More Small Drones: Air Force Bases in Ohio, Utah, Germany All Report Sightings

Dec. 17, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Small drones were spotted flying near and over Air Force bases in Utah, Ohio, and Germany this month, Air & Space Forces Magazine confirmed—in addition to the arrest of a Chinese citizen who allegedly used a drone to snap photos of a Space Force base—as a rash of incursions around military installations expands.

At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, drones were first spotted Dec. 13-14, then again Dec. 16-17, a spokesperson for the 88th Air Base Wing said in multiple statements.

The small unmanned aerial systems varied in size, configuration, and numbers, but there were no impacts to base residents or assets, the spokesperson added.

According to numerous media reports, the airspace around Wright-Patterson was briefly closed Dec. 13 because of the drones.

“Our units continue to monitor the airspace and are working with local authorities to ensure the safety of base personnel, facilities, and assets,” the 88th Air Base Wing spokesperson said.

At Hill Air Force Base in Utah, a spokesperson for the 75th Air Base Wing confirmed in a statement that “unmanned aerial systems were spotted in the vicinity of Hill AFB recently,” though they did not say if the drones actually crossed over into the airspace above the base.

“All appropriate measures are being taken to safeguard Hill AFB personnel, assets, and infrastructure,” the spokesperson added.

And at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, the drones were sighted around and over the base in “early December,” a spokesperson from the 86th Airlift Wing said in an email. Like at Wright-Patterson, they varied in size, configuration, and numbers, but there were no impacts to base residents or assets, the spokesperson added.

The drone incursions were first reported by German media late last week, citing German security officials.

“In concert with host nation authorities, we continue to monitor the airspace to ensure safety and security of the community,” the spokesperson said.

The incursions come just a few days after the Justice Department announced it had arrested and charged a Chinese citizen and lawful permanent resident with flying a drone over Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and using it to take photographs of the base’s layout. Authorities say the man, Yinpiao Zhou, flew his drone over the base on Nov. 30 for almost an hour, at an altitude of almost one mile. He was arrested at San Francisco International Airport as he was about to board a plane for China.

Just a few weeks prior to that, U.S. Air Forces in Europe reported similar incidents over the course of several days around four bases in the United Kingdom: RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell (all located close to each other); and RAF Fairford. Authorities are still investigating those incidents.

And earlier this year, officials confirmed that they spotted drones around Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

In most cases except the Vandenberg one, officials used similar language in describing the incidents, noting that “the number of systems has fluctuated, and they have ranged in sizes and configurations,” while insisting there have been “no impacts to base residents, facilities, or assets.”

Again with the exception of Vandenberg, officials have not said if they know who is controlling the drones or if they have taken action to identify or destroy them. Options are often limited for combatting the incursions, given safety restrictions meant to protect the civilian population from collateral damage.

The recent spate of sightings around Air Force bases were largely drowned out in recent weeks by sweeping coverage of alleged drone sightings in the Northeast U.S., particularly over New Jersey. In a Dec. 17 joint statement, the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, and the FBI said they assessed that those sightings “include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”

In contrast, Air Force officials specifically identified the incursions around their bases as small unmanned aerial systems. Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the sightings in the northeast and the ones over military installations are separate issues.

“We don’t see a connection at this point between any of those activities,” Ryder said during a briefing.

The seeming increase in incidents and public concern about them reflect shifting attitudes. Inexpensive, commercial drones are now widely available worldwide, raising questions about how they could be used to spy on or disrupt military activities during peacetime and at war.

The Air Force is now contemplating the future of how it defends its bases. As the service moves to “re-optimize” itself for great power competition with the likes of China, leaders say they can no longer consider large bases—even in the continental U.S.—as safe havens. They seek low-cost solutions for defending against drones and drone swarms that don’t involve firing high-end missiles.

At the same time, the Air Force has embraced the concept of agile combat employment, where small teams of Airmen deploy to remote or austere locations from a central hub to launch aircraft and then move quickly, making targeting harder for an adversary. In order for that to work, the Air Force wants more air base defense than the Army, which typically handles that mission, can currently provide. The two services are discussing the problem, and Air Force leaders say they are prepared to shoulder some of that mission.

Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed to this report.

New Engine for B-52J Passes Design Review on Time, but Upgrade Program Still Lags

Dec. 16, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The B-52’s new engine, the Rolls Royce F130, has cleared its critical design review, meaning it can enter final development, test, and production on time, the company announced Dec. 13. However, the overall B-52J upgrade, which is integrated by Boeing, continues to run about three years behind.

The review of the F130 “is the culmination of over two years of detailed design work and close collaboration between teams at Rolls-Royce, the Air Force, and Boeing,” according to a Rolls press release.

A Rolls Royce spokesperson said the CDR was conducted over the last few weeks and was for the engine only.

“We are delivering at exactly the pace defined by the Air Force, and conducting the engine CDR on-time is just the latest example of the good work our team is doing,” the spokesperson added.

The overall B-52J upgrade—which includes new radars, new engine pylons, internal wiring, a digital backbone, communications, navigation, other improvements, and overall integration—is years behind schedule, and the Government Accountability Office now projects that initial operational capability, originally expected in 2030, will now come in 2033. A critical design review for the overall effort is expected in August 2025, the GAO said in a June report.

The GAO said the delays stemmed from the Air Force “underestimating the level of funding” necessary to complete detailed design of the re-engining project. There were also delays in sequencing of needed materials and other aspects of the program.

The F130 is based on Rolls’ commercial BR725 powerplant but requires some modification to be compatible with the B-52 and its twin-engine pods. The B-52 will continue to have eight engines in four pods after the overall aircraft upgrade. An earlier version of the F130 engine powers the C-37 and E-11 BACN (Battlefield Airborne Communications Node).

Rolls was picked by the Air Force to provide the engine for the Commercial Engine Replacement Program back in 2021.

On the B-52, the F130 will replace the Pratt & Whitney TF-33, which was original equipment for the B-52H, built in 1962. The engine upgrade will not only provide more power and range for the B-52, but its up-to-date technology will effectively end engine overhauls and drastically reduce maintenance, as will the bomber’s new radars, adapted from equipment on Boeing’s F-15 and F/A-18 fighters. After the upgrade, the B-52J is expected to serve into the 2050s.

“This year we have made strong progress on our F130 testing program,” a Rolls official said, “from completing Rapid Twin Pod Testing to support the B-52’s unique nacelle configuration, to finishing the first phase of sea-level testing for the F130 First Engine to Test (FETT) in Indianapolis.”

Twin-pod tests were also conducted at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

“Testing at Stennis most notably marked the first time F130 engines were tested in the dual-engine configuration,” the official said. “The testing focused on crosswind aerodynamic flow as well as confirming the successful operation of the engine’s digital controls system. We finished testing at Stennis this summer and collected unprecedented amounts of data to help further de-risk the integration of the F130 engine onto the B-52.”

The next step in preparing the engine for production will be altitude testing at USAF’s Arnold Engineering Development Complex in Tullahoma, Tenn.—set to begin in February 2025.

Rolls will produce the F130 in a purpose-built facility in Indianapolis. It is the company’s largest facility in the U.S., and after pre-production testing, all follow-on testing will be conducted there. Rolls will build more than 600 engines for the B-52 program.

US Conducts Fresh Anti-ISIS Airstrikes in Syria in New ‘Permissible’ Airspace

Dec. 16, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military conducted a new round of airstrikes against militants from the Islamic State group in central Syria on Dec. 16, as the Pentagon is attempting to stop ISIS from gaining ground following the sudden collapse of the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

The U.S. conducted “precision airstrikes” against Islamic State camps and operatives in central Syria, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced. The command said 12 militants were killed, and it does not believe there were civilian casualties. CENTCOM added that a battle damage assessment is ongoing. Four locations in the Badiya desert were struck, the Pentagon said.

The U.S. military has been conducting a more vigorous air campaign against Islamic State militants in recent months, even before the Assad regime’s fall on Dec. 8.

“CENTCOM, working with allies and partners in the region, will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria,” CENTCOM commander Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla said in a statement.

