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

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

Feb. 26, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DOD Commission to Look at All Options to Combat Sexual Assault

DOD Commission to Look at All Options to Combat Sexual Assault

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AETC Adds Human Performance Layer to UPT 2.5

AETC Adds Human Performance Layer to UPT 2.5

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F-15Es Conducted Strike on Iranian-Backed Militias in Syria

F-15Es Conducted Strike on Iranian-Backed Militias in Syria

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Two USAF F-15E Strike Eagles conducted the Feb. 25 strike on infrastructure used by Iranian-linked militias in Syria, dropping seven precision-guided munitions on a border crossing complex in a move designed to send a message in the region, the Pentagon said.

The F-15E strike destroyed nine facilities near the Abu Kamal border crossing with Iraq and damaged two more in the complex, Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters Feb. 26. The complex is an “entry control point” that the militias, Kait’ib Hezbollah and Kait’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, used to bring weapons and fighters into Iraq.

President Joe Biden ordered the strike the morning of Feb. 25 as a way to retaliate for the Feb. 16 rocket attacks on a U.S. operating location and other targets near the Erbil International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, which killed one non-American contractor and injured a U.S. service member and multiple other contractors. It was the first such strike Biden has ordered as President, Kirby said. The strike is justified legally through both Article II of the U.S. Constitution and Article 51 of the United Nations that outlines the right of self defense, he said.

The operation had two goals, Kirby said: to “make an impact on these groups and their ability to conduct future” attacks, and “to send a very clear signal that the United States is going to protect its people, it’s going to protect our interests, and it’s going to protect those of our partners in the region.”

U.S. forces depended on Iraqi and Kurdish investigations into the attack and other intelligence to develop the targets, he said. That local intelligence “certainly was of significant assistance” in putting together strike options.

However, Iraqi forces did not take part in the strike, and it was completely in Syrian territory. The U.S. military notified Russia in advance of the attack through the deconfliction phone line. As of the afternoon of Feb. 26, the battle damage assessment was ongoing and there were “preliminary indications of casualties on site,” but no specific numbers, Kirby said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims 22 militia members were killed in the strikes.

NORTHCOM, NORAD Needs to Modernize Faster, Change Thinking to Improve Deterrence

NORTHCOM, NORAD Needs to Modernize Faster, Change Thinking to Improve Deterrence

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command are working to combine disparate data streams for a more complete picture of a threat, while also developing ways to protect North America from advanced threats by getting “left of launch” and into an adversary’s thinking.

NORTHCOM and NORAD boss Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, speaking during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium, said his commands need to move faster to bring in new technologies to improve protection and deterrence. This includes using big data and artificial intelligence to bring together feeds and information sets that used to be shared by phone calls—capabilities the command recently demonstrated in an Advanced Battle Management System demonstration in early September.

“Much of the awareness exists today, but it’s in stovepipes. It’s not analyzed in a timely manner where operational commanders and strategic decision makers can actually utilize it,” VanHerck said.

While the U.S. military is going in the right direction, it is not going fast enough in taking advantage of the pace of technological development in the commercial industry, he said.

VanHerck highlighted the need to deter against advanced hypersonic threats, which adversaries such as Russia are developing. While the U.S. military’s nuclear deterrence is key to protecting against a nuclear strike using hypersonic weapons, a conventional hypersonic weapon is a different threat. To counter this, the military needs to “think further left” and get into the enemy’s OODA loop—the observe, orient, decide, act though process.

“We need to be able to posture forces and message to create doubt in their mind about utilizing these capabilities to attack the homeland to achieve their objectives,” VanHerck said. “And so that’s what I mean by deterrence by denial. It’s about doubt about the success that they can actually achieve.”

Additionally, NORTHCOM and NORAD are adjusting their thinking on protection. North America is a lot of ground to cover, and “we don’t need to defend everything,” he said. The most critical infrastructure can be defended kinetically, and other areas should be protected in other means, such as with improved deterrence and even the use of electromagnetic spectrum capabilities, VanHerck said.

NORTHCOM and NORAD are working closely with the Ballistic Missile Defense Agency on ways get after these objectives, VanHerck said.

Roth Talks Transition Amid Administration Change, COVID

Roth Talks Transition Amid Administration Change, COVID

Feb. 26, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

John P. Roth is no stranger to transition.

Over the past several years, Roth has often been a go-to official tasked with steadying the Pentagon and the Air Force as they move between eras in leadership.

As acting Air Force Secretary, he’s now shepherding the department through the first months of the year as the nation awaits President Joe Biden’s pick for a permanent Air Force Secretary. Handing off the Air Force and Space Force to a new administration should be smooth and transparent, Roth said Feb. 26.

“We are here to defend the nation, and that’s not going to change, regardless of which administration,” he said during AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

His remarks came the day after the U.S. military sent two F-15 fighter jets to carry out an airstrike against Iranian-backed militia facilities in Syria on Feb. 25. The military action is the Biden administration’s first-known military action in the Middle East in retaliation for recent rocket launches at American troops in the region.

“We can’t afford to take a pause, strategic or otherwise, and wait for all the various nominations to take place and all the kinds of things that go along with that,” Roth said.

For the past year, the Air Force has also adjusted to pandemic-era precautions as the new coronavirus spread around the world, killing more than 500,000 Americans so far.

The department has done its best to maintain military readiness, Roth said, while standing up a Space Force, pushing more than 27,000 people through basic training since February 2020, continuing bomber patrols, and further deploying to conflicts in the Middle East.

Now, the Department of the Air Force is ramping up its support to the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination effort. Two teams are already in place to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency dole out shots, with another four or five teams ready to go, Roth said.

He praised the vaccine rollout within the Air Force and Space Force as well.

