The new enlisted guide to professional military education; the Chief of Staff on force employment and legacy systems; and the KC-46 begins to to contribute. All this and more from Day 1 of the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
Last week, NASA’s Perseverance rover thrilled citizens of Earth when it landed on Mars with the promise of a new chapter in red planet exploration.
But the military could also learn a thing or two from the spacecraft’s trip for future research and development efforts, Space Force Chief Scientist Joel B. Mozer said Feb. 24 during AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
NASA “took a very advanced machine with tons of advanced sensors to a distant, hostile place without real-time communication or [positioning, navigation, and timing] infrastructure,” Mozer said. “They put their package right on target, using automated decision-making and terrain-relative navigation. These are exactly the technologies that we will need to fight wars in the future.”
The Air Force and Space Force need to pay attention to the rover’s adventures, he said, because China is using similar spacecraft to collect samples from the dark side of the moon.
The Department of the Air Force, which encompasses both the Air Force and Space Force, has highlighted many of those forward-looking ideas for years as must-have tools to win against other advanced militaries. To get there, its research and development budget nearly doubled from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2020, when it reached about $35 billion.
Even as the military tries to speed toward flashy new technology, it must not lose sight of the building blocks that lead to breakthroughs, said Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr., head of Air Force Materiel Command.
“I don’t want any reduction in … basic research funding,” he said. “We’ve got to continue to focus in that area, and not just [get] caught up with what we’re doing now, or five years from now. What technologies and what research areas do we need to be focused on so we’re looking 30 years out?”
The Air Force’s research and development budget request was nearly $27 billion for fiscal 2021, while the Space Force asked for $10.3 billion.
No matter which part of the Air Force Research Laboratory comes up with the next great idea in aerospace, Bunch said, it must be able to translate to both the air and space realms. He praised the decision to keep both research areas underneath the lab, saying splitting up air and space programs would stymie innovation.
The military must design its technology to take on a set of challenges that spans domains, Moser said. That information war is already underway.
“Combatants are going to strive to collect and act on as much information as they can as part of the kill chain,” while trying to stop the U.S. from doing the same, he said. “We have to get in the mode where we’re designing our systems to operate in an austere, ‘fog of war,’ openly hostile cyber environment.”
That’s where Perseverance could lend some inspiration: making sure combat information can get where it needs to go, despite traveling somewhere inhospitable. It’s an argument in favor of unhackable AI, quantum computing, and communication upgrades, Moser said.
“Developing defensive and offensive tools for information-based warfare … that’s where our big leaps and strides are going to come in the near term,” he added.
The Department of the Air Force has multiple initiatives underway, like the cutting-edge “Vanguard” programs and various pathfinders, to try to deliver new products to troops faster. But if they want to succeed, officials argue, they need to push the envelope a bit more.
“We have to continue to emphasize within the Research Lab and within the S&T community, that failure is OK,” Bunch said. “If everything we’re doing within AFRL is successful, and successfully transitions, then, quite honestly, we have failed miserably.”
The Department of the Air Force’s new Office of Diversity and Inclusion is using the findings of the Air Force Inspector General’s 2020 Independent Racial Disparity Review and the framework the office used during its time as a task force to mold its future efforts, the office’s boss and Acting Senior Advisor on Diversity and Inclusion Tawanda R. Rooney said at the Air Force Association’s 2021 virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
USAF’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force hit the ground running last summer, helping to create Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarships to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, amend Air Force dress and appearance rules, and cultivating “strategic relationships” with African American Greek organizations and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Rooney said a pre-recorded diversity and equity panel that aired Feb. 24.
“But, as you know, that was just a start,” she said.
She said her office, which was formally established on Jan. 11, is taking a three-pronged approach to its mission, focusing on how to improve culture, increase diversity, and quantify its progress on both fronts.
Rooney said D&I is crucial for the department to maintain “innovative and technological” superiority over its adversaries in today’s “increasingly … complex global security environment.”
“We have to be able to attract talent from our communities, compete for those skills, and provide professionals that are committed to our nation,” she said.
The Department of the Air Force announced after the vAWS panel was recorded that it is undertaking a second disparity review—this time, focused on additional races, as well as ethnicity and gender.
