Ground Test T-7A Next-Gen Trainer Taking Shape

Feb. 23, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The first T-7A static test article is taking shape at Boeing’s St. Louis, Mo. facilities, and should be fully assembled in the next few months, company officials reported Feb. 23. The first all-up T-7A will be rolled out early in 2022, they said.

The non-flying aircraft, which will lack internal equipment, will be fully assembled when its empennage—two vertical tails, rear fuselage, and horizontal stabilizers—arrives from Boeing’s T-7A partner Saab, which is building the structure in Linkoping, Sweden. The shipset should arrive in about a month, senior operations and quality manager Tom Bresnahan told reporters in an online press conference to coincide with AFA’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.

The forward fuselage is 90 percent complete and is being put together by just three workers, Bresnahan said. Maintainers and technicians are helping develop “the most efficient way to put it together.” The aircraft has come together so far with no re-drilling of holes and “minimal or no shimming,” verifying the digital design methods used on the T-7A, he said. The static article will be tested to ensure a service life of 8,000 hours on the T-7A.

Charles Dabundo, T-7 vice president and program manager, said the first airworthy, production T-7 will be delivered in 2023, and the first squadron will be operational in 2024. Boeing is eyeing an initial production rate of one per month “building up to about five per month,” Dabundo said. The Air Force plans to buy at least 246 T-7As.

The two eT-7As, the pre-production aircraft used to verify Boeing’s performance proposals to the Air Force, have been flying to explore some parts of the flight envelope and will continue to do so through the rest of this year, Dabundo said. Beyond that, “we will keep them active,” he said. Flight testing of initial production aircraft will be done at both St. Louis and Edwards AFB, Calif.

Dabundo said Boeing has had some preliminary discussions with the Navy about the T-7 potentially answering its need for a T-45 replacement, but “that’s not a program of record, yet,” he said. “We hope to play a role” in that project, he added. There has also been some interest in a light combat version of the T-7, or for use as an Aggressor aircraft, but such discussions are also very preliminary, Dabundo said. He declined to discuss what kind of combat payload such an aircraft would be able to carry.

30 Years After Desert Storm: Feb. 24

Feb. 23, 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. 24:

G-Day. Coalition ground forces embark on what turns out to be an 100-hour campaign.
Tanks fitted with bulldozer blades punch holes in Iraqi defenses.
Air war enters final phase—support for coalition ground forces.
U.S. Central Command boss Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. throws 100,000 troops into assault on Iraqi forces, which surrender in large numbers. Coalition attack sorties total 97,000.

Check out our complete chronology of the Gulf War, starting with Iraq’s July 1990 invasion of Kuwait and running through Iraq’s April 1991 acceptance of peace terms.

Brown Challenges Airmen to Cut Through Bureaucracy, Develop Bold Ideas

Feb. 23, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. is calling on Airmen to find ways to cut through red tape and bureaucracy in order to meet mission needs quickly, as the service is working to develop Airmen who are capable in jobs outside their core career field.

In a Feb. 22 letter to the force, Brown said he has ordered wing commanders to find ways to empower Airmen at all levels, and get out of the way.

“Organizational structure is necessary, but we need Airmen who can cut through slow, ineffective processes and accelerate positive change,” Brown wrote in the memo. “Understandably, friction arises between maintaining rigorous checklist discipline and experimenting with new ideas. Fast and innovative does not mean makeshift and chaotic—responsibility goes hand-in-hand with empowerment. It does require the courage to respectfully question the status quo, assess risk, and take action while learning from setbacks and failures on our way to successes.”

In the letter, Brown highlights “multi-capable Airmen” from across the service who took it upon themselves to create new ways of doing things, such as refueling an MQ-9 with a fuel bladder in a C-130, hot-pit refueling and crew hot-swaps in KC-135s, and an “ethical construct” for artificial intelligence.

“Airmen asked the hard question of, ‘Why?’ and their leadership courageously responded with, ‘Why not?’” Brown wrote. “These Airmen were not afraid to try bold ideas that may not initially be met with success. Adopting this mindset across our force—in both operational and support roles—will allow us to protect the nation well into the future.”

The letter comes as the Air Force is developing its official process for multi-capable Airmen—training processes both centrally for the service and at wings across the globe—in what officials say is a needed cultural shift for the service.

