USAF to Reactivate 495th Fighter Squadron as F-35 Unit

Sept. 15, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The Air Force will reactivate its 495th Fighter Squadron to support the F-35 mission at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., 48th Fighter Wing spokesperson Maj. Sybil V. Taunton confirmed to Air Force Magazine via email Sept. 15.

“Overall we will see a plus-up of roughly 1,200 personnel to operate and support two full squadrons of F-35s,” she wrote, noting that the base’s first Joint Strike Fighters are still slated to reach the base late next year.

The 48th Fighter Wing has held off on a formal public announcement about the squadron’s reactivation because it’s on an ongoing search for a squadron mascot, she said. However, she noted, the wing is open to proposals from the aviation-loving public.

“We were really intending to target our U.K. aviation enthusiast community for ideas, given our location, but we will welcome suggestions from back home in the U.S. as well,” she wrote.

Anyone can submit their ideas via an email to 48fw.pa@us.af.mil, or by tweeting the wing @48FighterWing, Taunton wrote.

The 495th Fighter Squadron, which the 48th Fighter Wing History Office writes was deactivated in December 1991, previously operated F-111F Aardvark aircraft, Taunton noted.

ULA Ditched Chinese-Owned Supplier It Worried Could Be Spying

Sept. 15, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

United Launch Alliance, America’s longtime space launch provider, recently cut ties with one of its suppliers amid worries that the company’s Chinese owner could steal sensitive information.

ULA Chief Executive Officer Tory Bruno discussed his “wake-up call” that the Chinese could access proprietary data in a Sept. 15 conversation with Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson during AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

Kuka, the Germany-based robotics firm acquired by China’s Midea Group in 2017, provided ULA with tooling software that helps manufacture rockets like the future Vulcan Centaur. That rocket recently landed ULA the job of carrying payloads to orbit on 60 percent of Space Force launches through 2024.

“Just a few months ago, maybe a year ago now,” Bruno said, “We discovered almost by accident that the key element in that software chain, a key company, had been purchased by a company owned in China. When we followed up with the FBI and the counterintelligence activity that they provide … we realized, yeah, this is not an actor we need to have inside our factory.”

ULA spokesperson Jessica Rye told Air Force Magazine the company first contacted its major tool supplier that worked with Kuka as well as Kuka directly. ULA determined its robot tool programming was handled exclusively by a U.S. supplier.

“There was no evidence of access to our systems or compromise” of ULA’s intellectual property, Rye said. She did not answer when asked when ULA became aware of the issue, but said it “envisions no further future work involving Kuka or Kuka products.”

A Kuka spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The incident spooked Bruno, who said ULA—a joint venture between defense giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing—couldn’t afford to wait for the U.S. government to tell it what to do.

“We went out and put an architecture together. First thing is to go to the supply chain and ask them to certify their ownership. Are you a domestic company or not? Who are your shareholders?” Bruno said. “For those of you who are not up to snuff, you’ve got to fix it. If you can’t fix it, we’re going to replace you. If we can’t replace you, we’re going to have to figure out how to break up the work into little bitty pieces so you don’t know what you’re working on, and you’re not getting access to our intellectual property.”

ULA hired the business analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet to ferret out suppliers who have foreign backing through shell companies, indirect ownership, and other means.

“I have to do that literally every quarter,” Bruno said. “This is a really dynamic environment.”

Rye said ULA hasn’t found any direct Chinese ownership of other companies in its supply chain.

Even as the Pentagon has crafted new policies to protect defense suppliers, repeatedly warning of information breaches and tainted products, Bruno wants the government to lend a hand in finding potentially bad actors. He suggested Congress should take up legislation that makes it harder for China to acquire U.S. companies or invest in supply chains affecting American products.

“Even when they’re not buying the company, when you think you’re in Silicon Valley with venture capitalists getting investment into startups or into new technologies, when you tunnel through those guys, you find out there’s a lot of Chinese money in San Francisco,” Bruno said. “That is how they get access and influence in that chain. All of that’s got to be made legally much more difficult, so that it’s easier for everyone to act.”

USAFE Still Targeting F-35s at Lakenheath by 2021, Despite Construction Delays

Sept. 15, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe is “convinced” the command will base F-35As at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., on time in late 2021, despite some delays to military construction and a possible slowdown in F-35 deliveries because of COVID-19.

