Next F-35 Contracts Under Negotiation, Deal Expected by Late September

Next F-35 Contracts Under Negotiation, Deal Expected by Late September

Jan. 22, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-35 Joint Program Office, Lockheed Martin, and Pratt & Whitney are negotiating prices for the 15th through 17th lots of Lightning II fighters and engines, aiming for a deal by the end of September.

The contracting strategy is to negotiate a “base year” contract for Lot 15, with “two single-year options (Lots 16 and 17),” a JPO spokeswoman said. While the air vehicles are under negotiation, the “propulsion Lot 15-17 proposal is currently in technical evaluation,” the spokeswoman said. Although Lockheed quotes prices publicly for F-35s with engines included, the government negotiates with the engine maker separately. The Lightning II is powered by Pratt’s F135 turbofan.

The strategy likely buys time for the F-35 to finally exit engineering and manufacturing development and be declared ready for full-rate production, a milestone postponed last month for the third time by former Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief Ellen Lord.

The Lot 15-17 contracts will also mark the first major deals for the F135 engine conducted with Pratt under the ownership of Raytheon Technologies, which formally took over the engine maker in April 2020. Pratt was previously owned by United Technologies.

The program office expects to conclude both the air vehicle and propulsion talks within fiscal 2021, the spokeswoman said. Lot 15 air vehicles “are planned to be fully funded and awarded in FY’21,” but the Lot 16 and 17 options would be exercised in fiscal year 2022 and 2023, respectively, “when funding becomes available.”

The Lots 15-17 contracts were originally expected to include a multi-year “block buy” agreement including the U.S. However, by law, the U.S. cannot enter into a multiyear procurement arrangement for a weapon system until it has passed Milestone C, or full-rate production. The F-35 most recently was supposed to clear Milestone C in March, but Lord postponed that declaration until further notice, due to ongoing challenges integrating the F-35 with the Pentagon’s Joint Simulation Environment—a wargaming system that helps Pentagon leaders decide on optimum force sizes for various weapon platforms. Lord’s move leaves it up to the Biden administration to declare whether and when the F-35 is ready for full-rate production.

When the Lot 12-14 contract was announced in October 2019, Lord said the F-35 had completed 90 percent of the tasks necessary to pass Milestone C.

U.S. partners in the F-35 program are already participating in a “block buy” arrangement with Lockheed Martin.

The $34 billion October 2019 contract, which covered Lots 12-14, achieved Lockheed and the JPO’s longstanding goal of getting the unit cost of the F-35A below $80 million a copy. That contract, the largest yet for the fighter, included 478 aircraft; 291 for U.S. military services and 127 for foreign users. It also marked a 12.8 percent drop in the price of the Air Force version of the Lightning II over Lot 11. Engine costs had only declined 3.5 percent versus the previous lot.

Lots 15-17 will likely involve a slightly larger number of aircraft.

Industry officials said they expect smaller cost reductions in the F-35 from now on, as the production line is nearly at capacity and peak efficiency. The 2019 contract was the “big bang” deal, said one, in which Lockheed “pushed it” to get the unit cost below $80 million. At that price, the fifth-generation F-35 costs less than fourth-generation types like the F-15EX, but its operating cost remains significantly higher.

Lockheed missed its delivery quota of F-35s in 2020 by about 20 airplanes, due to delays incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Michele Evans, former Lockheed aeronautics vice president, said in the fall the company expects to gradually make up those missed deliveries by around 2023, noting it did not want to disrupt the production enterprise for a brief surge to get back to par.

New Paint Job for Air Force One Not on Biden’s To-Do List, Yet

New Paint Job for Air Force One Not on Biden’s To-Do List, Yet

Jan. 22, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Want to know what the next Air Force One Will look like? You’ll have to wait.

Deciding on the color scheme for the VC-25B, which is under development to replace the current VC-25As that serve as Air Force One, is not on the immediate to-do list for President Joe Biden, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a Jan. 22 briefing.

Former President Donald J. Trump in June 2019 displayed a proposed new livery for the next Air Force One, which would replace the famous white, gold, and light blue with a red, white, and blue scheme.

“The President has not spent a moment thinking about the color scheme of Air Force One,” Psaki said, adding that, “Certainly, we’re aware of the proposal.”

The White House and Boeing in February 2018 announced a new deal for two 747-8Is for about $3.9 billion. The aircraft, which were resurrected from storage, will replace the two current VC-25As that have been in service since 1990. Work is slated to be completed on the aircraft by 2024, and the planes will fly through 2050. All told, the project is expected to cost about $5.2 billion, according to DOD projections.

