30 Years After Desert Storm: Feb. 27-28

Feb. 28, 2021

In commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, Air Force Magazine is posting daily recollections from the six-week war, which expelled Iraq from occupied Kuwait.

Feb. 27:

The coalition liberates Kuwait City, and envelops Iraqi forces.
Coalition and Iraqi units fight the largest tank battle since the World War II Battle of Kursk between the Germans and the Soviets: Two Army divisions decimate two Republican Guard divisions.
Two specially made 4,700-pound GBU-28 bombs destroy an “impregnable” Iraqi command bunker at Al Taji.
Coalition attack sorties reach a one-day record of 3,500.
Bush announces that coalition forces would suspend offensive operations the next day at 8 a.m. local time.
President George H.W. Bush says Iraq must end military action; free all prisoners of war, third-country nationals, and Kuwaiti hostages; release the remains of coalition forces killed in action; agree to comply with all UN resolutions; and reveal the location of land and sea mines.

Feb. 28:

The fighting stops.
Iraq agrees to observe the cease-fire, and attend military-to-military talks on cessation of hostilities.
Coalition air forces fly 3,500 sorties, for a total of 110,000.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz notifies the UN Security Council that Iraq accepts 12 United Nations resolutions dealing with the invasion of Kuwait.
The Defense Department says coalition forces destroyed or rendered ineffective 42 Iraqi divisions, captured more than 50,000 Iraqi prisoners, destroyed or captured 3,000 of 4,030 tanks in southern Iraq and Kuwait, and destroyed or captured 962 of 2,870 armored vehicles, 1,005 of 3,110 artillery pieces, and 103 of 639 aircraft (with another 100 or so in quarantine in Iran).
Coalition forces continue to destroy captured and abandoned Iraqi armor and artillery.
Coalition airplanes flew 110,000 sorties over Iraq and Kuwait, one-half of which were combat and one-half support (reconnaissance, air refueling, search and rescue, etc.)
U.S. casualties are reported as 79 killed in action, 212 wounded in action, 45 missing in action, and nine POWs. (Casualties were later revised to 613.)

Check out our complete chronology of the Gulf War, starting with Iraq’s July 1990 invasion of Kuwait and running through Iraq’s April 1991 acceptance of peace terms.

WATCH: The 2021 vAWS Day 3 Highlight Report

Feb. 26, 2021

Video: Air Force Association on YouTube

Acting Secretary of the Air Force Roth, NORAD’s Gen. VanHerck, U.S. Space Command’s Gen. Dickinson, Spark Tank, and more from Day 3 of the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

Spark Tank-Winning Idea Saves Time, Money

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

A crew chief and production superintendent from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., took home the 3D-printed trophy in the Department of the Air Force’s Spark Tank innovation contest for a simple idea he predicts could “solve a lot of issues across the aircraft community.”

Master Sgt. Justin Bauer pitched his idea, “Innovative Approach to C-130 Wheel Repair,” at the 2021 Spark Tank finals during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium on Feb. 26.

AFWERX and Air Force Deputy Chief Management Officer Rich Lombardi co-produce Spark Tank; the 2021 contest received more than 300 submissions.

Bauer was one of five finalists, up against teams with ideas to prevent service-connected hearing loss, to incorporate augmented reality into briefings, to streamline workflows with a ticketing app, and to cut out the need for refueling trucks when refueling aircraft with engines running.

Bauer’s idea grabbed the votes of all but one celebrity judge. The premise:

C-130 aircraft wheels have to be heated up before maintainers can work on them, and not all facilities can do the heating. Bauer described the process as moving a 200-pound chunk of aluminum that’s been heated to 150 degrees in and out of a big oven. Instead, Bauer realized a handheld heating element—which only costs about $100—can be applied to a wheel to warm it up.

In his 5-minute Q-and-A with judges, Bauer confirmed the device will work overseas and can be adapted to other aircraft wheels.

In response to a question from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Bauer said the biggest challenge of the project was balancing the device’s heating requirements and power demands.

“It’s really easy to heat up a chunk of metal, as long as you’re willing to use an unlimited amount of electricity,” Bauer said, “but … we really wanted to keep it under 115 volts so facilities across the globe could power the device.”