Hours after the Assad regime fell Dec. 8, CENTCOM conducted a punishing series of airstrikes on five sites in central Syria, where the group is now concentrated, involving around 75 targets and approximately 140 precision munitions dropped from U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers, F-15 Strike Eagle fighters, and A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, in airspace that was formerly held by the regime and Russia, which supported Assad.

The airstrikes on Dec. 16 again went after the group in areas that were previously off-limits to U.S. aircraft, the command said in a news release.

“These recent strikes are in former regime and Russian-controlled areas, ensuring pressure is maintained on ISIS,” CENTCOM stated.

There is a lack of Russian and regime air defense systems and military flight operations in the area, which has enabled the recent airstrikes against ISIS, U.S. officials said.

The Navy’s USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and its embarked F/A-18 fighters arrived in the Middle East on Dec. 14, joining Air Force B-52s, F-15Es, F-16s, and A-10s in the region. The B-52s and a squadron of F-15Es will depart the region in the coming weeks following the arrival of Truman’s airpower, Air & Space Forces Magazine has learned. A spokesperson for CENTCOM declined to say which platforms conducted the Dec. 16 airstrikes.

On Dec. 14, the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (HSTCSG) consisting of the flagship USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75); Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 1 with nine embarked aviation squadrons; Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 28; the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, USS Gettysburg… pic.twitter.com/mtfsiBvCyh
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) December 15, 2024

A U.S.-led coalition and their local allies dismantled the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2019 as part of the ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve. The U.S. still has about 900 troops in eastern Syria who have been working with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that are battling the remnants of ISIS as it has sought to make a comeback.

U.S. officials have said the Assad regime and Russia conducted largely token operations against the Islamic State group in central Syria while in power. But with Assad gone from the country and Russia’s future military footprint in the country uncertain under a rebel-controlled government, that has allowed expanded U.S. air operations in certain areas.

“Broadly speaking, one of the big factors that has changed in Syria is the airspace in the sense that previously, you had Syrian regime and Russian air defenses which would preclude, in many cases, our ability to or desirability to go into those areas,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said. “It’s a much more permissible environment in that regard.”

Russia has begun withdrawing a large amount of military equipment and troops from Syria, U.S. officials said.

In northeastern Syria, the U.S. also wants to prevent the SDF-controlled Al Hol camp, which holds displaced people, and nearby detention centers, which hold thousands of Islamic State prisoners, from being overrun and fueling a resurgence of the group.

“Al Hol presents a significant security concern in the sense that were ISIS able to affect some type of breakout of any detention facility, that would be a significant setback and something that would be very concerning,” Ryder told reporters.

B-52s in Europe Head Home, Bombers in Middle East to Follow

Dec. 16, 2024 | By Greg Hadley and Chris Gordon

The BUFFs are starting to come home.

After more than a month of operations that saw 10 B-52s—nearly 15 percent of the entire fleet—operating across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, four have returned to the U.S., with the rest slated to follow in the coming weeks.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe announced Dec. 13 that four B-52s from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., have left RAF Fairford, U.K., where they deployed for a Bomber Task Force rotation in early November.

While based out of Fairford for the deployment, the Barksdale B-52s maintained a steady operations tempo that included:

A rare live-fire weapons drop in Lithuania during which they coordinated with Lithuanian, Czech, Swedish, and Norwegian joint terminal attack controllers

A simulated weapons drop training mission over Finland, integrating with Swedish and Finnish fighters along the way

A multidomain find, fix, track and target military exercise with Norway and the U.K. in the Arctic, along with fourth- and fifth-gen aircraft

A joint exercise with Morocco

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortresses assigned to the 2nd Bomb Wing lands at Royal Air Force Base Fairford, England, Nov. 8, 2024, in preparation for Bomber Task Force 25-1. A combat-ready force, with both extensive capabilities and wide-ranging capacity, is essential for effective deterrence and a swift, decisive response to any situation. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Mary Bowers)

“Working alongside our Allies and partners highlights the strength of collaboration. Every mission was a testament to the power of teamwork, shared expertise, and a unified commitment to security,” Capt. Aaron Gurley, bomber task force mission planner for USAFE, said in a release. “Together, we built solutions that no single nation could achieve alone, proving that our collective strength truly defines the success of every operation.”

