USAF to Continue Large Exercise, Increase Training With Five Arctic Nations

Feb. 18, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Acting Air Force Secretary John P. Roth and the defense leaders of five other Arctic nations signed a letter of intent supporting one of the continent’s largest air exercises and outlining additional steps to expand collaboration.

The letter—signed by Roth and the defense ministers of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden—continues the Arctic Challenge Exercise, which was last held in 2019 and included more than 140 aircraft and 4,000 troops from nine countries. The letter also expands on the Air Force’s first-ever Arctic Strategy, released last summer. The strategy called for increased interoperability with key allies in the region, according to a Feb. 18 release.

“We have a common vision and shared set of values in upholding security and stability in the Arctic region,” Roth said in the release. “Strong, enduring relationships with our allies and partners are essential to safeguarding peace in the region.”

The next iteration of the biennial exercise will be in June.

“The Arctic Challenge Exercise demonstrates the integral role combined exercises play in deepening ties with our allies and partners,” said Kelli L. Seybolt, deputy under secretary of the Air Force for international affairs, in the release. “These activities simultaneously strengthen cooperation, enhance interoperability, and support collective defense and deterrence.”

The letter comes as the Air Force deploys B-1B bombers to Norway for the first time. The bombers, from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, will operate out of Orland Air Base, U.S. European Command announced earlier this month. Airmen deployed to the country in early February and were quarantining for 10 days, before preparing for the aircraft’s arrival later this month. While in Norway, the bombers will conduct training in the “high north.”

“Operational readiness and our ability to support allies and partners and respond with speed is critical to combined success,” Gen. Jeffrey L Harrigian, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander, said in a release. “We value the enduring partnership we have with Norway and look forward to future opportunities to bolster our collective defense.”

NATO to Increase Presence in Iraq, Afghanistan Future Unclear

Feb. 18, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

NATO will increase its presence in Iraq following the U.S. drawdown in the country, but its future force size in Afghanistan is still up in the air as violence remains high.

The alliance’s presence in Iraq will grow from 500 to about 4,000, not including the 2,500 American troops now deployed to the country, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Feb. 18, following two days of meetings with member nations’ defense leaders. Training activities also will expand to Iraqi security institutions beyond Baghdad, he added.

“Our presence is conditions-based and increases in troop numbers will be incremental,” Stoltenberg said in a press conference.

The announcement comes days after an international contractor was killed and eight others, including a U.S. service member, were wounded in a rocket attack on a military base at the Erbil airport in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Stoltenberg said the Islamic State group remains a threat in Iraq, and Iraqi forces need international support to grow in strength.

“ISIS still operates in Iraq and we need to make sure they’re not able to return,” he said. “We have also seen some increase in attacks by ISIS, and that just highlights the importance of strengthening the Iraqi forces.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III participated in the meetings, and “reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the enduring defeat of ISIS, respecting Iraq’s sovereignty, and ensuring long-term regional stability,” according to a Pentagon readout of the meetings.

The U.S. welcomes NATO’s expanded role, and Austin “expressed confidence that all of the work done to date with the Iraqi government and security forces will lead to a self-sustainable mission,” according to the Pentagon.

The future in Afghanistan is less clear. The U.S. reduced its presence in the country to about 2,500 last month, with plans to withdraw all forces by May. But American and NATO officials say Taliban violence is still too high, leaving open the possibility that U.S. troops will remain in the country longer.

Stoltenberg said NATO will remain in close communication with allies “in the coming weeks,” as it decides what its force structure will look like in Afghanistan.

“The problem is that we are in a situation where we have a date—1st of May—approaching. And so far we have seen that the peace talks are fragile,” Stoltenberg said. “They are not making so much progress as we want to see. And, therefore, we also, of course, are extremely concerned by the increased level of violence. And, therefore, our message to the Taliban is to reduce violence, negotiate in good faith, and make sure that they stop all cooperation with international terrorist groups.”

The U.S. is conducting a “thorough review of the conditions of the U.S.-Taliban Agreement to determine whether all parties have adhered to those conditions,” according to the Pentagon statement. Austin reiterated the American commitment to a diplomatic effort to end the war, and “he reassured Allies that the U.S. would not undertake a hasty or disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan,” according to the statement.