Bauer got Brown’s vote:

“It’s so much simpler; it’s ready to go; and that’s why I put up the C-130 wheel prep,” said Brown, brandishing the paper sign judges held up to signal their votes.

Acting Secretary of the Air Force John P. Roth, another celebrity judge, pondered how to spread the idea to other countries that fly C-130 variants:

“Could we shop it around with a multinational workshop of one sort or the other?”

He was on the right track.

“That’s one of the most exciting things about this device, is that through small changes in the dimensions and heating abilities, we can flex this device to multiple airframes, multiple services and multiple nationalities,” Bauer said. “Through small changes in design, we can adapt the device to solve a lot of issues across the aircraft community.”

Roth cast the lone dissenting vote among celebrity judges, instead picking the idea “Inner Ear Bone Conduction Communication” by a team from the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom. Their idea is to switch to noise canceling earbuds in place of the foam plugs and bulky ear protection worn on the flight line. The bone conduction technology lets some sound through. It would protect hearing while also letting people communicate with each other without exposing the sensitive parts of their ears, the team said.

Roth said he voted for the idea because it addresses “a very fundamental problem that will scale across the force.”

Meanwhile, fans had voted online, choosing the audience favorite “Viper Hot Refuel Kit” by a team from the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. The team designed a sled to serve in place of refueling trucks that may have to be transported by aircraft in advance at a cost of $6,000 one way. The team instead put off-the-shelf petroleum oil and lubricant components into a much smaller package.

A team from the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., got a noticeable nod from celebrity judge Matt Booty, corporate vice president of Xbox Game Studios. Their idea, “NextGen Debrief—Augmented Reality Debrief Environment,” would incorporate virtual reality into pilot training.

The judges wondered whether an app pitched by a team from the Air Force Academy might have more utility across the military. The idea, “Improving Commander’s Support Staff Workflow with Office 365,” introduces a digital means for submission and tracking of command-related workflow items.

Air Force About to Make First Hypersonic Missile Flight, After Recent Failure

Feb. 26, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon will make its first all-up flight within the next seven days, following a recent failure of the system, hypersonics experts revealed at AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium. The system will go into production within a year.

“We actually have hardware built and are getting ready for our first booster flight test next week,” Brig. Gen. Heath A. Collins, program executive officer for weapons and director of the Air Force’s armament directorate, said in a panel discussion.

“So, there’s real hardware coming,” he said. “We’re also getting ready to transition into production in about a year on that program, so it will be the first air-launched hypersonic weapon that the Air Force has.”

Maj. Gen. Andrew Gebara, Global Strike Command director of strategic plans, programs and requirements, confirmed Collins’ remark, saying the ARRW test will happen “imminently,” and that “we’ll have operational capability … by ’22, or two AFA Orlandos from now.”

Collins said that “earlier this year … we had a slight bump on the road in test,” but the integrated government-industry team “focused, found the flaw, fixed the flaw, [and] got a corrective action in the air in less than 30 days … That just tells you that the team is really tight.”

Lockheed Martin is “part of that open transparency … But getting the right people at the right time on the program, to solve this failure and not miss a beat as we move forward … is a good example of how to get after” hypersonic development.

Sources reported an ARRW failure in late December, chalking it up to “dumb mistakes;” one reported that a technician failed to follow a checklist and another reported an improperly fastened control surface. Michael White, the principal deputy for hypersonics in the Pentagon’s directorate of research and engineering, seemed to confirm these reports in his panel remarks.

“We need to get it right the first time,” White said. “We have this mindset that we want to fail early and often so we can accelerate learning and actually develop quicker. But that’s only valid if your failures are because you’re learning about [technological] discoveries and the ability to do hypersonic flight. If our failures are that we forgot how to do a checklist, and tighten a pin on a fin, and we lose a flight vehicle because a fin falls off, that’s not acceptable failure.”

Adding engineering rigor to flights to make sure that everything is in readiness “is absolutely imperative,” he said.

Gebara also offered some new insight into how many hypersonic weapons GSC’s bombers will be able to carry.

