New Training Program Gives One MQ-9 Maintainer the Skills of Three

New Training Program Gives One MQ-9 Maintainer the Skills of Three

June 27, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

A new training initiative at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., is helping MQ-9 maintainers expand their specialties, essentially giving one Airman the skills of three to be able to generate sorties with minimal crews.

The program helps maintainers learn how to handle avionics, weapon systems, and aircraft power generation (crew chief work) for the hunter-killer drones. It is set to graduate its first cohort of Multi-Capable Airmen (MCA) next month.

“This program was born from the idea of potential combat in the Pacific theater in future conflicts, where we would need to island hop to propel the flying mission forward,” Tech Sgt. Cory Westerfield, 29th Aircraft Maintenance Unit aircraft section noncommissioned officer in charge, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We have already had success in sending MCA-qualified individuals on temporary duty and being able to send smaller teams since skill sets now overlap, especially for avionics and crew chief specialties.”

The Air Force has used the terms Multi-Capable Airmen and Mission-Ready Airmen to describe its push for service members to learn skills outside their main speciality, allowing the service to generate more airpower with smaller teams.

Holloman’s MQ-9 program kicked off in March, featuring four cycles each lasting 4 weeks. During each cycle, members from avionics, aircraft power generation, and weapons specialties in each unit rotate through training in each other’s specialties.

“An avionics technician who specializes in electronic systems used on aircraft would normally not be a part of airframe and engine maintenance,” Master Sgt. Michael Nistler, 29th AMU section chief, said in a release. “The MCA program allows them to learn launch and recovery procedures, tire and brake assembly replacements, engine theory of operation, and component replacements in addition to weapons systems.”

On July 3, by the end of the fourth cycle, the program expects to produce 33 MCA-qualified Airmen, adept in avionics systems operations, communication tasks, launch and recovery procedures, engine theory, and more. The training prepares physically separated aircrew and maintainers to collaborate effectively for unified combat and ISR operations.

“You get the overall knowledge about how the aircraft functions and how other sections work together and communicate with each other,” said Airman 1st Class Kennedy Richardson, 29th AMU avionics technician, who is currently undergoing the training.

The long-term goal is to “minimize the number of maintainers” required for deployment, Westerfield explained. Such a move fits with the service’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, emphasizing rapid deployment of small teams to adapt quickly in challenging environments.

“ACE and MCA can go hand-in-hand with smaller, cross-section teams able to perform required maintenance,” said Nistler.

Reaper operations used to require launch and recovery aircrews at each location. Recent upgrades to the aircraft include Automatic Takeoff & Landing Control (ATLC) and Satellite Launch & Recovery (SLR), reducing the number of on-site Airmen needed.

Westerfield added that starting last fall, Holloman has exclusively used Satellite Launch & Recovery for daily operations to train Airmen in this capability.

“SLR removes the need for launch and recovery aircrews at deployed locations, as maintainers can now set up the aircraft to connect to the satellite network in coordination with the MCE (Mission Control Element) aircrew that will be piloting the aircraft during the mission,” said Westerfield. “Moving locations quickly without having to move a lot of equipment infrastructure is beneficial to the efficiency of the mission, saving man hours, refueling trucks and equipment.”

Maintainers prepare the aircraft for satellite connectivity, then hand control over to Mission Control Element crew for piloting. Using Automatic Takeoff & Landing Control (ATLC), the MQ-9 drones can autonomously take off and land based on pre-defined or newly scanned airfield waypoints.

“Our unit has become capable of upholding the Agile Combat Employment initiative, both with the execution of satellite launch and recovery of aircraft and the MCA concept,” said Nistler.

The MQ-9, a long-endurance drone, is designed for reconnaissance and strike missions, primarily targeting time-critical and high-value targets in various environments. The U.S. has deployed a number of Reapers to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war to gather information about hostages held by militants, and for combat operations.  

Air Force Confirms Its F-35As Were Mission Capable About Half the Time in 2023

Air Force Confirms Its F-35As Were Mission Capable About Half the Time in 2023

June 27, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-35A mission capable rate for fiscal 2023 was 51.9 percent, with the Air Force blaming spare parts availability for the decline from the previous year’s figure of 56 percent.

Mission capable rates measure the percentage of time an aircraft is able to perform at least one of its core missions.

The service previously reported the fiscal 2022 MC rate as 65.4 percent, a figure Air & Space Forces Magazine included in its annual almanac. Now, however, officials say that figure was inaccurate.