There are still six B-52s deployed in the Middle East from Minot Air Force Base, N.D. They are now slated to return home in the coming weeks following the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman to U.S. Central Command on Dec. 14, Air & Space Forces Magazine has learned.

Additionally, a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagle fighters—one of two squadrons of Strike Eagles in the region—is scheduled to depart the Middle East now that the Truman and its embarked Carrier Air Wing 1, which includes multiple squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets, is in the area. The Pentagon temporarily deployed the additional U.S. Air Force airpower to make up for the departure of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier last month.

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress conducts a combat air patrol in support of Operation Inherent Resolve over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility Nov. 23, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder declined to say if the extra Air Force squadrons would depart after Truman’s arrival in the Middle East.

“We won’t announce departure activity or deployment activity in advance for multiple reasons,” Ryder said.

The B-52s in the Middle East have had an eventful deployment as well. One flew to Bahrain for display in the Bahrain International Airshow, its first-ever appearance at that event, and another bomber in the region integrated with British Royal Air Force fighters on Nov. 18.

Then, on Dec. 8, it flew alongside F-15Es and A-10s to conduct dozens of airstrikes against Islamic State leaders, fighters, and camps in central Syria—capitalizing on the sudden demise of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

The Pentagon announced more airstrikes against the group on Dec. 16, though they did not say what platforms conducted the strikes.

The 10 B-52 bombers deployed at one time marked one of the biggest movements of Stratofortresses in recent history. The Air Force has 76 B-52s in its inventory, so 10 deployed equals 13.2 percent of the fleet.

But of those 76, there are several constantly being cycled through depot maintenance, and several more are dedicated to testing weapons and upgrades like the bombers’ new engines and radar. On top of that, the fleet had a mission-capable rate of 54 percent in 2023, which measures the percentage of time an aircraft is able to perform at least one of its core missions.

Taken together, and the 10 B-52s deployed could have represented upwards of a quarter of the combat-ready fleet.

Space Force Plans Billions in Spending on Launch Infrastructure

Dec. 16, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

ORLANDO, Fla.—From wastewater treatment to maintenance services to a common operating picture software platform, the Space Force is working on hundreds of projects worth several billion dollars to upgrade its launch facilities.

In a keynote address here at the Spacepower Conference, director of the Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral and the program executive officer for assured access to space Brig. Gen. Kristin L. Panzenhagen noted that these efforts may not seem “super sexy” compared to programs for new rockets, satellites, and advanced technologies.

But with the number of launches projected to keep increasing in the years ahead and the nation’s main spaceports showing their age, the improvements are critical for the Space Force’s ability to project warfighting power into the domain, Panzenhagen said, citing the message from Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman earlier in the week.

The main thrust of the improvements started this year with what the service is calling its “spaceport of the future” program. Funded by Congress to the tune of $1.3 billion from fiscal 2024 to 2028, the Space Force is essentially one year into the effort and progressing well, Panzenhagen said.

“We’ve got 192 projects across the two coasts that are defined,” Panzenhagen said. “We’re one year in, and we are still on track. So for those of you that have worked infrastructure projects before, you know that is pretty amazing.”

The projects run the gamut, including:

Burying power lines at Cape Canaveral, which sees a steady stream of lightning strikes and hurricanes

Expanding roads to accommodate larger rockets being transported in greater quantities, which should also help reduce traffic on bases

Wastewater treatment facilities to handle the large amount of water used for deluge operations to protect the launch pad

Electrical and HVAC generators and systems that corrode faster in the humid, salty conditions along the coasts

Developing more land and relocating administrative facilities and warehouses so that they won’t be inside the “clear area” that people need to leave while rockets are fueled

“Maybe not as sexy as satellites on orbit, but extremely important for spaceport operations,” Panzenhagen said, quipping later that “I’ve learned way more about wastewater in the last year and a half than I thought I ever would.”