C-17s, C-130s Fly Dozens of Missions Delivering Water to Texans

Feb. 23, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Several Air Mobility Command and Air National Guard C-17s and C-130s have delivered dozens of pallets of bottled water to help people across Texas dealing with water outages in the aftermath of winter storms.

The missions from outside the state began with one C-17 each from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., and Joint Base Charleston, S.C., flying from their home bases to Naval Air Reserve Station Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb. 19 to load bottled water provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The C-17s then proceeded, one with 16 pallets to Galveston and another with 16 pallets for Corpus Christi.

Shortly after, C-17s from both Charleston and Travis flew seven additional airlifts of water pallets to Ellington Field in Houston, Kelly Field in San Antonio, Abilene, Galveston, Corpus Christi, and McAllen. On Feb. 22, four C-130s from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., delivered water to College Station, Jack Brooks Regional Airport near Beaumont, Long Viet, and Abilene. Three more Travis C-17s delivered water to McAllen, College Station, and Galveston. Missions are expected to continue.

At Kelly Field alone, the 802nd Logistics Readiness Squadron unloaded more than 80,000 water bottles for the city of San Antonio, according to a 502nd Air Base Wing video.

FEMA requested support from U.S. Northern Command to transport the water, with the missions conducted by Air Mobility Command and U.S. Transportation Command, according to a TRANSCOM release.

Within Texas, the 136th Airlift Wing at NAS JRB Fort Worth, Texas, has been flying regular mission to transport water and supplies across the state. This includes an expected 12 sorties alone on Feb. 23, according to the Air National Guard. The Texas Military Department said Feb. 20 that the wing and the Texas Army National Guard had flown more than a half a million water bottles in 24 hours.

At the peak of the crisis, more than 12 million people across Texas were under boil water notices, with utility companies across the state struggling to bring water pressure back after the record low temperatures, according to NPR.

USAF’s 2020 Accidents Include A-29 Crash That Disabled Airman

Feb. 23, 2021 | By Rachel S. Cohen

When an A-29 light attack plane crashed in Afghanistan last summer, the U.S. military reassured the public that its pilot had ejected and was rescued. But the reality was more complicated.

The unidentified Airman, an American flying an Afghan Air Force Super Tucano as part of the U.S. training mission in the country, is now permanently, partially disabled, according to Air Force Safety Center data obtained by Air Force Magazine. The A-29 was destroyed after suffering from what initially seemed to be mechanical issues.

Air Education and Training Command, the organization in charge of the training wing the pilot belonged to, declined to provide more details about the pilot’s condition or what the Airman is doing now.

“Because it was an Afghan A-29, the Air Force did not have the lead for the accident investigation,” AETC spokesperson Marilyn C. Holliday said. “The Air Force did complete a safety investigation, which is not releasable.”

The July 9, 2020, incident is one of the 72 total aviation accidents that occurred in the Air Force over the course of fiscal 2020. Air Force Magazine on Feb. 19 obtained more details of those mishaps, some of which were not made public at the time. The data is current as of Feb. 16.

Statistics show the Air Force is “continuing the generally decreasing trend of aviation Class A mishaps over the last 10 years,” the service said.

But the most destructive accidents have not tapered off nearly as much as the Air Force might like, given its push to improve maintenance and training protocols, while those that caused lesser damage also rose.

Thirteen of the 72 total accidents caused injury or death, according to an Air Force Magazine analysis. Accidents are broken down into flight mishaps, flight-related mishaps, and ground operations mishaps.

Twenty-nine Class A aviation mishaps occurred in fiscal 2020, including 23 incidents involving manned aircraft and six involving unmanned aircraft. Those numbers are slightly higher than the 26 mishaps in fiscal 2019, but nearly on par with the 10-year average of 31 accidents, the Air Force Safety Center said. The service has seen 29 mishaps a year on average over the past five years, the center added.

Class A incidents are those in which Defense Department aircraft are destroyed or total more than $2.5 million in damages, or where a person is killed or permanently, fully disabled.

Seven people died as a result of aviation accidents between Oct. 1, 2019, and Sept. 30, 2020, the Air Force said. Fourteen aircraft were destroyed in that time period as well. Both figures are slightly lower than the five- and 10-year averages.

For Class B accidents, the Air Force saw 39 manned aircraft mishaps and four unmanned mishaps, totaling 43 incidents. That’s a jump from 36 Class B accidents in the previous year—about the same as the five-year average of 45 accidents per year, but lower than the 10-year average of 49.