Asked about the significant discrepancy and the reason for the error, a service spokesperson said “the reason for the inaccurate number last year isn’t immediately available, but we shared a correction as soon as we realized the error. In order to be consistent, the MC capable rates we report each year measure the same criteria.”

The new figures match those published in an April audit of F-35 sustainment costs from the Government Accountability Office. In that report, the GAO said the F-35A’s mission capable rate peaked in 2020 at 71.4 percent, then declining to 68.8 percent in 2021, 56 percent in 2022, and 51.9 percent in 2023, as the Air Force brought on more jets at the rate of about 40 per year. The GAO quoted the Air Force’s “minimum performance target” MC rate for the F-35A at 80 percent, and its “objective performance target” as 90 percent.

In the audit, the GAO noted that “none of the variants of the aircraft (i.e., the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C) are meeting availability goals,” but allowed that the services “have made progress in meeting their affordability targets (i.e., the amount of money they project they can afford to spend per aircraft per year for operating the aircraft). … This is due in part to the reduction in planned flight hours, and because the Air Force increased the amount of money it projects it can afford to spend” on its F-35As.

The GAO report states the Air Force now expects to pay $6.6 million annually per tail to operate and sustain the F-35A, a roughly 34 percent increase over the figure it cited in June 2023 of $4.1 million per airplane. The service also told the watchdog agency it would continue to operate the F-35 about 12 years longer than originally planned but fly each aircraft less often. The service expects to fly each F-35A about 187 hours per year, versus the original plan of 230 hours per year.

While the Air Force has in previous years stated an MC goal rate of between 75 and 80 percent for most its aircraft types, it has abandoned that practice, a service spokesperson said.

“The Air Force does not have an overall [MC] goal or standard,” she said.

Mission capable rate “‘goals’ are specific to the wing/unit flying the aircraft, derived from either syllabus sortie requirements (training) or home-station training and real-world operation requirements (ops bases),” the spokesperson added.

The service has said the way it measures mission capability rates has changed in recent years, with more focus on readiness of aircraft either already deployed or about to deploy and less on stateside aircraft. The spokesperson reiterated that stance, claiming MC rates “do not equate to Air Force readiness rates.”

“They are just one component assessed at the unit level to help determine how ready a squadron is to meet the threat,” the spokesperson said. Instead, the service measures readiness “by how well the Air Force can carry out its missions, which requires more than mission-capable aircraft. It also requires trained and ready air crew, maintainers and other airmen, as well as enough spare parts and resources.”

The Air Force declined to offer explanations for significant declines in mission capable rates for various fleets, such as the C-5 Galaxy, B-1 Lancer, and other platforms where huge resource investments in maintainability and reliability have not paid off in aircraft availability. Overall, MC rates for most Air Force fleets—44 of 64 types—declined in fiscal 2023 over 2022.

Air Force Releases First Video of XQ-67 Drone, a CCA Prototype, in Flight

Air Force Releases First Video of XQ-67 Drone, a CCA Prototype, in Flight

June 27, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force released the first video of a new experimental drone in flight on June 26, offering a potential preview of the service’s future fleet of autonomous collaborative combat aircraft.

Air Force Research Laboratory published a 90-second clip of General Atomics XQ-67A’s inaugural flight, which occurred in February at the company’s Gray Butte facility in Palmdale, Calif. General Atomics, the Air Force’s main drone manufacturer for the past 30 years, was awarded one of two design contracts for the first autonomous collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) in April. The company called the XQ-67A a “CCA prototype” when it won the contract.

The XQ-67A is part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Platform Sharing (LCAAPS) program to test a so-called Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS), which is exploring data-sharing technologies hosted on an autonomous drone. The aircraft is piloted remotely but capable of autonomous flight. It is the Air Force’s follow-up to Kratos’s XQ-58A Valkyrie, which was originally developed under the USAF’s Skyborg autonomous aircraft program and is now being tested by the U.S. Marine Corps.

General Atomics said in a release April 24 that the XQ-67A had completed three test flights since its first takeoff on Feb. 28. The company has trumped the aircraft as a preliminary version of a CCA.

“This program focused on building several aircraft variants from a common core chassis,” General Atomics, also known as GA-ASI, said in a release after being awarded the CCA Increment 1 design contract. “Since then, this prototype for CCA has successfully completed two additional test flights, laying the groundwork for a successful production and flight test program. GA-ASI’s CCA production representative design is based upon the XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station developed by GA-ASI for the AFRL.”

The Air Force is also testing out its autonomous technology, in part, on the X-62 VISTA, a modified F-16. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall rode in an AI-piloted VISTA last month in simulated dogfights against a human pilot.

