TacAir Study Will Determine If F-35 Production Surge Needed

Feb. 25, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force remains committed to the F-35, and it is the “cornerstone” of USAF’s force planning, but the new tactical aviation study will decide if USAF should surge its production of the jet, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said Feb. 25.

In a press conference at AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium, Brown disputed recent media reports that have pronounced the F-35 a failure.

“The F-35 is the cornerstone of our … fighter capability,” and of USAF’s plans for the future, Brown asserted. The TacAir study he unveiled last week will simply look at what systems will be needed to complement it, he said. The age of most of the fighter force—averaging 29 years—compels USAF to “look ahead … 10, 15 years in the future” at the right mix of aircraft for the missions expected in that timeframe, Brown said. The study will develop “where we think we need to go, and how we get from where we are today to … the future.

He also acknowledged that, at the current purchase rate of 48 to 60 airplanes a year, it will be the mid-2040s before the Air Force’s planned buy of 1,763 F-35s from Lockheed Martin is complete.

“I’m not sure that’s fully appreciated,” Brown said of the long production run. If the service sticks to 1,763, the Air Force may “need to accelerate” the ramp rate, conditional on the funding that Congress will allow.

“I can’t commit” to a surge in production yet, Brown said. “To get there faster, we’re going to have to have a spike” in production, but it will also depend on whether “our … defense industry partners” can produce at the rates USAF needs, he said. “I can’t [decide] this myself.”

He acknowledged there are “cost pressures” related to the F-35—the service has complained about the cost per flying hour—and said this is something the Air Force is “working [on] with Lockheed Martin.”

The Air Force was directed to buy the Boeing F-15EX because F-15sC/Ds were rapidly aging out, the Pentagon wanted to create some competition for the F-35, and Pentagon officials were concerned that Lockheed Martin couldn’t build the F-35 in sufficient quantities to equip the services in a timely manner.

When the F-35 buy rates were forecast at the outset of production, the Air Force said it expected to be buying upwards of 110 of the fighters a year by 2018, with the goal of buying out its last Lightning IIs by the early 2030s. However, the service has requested only 48 F-35s in each of the last four budgets, that figure having been later increased to 60 annually by Congress.

Brown specifically ruled out raiding the F-35 accounts to buy the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, now in development.

“We’re not going to take money from F-35” to fund NGAD, he said. The NGAD will be financed “from some of the other … parts of the fighter force,” he said, adding that he will continue trying to “bring down … some of the older aircraft” to get the average age of the fighter fleet down, but neither does he want “a big gap in capability as we go forward.”

“We want to keep the F-35 on track,” he said, but he also is keeping an eye on the threat, and won’t permit USAF to “just build something” without trying to overmatch adversary capabilities.

Asked if there will be two variants of the NGAD—one for Europe, where combat ranges are small, and one for the Indo-Pacific, where distances are great—Brown said “the goal is to provide … as much range as possible.” A longer-legged aircraft “provides you additional options” for basing, and will require fewer tankers, adding to the force’s flexibility.

The TacAir study, which will be done in partnership with the Joint Staff, evaluating all the services’ aviation plans, will also look at what a future fighter squadron looks like, and whether squadrons will be a mix of manned and unmanned aircraft, Brown said.

USAF Considering Pilot Training Changes to Curb Flight Accidents

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Air Force is considering changes to its pilot curriculum to curb the rising number of aviation accidents across the service, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said Feb. 25.

The Air Force saw 72 accidents in fiscal 2020—10 more than in the previous year, Air Force Magazine reported Feb. 23. Thirteen of the 72 accidents last year caused injury or death, according to Air Force Safety Center data obtained by the magazine.

Seven people died in incidents that occurred between Oct. 1, 2019 and Sept. 30, 2020. One was permanently, partially disabled, while nine others suffered broken bones or minor injuries.

Despite the uptick in crashes and other accidents, the service noted that mishap numbers have dropped slightly in the past decade.

But the statistics worry Brown, who told reporters during AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium he’s already spoken with major command leaders about ways to address the issue.

Air Education and Training Command is working with organizations that own those aircraft, like Air Combat Command and Air Mobility Command, on a new approach to flight training, he said.

“Some of the incidents we’ve had have been in what I would call basic phases of flight, probably the most important phases of flight, which are takeoff and landing,” Brown said.