First of 17 B-1Bs Heads to the Boneyard

Feb. 17, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The first of 17 B-1B bombers to be retired this fiscal year under a Congressionally-approved divestiture plan flew to the “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., on Feb. 17, Air Force Global Strike Command said.

The aircraft was based at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., but the Air Force did not provide specifics on which aircraft retired.

“This action will not affect the service’s lethality or any associated maintenance manpower,” AFGSC said in a press release. It will allow a focus of maintenance and “depot-level manpower on the remaining aircraft, increasing readiness and paving the way for the bomber fleet modernization.”

Not all 17 Lancers will go to the 309th Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group, also known as the boneyard, once they retire. One will go to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for testing, although AFGSC did not say if the jet will conduct air or static ground tests. Another will go to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. Air Force Global Strike Command may send a third to Wichita State University, Kansas, for research, and a fourth may become a “gate guard” or a static display at an unidentified location.

Four of the 17 bombers will be kept in “recallable storage,” AFGSC said, which means the aircraft will get a Spraylat treatment to keep out moisture and animals, and the engines will be cocooned to preserve the “functional and material integrity” of the airplanes. AFGSC could not say how long they are required to keep the aircraft in this status. The remaining B-1s going to the boneyard will be eligible for parts cannibalization.

After the drawdown, 45 airplanes will be left in the operational B-1 fleet, about evenly divided between Ellsworth and Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. All congressional delegations and committees affected by the drawdown have been notified, a AFGSC spokesman said.

The B-1B retirements will make way for the new B-21 stealth bomber, and are “something we have been working toward for some time,” AFGSC Commander Gen. Timothy M. Ray said in a press release. USAF “accelerated” the retirements because excessive wear and tear on the aircraft during the last two decades “would cost tens of millions of dollars per aircraft” to fix, “and that’s just the problems we know about,” Ray said.

An AFGSC spokesman said the actual estimate is, “$10 million to $30 million per aircraft to get back to a status quo fleet in the short term until the B-21 comes online.”

The Air Force is conducting a long-term structural fatigue test on a B-1 carcass and wing at Boeing’s facilities near Seattle, Wash. The tests will help engineers anticipate structural problems on the remaining fleet that will need to be addressed.

Retiring the B-1s with “the least amount of usable life allows us to prioritize the health of the fleet and crew training,” Ray asserted. “Our ability to balance these priorities will make us more capable and lethal overall.”

30 Years After Desert Storm: Feb. 18

Feb. 17, 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. 18:

Two US Navy vessels, the amphibious assault ship Tripoli and the guided missile cruiser Princeton, strike mines in Gulf and suffer significant damage.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz returns to Baghdad with a peace proposal from Soviet President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. The Soviet Union offers a four-point peace plan:
1. An unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait
2. Protection for Iraqi territorial integrity
3. No punishment of Saddam Hussein or other Iraqi leaders
4. Talks about other Middle Eastern problems, particularly the Palestine problem

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.

Brown Launching Major TacAir Study with CAPE, Considering ‘5th-Gen Minus’

Feb. 17, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force is launching a months-long study of tactical aviation requirements, seeking a force mix that addresses both near- and long-term requirements, which will be available in time to inform the fiscal 2023 budget request, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said Feb. 17.

He wants the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation shop involved so the study will have credibility and buy-in from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

USAF needs a fifth-gen capability, comparable to the F-22 and F-35, and a “sixth-gen” capability such as the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, but it also needs “a mix for the lower-end fight,” Brown told reporters on Feb. 17.

Although he acknowledged that former Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper opened the possibility of buying more F-16s for this purpose, Brown waved away that idea. The F-16, he said, lacks open mission systems capability, and gets operational flight program updates—new software—too infrequently. The aircraft was designed in the 1970s, and he is more interested in a “clean sheet design,” which he referred to as a “fourth-and-a half/fifth-gen minus” aircraft. The TacAir study will decide just what is needed, and in what numbers.

The study will parallel Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s Global Posture Review, and the two assessments will “inform” each other.