“Overall, statistics tend to fluctuate from year to year, so the service looks at trends within the data to see if there are significant changes and, more importantly, to determine if there are common issues,” the Safety Center said in a statement to Air Force Magazine.

F-22 fighter jets saw the most severe problems most often, with five Class A mishaps over the course of fiscal 2020. A-10s, C-17s, and F-15s tied for the most Class B mishaps. Among unmanned aircraft, the MQ-9 Reaper logged seven Class A and B crashes in that time.

Among the previously unreported Class A mishaps:

Oct. 13, 2019: A C-17 from the Tennessee Air National Guard’s 164th Airlift Wing suffered engine damage after shutting down because of “high exhaust gas temperature” upon startup in Delaware. No injuries were reported.
March 31, 2020: A C-17 with the 62nd Airlift Wing in Kuwait suffered turbine damage because of a similar “high exhaust gas temperature” problem, but safely returned to base. No injuries were reported.
May 1, 2020: An F-22 at the 1st Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., saw an engine stall shortly after takeoff, causing the plane to shut down in flight. The fighter jet returned to base and no injuries were reported.
July 14, 2020: An F-22 at the 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., incurred damage to the right engine because of foreign object debris. No injuries were reported.
July 24, 2020: An F-22 suffered a hydraulic fire during ground operations at the 325th Fighter Wing. No injuries were reported.
July 26, 2020: A B-1 at the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., sucked a cable into an engine during a maintenance run, causing significant engine damage. No injuries were reported.
Aug. 19, 2020: A C-17’s onboard inert gas generating system caught fire during takeoff, injuring the plane and three people at the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.

The Air Force also recorded six Class A incidents involving unmanned aircraft, including one on July 24, 2020, where an unnamed drone was completely destroyed in a crash while controlled by an Air Force Special Operations Command unit in an undisclosed location. It’s possible that aircraft could be a secretive RQ-170 reconnaissance drone or any others kept out of the public eye.

MQ-9 Reapers comprised the rest of the most severe incidents. One “intentional ditching” over Somalia in June 2020 led to a total aircraft loss for the 432nd Wing out of Creech Air Force Base, Nev. That same month, the New York Air National Guard saw another MQ-9 damaged when it lost thrust upon takeoff and left the runway.

Reapers were completely destroyed in August 2020 in an unknown location while flying for the 27th Special Operations Wing, and in September 2020 in Kuwait while flying for an undisclosed unit. Another MQ-9 at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., was damaged upon takeoff on Sept. 2, 2020, as well.

Nineteen types of airframes, from the A-10 to the CV-22, were involved in Class B mishaps over the course of the year. Their woes span engine fires, bird strikes, foreign object debris, and more.

Class B events meet at least one of these criteria: they incur damages costing between $600,000 and $2.5 million; cause a permanent, partial disability; or lead to inpatient hospitalization of at least three personnel.

An MQ-9 in Jordan was “struck by [a] vehicle” when taxiing, causing major damage to both the drone and the vehicle, according to the Air Force. The lower hatch of a U-2 spy plane’s camera bay fell off the aircraft mid-flight. Multiple F-16 fighter jets were “damaged in weather” in South Korea, the same day a typhoon brought heavy rain to parts of the country, but landed without incident.

One B-1 bomber from the 7th Bomb Wing in Nevada saw an electrical malfunction in flight that sent smoke into the cockpit, then blew out a tire upon landing. On one unfortunate day for an A-10 in Georgia last April, the aircraft’s gun malfunctioned, its engine was damaged, its “canopy departed,” and it landed with its landing gear up—but no injuries were reported.

The Safety Center also shed more light on the XQ-58 Valkyrie crash in October 2019 that rendered the prototype “Skyborg” drone temporarily unusable. The Valkyrie experienced “several failures” while trying to land during a test in Arizona, causing “severe structural damage.”

“In final descent, the prototype cushion system, which was employed for the initial test series but is not intended for ultimate operational use, suffered an anomaly resulting in the aircraft sustaining damage upon touchdown,” Valkyrie manufacturer Kratos said, according to Inside Defense.

The wingman drone returned to flight testing in January 2020.

Not all entries in the list provided by the Air Force included damage costs; those that did totaled nearly $29 million. The bulk of that cost, $23.6 million, comes from a C-130J’s hard landing in Germany in April 2020. It is slightly more expensive than the $21 million in damage cited in the Air Force’s accident investigation for the event released Feb. 16.