“Virtually our entire leadership team has taken the vaccinations,” Roth said. “Everybody needs to step up.”

More than 270,000 shots have gone into Airmen and Guardians’ arms, he said, though about 20 percent of people offered a vaccine have declined. Those who turned down a shot are “starting to come around as well,” Roth added.

“Vaccinations are key. [Continuing] to honor the COVID protocols is a key, and we as a nation will get this behind us, and we the Air Force stand ready to do our part,” he said.

The Department of the Air Force this year will again try to convince Congress to let it overhaul parts of the inventory to better challenge China, though that modernization pivot is taking longer than the services might like.

“Within the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a number of political leaders articulate the need to take a hard look at what China means to us. We as an Air Force need to stay ahead of that curve,” Roth said. “In terms of aircraft, in terms of command-and-control capabilities, in terms of IT capabilities, in terms of space capabilities, we need to make sure we maintain that momentum.”

But the Air Force can’t win wars with superior technology alone, he noted. The military is newly grappling with deep dives into sexual assault, racism, and ideological extremism in its ranks as well—issues that threaten readiness on the personnel side.

“We need to ensure that we have … an enterprise where people can come in and work to their maximum potential, and not live in fear, or not have to look over their shoulder,” Roth said. “We need to be open and honest about the challenges, and we need to address those.”

30 Years After Desert Storm: Feb. 26

30 Years After Desert Storm: Feb. 26

Feb. 25, 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. 26:

  • The “mother of all retreats” features Iraqi soldiers attempting to escape the envelopment of Kuwait.
  • Thousands of military and civilian vehicles, loaded with looted goods, clog a four-lane highway out of Kuwait City.
  • Repeated air attacks destroy much of the panicked army’s equipment.
  • Coalition forces engage Republican Guards between Kuwait-­Iraq border and Basra.
  • Other coalition forces seize Kuwait City and Al Jahrah.

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.

Ray Claims Big Success with Bomber Task Forces

Ray Claims Big Success with Bomber Task Forces

Feb. 25, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Bomber Task Force concept is a great success, Global Strike Command chief Gen. Timothy M. Ray said Feb. 25. Bombers will go to new places in the coming months, and the annual pace of such deployments is likely to stay high, he told reporters at a press conference during Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

The Air Force sent BTFs to India and Norway in recent weeks and will be “expanding beyond the normal” bomber deployment locations such as Fairford, U.K.; Diego Garcia; Moron, Spain; and Guam, Ray said. A recent deployment of two B-1Bs to Prince Sultan AB, Saudi Arabia “was a very effective statement,” he observed, “about what we can do, broadly” around the world.

“What we did in [2020] is, I think, indicative of what we can sustain,” Ray declared. “We’re going to keep this pace up.” The inability of KC-46s to participate in the aerial tanking mission has not affected GSC “at all,” he added, saying, “We’ve had tremendous support” from U.S. Transportation Command and Mobility Command. The new operating tempo is “a really good balance between what we need to do for the theaters and what our teammates can sustain.”

There will still be some margin of capacity, in bombers and tankers, in case of a contingency, he noted.  

“A lot more options are on the table,” Ray said of other BTF destinations, declining to be specific until details are worked out with host countries, but noted that discussions are underway “with teammates in Europe that will give us some reach into other areas.”

Morale is “really high” as a result of the BTFs, Ray said, and crews—who are at their highest readiness since GSC was created—“enjoy doing this.” Unlike the Continuous Bomber Presence missions, discontinued last year, “it actually builds our readiness. We’re not stuck in one place without great training resources for a long period of time.”

The BTFs show that, with bombers, GSC is “just hitting our stride,” Ray declared. The BTFs are one of several concepts governed by the command’s “Bomber Agile Combat Employment” plan.

Ray reiterated that the Air Force’s ultimate requirement is for “north of 220” bombers, but said the roadmap to get to that number “is exactly the same as the one to get to 175,” which is the current program of record.  Going past 175 would be “simply more B-21s;” Ray said, referring to the new stealth bomber.

In the near term, Ray said he’ll focus on keeping the B-2 “as viable as I can” until the B-21 arrives “in the appropriate numbers.” He also defended the retirement of 17 “structurally challenged” B-1Bs—leaving 45 in the fleet—as a necessary move to keep the bomber fleet healthy. Despite the reduction in the B-1s, the maintenance force that supports it will be retained at the previous levels, “to make that a down-payment” on the B-21 maintainer force.

The re-engining of the B-52 bomber is proceeding apace, Ray noted, saying a request for proposals is out and contractors are expected to answer it sometime this summer. He couldn’t predict when a contract will be awarded, but insisted it is on schedule and not being dragged out. In fact, he said, the program is ahead of where it would have been if the Air Force had not taken advantage of congressional Section 804 rapid prototyping authorities.  

Ray said he’s pleased with the progress of the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, noting that some captive-carry tests were conducted with it last year. He revealed that GSC is talking with Air Force leaders about making bombers both a “threshold and objective platform” for the HACM, or Hypersonic Attack Cruise MIssile. The air-breathing weapon will be smaller than the ARRW, and is meant to be carried by fighters, but could expand the bomber’s portfolio, Ray said. The first platform to carry it would be the B-52, and then “look for the other opportunities,” he said.

Support for the AGM-181 Long-Range Stand-Off missile is “very strong” on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ray said, having briefed the panel last week on the new Bomber Roadmap.

“There was a good conversation with several members,” he said, during which he explained the program and reported that “programmatic impacts … have not slowed us completely out of the game … We do have the ability to stay on time [and] go faster.”

The new bomber roadmap is “very well thought out, now,” Ray said, calling it “one of the more capable and comprehensive roadmaps” among the many being developed inside the Air Force.