About 30 of the 72 Class A and B mishaps that occurred in fiscal 2020 involved takeoffs and landings, including some where the aircraft “rejected takeoff” and others with faulty landing gear or crashing on approach.

The same day Brown made his remarks, a Mirage F1B aircraft owned by Airborne Tactical Advantage Company “crashed off the end of the flight line” at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., according to a statement from the base’s 325th Fighter Wing.

“First responders were dispatched to the scene immediately and both pilots were taken to a hospital … to assess injuries sustained during the crash,” said wing commander Col. Gregory Moseley. “Tyndall is working closely with ATAC to ensure a thorough and timely investigation of the incident occurs.”

ATAC provides Mirages to the Air Force under a contract that lets USAF bring in private planes to act as adversary aircraft in training scenarios.

Brown dealt with the mishap issue firsthand while looking into a spate of F-22 landing problems during his recent tenure as commander of Pacific Air Forces. He suggested the evolution of aerospace technology has led the Air Force to pack more and more into initial flight school, to teach students about increasingly complex aircraft.

“We pushed, in some cases, a lot of things into our early courses, our basic courses, so when they show up at their operational unit, they’re fully capable,” Brown said. “I think we may have pushed … a little bit too far. We need to spend more time on the basics so they have a good foundation.”

Young pilots can spend more time on the advanced aspects of flight once they reach their units, he added.

While airframes like the F-22 fighter jet and C-17 cargo plane saw some of the most mishaps related to takeoff and landing, Brown said he’s not focused on one platform over another. Going up and coming down should be second nature to Airmen flying any plane, he said.

“You can mess up … in the air, but if you don’t take off and land, you lose, potentially, that Airman, and that particular airplane,” Brown said. “That’s what we’re focused on right now.”

For Military Superiority in Space, Start with Safety

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The U.S. military has worked in space for decades, providing GPS to the masses and bouncing combat messages through satellites to troops around the world. In some ways, though, the Space Force feels like it’s starting from scratch.

The Space Force was created to ward off Chinese anti-satellite weapons and Russian satellites stalking U.S. spy systems across the cosmos, among other concerns. Still, officials are looking for ways to keep space safe and maintain an upper hand while the Pentagon learns how to treat space as it does air, land, and sea.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond laid out some of those foundational concerns during a discussion with famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as part of AFA’s Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

Troops need to be able to hold orbital threats at bay, and if they can’t, they need the firepower to respond accordingly, Raymond indicated.

He pointed to World War II, when the Air Force sent 1,000 bombers carrying nine bombs each to hit one ball-bearing factory. Only 100 or so of those 9,000 weapons would explode near the target, he said.

Over time, military aircraft became more precise and powerful, thanks to new weapons and technologies like GPS. But the U.S. doesn’t yet have the means to defend space through force, Raymond said, so the Space Force has to work even harder to maintain a safe status quo.

“If we lost space, do we have 1,000 bombers in our Air Force today? We don’t,” he said. “That’s why I said we can’t afford to lose space, and we’re not going to lose space. It’s too important to us.”

To keep the peace on orbit, the global community is beginning to discuss what norms of good behavior might look like for satellites, other spacecraft, and counter-space weapons. The U.S. hopes established norms and peer pressure may keep other countries—particularly Russia and China—from threatening civil and military assets.

It’s crowded up there, Raymond said, so spacefaring nations should behave themselves.

“I would like my successors to have some rules of the road on how you operate in space,” he said. “It is not safe and professional for Russia to put a threatening satellite in close proximity to a U.S. satellite.”

Creating space safety guidelines won’t solve all of their problems, but will “help identify those that are running the red lights as we drive this car,” he added.

Setting new norms with allies and partners entails getting everyone on the same page about issues like how to respond if a country destroys a satellite, Maj. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, who runs U.S. Space Command’s Combined Force Space Component Command, recently told Air Force Magazine. Some nations are hesitant to react as strongly in that situation as they might if a human was killed in combat, but the U.S. is urging others to consider the ripple effects of that aggression.

“For many countries, a human has to die for that to be determined as a hostile act,” she said. “If you shoot down a machine, no one died in that instance. But … we now will have second- and third-order effects of more casualties in a given engagement.”