The first of the two aircraft began the modification process in February 2020, with Boeing removing commercial interiors, engines, auxiliary power units, and other components. Workers removed parts of the aircraft’s skin to install structural upgrades and new doors.

30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 23-25

30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 23-25

Jan. 22, 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.

Jan. 23:

  • Only five Iraqi air bases remain functional after a week of bombing.
  • Iraqi sorties are down from 235 to 40 per day.
  • Iraq begins dumping Kuwaiti oil into the Persian Gulf, and torching Kuwaiti oil wells and other facilities.

Jan. 24:

  • A Saudi pilot flying an F-15C shoots down two Iraqi F-1 Mirages, attempting to attack coalition ships with Exocet missiles.
  • Coalition flies 2,570 attack sorties, for a total of 14,750 during the first eight days of war.

Jan. 25:

  • Coalition destroys three Iraqi bombers on the ground.
  • Major attacks on Iraqi hardened aircraft shelters begin. USAF, using the new I-2000 warhead, has spectacular success.
  • A British airman is captured.
  • Intelligence agencies report the execution of commanders of Iraq’s air force and anti-aircraft defenses.
  • Five Scud missiles hit Israel, killing one person, and wounding 40 others.
  • Iraq sabotages Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping millions of gallons of crude into the Persian Gulf.

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.

COVID-19 Delays Pentagon’s New Joint Warfighting Plan

COVID-19 Delays Pentagon’s New Joint Warfighting Plan

Jan. 22, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The coronavirus pandemic has delayed release of the Pentagon’s new joint combat guidelines until the spring, complicating efforts to put the armed forces on the same path to better communication and speed up decision-making, the military’s No. 2 officer said Jan. 22.

Gen. John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during an event hosted by the National Security Space Association that even after a year of development, the joint warfighting concept hasn’t reached “the first level of maturity” needed to publish an initial plan.

“We really need to play some large wargames with all the services playing, including the Space Force, and a very active ‘red team’ that plays real-time and looks at the different concepts and figures out what works and doesn’t work,” he said.

The military had wanted to hold three major wargames and a global exercise by now, but restrictions in place to curb the virus’s spread got in the way. Only one event has happened so far, Hyten said, and was “less than satisfactory” because of those limitations.

Defense Department officials knew by November that it wasn’t possible to hit their December deadline to release the new concept, and decided to take more time to hold exercises and wargames.

“The other thing we’re going to publish in the spring is [a] requirements document for the four supporting concepts coming out of it,” Hyten said. Those requirements, for aspects like software standards, will guide the military in building out joint all-domain command-and-control.

“You had to have somebody that says, ‘What do we actually have to do that will enable a joint force rapidly to build this information advantage across everything that we do?’” he added.

Breaking Defense previously reported that the four pillars of the new plan are:

  • Joint fires, handled by the Navy
  • Command and control, handled by the Air Force
  • Logistics, handled by the Army
  • Information advantage, handled by the Joint Staff. The Army’s Project Convergence and Department of the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System are pursuing similar ideas as well.

The requirements blueprint due out in the spring will guide the military’s way forward on issues like space, electromagnetic warfare, and other digital-centric operations. 

“Space is critical in everything that we do,” he said. We have to figure out how to actually define joint requirements, which we’ve never really done effectively. We always validate service requirements, but we have to define the joint requirements of the future, and then hold the services—and the Space Force being one of those services—accountable for meeting those capabilities as we go forward.”

The concept will dovetail with cyber offense and defense planning also underway—a key piece of future combat that will heavily rely on software and networked weapons and vehicles.

“[Deputy Defense Secretary David L. Norquist] set up a structure where we came together and we came up with, in the classified world, four pilots, where [U.S.] Cyber Command, the acquisition community, and the Joint Staff are working together to figure out how best to defend the entire enterprise, start to finish,” he said.

That’s led to great progress, but not without its problems.

“We’ve done stuff that just didn’t flat-out work,” Hyten said. “We’ve done stuff that [was] actually, in retrospect, kind of stupid. … “We’re all in on trying to figure out the right roles and responsibilities on how to do this and establish this as policy across the board.”

Austin Becomes 1st Black Defense Secretary

Austin Becomes 1st Black Defense Secretary

Jan. 22, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Lloyd Austin was sworn in as Defense Secretary on Jan. 22, shortly after the Senate confirmed his nomination, becoming the first Black person to hold the position. He assumes the top Defense Department job just one day after Congress approved a waiver allowing him to lead the Pentagon five years after he retired from Active duty.

Austin, who retired in 2016 as the four-star commander of U.S. Central Command after 40 years in service, becomes President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary after a quick and relatively easy confirmation process, despite consternation from many lawmakers about the further erosion of civilian oversight of the military.