“Designed, built, ground tested, and flown in just over two years, AFRL’s XQ-67A builds on the success of the XQ-58A Valkyrie and complements the Air Force Test Center’s X-62 VISTA and F-16 VENOM efforts to speed fielding of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA,” ARFL said in its release.

The Air Force leaders say their intent is to move at the pace of technology and not fall behind by developing CCAs as traditional aircraft programs.

“As we’re looking at leaning into human-machine teaming and developing these collaborative combat aircraft, we’re trying to do three things in parallel, which sometimes we had done serially,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in May. “We developed a platform … and then afterwards, we’ll figure out how we’re going to do the rest of DOTMLPF [doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities] spectrum, and how we’re going to actually employ it and how we’re going to base it, etcetera. We’re doing those all at once now.”

Allvin doubled down on those comments earlier this month at an AFA Warfighters in Action event, noting the Air Force is making “big bets” on human-machine teaming, which was informing how the service thought other types of aircraft, not just drones. He said the service was thinking through how it might use and perhaps discard particular CCA technologies in as little as a decade rather than follow a model based on traditional aircraft programs that span may span 30 years or more.

The XQ-67 is based on a similar philosophy.

“This provides an alternate acquisition approach for ACP [autonomous collaborative platforms] aircraft using a product line philosophy that enables faster development, lower costs, and opportunities for frequent technology refreshes,” AFRL said in its release.

SPACECOM Boss Wants Satellites That Can Maneuver to and from New Orbits

SPACECOM Boss Wants Satellites That Can Maneuver to and from New Orbits

June 26, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Space Command is interested in orbits around Earth outside the traditional regions where satellites operate, and commander Gen. Stephen N. Whiting sees refuelable spacecraft as a possible key to getting to them. 

Not every satellite needs to be refuelable, Whiting adding during a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event on June 24. But for key missions, having the ability to run away from a threat or get closer to another spacecraft to inspect it will be important, the SPACECOM boss said. Vast regions of space that are relatively unoccupied now but could become important in the future, he noted.

“I want the ability to survey and to get to non-traditional orbits,” Whiting said. “Space is massive, there’s all this volume of places you can go, but we tend to operate in kind of these four areas. One is low-Earth orbit, out to about 800 kilometers, then medium-Earth orbit, where the GPS satellites are, and then Geosynchronous and then some at highly elliptical orbits.” 

There are many reasons why governments and businesses gravitate toward those four main orbital regimes, said retired Space Force Col. Charles Galbreath, a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute.  

“There are some natural conditions we try to avoid,” Galbreath said of space. “ … There’s radiation from the sun and from cosmic sources. There’s micrometeorites, etc. It’s a nasty place. And there are the Van Allen Belts, where there are pockets of additional radiation that is collected, and that can make it difficult to operate in that region for a long period of time.” 

However, it is possible to harden satellites against radiation, and as places like low-Earth orbit become more and more congested, new orbits present opportunities. But it may not make sense to position satellites there permanently, Whiting suggested. That’s where the concept of Dynamic Space Operations comes in. 

“We want a maneuvering capability that allows us to maneuver through multiple orbital regimes,” he said. “We think that will help limit the opportunity for operational surprise. So it is a mission-by-mission, orbit-by-orbit determination, but absolutely we see certain missions, certain orbits where Dynamic Space Operations, sustained space maneuver makes great sense for the nation.” 

Whiting has endorsed the idea of maneuverable satellites before, and the idea has gained traction among Pentagon officials. Right now, satellites minimize movement in orbit as much as possible to conserve fuel. Once they run out, their service life is over. 

“It’s time to bring dynamic space operations and on-orbit logistics and infrastructure to the space domain,” Whiting said in April at the annual Space Symposium. “The days of energy-neutral positional operations in space need to end.” 

At the time, Whiting added that such a move would open up new tactics and operating concepts for SPACECOM operators. During the Mitchell Institute event, he offered examples of what those could be. 

“Imagine now, you’re a singular high-value satellite in geosynchronous orbit, for example, and maybe you’re being targeted by a red capability,” Whiting said. “And what if that red capability can refuel but you can’t. Now it can persistently chase you until you run out of fuel. And that’s not a state you want to be in. You want to be able to continue your mission.” 

Being able to maneuver between different orbits could offer several advantages in such a scenario, Galbreath suggested.  

“It may be just a transitory activity to get out of the way of a threat that maybe doesn’t have the fuel to follow you, or doesn’t have the radiation hardening to survive in a Van Allen Radiation Belt or something like that,” he said. 