The results of the Air Force Inspector General’s 2020 Independent Racial Disparity Review “weren’t surprising,” but should still serve as a wake-up call for the Air Force, Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly said during the diversity and equity panel.
“I think that if we’re not careful, this time, we could have the same outcomes,” he said. “We could have all these good, well-intended actions, not result in moving forward.”
After the report came out, the service took time to brainstorm ways it could alter its approach to diversity and inclusion to affect lasting change.
“There’s three parts of this for us,” he said.
First, he said, USAF must change its culture to ensure that policy changes take.
“In the past, we’ve made changes, but the culture wasn’t accepting of the changes, right? So when individuals left or individuals moved on, the culture never changed, and it just reverted back to where it was before,” he said. “So that’s important.”
Next, he said, the Air Force must make sense of the barriers its Airmen face.
Thirdly, he said, USAF must ensure that the way it handles talent management reinforces and incentivizes the cultural shifts it wants to see.
He pointed to the service’s recently released Airman Leadership Qualities—which will eventually form the backbone of its Officer and Enlisted Performance Reviews—as one example of a procedural shift designed to make diversity and inclusion a cultural norm.
“The OPRs and EPRs are going to have a factor on there that talks about your ability as a leader to be inclusive and to nurture and build inclusive teams,” Kelly said. “So we are indicating to the force and we’re reinforcing and incentivizing to the force the fact that we want to have this inclusive culture, and if you as a leader, don’t have that skill set, right, you’re not gonna … move forward, right, until you can develop that skill set.”
Former Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, former AFA President, and retired Gen. Larry O. Spencer agreed. To him, the 2020 AFIG review begged two questions: Why are the numbers this way, and how should the Air Force react?
“You know, there’s some interesting things in the study,” he said. “For example, the study points out that more minorities tend to go into non-operational career fields. OK, I don’t assume there’s anything nefarious there, but why is that? And … once we find out why that is, and what do we do about it?”
Spencer said he hopes the Air Force will zero in on the root causes of racial disparities moving forward, and create “an action plan that will be part of our DNA.”
The most effective ways the Space Force can continue its drive towards increased diversity and inclusion in the wake of the AFIG report’s December 2020 release include continuing to pursue strategic university partnerships, the introduction of coaching and mentorship opportunities earlier in Guardians’ careers, and working diversity and inclusion into pre-command training for enlisted and commissioned leaders, Space Force Chief Human Capital Officer Patricia Mulcahy during the same panel.
The university partnerships are crucial because the technical nature of Space Force career fields make diversity a challenge from the get-go, she explained.
“We’re operators, intel, cyber engineers, and systems acquisition folks,” she said. “So we already feel the challenge of, that tends to not be as as diverse a group that are coming in from high schools and colleges.”
For this reason, she explained, the Space Force has been engaging with universities that offer the kind of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that the service keeps an eye out for, while also being “connected to more diverse talent.” For example, she said, USSF partnered with North Carolina A&T State University because of its strong engineering program and institutional focus on serving the African American community.
“These are some of the things we think that we need to do more of from the beginning,” she said.
Next, she said, while the Space Force began formalized coaching for all of its O-6s two years ago, the service needs to heed feedback about giving Guardians this kind of one-on-one support earlier in their careers.
“In our pre-command training, we’re now doing it with both the officers and … our senior NCOs,” she said.
This pre-command training has also been updated to include diversity and inclusion talks on things like tackling difficult dialogues and confronting unconscious bias, she added.
The head of Pacific Air Forces is calling for new aircraft in his theater to meet the need for air superiority, including a quick short-term replacement for aging airborne warning and control aircraft and, in the future, the service’s next generation fighter.
PACAF boss Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach told reporters during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium he is advocating for the Air Force to quickly procure the E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, the Boeing 737-based aircraft already in use by Australia and South Korea to replace aging E-3 Sentrys that have struggled to get in the air.
“The fact is, we actually need something relatively quick because of the reliability of the E-3,” Wilsbach said. “It gets harder and harder to get airborne.”
The Air Force’s E-3 AWACS is based on the older Boeing 707. There have been recent upgrades, and the fleet is expected to fly into the 2030s, though Wilsbach said “it’s challenged at the moment because of how old it is.”