“I am clear eyed that we’ve got a fair amount of work to do from the infrastructure needed to get the facilities ready, and at the same time work through the natural challenges of any bed down that has to do with the appropriate connectivity, security clearances, and those types of activities required to get an airplane in,” USAFE boss Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian told reporters during a panel at AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 14. “But, we’re looking at the end of ’21 as the target remains on track for us to get the airplanes here.”

The original plan was to have the aircraft begin arriving this year, but that slipped to 2021. Now construction delays have threatened that timeline, with projects about 25 percent over the $480 million budget, Defense News reported last month.

At the same time, COVID-19 restrictions have already impacted Lockheed Martin’s F-35 delivery schedule. The company plans to deliver 122 of the jets this year, about 20 percent fewer than planned, and that shortfall will take “a couple of years” to recover, the company told Air Force Magazine on Sept. 10.

Despite the issues, Harrigian is confident the command will bring the jets online on, or close to, the current schedule. The service plans to have 48 of the jets at the base in England.

“I’m convinced that we’ll get there,” he said. “There may be some things we need to do to operate there initially, but we will in fact deliver the airplanes on time, assuming they’re ready.”

In advance of the deliveries, USAFE, NATO representatives, and the F-35 users’ group have been meeting to plan new range infrastructure and training opportunities for the fifth-generation jets, Harrigian said earlier this year. The goal is to have a construct for ranges and training in place by 2022.

USAF’s Goal of 220 Bombers a ‘Living Number,’ Can Evolve as B-21 Comes Online

Sept. 15, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force still needs 220 total bombers, including about 100 new B-21s, though that target is a “living number” that can change as the Raider comes online and aging aircraft are modernized and outfitted with advanced weapons, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command said.

Gen. Timothy M. Ray, speaking at the Air Force Association’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, said the number as outlined in the service’s bomber roadmap is not set in stone. For example, when the roadmap was first announced, the planned total was 175, but that number has since grown. Recently, Ray said he has presented it to the Armed Services Committees on Capitol Hill and it has garnered support.

“I think we’ve put some real rigor into that, and it’s a real plan now,” Ray said.

To meet this number, the Air Force needs to ensure that “what we build is affordable, and sustainable, and more rapidly modifiable. The B-21 will feature all those things,” he said. The B-1 needs to continue to improve its readiness metrics, the B-52’s re-engining program needs to progress well, and the B-2 fleet needs to remain healthy until the point that enough Raiders come online to begin phasing the Spirits out, he said.

Additionally, progress on hypersonic weapons, such as the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, means the old bombers will have a viable stand-off mission in the future. The service is “pretty eager” for the ARRW to develop to the point where it can be carried on a B-1. The system is being tested on the B-52.

“I think [Pacific Air Forces] and [U.S. Air Forces in Europe] would like to see that in theater sooner rather than later,” Ray said. “I think that particularly interesting twist makes things pretty complicated for our would-be adversaries.”

In recent months, the Air Force moved away from the permanent Continuous Bomber Presence mission in the Pacific and instead adopted a “dynamic force employment” model of sending task forces of bombers directly from the continental United States on long-distance missions or shorter deployments.

With the bombers able to spend more time at their home bases, their readiness metrics have improved to a level that is higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ray said. Additionally, the DFE model means the bombers need less permanent basing abroad.

“We’ve been all over the planet,” he said. “In these particular times, we’ve not needed the access in basing. We were very quick. We think that makes a very significant, real facts-on-the-ground case to be made about what we can do.”

Space Force Eyes Promotion Boards for Enlisted Airmen

Sept. 15, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

The Space Force plans to ditch its promotion tests for enlisted Airmen in favor of promotion boards that shape well-rounded service members.

The service wants to measure how its members solve problems, not simply ask them to repeat what they’ve learned, Chief Master Sgt. Roger A. Towberman, the Space Force’s senior enlisted adviser, told Air Force Magazine.

“We just don’t think that rote memorization has a place in the modern world, where information is easy to get,” he said Sept. 11. “What’s hard to get is people that can reason and think analytically with the information that’s available, especially when it’s given to them on a huge scale.”

Building, administering, protecting, and scoring exams consumes an incredible amount of resources as well, Towberman added.

Instead of advancing the best test takers to mid- and high-level ranks, the Space Force would set up promotion boards “for every enlisted rank above E-4,” or senior Airman, Towberman said. When Airmen go before those panels, they will be evaluated on their job performance over the past few years and any awards earned, then voted on by a group of their superiors.