An artist rendering shows a Blue Ring spacecraft, developed by Blue Origin, focused on providing in-space logistics and delivery. Blue Ring will serve commercial and government customers and can support a variety of missions in medium-Earth orbit out to the cislunar region and beyond. The platform provides end-to-end services that span hosting, transportation, refueling, data relay, and logistics. Blue Origin

Alternatively, should an adversary like Russia or China choose to deploy a satellite to a new orbit, the U.S. needs to have satellites of its own that can inspect the threat, Whiting said. 

“There’s a lot of volume of space in there to be surprised, and we want to reduce the opportunity for strategic surprise by being able to surveil and get to those,” he said. 

Top military space officials have said space domain awareness is a top priority given the evolving threat, and maneuverability is tied to that mission area, Galbreath suggested. 

“If we improve the maneuverability of our space domain awareness assets, we’ll be able to observe different regions of space and different activities going on in space, so it can help us improve domain awareness,” said Galbreath. “But on the other side, moving from a sort of energy-neutral position where you’re following Keplerian orbits and you’re very predictable, that reduces the requirements on domain awareness. Moving to a dynamic space operation … makes it much harder to know where you’re going based off of where you’re observed right now. And so that can complicate an adversary’s space domain awareness. And if they’re doing it to us, it could complicate ours.” 

Of course, maneuvering, refuelable satellites may not be the answer in every scenario, Whiting and Galbreath both noted. A proliferated constellation in low-Earth orbit, for example, puts up new satellites with such short service lives that refueling wouldn’t be worth the effort. But generally speaking, maneuvering satellites could take the U.S. out of “positional warfare” in space, Whiting said. 

“From a warfighting perspective, having the ability to maneuver is a valid requirement today,” Galbreath added. “It’s an unmet requirement by and large, but it is still a requirement that would help [SPACECOM] immediately. And so as soon as services, particularly the Space Force and industry, can demonstrate some means to increase the maneuver capability of satellites, the better for Space Command.” 

New DOD Security Clearance Czar Wants to End Years of Mismanagement

New DOD Security Clearance Czar Wants to End Years of Mismanagement

June 26, 2024 | By David Roza

The new head of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency told lawmakers he aims to reverse years of poor management of DCSA’s background check modernization effort, which is already more than five years behind schedule and half a billion dollars over budget.

“We’re 8.5 years into a three-year program. We spent $1.345 billion on a $700 million program,” DCSA director David Cattler told a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability subcommittee at a June 26 hearing. “It’s unacceptable that we’ve gotten to where we are and we need to turn this thing around.” 

Cattler was specifically referring to the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) program, which underpins a larger reform of personnel vetting called Trusted Workforce 2.0. The reforms began after a massive data breach at the Office of Personnel Management in 2015 exposed the data of about 22.1 million federal employees, contractors, and others with personal data on the office’s network.

NBIS is supposed to replace legacy background investigation information technology systems and serve as the federal government’s “one-stop-shop IT system for end-to-end personnel vetting,” complete with better data protection, integration, and usability. 

The system was supposed to be fully functional in 2019, and DCSA took charge of it in 2020. But four years later, it is still a long way from complete. The Government Accountability Office blamed the delays on DCSA, which it said ignored multiple recommendations since 2021 to implement basic management principles such as developing a reliable schedule and cost estimates and enhancing oversight, particularly for cybersecurity controls.

“These are key fundamental program management principles, and in the past the program has been so focused on moving out to deliver capabilities that they had told us it was an administrative burden and a waste of time, frankly, to develop a schedule or a cost estimate,” Alissa Czyz, GAO’s director for defense capabilities management, told lawmakers. “ … Well, now they’re years late and behind schedule and over cost too.”

In the meantime, the DOD suffered one of its largest intelligence leaks ever in 2023 when Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, a member of the Air National Guard, shared classified material on a social media site. The incident raised questions about insider threats and the vetting process for individuals requesting a security clearance.

Teixeira was not referenced in the hearing, but DCSA provides vetting services for 95 percent of the federal government, which equates to 2.7 million investigations per year, Cattler said in his testimony. The personnel vetting system and its outdated IT infrastructure has long been afflicted by “skyrocketing processing times which created a towering backlog of qualified individuals who could not start serving in national security roles,” said subcommittee ranking member Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.).

Mfume cited a January GAO report showing that 17 out of 31 federal agencies did not trust each others’ security clearance processes, leading to duplicative, time-intensive vetting at each agency.

“Extensive wait times force talented agency recruits to pursue employment outside of the government when their security clearance stretches for months and sometimes years,” Mfume said. “And can you really blame them?”