The Senate’s confirmation vote of 93-2 came the day after the chamber approved the waiver by a vote of 69-27, avoiding the seven-year “cooling off” period required for military officials to become the civilian leader of the Pentagon. The Senate moved quickly, voting immediately after the House approved the waiver by a vote of 326-78, with 28 not voting. Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri voted no on the nomination.

Immediately following the vote, Austin was administratively sworn in at the Pentagon and had several meetings to prepare him for his new role, including an intelligence briefing, a briefing on COVID-19 with service Secretaries and combatant command leaders, a phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and operational briefings about China and the Middle East.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Vice President Kamala Harris will ceremoniously swear in Austin during an event Jan. 25 at the White House.

In a message to the force, Austin wrote that he is “honored to have this chance to serve again and to do so alongside you and your families.” He said his job is to make the military more effective at doing its job.

“That means ensuring you have the tools, technology, weapons, and training to deter and defeat our enemies,” he wrote. “It means establishing sound policy and strategy and assigning you clear missions. It means putting a premium on cooperation with our allies and partners. And it means living up to our core values, the same ones our fellow citizens expect of us.”

Austin said told troops their mission to help the country overcome the COVID-19 pandemic will continue.

“None of us succeeds at this business alone. Defending the country requires teamwork and cooperation,” he wrote. “It requires a certain humility, a willingness to learn, and absolute respect for one another. I know you share my devotion to these qualities. I am proud to be back on your team.”

Austin met with House leaders behind closed doors shortly before the waiver vote on Jan. 21, and multiple lawmakers changed their minds to approve the waiver after the meeting. Austin spent a large portion of his Jan. 19 confirmation hearing attempting to assure lawmakers he is committed to ensuring civilians control the military.

“I would not be here asking for your support if I felt that I was unable or unwilling to question people with whom I once served, in operations I once led, or [if I was] too afraid to speak my mind to you or the President,” Austin told Senators.

The confirmation makes history as Austin becomes the first Black Defense Secretary, just about six months after Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. became the military’s first Black uniformed service leader.

Throughout his career, Austin also served as the vice chief of staff of the Army, the commanding general of U.S. Forces-Iraq, and the director of the Joint Staff, among many other assignments. After retiring, he served on the board of Raytheon Technologies and told Senators in the hearing that he would recuse himself from decisions related to the company for the entirety of his term, even though the requirement is just one year.

“We congratulate Lloyd Austin on assuming his new job as Secretary of Defense,” said Air Force Association President and retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright. “It was an honor to serve with him not too many years ago in the Pentagon, and I look forward to working with him now as he leads our Department of Defense.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 22 to include additional information about Austin’s swearing in and his first memo to the force.

DARPA Changing Directors Again in Third Recent Shuffle

DARPA Changing Directors Again in Third Recent Shuffle

Jan. 21, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Biden administration is reportedly tapping Stefanie Tompkins to run the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, spurring the third leadership change at the secretive Pentagon organization since January 2020.

Tompkins, an agency alum who left as acting deputy director in 2018 after nearly 11 years there, most recently worked at the Colorado School of Mines as vice president for research and technology transfer, according to her LinkedIn page. She is an advisor to X, the Silicon Valley “moonshot factory,” and an advisory board member at Mines’s Payne Institute for Public Policy.

“She spent 10 years in industry, as a senior scientist and later assistant vice president and line manager at [SAIC], where she conducted and managed research projects in planetary geology and imaging spectroscopy,” according to a Payne Institute biography. “Later, as a DARPA program manager, she created and led programs in ubiquitous GPS-free navigation as well as in optical component manufacturing. She has also served as a DARPA office director.”

Tompkins served as a military intelligence officer in the Army from 1987 to 1991 as well.

“When you’re in the intersection of these spaces, you start to develop an idea of what is important to you and what is needed to solve hard problems,” she said in an interview with the Mines alumni magazine.

Defense One first reported Tompkins’s “pre-decisional” appointment to the post on Jan. 19. The White House did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Former director Victoria Coleman’s last day at the agency was Jan. 20, DARPA spokesman Jared Adams confirmed. Coleman joined the agency in September but served in the top job for only four months before leaving on Inauguration Day.

“Peter Highnam, the current deputy director, will serve as the acting director of the agency until a full-time director is formally appointed by the Biden administration,” Adams said. The position does not require Senate confirmation.

Highnam also filled in as acting director for much of 2020 after former DARPA boss Steven H. Walker left last January. 

Tompkins would be the fourth woman to run the agency since its inception in 1958—all of whom have served since 2009.

The next director will inherit an agency of about 200 employees and a $3.5 billion portfolio that spans hypersonic weapons to unmanned jet dogfighting to bioengineering.