Within the Pacific, PACAF will be tasked with fighting in anti-access, area-denial areas set up by adversaries, which would require both takedowns of surface-to-air missiles and taking away an enemy’s air-to-air capability. The modernized E-7 would help with domain awareness, and then PACAF would need an advanced fighter to complete the missions.
To that end, Wilsbach said he is advocating for the Air Force’s future Next Generation Air Dominance platform and its advanced weapons “so that we can stay relevant as our adversaries continue to advance.”
“Air superiority is foundational to most other things that we would want to be able to do in our theater,” he said. “Because if you don’t have air superiority, then most everything else that you want to do is really held at risk.”
AFWERX expects to formally launch SpaceWERX—a center for military-space-centric innovation intended to support Space Force acquisition—this summer, AFWERX director Air Force Col. Nathan P. Diller told reporters at the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium on Feb. 24.
Former Air Force acquisition czar Will Roper announced the hub’s creation last December, adding that it would call Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., home. Space Force Chief of Innovation Lt. Col. Walter ‘Rock’ McMillan, who has been tasked with directing the hub, is currently assembling a team to run it, Diller said.
“We are expecting very soon—in the coming months—to actually narrow down that space topic into what would be our space prime,” Diller said. “That will be the first prime that will be moving forward under our current plan.”
Diller said that SpaceWERX would discuss “the contracting activities associated with this space prime” at the summer launch event.
In the nearer term, Diller said, AFWERX anticipates multiple space companies to participate in Space Pitch Days and seek out additional Strategic Funding Increases for their innovation efforts via AFVentures’ Supplemental Funding Pilot Program.
The transformational acquisition ideas championed by former Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper will survive his departure from the service, but it will take “courage” to implement them, USAF acquisition leaders said at AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium. They also said the Air Force’s new tactical aircraft study—in parallel with a Joint Staff study—will take a decades-long look at aviation requirements.
“We all believe strongly in digital acquisition,” acting Air Force acquisition executive Darlene Costello said in a Feb. 24 press conference at vAWS. The strategy “fits nicely” with the advanced capabilities the Air Force needs to pursue, and digital engineering, agile software development, and open architectures will be the hallmarks of all new programs, she said, so Roper’s initiatives will continue.
With regard to digital, “e-systems,” such as the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter or the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft, top uniformed acquisition official Lt. Gen. Duke Z. Richardson said it will take courage to get full potential from them. Such programs would design and field a limited number of systems—with an abbreviated service life—and be rapidly replaced with the next in the series, under the concept Roper put forward.
“Because we don’t want to engineer a lot more structure into something” to make it last a long time, “It’s going to require courage on our part. As a nation, we’re really going to have to commit to doing this, because when it … times out, it will have to have another one right behind it. And if we’re not willing to have that courage, then we shouldn’t start it,” Richardson said.
The follow-on series “might be a variation of the series we just bought,” Richardson noted. “And really, the only way you can do that with speed is with these digital tools.” The digital models can be quickly altered to “pursue some new part of the threat that we weren’t seeing” and add a new feature to the design.
The tactical aviation study Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. announced last week will be a view of USAF’s combat aircraft requirements over several decades, Richardson explained.
In his remarks to defense writers Feb 17, Brown was “talking about the age of the fighter fleet,” which averages 29 years now, Richardson said. “We’ve got a Chief here who is fully embracing … digital acquisitions … He’s thinking, ‘is there a way to refresh my fighter fleet quicker?’”
The TacAir study will be about establishing “what the fighter fleet will look like, and making sure he has the right tool for the right job. He would not want to apply one tool to every job, especially if it’s an expensive tool.”
Brown said he would conduct the study in cooperation with the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation shop to get an independent view of costs, so the Air Force’s plans will have validity when measured against those of the other services in an ongoing Joint Staff review of tacair. He also said he would consider a clean-sheet “generation five-minus” aircraft for some less-demanding missions, to free the F-35 for the most highly-contested missions requiring peak capability. He specifically ruled out buying new F-16s for less-demanding missions, preferring digital, clean-sheet approaches.
While some interpreted Brown as suggesting the Air Force may back away from the F-35 program, Costello said there has been no deviation from the planned acquisition of 1,763 of the fighters for the Air Force.