As the “one-stop shop” for personnel vetting IT systems, NBIS forms the “lynchpin” to Trusted Workforce 2.0, said Czyz. When it slows, so too does the overall reform effort. 

At this point, DCSA does not expect to fully sunset its legacy systems until fiscal 2028, but Czyz expressed confidence in Cattler, who became director of DCSA in March. She recalled the new director quoting from GAO’s past reports when GAO representatives visited DCSA in Quantico, Va., about six weeks after Cattler took the seat.

“He asked us point-blank how his agency had interacted with GAO in the past and that he was committed to having a collaborative relationship in implementing our recommendations,” Czyz said. “So I think we are very encouraged by his early leadership here.”

Indeed, when asked about accountability, Cattler said DCSA has “had some people move on,” and “fundamentally” changed internal and external communications, and taken “punitive measures” against some employees and contractors since he came on board. 

The agency is nearly at the end of a 90-day NBIS recovery plan which began April 1. Cattler expects the plan to yield a new roadmap for the system, a new leadership team, a reliable funding profile, an audit conducted by the DCSA inspector general, acquisition oversight from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, and other actions meant to reset the process.

“While it’s not my fault, it is my responsibility to make sure DCSA delivers on this set of requirements,” Cattler said. “It’s critical that we do so.” 

B-52s Take Off from US Base with JASSM Cruise Missiles for ‘Unique’ Exercise

B-52s Take Off from US Base with JASSM Cruise Missiles for ‘Unique’ Exercise

June 26, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La.—Airmen at this sprawling bomber base carried out an unusual exercise earlier this month in which they loaded AMG-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, or JASSMs, onto B-52H Stratofortresses to test their ability to conduct long-range airstrike missions.

JASSMs were not launched during Bayou Warrior, which ran June 10-13. But the exercise enabled the personnel to practice executing a conventional strike with live munitions, something the Air Force rarely does with these weapons, which cost upwards of $1 million dollars apiece.

The B-52 has deployed a diverse variety of weapons throughout its 60-year history, and the platform still inspires awe as a symbol of U.S. nuclear might. 

But the Stratofortress has only been employed as a conventional bomber, and its likely future lies not with high-altitude gravity bombing or low-level penetration strikes but with the use of standoff cruise missiles from its bomb bay and massive wings.

“This one was a unique flavor,” Col. Michael D. Maginness, the commander of the 2nd Bomb Wing, which conducted the exercise, said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We actually flew the weapons, which was an outstanding opportunity for our aircrew.”

Wing leadership was also involved in the exercise as the Crisis Action Team went through the paces as if his bombers were actually employed in combat, Maginness said.

Air Force Global Strike Command’s inspector general office evaluated weapons loading and maintenance during the exercise. The 2nd Bomb Wing is AFGSC’s largest bomber wing and the host unit at Barksdale, which houses the major command’s headquarters.

“They’re going to come in, and they’re going give you a hard look at, “Are you ready to go?” said Col. Bryan J. Walter, who previously served as the deputy inspector general for AFGSC before taking command of the 2nd Operations Group at the end of May.

Maginness said the crews would benefit from the scrutiny. 

“I’d be scared if we didn’t find anything, to be honest, because it means we weren’t looking hard enough,” Maginness added. “This is like getting a math problem wrong on the test, except when you do, you owe the teacher back how you’re going to fix it for the future and then prove to her that it’s fixed.”

While the details of the simulated combat were classified, wing officials said that it replicated a real-world scenario. 

“We’ll develop some intelligence-based scenario that would drive us towards something where we would get a conventional tasking,” said Lt. Col. Amanda Goncalves, the 2nd Operations Support Squadron commander and the former inspector general of the 2nd Bomb Wing. “Here’s the U.S. response. This is how you got to this situation in this scenario. You are now being asked by a combatant command to generate so many aircraft, so many weapons, in so much time. So that sets the tone. That sets that real-world scenario for our crews, that, no kidding, you have a period of time you have to get these jets ready, loaded, and airborne.”

A B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 2nd Bomb Wing takes from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., June 11, 2024, as part of exercise Bayou Warrior. Photo by Chris Gordon/Air & Space Forces Magazine

For the B-52, each sortie is no small feat. Most hangers are far too small to fit the bomber, so the ramp at Barksdale is flush with B-52s. Just over half of Air Force B-52s are “mission capable” at any one time, according to Air Force figures, which the service defines as being able to perform at least one of its core missions.