Speaking about the ARRW and a follow-on air-breathing system, the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, Gebara said: “I can put four ARRWs on a bomber, but I can put 20 HACMs on a bomber, if done right. Maybe more, if I have different pylon.”

He said GSC sees hypersonics as “being an evolutionary approach over time. What we don’t want to do is spend 20 years on one capability, and that’s all we get. We started ARRW. One of the advantages of ARRW … [is] it’s available, it’s good capability, it’s quick. We also want to get to that cruise missile capability.”

It would be “a shame,” he said, if the Air Force became “content with just one thing and that’s all we did. I think those days are behind us, and we need to work toward that evolutionary approach.”

Collins echoed the comment, saying it’s essential to build the infrastructure for continuous hypersonic weapon development.

“We need to start planning today for what comes next. We’ve got to keep that pump primed, keep our subject matter experts primed and focused on our challenges, not filtering off to pursue something else that they find more exciting.” The Air Force should “continue a solid stream of funding on the technological base to keep hypersonics moving forward, and then, the PEO and the program office, we need to … move with the speed of relevance, given maturing threats.”

He added that the best way to keep costs down on hypersonics is “not to start a huge, massive development every time you want a new capability. I think you develop the capability pipeline … agilely throughout the life cycle of a weapon system.”

ACC Moving Forward with ‘Reforge’ Experiment Amid Funding Concerns

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Air Combat Command is trying to move forward with an experiment it hopes will pave the way for a larger overhaul of fighter pilot training, despite pandemic-era complications.

Last year, ACC signed off on a concept called “Rebuilding the Forge,” or Reforge, which would shorten training by at least a year by consolidating certain training phases and keeping student pilots at one base longer. Air Force Magazine previously reported the new T-7A Red Hawk trainer jet would be a centerpiece of that educational fleet to reduce the strain on the operational combat force.

But the coronavirus pandemic intervened, slowing ACC’s plans for getting Reforge off the ground, ACC boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly told reporters Feb. 26 at AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

“COVID has been the sand in the gears of a whole lot of things we’ve been trying to do,” Kelly said. “Before we can do Reforge as an established program, we need to do our … experiment.”

The command is working through the contracting process for the resources it needs to test the Reforge idea, he said.

Last year, the Air Force started looking at leasing Lockheed Martin and Korea Aerospace Industries T-50 or Leonardo M346 training planes as part of the project. Renting eight airplanes had won support at the highest echelon of the Air Force, Air Force Magazine previously reported, but the service had yet to get on contract.

Reforge will also rely on augmented and virtual reality simulation to give students extra practice on maneuvers where they need more help, and offer students more stability through fewer moves between bases. ACC hopes that, if successful, the program will also help reverse a yearslong pilot shortage.

Kelly believes the Air Force will include funding for Reforge in the fiscal 2022 budget request, but did not say how much money the program might need.

“I’d like to start it as soon as possible,” he said.

That 2022 money could be enough to get off to a good start, but Kelly says he needs five years’ worth of funding that he doesn’t have right now.

“It’s a continual discussion I have with the Air Force team that has to balance a whole lot of budget pressure,” he said. “I think we’re going to have money to do our experiment, and our experiment needs to … get follow-on funding.”

Hopefully, Reforge will prove to be a solid solution to giving pilots a fuller education between fighter jet fundamentals in the T-38 trainer and high-end qualification on a platform like the F-35 or F-22.

“We’ve got a long way to go in terms of getting the program up and going,” Kelly said.

ANG Helps Texas Recover from Winter Storm Uri

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Nearly 140 Air National Guard personnel from Texas and Kentucky have responded to parts of Texas that were devastated by Winter Storm Uri, ANG Director Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh told reporters Feb. 26.

The polar vortex ravaged Texas’ power grid and deprived many citizens of running water.

ANG’s efforts in the Lone Star State have primarily consisted of working with Texas citizens “on commodities and points of distribution,” and figuring out how to care for the state’s population in the immediate term “to save lives, minimize suffering, [and] get Texas back on its feet,” Loh said during a media roundtable held during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

Additionally, he said, C-130Hs from the Texas and Kentucky ANGs conducted water delivery missions.