While Brown said the tacair study should be concluded in time for the fiscal 2023 budget deliberations, Richardson said the TacAir timeline will look ahead 30 years, and isn’t focused on the short term.
“We’ve got a lot of programs we’re trying to move forward,” Richardson said. Brown’s timeline is “not within the FYDP,” or future years defense plan. “His time horizon is out to 2030 and beyond, even 2040. He’s thinking, ‘what will my force mix look like [then]” so, think about it from that perspective … way out there.”
Richardson’s hoping the study will identify “a whole list of programs that we should go after. I’m also hoping … it will also show us the phasing of it, so if we do something for a lesser threat, it will also inform us … when we might even want to start that.”
Work is being done now to find the knee in the curve that will distinguish between “expendable” and “attritable” unmanned systems, to develop affordability plans, he said.
Asked about a “major redesign” of the B-21 bomber referenced in Air Force Magazine’s current issue, Costello said that while the bomber did indeed require a redesign—the article describes changes to the aircraft’s inlets—the program is proceeding on cost and schedule. Richardson said such issues are “part of the development process” and there’s no reason to suspect a “schedule break” on the B-21 because of it.
The creation and growth of the U.S. Space Force comes as Russia and China have recognized the importance of a military presence in space, and the U.S. and NATO need to ensure they have access to the best “indications and warnings” in that domain, the head of U.S. forces in Europe said.
USAF Gen. Tod D. Wolters, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, said during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium that the U.S. military still needs to improve its presence in space to ensure it can stay ahead of these potential adversaries.
“I would contend we have the greatest military in the history of humanity, but we still have to get better,” Wolters said. “And if you want to really be comprehensive, there is just no way that you’re going to improve indications and warnings, command and control, the mission command unless you improve your capability to operate by, with, and through space.
“We in the United States certainly recognize that, we are seeing Russia recognizes it, we’re seeing that China recognizes it, we’re seeing that other nations recognize it, we are seeing some nefarious activities taking place in space, we don’t want that to occur.”
The U.S. and NATO can’t approach any military problem, “whether it’s tactical, operational, or strategic,” comprehensively without bringing in space—through communications and information sharing. Those assets need to be protected.
“If you want to be a lead nation, you certainly are supported by a satellite constellation in order to support that speed,” Wolters said. “And because you have a satellite constellation, you’re using some turf up in space, which means good order and discipline is something that all nations on planet earth should adhere to.”
Since individual readiness is the key to ensuring overall Air Force Reserve Command readiness, Air Force Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Richard W. Scobee said AFRC is being mindful of how troops’ civilian job descriptions and uniformed taskings line up, and taking a strategic, tiered approach to training them.
The command is utilizing the Air Force Reserve Command Force Generation Center at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., to ensure it completes “all of the deliberate planning exercises,” Scobee explained during a pre-recorded panel from the Air Force Association’s 2021 virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium that aired on Feb. 24.
“We do that in conjunction with the Joint Force across our nation to make sure that we are integrated into all these exercises, and we set those days aside to get everybody in our annual tour to make sure that we’re doing readiness in this way,” he said.
AFRC takes a “crawl, walk, run” approach to training, he explained, beginning with exercises at the local squadron level, and then building on that foundation “with exercises that will include more Reserve units.”
“And then since we’re in every mission set, we’re able to integrate fighters and bombers and tankers and transport—everything we need to—not to mention the cool things we do with space, cyber, and ISR, which is a phenomenal capability,” he said.
Finally, he said, Airmen undertake “national-level exercises.”
This “deliberate process” lets the command ensure that every Reserve unit is ready, though it gives priority to troops entering “rotational combat first.”
Reserve medics and defenders have also recently gotten unplanned, on-the-job training when they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest, Chief Master Sgt. Timothy C. White Jr., AFRC’s command chief, added.
“Unfortunately, we hope that we don’t get those real-time training events, but when we do, we have to be able to go into action,” White said. “And I think that the world has seen that, what the Guard and Reserve bring to the fight.”
AFRC mobilized more than 1,700 Reservists when its COVID-19 response first kicked off, making it the command’s largest unplanned mobilization since Sept. 11, 2001, Scobee noted.