Airmen acknowledged the challenges of getting a 60-year-old jet ready for simulated combat, comparing it to getting a team ready for a playoff game. 

“It’s a very old aircraft. It’s a lot of work, but our guys are great at their job,” said Master Sgt. Nickolas Shelton, production superintendent with the 2nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. “It’s about time management, people management, parts management. It’s nothing to worry about. The airplane’s going to make a decision on if it breaks or not. We just fix it.”

Air Force exercises and the process to improve are well established. Less so is the opportunity to train with the high-end weapons B-52s might employ.

Those weapons crews train with an array of inert weapons, including AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs), which are a key element of the nuclear weapons arsenal. But putting actual JASSMs on a B-52 was a rare experience.

“Due to some of the characteristics of the JASSM, the airplane flies a little different,” said Maginness, who has roughly 3,700 flight hours—400 of them in combat—on B-52s. With JASSMs on the wings, B-52s carry fuel in specific parts of the aircraft as ballast to keep the center of gravity in line.

“Getting to actually interface with the real weapon, and seeing the weapon, the weapon generated launch regions, and the weapon data on the screens, that’s a huge training opportunity,” Maginness added.

His Airmen agreed.

“It’s not that common for us to actually fly around with JASSMs on the pylons,” said Capt. Timothy Walraven, a weapon systems officer with the 20th Bomb Squadron who has participated in a live-fire JASSM test. “So this is a big deal because there are some differences between the indications of simulation in the jet versus actually having the shapes on the jet. It’s good for aircrew to fly with this because it makes them more proficient in the sense that they have a better idea of what they’re going to see, so that way, we can be ready to go anytime.”

Col. Kenneth Cordier, Fighter Pilot and Vietnam POW, Dies at 87

Col. Kenneth Cordier, Fighter Pilot and Vietnam POW, Dies at 87

June 26, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Col. Kenneth W. Cordier, an F-4 fighter pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam and spent more than six years as a prisoner of war, died June 18 at age 87.

Cordier grew up in Ohio and was commissioned in the Air Force through the University of Akron ROTC program. He became a Minuteman missile launch officer and instructor, but in 1963 was accepted for pilot training, earning his wings in 1964. He completed F-4 Phantom II training and served with the 45th Tactical Fighter Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., deploying with it to Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in January 1965. He flew 59 combat missions from Ubon.

In June 1966, Cordier volunteered for a second tour in Vietnam and was assigned to Cam Ranh Bay Air Base, South Vietnam.

He earned his first Silver Star in November 1966, leading an F-4 flight to attack a target in North Vietnam. The citation reads in part that Cordier’s “first pass in the target area drew heavy hostile reaction and his wingmen were downed on their initial passes. Completely disregarding his own personal safety, Capt. Cordier immediately initiated rescue procedures and delivered his remaining ordnance on the nearby target. [He] then remained in the area to provide assistance to inbound rescue aircraft until his low fuel state dictated his departure from the area.”

On Dec. 6, 1966, on his 176th combat mission, Cordier was flying an F-4C, escorting a B-66 over North Vietnam, when his group took heavy ground fire. Cordier made attacks on anti-aircraft positions, until his F-4 was struck by an anti-aircraft missile and he ejected. He was quickly taken captive and was held and tortured over the next 2,284 days, ultimately being repatriated as part of Operation Homecoming on March 4, 1973.

Due to his injuries during captivity at four different sites in North Vietnam, Cordier required hospitalization and convalescent leave but stayed in the Air Force and requalified to fly fighters.

After attending the Armed Forces Staff College and earning a Master’s degree from Troy State University, Ala., he was operations director first at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., and then at Sembach Air Base, West Germany.

In 1976, assigned to Headquarters of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, at Ramstein Air Base, West Germany, Cordier was chief of the War Plans Division, where he was credited with making early use of threat-based computer modeling to establish weapons stockpile requirements for the European theater.

He later served as air attaché to the United Kingdom. Cordier retired from the Air Force in 1985 as a colonel.

Among his military awards were two awards of the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Star medal with “V” for Valor device, six awards of the Air Medal, the POW medal, the Purple Heart, and Defense Superior Service Medal. He amassed more than 2,000 flying hours during his Air Force career.

After retirement, he worked as a representative of British Aerospace in Washington, D.C. He also held leadership positions with a number of veterans organizations—as president of the NAM-POWs and the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association, and as a member of the Airpower Foundation Advisory Board, among others—and served as a private management consultant.

He wrote a book about his combat and POW experiences, “Guardian Eagle: A Fighter Pilot’s Tale,” with Chris Snidow.