Last year, the Air Force did away with its own enlisted promotion fitness and specialty knowledge tests for the most senior ranks of E-7 through E-9: master sergeant and first sergeant through Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force. That let promotion boards decide who should join the senior noncommissioned officer corps.

“We trust this board process will continue to give senior leaders and commanders the greatest level of confidence that the right individuals are being selected for promotion to the top enlisted ranks,” former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright said in a February 2019 release. “We found that removing the testing portion will eliminate any possibility that Airmen without the strongest leadership potential might test into promotion, while also ensuring that our strongest performers continue to earn the promotion they deserve.”

The Space Force wants to take that a step further and think of the process as “assignment boards.” Instead of simply moving someone up the ladder, the service wants to play a bigger role in shaping the direction of an Airman’s career.

“When you prioritize a promotion, and you value promotion as the definition of success, culturally, it’s sort of an exclusionary concept,” Towberman said. “A lot of people are left out of that conversation if you’re focused on promotion and if you define success as being promoted. I’d rather focus on development, and we think development can apply to everyone … at all times.”

As part of the promotion boards, Towberman said the Space Force needs to think just as much about the people who fall short as those who move ahead.

“The people that just got promoted, they’re happy. They’ll take any job you give them, and they’re going to go and they’re going to be great,” Towberman said.

“But if you care about those people that fell short of the promotion line, and if you’re institutionally obligated to care for them and develop them, then the assignments they get in their next move are really the most important. They’re at that single point where you’re like, these are the things that were missing in this young lady’s record that [are] why we didn’t promote her. So let’s fix those by giving her an assignment here next,” he said.

Technology also has a bigger role to play. The Space Force, the first U.S. military branch founded in the digital age, says it can use algorithms to mine countless personnel statistics for a better picture of someone’s personality and achievements when considering them for promotion.

Towberman said data can help avoid biases that might color someone’s review, for better or for worse. He suggested the approach could weed out bad bosses or measure an Airman’s discipline.

“I could, for instance, find the career development course scores of every subordinate Sgt. Jones has ever had. I can find the retention rates of every subordinate or everyone on a flight of … Master Sgt. Smith,” he said. “I could find the physical fitness test scores or even how often someone goes to the gym or goes to the club. … There’s a lot of things that you can measure that, while any single one of them certainly wouldn’t prove causality of anything, that if your baseball card has enough statistics, you start to see correlations that you won’t be able to ignore.”

Towberman said he will advocate for Space Force officers to adopt the same model, arguing simpler is better.

“I don’t think in any fundamental way, we’ll be different than the officers,” he said. “I think we’ll be going after the same things. I think we’ll be trying to use technology, but the particulars on it may be a little different.”

Space Force Ponders Changes to Fitness Tests

Sept. 15, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Hate situps? You might want to join the Space Force.

Physical fitness could look a little different in the newest branch of the military, as officials consider more holistic, functional exercises and fewer PT tests.

“We could do it more efficiently,” Chief Master Sgt. Roger A. Towberman, the Space Force’s senior enlisted adviser, told Air Force Magazine on Sept. 11. “The focus shouldn’t be on the test. The focus should be on the process of being fit.”

Over the past few years, the armed forces have started to view proper fitness as a lifestyle, not only dependent on waist size or how fast someone runs. The Department of the Air Force vets its members’ waist circumference, their time on a 1.5-mile run, and the number of pushups and situps they can do in one minute.

But those measures have led to unhealthy, even dangerous, habits to cut weight and inches, and caused anxiety among Airmen who worry that a low score will hurt their careers.

“I would rather that we put our effort and our focus and our grading, frankly, on a squadron’s ability to ensure maximum fitness of all its members, and not have this single moment in time that has such an impact over one’s career,” Towberman said. “If it’s accurately measuring the process by giving someone a test, then it’s the process that is making the difference anyway. I don’t even think it’s accurately measuring a process.”

Towberman said the service needs to have a conversation about the relevance and safety of situps and pushups, suggesting the Space Force may favor planks to measure core strength instead. The Navy in May 2019 said it would instead adopt planks in its PT tests, and Marines recently began allowing that option instead of situps as well.

“I want to talk through all those things and do it smart, get away from repetitive use injuries,” Towberman said. “Your fitness is supposed to make you better prepared for work, not less prepared.”

His thoughts reflect work championed by former Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright, who advocated for Airmen to adopt better diet, sleep, and exercise habits. He pushed bases to offer healthier fare and suggested offices could serve vegetables alongside cake at workplace celebrations.