“We didn’t take anybody out of their communities that was engaged in COVID-19 response,” Scobee added. “We took the people who were not engaged and when that was surplus capability across the nation, and we brought to where it was needed. And then we filtered that back out to the communities where COVID hadn’t hit yet, and now we have experts that … are able to help those communities recover, as well.”
The Air Force’s next generation tanker is starting to go operational, but in a very limited way, with the goal of freeing up older planes for combat missions.
Air Mobility Command announced Feb. 24 it is phasing the KC-46 into operations, by making it available to U.S. Transportation Command for taskings that would otherwise be filled by KC-135s and KC-10s, based on what the Pegasus has been cleared to do. For example, this could be U.S.-based refueling of certain aircraft and possible overseas “coronet” missions to deploy fighters that use its centerline drogue system, such as F/A-18s.
AMC boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost said during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium that the goal is to relieve stress on the other tankers, which have been in high demand for overseas combat deployments and to support exercises and training at home.
“We will now commit the KC-46 to execute missions similar to the ones they’ve been conducting over the past few years in the Operational Test and Evaluation plan, but can now include operational taskings from U.S. Transportation Command,” Van Ovost told reporters. “For example, today the KC-46 may provide aerial refueling for F-16s participating in a U.S.-based training exercise. Under this new approach, if AMC is tasked to provide AR support for an operational coronet mission to move F-18s overseas or an operational B-52 mission, the KC-46 is on the table, which frees up KC-135s and KC-10s to execute other combatant command deployments that the KC-46A is presently unable to support with its existing deficiencies.”
There are strict limitations to the plan. For example, KC-46s will not go overseas for combat deployments. This is because AMC will not give a combatant commander an air frame that has limitations, said Brig. Gen. Ryan Samuelson, the KC-46 cross functional team lead. Instead, the goal is to free up more KC-135s and KC-10s for these deployments while also giving them more dwell time back home.
The decision to start operationalizing KC-46s came no more than 75 days ago, and is based on a few factors, Samuelson said. First, the Air Force and Boeing have made progress on the plan to fix the aircraft’s most serious and vexing problem, the aircraft’s remote vision system. The system of cameras and screens has been problematic for years, causing issues such as the receiving boom scraping receiving aircraft, and boom operators seeing warped or washed out images. The Air Force and Boeing agreed on a way ahead on this, with new systems expected to be delivered beginning in 2023.
Secondly, USAF crews have become more “seasoned” and confident in the jet.
“Our confidence level is gaining that we actually have operational capacity out there and we can provide for the joint force,” Samuelson said.
To demonstrate this, the Air Force sent three KC-46s to Joint Base Andrews, Md., earlier this week to show Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and a Congressional delegation the plan and refuelings with the aircraft. During flights on Feb. 22 and 23, the KC-46s refueled F-15s, F-16s, and each other to show their capability, Van Ovost said. These flights showed the key leaders that the jet is capable, but also revealed first-hand the issues with the existing RVS system that still hold it back.
The Air Force has been using the KC-46 for some limited activities outside training and test. For example, when there is a mission the KC-46 could handle that is tasked to a KC-135 or KC-10 unit, the command reaches out to a Pegasus wing to see if they are up for it. Under the new plan, AMC’s 618th Air Operations Center would receive a tasking from TRANSCOM and, if the KC-46 has already tested and proven its capability for the mission, it would be selected, Samuelson said.
The Air Force has so far received 44 KC-46s, at a pace of about two per month. The service has allotted some to training and test, and AMC is still crafting its plan for how many tankers would be available. The goal is for the taskings to begin this year, Samuelson said. It will be a “conditions-based” approach, and could open up to more receivers as the KC-46 proves itself. For now, however, it will be limited to certain receiving aircraft. For example, jets with low-observable coatings such as the B-2, F-22, and F-35 would not be open for the missions because of continued issues with the RVS system, Samuelson said.
“We want to build a plan that had high confidence,” Samuelson said. “We were not interested in building something that went off of some artificial number that stumbled when you realized other parts of the system are not ready to support this. We want a plan that TRANSCOM and the Air Force can count on, that it’s going to give you that scale in perpetuity, not that it’s an episodic start, stop, type.”