“Right now, I wouldn’t say they’re aligned,” Brown said, noting this is another reason why he wants the CAPE involved. The TacAir study will require a lot of modeling and simulation, he said. The Global Posture Study will also lay out the “priorities of the department” and inform the direction of the TacAir assessment. To do it in “a vacuum … would be naïve,” he said.

Asked specifically about buying new F-16s, Brown said, “Actually, I want to build something new and different that’s not the F-16; that has some of those capabilities, but gets there faster, using our digital approach.”

He assumes that, “Not everybody will agree” with the study’s findings, but said, “We … want a point of departure, a point of dialog.” There will be risk associated with whatever optimum force mix emerges. “My job then is to articulate what that risk might be,” he added.

The Air Force’s fighter fleet averages 28 years old, and “that’s not going to compete well with adversaries,” Brown noted. “That’s why this force mix study is so important: to bring down the average age, to have something relevant not just today, but well into the future.”

Brown acknowledged that the Air Force is unlikely to be able to afford 386 combat wings, but said it might be possible to obtain the combat capability of that capability without as many actual aircraft.

“I want to … get as close as I can to a 386 capability with the force size I have and [the] dollars available,” he said, but there has to be solid analysis for the resulting force mix. He’s told the Air Staff and major commands, “I have a degree in engineering; it’s all about numbers and facts … That’s what I expect from the Air Staff, don’t give me emotion, bring me the facts.”

Brown said he has no doubt the major commands “understand I’m the Chief,” and said he is making “enterprise-level decisions” about the force structure. Those decisions are “not going to be popular,” he said. But, “If I don’t do that, we don’t accelerate change. I’m not sorry about that. There will be some folks who don’t like me, or don’t like what I decide, but I want to move forward with what I think is best for the Air Force.”

Combatant commanders have a different perspective, he noted, and are focused on a horizon of two or three years. Brown said he’s worried about that, too, but he also has to think about the “next 15-20 years. This is why I say we have to balance risk over time. I should not own all the risk … [it] has to be shared [with] the combatant commands and the services.” He said he’s thinking about the COCOMs that are the fifth successors to those now in the job, and he wants to “set them up for success.”

Not every mission will have everything it needs, Brown said. “That means tough choices.” The Air Force has to “look across portfolios.”

Brown acknowledged the F-35 is having engine wear issues, and said this will play in the TacAir review. The Air Force has the largest and “most mature” F-35 fleet, and is seeing F135 engines “failing a little faster in certain areas,” due to their “high use rate” and heavy deployment pace, given their relative newness in the fleet, he said.

Options are being looked at in maintenance and depot to mitigate the problem, Brown said, noting he has three- and four-star generals studying the issue.

But one big solution could simply be to use the F-35 less, Brown reported.

“I want to moderate how much we’re using those aircraft,” he said. “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our ‘high end’ [fighter], we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight … We don’t want to burn up capability now and wish we had it later.”

There’s “going to be some tension associated” with that approach, and “I fully expect that,” he said.

Sikorsky Wrapping Developmental Tests on New Search-and-Rescue Chopper

Feb. 17, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Sikorsky will finish its to-do list of developmental flight testing requirements for the Air Force’s new fleet of combat search-and-rescue helicopters in the next month or so, and is gearing up to deliver one chopper per month starting this summer, company officials told reporters Feb. 17.

The Combat Rescue Helicopter program is moving forward as Sikorsky has delivered eight of the nine HH-60W Jolly Green II aircraft built so far. Those eight helos are housed at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and Moody Air Force Base, Ga., while Sikorsky is using the ninth airframe for flight tests, according to Dana Fiatarone, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary’s vice president for Air Force and Army systems.

The HH-60W has proven it can perform in extremely hot, cold, and wet weather, and passed a midair refueling test with a HC-130J last summer. The Jolly Green II is now headed to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California for radar warning receiver testing.

Steven Hill, Sikorsky’s CRH program director, said it’s too early to tell whether the helicopters are performing as expected.

The company now has 22 helicopters on contract, according to Sikorsky. The manufacturer could see an award for another 19 helos in mid-2021. The Air Force plans to buy more than 100 HH-60Ws for $7.5 billion over the course of the program.