Cordier led five veteran trips to Vietnam, visiting former prisons with fellow POWs, both to bring closure to their experience and improve U.S.-Vietnamese relations.  

DARPA Announces a New Flying-Wing Reconnaissance X-Plane: XRQ-73

DARPA Announces a New Flying-Wing Reconnaissance X-Plane: XRQ-73

June 25, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has assigned the designation XRQ-73 to its newest “X-plane,” an autonomous flying wing reconnaissance aircraft prototype with extra-quiet propulsion that is expected to fly this year, the agency announced June 24.

The new aircraft also goes by the program acronym SHEPARD, for “Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiR Demonstration,” and is being developed by Northrop Grumman and its Scaled Composites subsidiary. It is powered by a hybrid electric system which converts fuel to electric power and is part of DARPA’s X-prime program.

The program is builds upon hybrid technologies and other components developed as part of the “Great Horned Owl” predecessor project run by the Air Force Research Lab and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA said. The Office of Naval Research and AFRL are also partners on SHEPARD.

Other involved companies include Cornerstone Research Group, Inc.; Brayton Energy, LLC; PC Krause and Associates, and EaglePicher Technologies, LLC, DARPA said.

DARPA revealed that the XRQ-73 is described as a “Group 3” uncrewed aerial system, coming in at 1,250 pounds, just under the high end of that category’s weight range, between 55 and 1,320 pounds. Group 3 UAS also fly below 18,000 feet, and between 100 and 250 knots airspeed. The then-unnamed aircraft was expected to fly in calendar 2023, but DARPA did not offer an explanation as to why it did not.

The Great Horned Owl project began in 2011 and bore the designation XRQ-72. It used upper-surface propulsors, and so was not stealthy, but the XRQ-73 is a flying wing with engines buried in the planform, clearly intended to have radar low observability in addition to noise reduction. The GHO was to be powered by either gasoline or diesel, but it’s not clear if that requirement also applies to the SHEPARD. Most details of the program remain classified, but the hybrid electric approach is intended to significantly extend the travel and on-station time of a drone in this class.    

A DARPA image showing the evolution of the Great Horned Owl to the SHEPARD, although the layout of the final version differs from DARPA's other image of the XQR-73.
Image courtesy of DARPA

DARPA said the XRQ-73 could be “rapidly fieldable.” The SHEPARD effort has been underway for about four years.

The SHEPARD vehicle will have an “operationally representative fuel fraction and mission systems, while staying below the Group 3 UAS weight limit,” DARPA said on its website.

An IARPA program briefing slide from 2011 noted that noise is the “number-one signature” issue for low-flying UAS. A hybrid power approach was chosen to eliminate gearbox noise on the GHO.  

Scaled Composites is doing the fabrication; Northrop and its Scaled subsidiary are also working on the Defense Innovation Unit/Air Force Blended Wing Body demonstrator, seen as a potential prototype for a stealthy transport.

SHEPARD program manager Steve Komadina said in a DARPA press release that the idea behind DARPA’s X-prime program “is to take emerging technologies and burn down system-level integration risks to quickly mature a new missionized long endurance aircraft design that can be fielded quickly.”

The XQR-73 program “is maturing a specific propulsion architecture and power class as an exemplar of potential benefits for the Department of Defense,” Komadina said.

DARPA did not say whether the XQR-73 will be officially connected to ongoing Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft projects, but a Pentagon official said such efforts are coordinated to find “aligned technologies.”

SHEPARD “is an existing option” to AFRL’s Great Horned Owl contract, Komadina said in an undated description on DARPA’s website. The SHEPARD will leverage what was learned on GHO’s hybrid electric architecture “and some of its component technologies, and quickly mature a new mission-focused aircraft design that can be fielded with the objective of first flight in 20 months.”

Air Force General Pleads Guilty To Two Charges. What Does It Mean and What’s Next?

Air Force General Pleads Guilty To Two Charges. What Does It Mean and What’s Next?

June 25, 2024 | By David Roza

An Air Force general’s decision to plead guilty to two relatively minor charges may be part of a strategy to build his credibility when defending against more serious charges, according to a military legal expert.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart is the second general in Air Force history to face court-martial and the first to face trial by a panel, the military equivalent of a jury. On June 24, Stewart pleaded guilty to one count of dereliction of duty under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for pursuing an unprofessional relationship. He also pleaded guilty to one count of violating UCMJ Article 134, for having an extramarital affair, a spokesperson for Air Education and Training Command confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Stewart has pleaded not guilty to three other charges: two counts of violating Article 120, which forbids sexual assault; one count of Article 133, conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly inviting a subordinate to spend the night with him; and a second count of Article 92, for allegedly controlling an aircraft within 12 hours after consuming alcohol.