The Space Force could carry over the Air Force’s recent policy change that allows personnel to take three diagnostic fitness tests before their designated PT test date, and use a score from an earlier test instead of having only one shot at passing. In August, the Air Force also loosened the requirement for how soon Airmen who suffer a miscarriage must take their next physical fitness assessment.

The department suspended fitness tests until Oct. 1 amid the coronavirus pandemic to prevent close contact between Airmen during strenuous activity that can spread the virus.

Military officials have highlighted fitness as one area that could be more flexible in the Space Force as a way to recruit and retain a broader pool of employees, most of whom won’t face the physical demands of someone like an Army infantryman. It’s also a topic often raised by Airmen that Towberman has visited at Space Force installations around the country.

“A failed fitness test or derogatory information will not make someone ineligible for transfer,” the Space Force told prospective members on a frequently asked questions webpage. “However, if a common [career field, like intelligence or acquisition], this will be part of what the board reviews.”

How COVID-19 Is Impacting Air National Guard Drilling

Sept. 14, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

Air National Guard wings have slashed the number of citizen Airmen who drill in person on the same weekend and scheduled multiple drills per month to maintain readiness while mitigating COVID-19 risk, Chief Master Sgt. Tony L. Whitehead, senior enlisted adviser to National Guard Bureau Chief Army Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, said Sept. 14.

“When we used to have maybe, say 1,000 to 1,500 [Airmen] at one installation at one time, we’ve cut that in half and sometimes even more, to where we’re using the weekends throughout the month,” Whitehead said during a panel about leading through the coronavirus crisis that was held as part of the AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

This change allows ANG to accomplish necessary training while still implementing social distancing, he said.

“We don’t want readiness to take a hit because we can’t all be together,” he said.

ANG also is employing virtual communication methods wherever possible, Whitehead added.

At least three ANG wings have also employed virtual drilling since the start of the pandemic.

In May, the Puerto Rico Air National Guard’s 156th Wing designed a fully digital drill that made use of “telecommuting tools and online training capabilities,” according to a May 28 wing release. Different units drilled on different days throughout the month, it noted.

“To ensure Airmen were able to engage productively for their entire two-day drill period, a catalog of training was created,” the release stated. “The catalog offered the resources to complete required annual computer-based training, unit-specific training, physical fitness, and job-specific training opportunities.”

The wing also gave Airmen the chance to take Federal Emergency Management Agency courses and ensured they had support-agency access, the release noted.

The Virginia Air National Guard’s 192nd Wing also employed remote drilling earlier this year.

In April, the wing’s 192nd Security Forces Squadron used online platforms to conduct a drill that every single one of its Airmen took part in, according to a June 8 Virginia National Guard release. The wing’s 192nd Maintenance Group, on the other hand, incorporated so-called “Left Seat/Right Seat” sessions into their drilling, in which senior noncommissioned officers taught their subordinate NCOs about how to provide feedback to their Airmen, the release said. Those NCOs were then tasked with advising their Airmen as the SNCO instructors looked on virtually.

And the West Virginia Air National Guard’s 167th Operations Support Squadron—part of the WVANG’s 167th Airlift Wing—conducted its first-ever remote unit training assembly from May 2-3 via Microsoft Teams, according to a May 8 wing release.

During the remote drill, squadron Airmen completed their annual Total Force Ancillary Training, received instruction in preventing suicides and sexual assault, and received pandemic-related financial advice, the release stated.

“Holding the vUTA for the OSS was an integral way to get information to our members and keeping them up to date with what we are doing around the state in response to COVID-19,” 167th Operations Group First Sergeant Senior Master Sgt. Jacki Weddle said in the release. “Just interacting with our Airmen was so important to the leadership team.”

Air National Guard Director Gen. Michael A. Loh said ANG made this training flexibility possible by empowering wing leaders to make planning-related calls.

“We pushed that authority down to the lowest level for them to reschedule drills, and make it … easier to comply with all the restrictions that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has put out there for combating COVID, and making that happen,” Loh told reporters during a Sept. 14 vASC media roundtable.

Loh also praised ANG units for taking creative approaches to training, maintenance, and teaming to keep their Airmen safe amid the pandemic, and noted that “CARES Act funding and other resources” have helped ANG persevere on these fronts despite the coronavirus challenge.

Kelly: Most Appealing Part of ABMS Demo Was AI; Opportunity to Free Up PED Airmen

Sept. 14, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

The performance of artificial intelligence was the most striking and attractive aspect of the recent Advanced Battle Management System experiment, because it potentially heralds a way to find manpower needed for other missions, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark D. Kelly said September 14.