As of Feb. 24, the Texas ANG’s Fort Worth-based 136th Airlift Wing had flown over 26 such missions, moving “nearly 1,300 tons of bottled water” provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to afflicted areas throughout the state, a wing release said.

“Other aircraft, such as C-130Js, C-17s, and various rotary craft, augmented the deliveries,” the release said.

And from Feb. 22-26, the Kentucky ANG’s Louisville-based 123rd Airlift Wing flew 12 C-130H airlift missions, transporting more than 10 tons of food, water, and other supplies to multiple locations in Texas, the wing wrote in a release.

Fourteen Kentucky Air National Guard Airmen took part, it added.

“We’re honored to have had this opportunity to serve the people of Texas,” Maj. Gen. Jason Craig, an aircraft commander with the 123rd AW, said in the release. “We’ve also been humbled by the reception and appreciation that’s been shown to us. This group of Guardsmen performed admirably, showing great dedication to completion of the mission.”

Kelly Worries F-35 Flying Costs Won’t Hit Target, and That China May Get NGAD First

Feb. 26, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly isn’t confident that F-35 operating costs will be tamed to $25,000 per hour by 2025, which is the service’s goal. He’s also concerned China will field advanced fighter technologies like those in the Air Force’s developmental Next-Generation Air Dominance system before the U.S. does.

“I’m not brimming with confidence” that the $25K by ’25 goal will be met, Kelly said of the F-35. “I haven’t lost confidence,” he told reporters in a press conference during AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium, and that’s why he’s about to hit the road to visit operating locations, the depot, and other facilities, to “have conversations” about how the goal can be reached. The idea is not to “talk about how we feel” but get to a “plan of action and milestones” to achieve the $25K target.

“But as I sit here today, I’m not overly confident we’ll get there,” Kelly said.

Sustainment officials with Lockheed Martin, maker of the F-35, told reporters Feb. 23 they believe they can reach the goal under a new Performance-Based Logistics proposal, which the Air Force is evaluating. The F-35 Joint Program Office rejected an earlier version of the PBL pitch, which company officials had previously said was the only way they’d hit the cost per flying hour target. The target is expressed in 2012 base-year dollars.

Kelly also said he’s concerned the nation won’t have the “courage” to field a new fighter based on NGAD technologies before America’s “pacing threat” adversary, China, starts deploying one.

“I for one am confident … that the [NGAD] technology will get fielded,” and that adversaries who come up against it will “suffer a very tough day, and a tough week and a tough war,” he said.

“What I don’t know … is if our nation will have the courage and the focus to field this capability before someone like the Chinese fields it and uses it against us,” he said. There’s a “keen focus” on NGAD technology, and “we just need to make sure we keep our narrative up and articulate the biggest benefit we’ve had as a nation to have leading-edge technology ensuring we have air superiority,” because the nation’s joint military forces “are designed” to operate with control of the air. “It’s less designed to operate it without it,” he added.

Kelly raised the issue of NGAD himself at the end of the press conference, expressing surprise that no one had asked him about it. At AFA’s virtual Air, Space and Cyber conference, former USAF acquisition chief Will Roper revealed that an NGAD prototype has already flown, but no further details of the program have since been revealed. The new aircraft is sometimes described as a “6th generation” fighter, designed to be fielded rapidly, serve only a handful of years, and then be replaced by the next iteration of technology, under Roper’s construct.

Asked about Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s revelation of a new tactical aviation study, Kelly said it’s important to think of it as a “clean sheet” analysis, and that less-capable aircraft that may be looked at would fulfill less-taxing missions.

Alert missions to defend the national airspace, or in parts of the world where air defenses are light, “don’t require a 5th- or 6th-gen capability,” Kelly said. And to apply a high-end fighter to those missions requires “a significant jump in investment as well as cost per flying hour,” he said. The study will prove a 10-15 year “lens” about what is really needed, he said.

Kelly echoed Brown’s comments about the service not having lost confidence in the F-35 , saying it will serve the nation “a lot of years,” as well as in partner nations’ air forces.