SpaceNews said Feb. 24 the U.S. is drafting language on its position for a United Nations report on “norms, rules, and principles of responsible behaviors” in space. Burt told the publication she wants to see a binding resolution from the U.N. that helps countries hold each other accountable.

It’s harder to call someone “bad or irresponsible if I haven’t fully defined what those things are on the international stage,” Burt told SpaceNews.

A key part of those discussions revolves around discouraging countries from creating exponentially more orbital debris, as the cosmos become home to a growing number of commercial and military satellites, asteroid fragments, and other objects.

The Space Force tracks 27,000 objects on orbit now, while another 500,000 or so are too small to keep an eye on. Nearly 4,000 trackable objects are active satellites—meaning the vast majority of tracked items are space junk that could damage spacecraft in a collision.

One way to curb the spread of space debris is not to create more of it in the first place, Raymond said. That may be a challenge given that companies like SpaceX and the Pentagon itself are planning for thousands more satellites to bolster everything from internet access to hypersonic missile tracking. Stakeholders must also consider engineering solutions to make rocket launches and satellite decommissioning cleaner, for example.

“If you and I could figure out a way to clean up all that debris that’s moving so fast and over those vast distances, let me know and I’ll invest with you, because we’ll be well off,” Raymond told Tyson.

USAF Leaders Send Videos, Instructions to Units for Extremism Stand Down

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Department of the Air Force leadership has distributed videos and instructions for how local commanders can hold their Defense Department-ordered one-day stand down to focus on extremism, with the goal of small group discussions about core values in service.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., speaking to reporters during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium, said the headquarters sent four videos “to give some situations and allow me to talk about extremism.” Commanders will schedule small groups to talk about the dangers of extremism, and how to create “the environment where all your members can reach your full potential,” Brown said.

While the U.S. Navy reportedly will have its members reaffirm their oath as part of the stand down, Airmen will not be forced to do the same. However, Brown said he wants the discussion to focus on what the oath means and the importance of USAF’s core values.

Brown did not provide specifics on when these meetings will occur. He said after they occur, the Air Force will need to report back to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on how it went “and it’ll be helpful for me to understand where we are.”

Austin on Feb. 3 ordered the stand down to occur within about 60 days. The order comes after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with dozens of current and former military members charged with taking part.

Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife said the issue of extremism “has reared its head” in his command, and that there are ongoing military justice cases related to the problem.

AFSOC leaders have talked about the issue and about how to execute the stand down order, he said.

“We have had commander conversations about how to address this, and how we would know to what extent there is a problem inside the formation,” Slife said.

How Airmen and Aircraft Helped Move U.S. Forces Out of Somalia

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The withdrawal of about 700 U.S. forces from Somalia required a massive nocturnal airlift, movement of fighters and tankers from the Middle East, and other overwatch from drones and other special operations aircraft, all planned and executed within weeks.

The mission, called Operation Octave Quartz, came after former President Donald J. Trump in early December ordered U.S. forces to leave Somalia and reposition to other bases in the region. The joint operation was planned and executed “inside of a month,” in a way to protect the forces that were moving from an adversary “that had the potential to hurt Americans,” said Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa, in an interview.

In that time span, USAF C-130s flew about 200 sorties, moving 4 million pounds of cargo, with the vast majority of those missions conducted at night. A U.S. Navy carrier was dispatched to help, with U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs providing overwatch. USAF MQ-9s and special operations aircraft also watched over the movements. USAF F-16s and KC-135s from U.S. Central Command flew down to protect U.S. forces moving, Harrigian said.

CENTCOM also deployed E-11 Battlefield Airborne Communication Node aircraft to help the forces communicate as part of the movement.

“As we did this, we recognize that when you pull together a joint task force made up of Americans that are focused on a mission, they’re going to figure out a way to get it done,” Harrigian said. “And they’re going to do it by protecting Americans. They’re going to do it safely and effectively, and they did it in an extremely short period of time.”

Since the U.S. forces are now based outside of Somalia, they now come in to the country in brief visits to work with Somali partners, according to U.S. Africa Command.

‘Great Power Competition’ Occurring in Middle East With Interference, Contested Communications

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The U.S. military operating in Syria regularly confronts “great power competition” while conducting ongoing counterterrorism operations, facing regular interference and Russian aircraft close by in a confluence of threats, Air Force and Space Force officials said.