The Air Force has already incurred at least five Class A mishaps so far in fiscal 2021, including the Feb. 19 T-38 crash in Alabama that killed 23-year-old 1st Lt. Scot Ames Jr. and a Japanese student pilot.

“We are a close-knit family and the loss of our teammates affects us all,” said Col. Seth Graham, commander of the 14th Flying Training Wing—the same wing to which the now-disabled A-29 pilot belonged. “The strength of our bond is what will help us get through it together.”

Read the entire list of fiscal 2020 accidents here.

Air Combat Command Issues Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan

Feb. 22, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Air Combat Command is pursuing four lines of effort to enhance diversity and inclusion among its force, according to an excerpt from its newly issued Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, obtained by Air Force Magazine on Feb. 19. The plan, which has not been publicly released, was issued the same day.

“These lines of effort provide the framework for advancing diversity and inclusion and for building measures of accountability to ensure the enterprise attracts and leverages elite talent from diverse communities to compete and win for the nation,” the excerpt stated. The LOEs are also meant to give the command’s D&I professionals “a strategic outlook” to help them devise future operational plans and quantify the command’s progress and performance, it added.

Firstly, ACC wants to overhaul its “organizational culture and climate” to cultivate inclusion across all of its “environments, programs, policies, processes, and procedures,” and nix any aspects of the command’s culture and/or way of doing business that might impede diversity and inclusion, the excerpt explained. This priority entails making sure the command’s “vision and strategy” for enhancing D&I lines up command priorities, pinpointing “artificial” obstacles to these goals, enabling open conversations so all voices can feel valued, and changing up the way ACC communicates within and outside of the command to make it clear that D&I is “an operational imperative,” according to the excerpt.

During a Feb. 19 interview with Air Force Magazine, inaugural ACC Diversity and Inclusion Officer Rachel Castellon said this means “recognizing that we need to be inclusive, and we need to do it in an enduring kind of way through the communications that we have, through review of our policies, our procedures, [and] the way that we set up our environments and programs.”

Secondly, the command looks to work diversity and inclusion into the way it attracts, recruits, develops, and evaluates uniformed personnel and civilians, as well as into how it chooses people for jobs, the excerpt said. This line of effort includes identifying “diversity gaps in ACC career fields and ACC key leadership positions and methods to ensure consideration of all talent prior to hiring,” and committing “fully to promoting ACC career fields, especially to fill high demand, low density specialties,” the command wrote.

“As you know, with Air Combat Command, we have a lot of the … operational side, and so we have to look really closely at how our representation falls there, and then what can we do to make it more reflective of American society, ’cause that’s where, you know, obviously, we get our Airmen,” Castellon said.

Thirdly, the excerpt said, the command aims to make sure that its “training environments reflect and defend diversity and inclusion,” and that leaders and troops understand why these values are vital to national security. This line of effort entails teaching Airmen how different issues “relating to culture, ethnicity, class, race, and gender” are connected, teaching command employees and leaders how to cultivate and keep up “a diverse and inclusive culture,” and working in D&I principles into the command’s “community engagement and organizational collaboration” to make its operations more effective, the command wrote.

Since ACC must “be enticing” to Americans who are job-hunting, but who want to feel confident that an organization’s culture is healthy before taking the leap and applying for an opportunity, Castellon said “education and training will help” the command make sure Airmen know both USAF’s and ACC’s stances on caring for Airmen in terms of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Lastly, ACC is focused on making sure the progress it makes will last, the excerpt explained. This final line of effort includes creating an enterprise-wide D&I infrastructure “to build institutional stability,” figuring out “metrics and measures” the command can use to assess the performance and impact of its diversity and inclusion efforts, and evaluating its “talent management and organizational culture to maximize ACC’s ability to translate increased diversity and improved inclusion,” the excerpt said.

“We have to think in terms of infrastructure and long term talent management, and how are we gonna retain the quality folks that we bring in, because it isn’t just bringing them in, it’s keeping them as well, and taking good care of their families, because obviously, that makes a huge difference to Airmen,” Castellon said.

USAF Identifies Pilot Killed in T-38 Crash

Feb. 22, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The USAF pilot killed in the Feb. 19 T-38C Talon crash near Montgomery, Ala., is 1st Lt. Scot Ames Jr., 23, the Air Force said Feb. 22.