“We need to make sure that calculus of the capability [and] capacity of our F-35 fleet goes into the TacAir study,” as to “what’s going to round out the rest of our stable,” Kelly said.

DOD Commission to Look at All Options to Combat Sexual Assault

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Pentagon’s new Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military has 90 days to find ways to combat the problem within the ranks, and the group will consider all options to address an issue that has “shattered the dreams” of many members who joined with optimism about their service.

“This commission is dedicated to the service members who suffered from sexual assault, both those who have come forward and shared their stories at great personal cost and those who suffered in silence and who continue to suffer in silence, alone and also at a great cost,” said Lynn Rosenthal, who has been appointed to lead the commission, in a Feb. 26 briefing.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, in his first official step in the position, ordered a review of the military’s overall sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention efforts. The commission’s first step will be to look at the department’s guidance, policies, and procedures. At the end of 90 days, the commission will present to Austin and President Joe Biden its recommendations to address the issue.

“All options must be on the table,” Rosenthal said. “The most pressing task facing this commission is accountability for those who have committed sexual assault. But I want to be clear that that is not the only task. We will also look at climate, culture, and prevention.

“One of the hardest things to hear when you listen to survivors talk is how hostility was conveyed by their attackers, this hostile approach to them as part of the sexual assault. And that approach was to the victim: You don’t belong here. You don’t belong in this military. No one will believe you if you talk about what happened, and you will be blamed.”

The commission wants to tell these survivors that “you do belong in this military … and it’s our job to make this climate safe for you to be here,” she said.

The commission, whose members are still being selected from a pool of military leaders, advocates, and sexual assault experts, will consult outside experts and stakeholders. One frequent suggestion to alleviate some of the related issues is to take the handling of sexual assault cases out of the chain of command. DOD officials have regularly opposed this, but Rosenthal said the commission will look at the issue “with an open mind and diverse views.”

AETC Adds Human Performance Layer to UPT 2.5

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Air Education and Training Command has incorporated a focus on human performance optimization—which includes personal resilience, health, fitness, diet, and mental performance—into its Undergraduate Pilot Training 2.5 program, 19th Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Craig D. Wills said at the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

UPT 2.5, which he characterized as the command’s answer to a charge from former Air Force Chief of Staff and now retired Air Force Gen. David L. Goldfein to scale its Pilot Training Next program, launched last July with a focus on “four proven concepts,” Wills said:

Parsing out educational content to individual students according to the paces at which they learn, instead of divvying it up to everyone on an identical—but not necessarily efficient—schedule.
Developing and leveraging “immersive training devices” that leverage tools such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality to make training more personalized.
Teaching in a way that focuses on the learner
“Quality instruction at an acceptable [instructor pilot]-to-student ratio”

But following the program’s summer rollout, AETC officially added the “Comprehensive Readiness for Aircrew Flying Training initiative” as a fifth tenet of UPT 2.5, Wills announced during a pre-recorded “Training for War” panel that aired Feb. 26.

CRAFT’s official mission is to “instill 21st century aviators with a holistic approach to human performance optimization, beginning in Undergraduate Flying Training and evolving throughout the Airman’s career, targeting the physical, cognitive, and resilience domains,” 19th AF spokesperson Aryn C. Lockhart wrote in an email to Air Force Magazine. More specifically, CRAFT aims to generate better “student learning outcomes,” make aircrews more resilient and less injury-prone, and to maximize the way these Airmen perform, she wrote.

“Current CRAFT personnel include aerospace physiologists, strength coaches, mental performance coaches, and a dietician,” she wrote.

In the long run, Lockhart wrote, CRAFT looks to make the Total Force more lethal and combat-ready.

The initiative was in the cards for UPT 2.5 since before the new training program launched, but became operational in October, she noted.

The endeavor, which follows similar efforts by Air Combat Command and Air Force Special Operations Command, “promises a lot of potential for us,” Wills said.

“It just seems obvious that rather than waiting for our lieutenants to go out and get broken in the MAJCOMS and then fixed, why don’t we start from the very beginning, with a nutritionist, a strength coach, cognitive specialists?” he said. “Let’s build a better human, a more resilient, more adaptable, a better thinker, and let’s build that into pilot training from the beginning.”