; strengthening allies and partners; exercises, experimentation, and innovation; and logistics and security enables, according to USNI.

“The focus areas outlined in PDI are challenges that require immediate and joint solutions not accounted for through service investments. Specifically, the fielding of an integrated joint force with precision-strike networks west of the international dateline along the First Island Chain, integrated air missile defense in the Second Island Chain, and a distributed force posture that provides the ability to preserve stability, and if needed, dispense and sustain combat operations for extended periods,” the document’s executive summary states.

Austin Outlines Priorities in Memo to DOD

Austin Outlines Priorities in Memo to DOD

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on March 4 outlined his top priorities for the department, leading with fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and countering China.

“I am committed to ensuring that the department develops the right people, priorities, and purpose of mission to continue to defend our nation from enemies foreign and domestic,” Austin wrote. “This will require aligning our priorities and capabilities to a changing and dynamic threat landscape.”

The memo is broken up into three priorities: Defending the nation, taking care of people, and succeeding through teamwork.

  • Defense of the nation: Austin highlights the need to defeat COVID-19, prioritize China as the pacing challenge, address advanced and persistent threats, innovate and modernize the department, and tackle the climate crisis.
  • People: the Pentagon needs to grow its talent, build resilience and readiness, and ensure accountable leadership.
  • Teamwork: Austin writes the military needs to join forces with allies and partners, work in partnership with the nation, and build unity within the department.

“We need resources matched to strategy, strategy matched to policy, and policy matched to the will of the American people,” Austin wrote. “I believe that focusing our efforts on the priorities I have articulated here will help us develop that policy, fashion that strategy, and acquire those resources.”

Air Force Delays PT Tests, Previews Upcoming Changes

Air Force Delays PT Tests, Previews Upcoming Changes

The Air Force is delaying physical fitness testing for the fourth time due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tests will resume July 1, according to a March 4 release.

The Department of Air Force announced in December it would postpone physical training tests until April due to COVID-19, and do away with scores on the controversial waist measurement portion of the test. 

“This is the right decision for our Airmen to ensure we are getting after controlling the spread of COVID and ensuring we take the right steps to build a fitness lifestyle in our Air Force, rather than Airmen who can just [pass] a fitness test,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass wrote on Facebook.

When tests resume, Airmen will be graded using a new scoring system based on a 1.5-mile run and one minute of pushups and situps. The service will release additional details on the scoring system, and how heavily each part will factor into the final grade, in June.

One change still under consideration is scoring Airmen as part of five-year age groups, instead of the current 10-year cohorts, according to the release.

No-fail diagnostic PT tests will also be available when assessments resume, giving Airmen and Guardians more flexibility. If an Airman or Guardian passes a test taken with their Fitness Assessment Cell or physical training leader, they can make that score official. If they fail, they can test again, and the mock test will not count against them.

Commanders can opt to delay testing beyond July 1 based on local public health recommendations, their state’s COVID-19 restrictions, and whether on-base fitness centers are opened or closed, according to the release.

During a Facebook “Coffee Talk” with USAF Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Dorothy A. Hogg, Bass signaled the Air Force is considering another option besides the 1.5-mile run to assess Airmen’s cardiovascular fitness. Senior Air Force leaders have asked for alternative options, she said.

“There are different ways to assess fitness, and we should be looking at those things, and we are,” she said. 

The Air Force Fitness Working Group, for example, is exploring cardio alternatives like a 20-meter shuttle run, row ergometry, planks, and burpees, according to the release.

Physical fitness tests will likely look much different by 2030, but Bass said the Air Force will take an “incremental” approach to change. 

“We are also conducting a holistic review of policies associated with the physical fitness assessment program to determine if they are still a good fit for today’s Air Force,” Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly, deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, said in the release. “This includes a review of who’s accountable for conducting our testing and how it gets administered.”

Although Airmen and Guardians will no longer be scored on waist measurements, the tape test will “still be administered to determine compliance with body composition standards, as required by Department of Defense Instruction 1308.3,” according to the release.

USAF, however, is still trying to figure out how and where the waist measurement fits in this new holistic approach to fitness. It might soon find a home on the periodic health assessment (PHA), Hogg said. 

Airmen are currently asked to fill out an online survey each year, and then discuss their answers on the phone with a health care provider. There’s no “value added” by that approach, Hogg said.

She said it’s possible the department could bring back face-to-face periodic health assessments in the next few years, which could open the door to adding waist measurements to the annual assessment. 

“We do know that, through research and studies, that the waist measurement … can give us information about your health, but where does that belong?” Hogg asked. “Do we do it at the PHA? If we do, well, most of our PHAs are not face-to-face, so how are we going to do that? There’s definitely conversations happening right now about PHAs and waist management and what’s right.”