The only other Air Force general to have been court-martialed, Maj. Gen. William Cooley, was convicted of abusive sexual contact in 2022 by military judge alone. Stewart was relieved as the head of the 19th Air Force, which oversees all Air Force pilot training, by Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, the head of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), on May 9, 2023.

Stewart pleaded guilty to the two charges at the start of the second week of the trial, which began June 17 at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Panel selection took up much of the first week before concluding June 22.

Stewart’s rank made panel selection especially difficult—military panel members must either be ranked higher than the defendant or pinned on the same rank earlier than him or her. The initial pool of panel members for Stewart’s trial included an unprecedented two four-star generals, 12 three-stars, and two two-stars, including commanders and deputy commanders of Air Force major commands, members of the Air Staff, and more.

The partial guilty plea, made at the start of the trial’s next phase, may have been part of a strategy to boost the general’s defense against the other charges, a former chief prosecutor of the Air Force reasoned.

“You’d argue to the court ‘hey, he’s admitted what he’s done, so he’ll have an opportunity to be punished for what he did, but you shouldn’t punish him for something he didn’t do,’” retired Col. Don Christensen told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

The government cannot use Stewart’s guilty pleas as evidence for the other charges, he explained. Just because Stewart pleaded guilty to extramarital conduct with a subordinate officer does not mean that the conduct was non-consensual, a claim which the trial counsel seeks to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. 

The difference in potential punishment is significant. The maximum punishment for willful dereliction of duty not resulting in death or grievous bodily harm is a bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 6 months, according to the 2024 Manual for Courts-Martial. The maximum punishment for extramarital conduct is dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 1 year.

The maximum punishment for sexual assault, where Stewart is charged with two specifications, is forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 30 years, with a mandatory minimum of dismissal or dishonorable discharge.

Why the defense team timed its plea after jury selection is unclear, but now the lawyers may argue a “mistake of fact” defense: in this case, Stewart had sex with a subordinate officer under a reasonable impression that she was consenting to it. 

Defense lawyers’ questions during jury selection seemed to indicate that approach, with lawyers asking potential panel members whether several minutes of open-mouth kissing or heavy petting demonstrated consent to any sex act. A few generals answered ‘no,’ or said it would depend on the context. 

At the trial on June 24, the alleged victim testified that the sexual encounter, which occurred at or near Altus Air Force Base, Okla. in April, 2023, occurred after heavy drinking, according to the San Antonio Express-News. While she “never told him no,” she feared the consequences for her career.

“It sounds so simple, but it’s not simple,” she said, according to the Express-News. “I was not prepared to have my entire universe blown up.”

A spokesperson for Stewart’s defense team declined to comment until the proceedings are complete. In the meantime, the general can choose whether he wants the sentencing decisions to be made by the panel or by the judge alone, Christensen said.

“It allows the defense to be more aggressive, because the judge knows not to hold litigation against them, whereas the jury might be like ‘you put us all through this, so we’re going to slam you,’” he said.

A change made to the UCMJ in late December limits sentencing to judges alone, but Stewart’s alleged offenses took place before that change, so the old rules still apply. His choice would apply to all charges, not just the ones he pleaded guilty too. The partial plea may help him achieve a lighter sentence for those charges.

“If he were to be sentenced by members, the judge would instruct them that the guilty plea is recognized as the first step towards rehabilitation,” Christensen explained. “So you do get some credit for pleading guilty.” 

Stewart’s charges include six specifications:

  • Two specifications of violating Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, failing to obey a lawful order or regulation, first for allegedly failing “to refrain from pursuing an unprofessional relationship” and second for allegedly controlling an aircraft within 12 hours after consuming alcohol. The first specification allegedly dates to March 6 and May 9, while the second allegedly dates to on or about April 14 at or near Altus Air Force Base, Okla.
  • Two specifications of violating Article 120 of the UCMJ, which covers rape and sexual assault, for alleged nonconsensual sexual contact, dated on or about April 13 and 14 at Altus.
  • One specification of violating Article 133 of the UCMJ, conduct unbecoming an officer, at or near Denver, Colo., on or about March 6 and March 8, where it alleges that Stewart, “while on official travel, wrongfully invite [redacted] to spend the night alone with him in his private hotel room[.]”
  • And one specification of violating UCMJ Article 134, which refers to “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces,” for allegedly engaging “in extramarital conduct” on or about April 13 and 14 at or near Altus.