In an online press conference during AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Kelly said ABMS “comes down to decision superiority,” achieved by speed and connectivity. He also talked about the kinds of systems that may be cut as USAF reorganizes around higher priorities; the value of the F-15EX; how he sees the “Digital Century Series,” and hypersonic systems.

There was a “significant amount of AI, and the AI that we saw … seemed to work pretty well,” in terms of automatic target identification, Kelly noted. Given that USAF brings in far more intelligence than it can process with the available airmen—and that the unconsidered information isn’t contributing to decisions—“anytime we can do [processing, exploitation, and dissemination] with the help of machines, it is greatly welcome.” This is going to be one of the way the Air Force finds “excess manpower to funnel to undermanned areas.” The service must “free up manning across the board” to perform the missions it must do, Kelly said.

The senior Air Force leadership does not yet have a clear picture of what must be done to achieve what Kelly termed “ruthless prioritization” of missions, but he said a Corona meeting of top USAF officials in a few weeks should yield an “unambiguous” way forward on which activities USAF will have to let go in the fiscal 2022 budget. Manpower and resources will be “pushed up” to higher priorities specifically called out in the National Defense Strategy, he said.

Kelly has been unable to find “an over-manned portfolio” within ACC that could be “harvested” for billets, and said extra personnel will have to be found from a “holistic Air Force review of something we’re going to stop doing to better resource a new priority;” meaning, from another command.

The Corona meeting also will be the forum to debate the value of some weapons systems—in whole or in part—versus others, but Kelly said he doesn’t anticipate a “cage match” between the F-35 and the F-15EX, as both provide value for USAF’s future.

He offered support for the F-15EX, saying, “We have to refresh the aging F-15C. It’s less about politics than about how metal bends, and what happens to metal after you bend it so many times.” The EX, he said, will be “ready to fight as soon as it comes off the line. It’s a hot line that some of our [international] partners have paid a lot of the R&D to help us get to.” He called it a “a game-changing aircraft” thanks to its “digital backbone” and open-mission systems to easily refresh its capabilities, and it has a large payload to bring to the fight.

“We have to present a peer adversary with multiple challenges to fend off, inside threat rings and outside threat rings, with lower radar cross-section threats and big payloads, and a mix of problems, and this will help us bring those problems to bear,” Kelly said of the F-15EX. It will have “the brains to assess and decide quickly, speed to cover a big area, some pretty significant hitting power.”

Kelly also said he expects Global Strike Command will be first to field hypersonic weapons with the AGM-183 ARRW missile. While he declined to say the F-15EX would also be a hypersonic missile carrier, he acknowledged that its centerline station will be able to carry “some of the heaviest” munitions the Air Force has.

His priorities at ACC will be to “complete and consolidate” the work done by his predecessor, Gen. James M. “Mike” Holmes, to create new, better aligned numbered air forces for information operations and kinetic combat, and in other activities, such as consolidating F-22s at Joint Base Eustis-Langley, Va.

Although he declined to comment much on the “Digital Century Series” ideas of Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper—saying Roper himself will reveal new information Sept. 15—Kelly said the concept is actually better described by USAF’s fielding of the F-117 attack jet.

The F-117 “was unique, game changing, [we] brought it to the field, fielded it, operated it for a specific amount of time, and then moved on to another rapidly emerging technology that we just couldn’t adapt to that exact same platform,” Kelly explained. “We did so in a manner of acquisition, testing and fielding all the way into a war. And then, before it got to the life cycle spot of 15 years and beyond—when it was really going to be cost-prohibitive to operate—we moved on.”

Kelly said chief of staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s vision of “accelerate … or lose” is a vision of being unstintingly realistic in assessing the U.S. versus its peer competitors.

“When it comes to our weapon systems, we aren’t as powerful, as a nation, as what we own; we’re only as powerful as what we can project forward, what we can protect, what we can sustain, and credibly operate,” he said. “We can’t win with capacity that’s unusable because it’s unsustainable, and we can’t win with capability that’s unusable because it’s unaffordable.”

WATCH: Virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference Day One Highlights

Sept. 14, 2020

Video: Air Force Association on Vimeo

Air Force Magazine Editor-in-Chief Tobias Naegele and News Editor Amy McCullough highlight some of the key takeaways from the first day of AFA’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, including clips from Secretary Barbara M. Barrett and Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s keynote addresses.