U.S. Space Force Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, Space Launch Delta 45 commander, and Assured Access to Space program executive officer, speaks during an all-call at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., Oct. 31, 2023. **U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Tiarra Sibley**

Indeed, the number of projects included in the program is only growing—back in May, Space Systems Command boss Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant said “Spaceport of the Future” would include approximately 130 projects, and today it stands at 192.

Increasing Capacity

Garrant said at the time that the “Spaceport of the Future” improvements were less about increasing the capacity of the ranges to handle more launches and more about fixing existing issues.

But there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that capacity will have to increase somehow. Panzenhagen noted that as of mid-December, Space Force ranges had hosted 136 launches in 2024, with a few more scheduled before 2025. That covers around 60 percent of all launches globally.

At that rate, the Space Force is reaching a “bottleneck” in its ability to buy spacecraft processing services, Panzenhagen said. Spacecraft processing involves testing subsystems, mating the payload to the rocket, and other pre-launch steps. Congress added $80 million in the fiscal 2024 budget for processing services on the Western Range at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., but another add for the Eastern Range would be helpful, the general said.

That’s because even more launches are expected in 2025 and the years after that, as providers mature their rockets and increase the commercial opportunities in space, said United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno.

Blue Origin has its New Glenn rocket on the pad right now at Cape Canaveral, hoping to get its first flight in before the end of the year. ULA is awaiting certification for its new Vulcan Centaur rocket to start performing National Security Space Launches. And several startups such as ABL Space Systems and Stoke Space are simultaneously developing rockets while redeveloping historic launch complexes at Cape Canaveral.

“It is way more volume than it’s ever been before, and … far and away, the majority of these launches are private businesses for commercial uses that will only grow,” Bruno said during a fireside chat at the conference.

Bruno, who said his company has poured more than $1 billion of its own money into infrastructure projects, said commercial firms need to do their part to mitigate the growing strain on Space Force facilities.

“We’ve got to make smart decisions,” Bruno said. “And what I mean by smart is, ultimately, customers pay for all that infrastructure sooner or later.”

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation-100 Starliner spacecraft prepares to roll out to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, May 4, 2024. **U.S. Space Force photo by Airman 1st Class Collin Wesson**

The service is already looking to industry for help through its Space Force Range Contract, a massive program worth up to $4 billion over 10 years that will provide support for engineering, operations, and maintenance and be a “key enabler” of the spaceport of the future initiative, according to solicitation documents.

Panzenhagen said her team is following the path set out by many other Space Force acquisition programs in going with an “Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity” contract, giving it more flexibility and the ability to allocate “task orders” to match what it is doing with “spaceport of the future.”

“Historically, the range infrastructure is large, it’s aging, kind of unwieldy, and it’s very unresponsive to development cycles, which really doesn’t let you harness new technology as they come in. So this SFRC acquisition strategy is a new model that allows us to transform to more efficient and high-capacity operation,” Panzenhagen said.

Contracts will likely be awarded “next quarter,” early in 2025, she added.

Digital Changes

In addition to supporting the “spaceport of the future” program, the Space Force Range Contract will also “play a critical role” in helping upgrade the digital side of the service’s launch facilities, according to solicitation documents.

The “digital spaceport of the future” initiative was launched in January by SpaceWERX, the Space Force’s innovation arm, with a focus on Small Business Innovation Research contracts. It was desperately needed, Panzenhagen said, because “a lot of things on the ranges … are not digital yet.”

The service has already started handing out contracts for the effort and is aiming at a major software application next.

“We currently don’t have a common operating picture at the spaceports. There’s no one place where your launch leadership can go to see the status of your infrastructure, your security posture, the status of the rockets, what’s happening with your logistics, your launch and operation schedules,” Panzenhagen said. “So we’re in the process right now of gathering all of those requirements. Then we’re going to define the architecture and start bringing in the applications, which, again, we need that digitization to be able to do that. So this won’t be completely solved in 2025, but it will be a much better understood problem in 2025.”

Back in October, startup Parry Labs announced it had received one of those SpaceWERX contracts to work on a modular, open-systems architecture for “a common operating environment for spaceports,” creating the baseline system on which applications can be built.