“Great power competition … is alive and well in Central Command. Certainly in all domains, but certainly where air and space meet at the confluence of those domains,” Lt. Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central), said during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium. “We have interference and that generally could come from any of the competitors across the world. Russia is physically in the area, and they’re re-establishing themselves as a world power. (China) is also in the area, more economically focused. But every day we are just a few miles apart from Russian aircraft out there.”

Maj. Gen. DeAnna M. Burt, the commander of U.S. Space Command’s Combined Force Space Component Command, said operations in Syria “day in and day out” look like the Air Force’s Red Flag exercise—the department’s premier aerial training event in which pilots practice high-end fights while dealing with degraded communications and satellite interference.

“They’re actively doing work in the electromagnetic spectrum, taking out SATCOM and GPS and other things in the space domain,” Burt said. “So we are seeing a lot of electromagnetic spectrum activity in Syria from the Russians, and working to make sure we can mitigate that with (AFCENT) so it does not affect U.S. forces and their work that they need to do. So it is happening in a great power competition absolutely every day in Syria with Russia.”

SPACECOM is constantly working with U.S. Central Command to support ongoing military operations. For example, in 2020 the command received 503 requests for space support to assist with missions. Additionally, as of November 2020, U.S. space assets tracked 1,291 missile launches in the theater that year, Burt said.

“Multi-domain discipline in space is not for space’s sake, it’s in order to have those satellites to provide combat effects to our other joint brothers and sisters in the other domains,” she said.

In AFCENT, U.S. aircraft need to be ready to fight the current counter-terrorism mission while also providing a deterrence both to other great powers and to regional actors such as Iran.

“Those activities for both the great power competition and for the regional aggressors require different mission sets than the counterinsurgency, counterterrorism fight … which are still ongoing at the same time, but they often require the same aircraft,” Guillot said. “It’s just we employ the aircraft in a different way.”

A major method of deterrence has been exercising with regional partners. This has been something AFCENT hasn’t had “a lot of time to do” because of ongoing combat needs, but the command is looking at ways to increase both the number and complexity of the events.

Space Force to Test New Insignia Next Month

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Space Force troops will try out new rank insignia for the first time next month, as the service looks to shake up the traditional chevron design it inherited from the Air Force.

“We’re excited about that, to get feedback and figure out what that insignia looks like, and new uniforms and all those things coming up later in the year,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman said Feb. 25 during AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

The new insignia will accompany the Space Force’s fresh take on a rank and grade structure that took effect at the beginning of February. While officials know some people are disappointed in the decision not to throw the existing ranks out the window entirely, they said what Guardians do matters more than what they’re called.

“We were very deliberate to say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to call them first, second, third class. We’re going to treat them more as as one group, where the levels within that group are mostly in the control of the specialists,’” Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman said.

The Space Force landed on Specialist 1, 2, 3, and 4 for its first four enlisted ranks, followed by sergeant, technical sergeant, master sergeant, senior master sergeant, chief master sergeant, and chief master sergeant of the Space Force. Leaders hope that ladder adds meaning to a Guardian’s career path as they improve over the years.

Towberman indicated that adopting Specialist 1 through 4 as the lowest ranks helps reinforce the service’s model of leveling up as Guardians learn new skills. As troops reach the noncommissioned officer ranks, he argues it also sends a message to start out with sergeants.

“We really wanted to put the strong servant rank of sergeant right there to say, at the first level of supervision, there’s nothing more important than serving your team and their family and loved ones,” Towberman said.

He suggested that the service could later split its technical sergeants into tiers based on their level of interest in a particular line of work. Those conversations are still in the works.

“We’ve left the door open,” he said. “If I want to spend my life on an ops floor … and I’m really, really good at it and I want to stay really good at it, and I don’t want to do some other things, but I want to stick around and I want to be invested in more, then maybe we go Technical Sergeant 1, 2, and we step up from there.”

When the new ranks were first revealed, many on social media criticized the Space Force for lacking more creativity. But just because the public wants different changes doesn’t mean it makes sense for the force, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David D. Thompson said.

“There were a lot of people with opinions and ideas and things they thought were important about ranks,” he said. “The idea that there was going to be some deep and significant cultural impact to the Space Force … was way over-emphasized and, frankly, not particularly supported in analysis.”