In a 2016 report titled “Innovation at DARPA,” Tompkins praised projects that take more risks and move fast instead of spending months studying whether an idea is feasible. She also touted the short careers of DARPA workers, who often jump between the agency and other government or industry jobs after a few years.

“The longer you’re in one place, the more tendency you have to become risk-averse,” she said in the report. “You start to refine what you’re doing as opposed to throwing out what you’re doing and starting fresh.”

While frequent turnover at the top is fairly unusual at DARPA—directors typically stay for at least a few years—it’s unlikely to drastically change the priorities of an agency focused on the future.

“DARPA is in the business of systematic changemaking, not just about discovering what the new breakthrough might be,” Coleman said in November. “It’s also about being there and seeing it over the line.”

Thousands of Guardsmen Remain in Capital Region After Inauguration

Thousands of Guardsmen Remain in Capital Region After Inauguration

Jan. 21, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The National Guard Bureau is working with states to drawdown “close to 15,000” of the nearly 26,000 troops who are still in the nation’s capital following President Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the bureau announced on Jan. 21.

Of that total, about 10,600 were still on duty as of the evening of Jan. 21, according to a release.

NGB said it expects to finish mapping out and executing the force withdrawal within 5-10 days, but some 7,000 Guard members will remain in D.C. “through the end of the month” to provide backup to agencies that have asked for “continuity of operations, additional support, and recuperation time for their forces to regroup.”

It’s not immediately clear if Guardsmen will need to quarantine once they return home.

“Demobilization is involved with equipment turn-in and accountability, travel arrangements, COVID screening, and mitigation,” NGB wrote. “Troops will leave by ground transportation, airlift provided by the Air National Guard, and contracted commercial air as necessary.”

At a pre-inauguration press conference, NGB Chief Army Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson said the bureau had at least 6,200 troops on deck to assist in the District until early February, after Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy authorized Guard support to D.C. a day after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.

“That number can go up or down depending on the lead federal agency requirements or federal law enforcement requests,” Hokanson told reporters.

30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 22

30 Years After Desert Storm: Jan. 22

Jan. 21, 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.

Jan. 22:

  • After a brief letup caused by bad weather, heavy air attacks resume in and around Basra, Iraq, a supply gateway to Kuwait, and against Republican Guard positions along Iraqi­-Kuwaiti border.
  • An E-8A Joint STARS, orbiting over Saudi Arabia, detects a large convoy moving toward Kuwait and vectors an AC-130 gunship and two A-10s to attack. They destroy 58 of 71 vehicles in convoy.
  • A Scud missile hits Tel Aviv, Israel, destroying 20 buildings. Three people are killed and 96 are injured. The Defense Department reports that the U.S. has lost nine aircraft, Britain has lost two, and Italy and Kuwait have lost one each. Coalition forces have shot down 17 Iraqi aircraft.

Find 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, here.

Congress Approves Waiver for Austin to Become SECDEF

Congress Approves Waiver for Austin to Become SECDEF

Jan. 21, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Congress on Jan. 21 approved a waiver clearing the way for Lloyd Austin to be the next Defense Secretary, with a confirmation vote expected as early as the morning of Jan. 22.

Austin, who retired from the Army in 2016 as the four-star commander of U.S. Central Command, needed Congressional approval for a waiver to the law requiring former uniformed military members to wait seven years before leading the Pentagon.

The Senate approved the waiver by a vote of 69-27, immediately after the House approved it by a vote of 326-78, with 28 members not voting.

The approval is the second time in four years that Congress has waived the requirement; retired Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis received a waiver to become Defense Secretary in 2017.

Multiple lawmakers changed their minds, deciding to approve the waiver after Austin met with House leaders behind closed doors shortly before the vote. During his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Jan. 19, Austin sought to assure lawmakers that he is committed to ensuring civilians control the military.

“I would not be here asking for your support if I felt that I was unable or unwilling to question people with whom I once served, in operations I once led, or [if I was] too afraid to speak my mind to you or the President,” Austin told Senators. “I was a general and a Soldier, and I’m proud of that. But today I appear before you as a citizen, the son of a postal worker and a homemaker from Thomasville, Ga., and I’m proud of that too.”

Former Pentagon official Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) initially expressed concerns about the waiver, but ultimately approved it, saying Austin “intends to rebalance civilian control of the military, and is willing to be held accountable for these commitments.”

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a statement he approved the waiver because he approved one for Mattis, and approving it would be “fair,” though he admitted he had reservations.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who will lead the Senate Armed Services Committee when the panel’s rosters are set, said in a statement that Austin’s confirmation is needed quickly because there is an “urgent and widely recognized need to move forward with getting a new national security team in place.”