Officials on the call referred questions about how CRH will spread across Air Force bases to replace the HH-60G Pave Hawk, which entered service in the early 1980s, to USAF. The new fleet is an updated Black Hawk variant that can fly farther than its predecessor and has more tools to protect against incoming threats, among other improvements.

Sikorsky is already looking at changes to bring its helicopters into the farther future, such as improved survivability, while also ditching earlier requirements that will be outdated once the aircraft is in use.

The Air Force on Feb. 11 published a partially redacted document indicating the service will offer as much as $980.7 million for helicopter upgrades to “combat real-world threats” to search-and-rescue missions. Those modifications will begin this year, USAF said.

“The subsequent delay by not initiating development and fielding for the [capability upgrade] requirements will continue to become more severe as the HH-60G fleet continues to age and until the HH-60W replacement helicopter becomes operationally capable,” the Air Force said.

Failures in older helos led to an undisclosed number of “losses and fatalities during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as one example,” USAF noted.

SDA Preps Plans for ‘Tranche One’ Satellites

Feb. 17, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Pentagon officials are nailing down what the military wants to see from its next round of new satellites procured by the Space Development Agency, with a request for proposals due out this summer, the agency’s director said Feb. 16.

The Defense Department is in the middle of defining its needs for the group of communications, missile tracking, and other satellites known as “Tranche One,” which are slated to reach space by 2024, SDA boss Derek M. Tournear said during a Space Symposium event.

He hopes industry will latch onto plans to field rapidly upgradable batches of satellites and grow the new military constellation every two years. If SDA’s plans for deploying hundreds of satellites goes as planned, the constellation will offer DOD multiple routes to share information if some signals are jammed or systems are destroyed.

“The department has committed to filling out Tranche Zero, which is … eight [satellites] from SDA and two from [the Missile Defense Agency],” Tournear said. “Beyond that, the department is still trying to determine exactly what are the next steps.”

He hopes to have a better idea of what Tranche One will look like by May. If DOD opts to continue building out Tranche Zero’s missile-tracking capabilities instead of maturing other types of satellites like those used for space object tracking or intelligence collection, Tournear said, the military could have a persistent, regional eye on orbit to watch for ballistic missile launches by 2025. Global coverage could follow by 2027, he said.

The military plans to link SDA’s constellation to commercial satellites that offer services like imaging and internet. While the agency wants its data-transport satellites to talk directly to each other to share information, that interoperability won’t need to be baked in until Tranche One.

Tournear cautioned that other military systems—like the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared satellites in development for missile tracking—will have to send data to ground stations before SDA can use it. That means slowing the time it takes to get that information to troops around the globe.

“We’ll also be able to take cues from those systems, and then use that to cue, for example, our medium field-of-view [missile tracking] systems,” Tournear said. “But yeah, there’ll be no direct satellite-to-satellite [communications].”

SDA differentiates itself in the military space ecosystem with a mission to move faster and with more commercial players than typical satellite and payload procurement. As DOD reforms its space enterprise and tries to avoid acquisition overlap, it will keep the nascent agency separate from the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office. SDA is set to move from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the Space Force by October 2022.

Success will depend on the agency’s ability to stick to a timeline that is tight by DOD standards. A set of upcoming experiments focused on beyond line-of-sight target and advanced missile tracking could help move the schedule along.

“We’re planning on tying our national defense space architecture into their planned demonstrations and exercises, so that we can essentially demonstrate that we can close that kill chain on the order of single-digit seconds,” Tournear said. “That’s how we’ll measure success for the combatant commanders—to be able to run their exercises, utilizing data from the SDA architecture and use that for actual fire.”

Pilot Error Caused 2020 C-130J Hard Landing at Ramstein

Feb. 17, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Pilot error caused extensive damage to a C-130J during assault landing training at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, in April 2020, according to an accident investigation, which also found that effective aircrew training is limited.