People connect first with their service, then to their mission area, he said. They tell others they spent their career as an Airman or an intelligence officer, not as a captain. Assigning Guardians a completely different slate of ranks—such as one influenced by iconic pop culture like “Star Trek,” as some wanted—wouldn’t change that, Thompson said.

“We made changes that were important, that we need to make, and now it’s important for us to build the culture based on our service, based on our mission capabilities,” he said.

Here’s How Air Force Leaders Are Fighting COVID-19 Vaccine Stigma

Feb. 25, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

When it comes to easing enlisted Airmen’s reservations about getting the COVID-19 vaccine, the only way out is through, Chief Master Sgt. Brian P. Kruzelnick, Air Mobility Command’s command chief master sergeant, said during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeff Taliaferro, the Joint Staff’s vice director for operations, on Feb. 17 told House Armed Service Committee legislators that one-third of all U.S. military troops have declined the COVID-19 vaccine, though he said that decision doesn’t make them non-deployable. A recent Blue Star Families survey found that military family members are also largely on the fence about getting inoculated against the virus, Air Force Magazine previously reported.

Enlisted leaders can help ease their Airmen’s nerves through “timely and accurate communication” that removes emotions and sticks to the facts, Kruzelnick said during a pre-recorded enlisted leadership panel that aired on Feb. 25.

“In light of not communicating often and early with your team, they’re gonna get information elsewhere,” he explained. “And where they get it elsewhere, most likely might not be accurate—it might be misinformation that makes the decision even tougher after that.”

If leaders enter into these conversations prepared to tell Airmen how they fit into the situation and how it impacts them, Kruzelnick says, they can help their teams “make the best decision possible.”

Chief Master Sgt. Charles R. Hoffman, command chief master sergeant for Air Force Global Strike Command and Air Forces Strategic-Air, agreed.

“I think for us, it was transparency,” Hoffman said. “It was about an informed decision. It was about a discussion, and I think that led to Airmen making the right decision for themselves and the Air Force.”

Kruzelnick also encouraged leaders who are eligible for vaccines to “get up front” and get vaccinated, since he’s observed a trend where people want to see someone else go through the process first to make sure it’s safe before taking the dive themselves. However, he said he anticipates the enlisted force’s “take rate” for the vaccine to improve with time.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said that during his recent travels, he informally asked Airmen to help him understand “the atmospherics of those that decide to take the vaccine versus those that elected not to.”

“They didn’t tell me whether they have taken the vaccine or not, ’cause I’m not taking names,” he told reporters during a vAWS media roundtable Feb. 25.

Brown’s findings largely mirrored Kruzelnick’s insights: Airmen, he said, want to know more about the COVID-19 vaccines’ potential side effects and see people they trust make it through the vaccination process before getting the shot themselves.

However, he also found some Airmen are frustrated that being vaccinated doesn’t negate the need for mask-wearing and social-distancing, and that is deterring them from opting in.

He said he’s telling these Airmen that the sooner they get vaccinated, the sooner everyone will be able to ditch the mitigation measures.

And while the independent Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page on Jan. 14 shared photos of a memo from a Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif-based squadron suggesting that non-vaccinated Airmen ran the risk of having leave requests denied, Brown clarified that USAF isn’t punishing troops for being on the fence about the vaccine.

“We are not denying leave and not allowing folks to travel because they have not gotten the vaccine,” he told reporters.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated on Feb. 25 at 8:29 p.m. EST and to include new information from CSAF Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and at 8:44 p.m. EST to clarify a quote from Brown.

30 Years After Desert Storm: Feb. 25

Feb. 24, 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. 25:

A Scud missile hits a Dhahran barracks used by U.S. Army Reservists, killing 28 and wounding more than 100.
Baghdad Radio airs Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s order for Iraqi forces to withdraw from Kuwait.
At least 517 oil wells in Kuwait are on fire.
U.S. and French forces secure the coalition’s western flank inside Iraq.
The U.S. Army’s 101st Division moves north to An Nasiriyah on the Euphrates River.
The U.S. 24th Mechanized Infantry Division turns east to cut off possible Iraqi avenues of retreat north from Basra.
U.S. and British armored units move eastward toward Iraqi Republican Guard’s armored divisions along the Kuwait-Iraq border.

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.