Ames and a student pilot from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force were killed when the Talon crashed near Dannelly Field as part of a multi-leg training mission originating from Columbus Air Force Base, Miss. The JASDF has not identified the student pilot yet, and the name will be provided “according to Japan’s established process,” the 14th Flying Training Wing said in a statement.

Ames, from Pekin, Ind., was an instructor pilot with the 50th Flying Training Squadron at Columbus.

“We are a close-knit family and the loss of our teammates affects us all,” said Col. Seth Graham, 14th Flying Training Wing commander, in the statement. “The strength of our bond is what will help us get through it together. My thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends, and our teammates today.”

The Air Force is investigating the cause of the crash. The 14th FTW halted flying operations following the incident.

“Our Air Force investigators are performing their time-tested process used to investigate mishaps like this, and they will ensure the integrity of the investigation,” Graham said. “The Air Force is committed to providing the safest working environment for its people. The safety of our people and the surrounding communities is our foremost concern.”

The incident was the second involving a T-38 within days, after a Talon from Beale Air Force Base, Calif., made a gear-up landing in Mather, Calif., on Feb. 18. No one was injured in the incident. The Feb. 19 crash is the first fatal T-38 mishap since two USAF pilots from Vance Air Force Base, Okla., were killed when their Talons collided on Nov. 21, 2019.

AFA’s Virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium Starts Feb. 24

Feb. 22, 2021

The Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium kicks off Feb. 24, opening three days of non-stop activity featuring 40 panels and presentations and the top leaders from the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. will provide the keynote on Feb. 24. Other sessions feature:

The top enlisted leaders from the Air Force, Space Force, and Joint Chiefs of Staff discuss “Leading in a Time of Change”
The Space Force’s Chief Scientist joins top leaders from Air Force Materiel Command, the Space and Missile Systems Center, and the Air Force Research Laboratory to explore “Science, Technology, and Innovation in Every Domain”
Industry leaders join Air Force and Space Force experts to delve into a dozen mission domains, from aircraft and space platforms to joint all domain command and control.

Noted astrophysist Neil DeGrasse Tyson will join Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond to headline Day 2, and Acting Secretary of the Air Force John P. Roth anchors Day 3. The theme of the symposium is Accelerate and Innovate.

Check out the full Attendee Guide or click here to register.

New this year are 15 Mission Domain Engagement Sessions, which will be live, interactive webinars. The all-new Mission Domain Hub provides an easily accessible means to access images, videos, and white papers, and more from dozens of sponsors.

Stay tuned to www.airforcemag.com for updates throughout the show, and follow us on social media @airforcemag.

People Tried to Breach Air National Guard Bases at Least 13 Times This Year

Feb. 22, 2021 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

As of the morning of Feb. 19, the Air National Guard had recorded 13 breaches—including attempted and successful intrusions—at its installations since the start of 2021, ANG Director Lt. Gen. Michael A. Loh told Air Force Magazine in an interview that day. However, ANG declined to disclose the locations of the breaches due to operational security concerns.

Of the 13 incidents, nine occurred at “installation-control points,” and none caused damage, Loh said.

“Most of ’em come in, they don’t realize that they’re coming on a base, that they’re supposed to stop, and they pass through,” he said.

In “a couple” of these cases, however, individuals attempted “to jump the fence and steal stuff,” though base defenders apprehended them, he added.

The news comes as the Air Force Office of Inspector General is pursuing an investigation into a Feb. 4 breach at Joint Base Andrews, Md., as well as a review of security at all USAF and Space Force installations worldwide. Acting Air Force Secretary John P. Roth and USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. ordered both inquiries, Air Force Magazine previously reported.

Loh acknowledged that installation breaches are “a problem,” but praised ANG defenders—whom he said vet 8 million base visitors each year—as “doing amazing things.” He added that civilian-military cooperation and on-base security technology help enhance security at ANG installations.

“Here’s the good news: In combination with local law enforcement, in and around our locations, because we are United States-based, I get that extra layer that’s outside the fence, as well as the layer that’s inside the fence,” Loh said. “… If you follow the standard operating procedures, and you’re able to do some things like we have with other intrusion detection systems, like cameras and those types of things, we are actually very secure, and people will feel very secure being in our base.”

Citizen-Airmen and community members who raise their voices when they “see something that’s just not right” collectively serve as security “sensors,” making threat awareness part of the local culture at ANG installations, he added.

ANG drilling includes training on both base intrusions and inside threats, he said.

According to Loh, this combination of factors works to make ANG bases “very secure locations.”