USAF Leaders See ‘Human-Machine Teams’—Not Robots—as Future of Airpower

Dec. 15, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.—The Air Force has a word of caution for those advocating for autonomous aircraft to supplant crewed fighters: It’s better to have a human in the loop.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin says the rise of autonomous systems is clear, but an Air Force made up of drones with minds of their own choosing targets is not in the best interests of the nation.

“My own belief is that the future is really in [creating] the most effective human-machine teaming,” Allvin said at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Dec. 7. “Warfare is always a human endeavor,” Allvin added. “The money to be made here in the future in innovation is developing capabilities that maximize the best-performing human and machine on the battle space.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX and Tesla and advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, has said for years that the age of manned combat aircraft is over, even stunning a ballroom crowded with air combat practitioners at AFA’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium. More recently, Musk made waves on X, the social media platform he owns, by suggesting the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet be scrapped in favor of autonomous platforms.

Musk is set to co-chair a presidential commission that will advise Trump on ways to slash federal spending. He and other Silicon Valley technology titans are vying for influence in the new administration.

Allvin’s remarks, made in response to a question about Musk’s comments, came at a gathering of defense industry executives, members of Congress, and the media. He suggested that an all-autonomous force would make warfare “too easy,” while he and others counter that the advances in remote-control warfare are significant but not yet reliable and adaptable enough to be counted on.

The subject of autonomous systems was also front and center earlier in that week when a small group of reporters descended on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for a peek at what the Air Force sees as the future of war.

“There may be some day we can completely rely on robotized warfare,” Brig. Gen. Douglas P. Wickert, the commander of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards, said on Dec. 5. But such a concept could be years, decades, or even “centuries away.” Predictions that self-driving cars would be ready by now have proved overblown, and Tesla and others have struggled to get the technology far enough along to be commercially viable.

The dynamic environment of air combat is much more complex. Speed, aerial dynamics, opposition forces, and weapons ramp up the technical challenges. The Air Force is eager to adopt Collaborative Combat Aircraft, uncrewed jets that can be directed, if not completely controlled, by pilots operating F-35s or other combat jets.

The Air Force deferred a decision on its crewed Next Generation Air Dominance penetrating combat aircraft, leaving that call to the incoming Trump administration. That decision will have major cost implications far beyond this one program. For now, CCA are to be controlled by platforms such as the F-35.

“We’re all about advancing the system,” Lt. Col. Philip Jackson, a senior Air Force test pilot at Edwards who commands the 461st Flight Test Squadron of F-35s, said, referring to future combat aircraft. “The more autonomy I can give you in the aircraft, it doesn’t change your job. It just might change your location, but you’re still going to be somewhere in the chain. Just like the same reason we have pilots flying airliners. I need a human to be responsible, ultimately, when life and death is on the line, right?”

There is a refrain among high-tech enthusiasts that “AI is coming for you,” noted Jackson, who echoed Allvin’s theme about man-machine teaming. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, eventually.’ There are so many hurdles to get through.”

“What I’m excited about, honestly: take this aircraft and put a fleet of CCA that are capable of flying with it, executing missions off of it,” Jackson continued from under the shade of one of the F-35s he flies. “That’s a pretty amazing capability as well.”

Space Forces Aims for Bigger Exercises, More Realistic Training

Dec. 15, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

ORLANDO, Fla.—Guardians launched the the biggest exercise in Space Force history last week in Colorado even as Space Force leaders gathered here for the second annual Spacepower Conference.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna, said he was “blown away” by the start of Space Flag 25-1: “56 squadrons, 11 Deltas, 85 operational planners, 31 tactical planners, 111 ops crew members, 373 participants, all focused on the domain and the fight and integration and lessons learned,” Bentivegna said. “That’s exactly the environment our Guardians deserve.”

Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Sejba, commander of Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) has invested considerable time and money to develop that kind of high-level training environment.

“[It’s] certainly much differently than what we’ve been able to do in the past,” Sejba told reporters. “The environment that we’ve created, a digital environment where we’re able to bring units of action together—that level of training and exercising in the past would not have been to that scale,” he said.
“We’re bringing together a much larger presence from the service.”