The C-130J-30, a stretched version of the Super Hercules with tail number 11-5736, assigned to the 37th Airlift Squadron, sustained an estimated $20.9 million in damage. No aircrew members were injured in the mishap, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe Accident Investigation Board report released Feb. 16. An over emphasis on operational sorties instead of training and the lack of a local landing zone for assault landings at the base also contributed to the incident, according to the report.

In the late afternoon of April 23, 2020, the C-130J-30 took off for a routine pilot evaluation flight, to include a maximum effort takeoff, maximum effort landing, full-stop, and then taking off again to rejoin a formation, according to the report.

During the maximum effort landing portion of the training, the pilot began the engine power reduction (power pull) early at about 70 feet above ground level (AGL), 50 feet above the standard protocol for an assault landing, and the aircraft’s engines went fully flight idle at 45 feet AGL. The C-130 slammed down on the runway at 3.62 Gs and at a sink rate of 834 feet per minute, well above the aircraft’s limits of 2.0 Gs and 540 feet per minute. The aircraft’s nose gear did not touch the runway.

The co-pilot called for a go-around, prompting the pilot to push the throttles fully forward and take off again. The aircraft flew back around and was able to land safely.

The crew initially believed a tailwind caused the high sink rate, but investigators found that weather did not play a role in the incident.

The AIB president, in the report, said the main cause of the incident was the pilot’s early engine power reduction. Because of the C-130J’s aerodynamics, reducing power too early increases the sink rate because the aircraft’s propellers “generate high velocity airflow over the wings, directly affecting lift.” At about 10 feet above the ground, the pilot did add throttle, but it was insufficient to prevent the hard landing, the report states.

Additionally, the AIB states both pilots failed to identify this excessive sink rate in time, and once they did, they didn’t stop it or go around in a timely manner.

During the investigation, members of the 37th Airlift Squadron said the unit’s high operations tempo “leaves less time and opportunities dedicated to local area training, which is particularly important for less experienced aircrew,” the report states. Operational missions are the priority, so few training sorties and local restrictions make it difficult for pilots to practice critical skills. The base does not have a local landing zone to practice assault landings, and instead uses a painted, simulated LZ for the training, which “does not provide realistic training for assault landings and takeoffs,” the report states.

Additionally, investigators identified limitations with Lockheed Martin Engineering’s Data Transfer and Diagnostic System software, including an error in the hard landing detection algorithm, according to the report.

AFSOC Experimenting with Agile Combat Employment

Feb. 17, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Air Force Special Operations Command is running an experiment to see if it can successfully generate small, deployable teams of multi-capable Airmen to better align with the Air Force’s agile combat employment model, AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife said Feb. 16.

“The problem statement for us is, ‘How do you build and force-generate combat support capabilities that are ready to operate in that future operating environment in a method that isn’t based on our current home station garrison construct?’ And so, this is a place where AFSOC is really putting a lot of effort right now,” he said during a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies “Aerospace Nation” event.

Video: Mitchell Institute on YouTube

When in garrison, separate squadrons handle contracting, logistics readiness, and other support functions. But that doesn’t line up with how the command uses those skills in the fight. For example, he noted, U.S. Central Command has never asked him to “quickly deploy” a single kind of mission-support squadron to its area of responsibility.

“We’ve got a pilot effort going on at one of our bases right now where we are assuming risk in some installation support functions to build a small multi-functional team of Airmen that will go through a force-generation cycle and a deployment cycle together with the operating forces in a way that is representative of what we think the future operating environment might require,” he said.

Picture “a small unit of Airmen where the forklift driver” can also run the communications suite, and the “generator electrician” can provide security backup at a Forward Operating Base, he said. This promotion of versatile Airmen is a centerpiece of the ACE force-employment model, which also espouses quick deployments and operations from austere or bare bases.

“This type of multifunctional, team-based organization is really what I think the future of mission support is gonna look like, and so, we’re pretty excited about the work we’re doing in that regard,” he said.

Slife declined to disclose which base is hosting the pilot program, saying he said wants to give Airmen room to “experiment,” “learn lessons,” and make mistakes without outside pressure to get it right.

“I’m 100-percent confident we’re gonna be successful,” he said. “I just … don’t know whether it’ll be this year or the second cycle after we learned from the first one.”