The 370 or so participants represent about around 2.6 percent of the Space Force’s personnel, both military and civilian. A proportionate share of the Air Force would draw some 12,800 participants—or more than six times as many as took part in the latest Red Flag in July.

Large-scale exercises are part of a broader Department of the Air Force-wide emphasis on bigger exercises. Both the DAF and USSF want to challenge troops with more realistic, high-end training against challenging threats working as part of a bigger team, Sejba said.

“The CSO has also been very clear that training, and specifically training for [the Space Force Force Generation Model] SPAFORGEN. And readiness is really a top priority for him,” Sejba told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an exclusive interview.

Actually preparing the venues and opportunities for that training, however, is no small task. Saltzman has repeated over and over that he wants to improve the Space Force’s test and training infrastructure.

Sejba said improvements are needed because the risks in space have changed. “We’ve typically used what we call the standard space trainer,” Sejba said. “The SST … gave Guardians the ability to be able to practice their positions and do their day-to-day functions, but it didn’t necessarily bring a representative red threat into that environment.”

STARCOM officials have worked on developing Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) to provide digital, cyber, and live training ranges that enable Guardians to be connected no matter where they are and to train together seamlessly. But OTTI has been more challenging to execute than first imagined, Sejba said.

“When we look at … the training infrastructure that we use today within the Air Force, a lot of that took decades to build,” he said. “We don’t have decades” now to develop the needed Space ranges. “We’re really trying to focus on what we think are the most important capabilities that are coming online,” he said, “and then making sure that we have range capabilities or training environments to be able to exercise and train to those most important things.”

Digital Ranges

To go fast and make good use of money already spent, STARCOM once more turned to Space Flag.

“We realized we’ve already invested an awful lot in a digital environment that we use for Space Flag,” Sejba said. “So if we could take that environment and now start to expand it, not only will it support Space Flag like it does today, it’s going to routinely be able to provide advanced training, both for each crew, but also as we do similar type exercises where we bring crews together in order to practice and execute some of these key mission threats.”

STARCOM has also begun adding simulated threats to existing SSTs and plugging those trainers into the Space Flag environment. More short-term improvements are coming, Sejba said. These include moving the Space Flag environment into the cloud, which will support distributed training at many locations.

Next up will be High-End Advanced Training, Tactics, and Testing (HEAT3), which will include a high-fidelity simulated environment to realistically replicate operations and threats. Sejba said no decisions have been made, but STARCOM is looking at the the joint simulation environment, a Navy-Air Force project that is gaining adherents in the Air Force. “We haven’t made a decision,” he said, citing JSE. “High-end testing leads to high end-training,” he said. “That could be an example of where we go in the future for some of that high-end test and training.”

Live Ranges

While simulators and digital ranges are important, STARCOM is still interested in establishing a live range on orbit where Guardians can practice flying actual satellites. That’s a more difficult proposition given the nature of the domain; airspace and land bases can be cordoned off, but orbital dynamics take place in the open. Still, Sejba said it’s possible.

“We’re really taking a look at what types of things that we’re going to want to be able to test on orbit,” he said. “And we’re making the right investments, especially from, how do we control that space, make sure things are safe, just like you would at any test range.”

Commercial space companies could help on that front, he added, by providing sensors for space domain awareness of the live range or satellites and personnel to act as “aggressors” just like the Air Force hires contractors to provide “Red Air” during exercises.

New Jersey F-16 Gets ‘Jersey Jerk’ Tail Flash Honoring WWII Ace

Dec. 13, 2024 | By David Roza

An F-16 assigned to the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Squadron returned to its home base in Atlantic City on Dec. 5 with a splash of color dedicated to a World War II fighter ace.

Thanks to the 576th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s paint shop at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, tail number 86-309 now has an orange vertical stabilizer with the words “Jersey Jerk” scrawled across the bottom.

The name honors Maj. Gen. Donald Strait, an East Orange, N.J., native who flew P-47 and P-51 fighters, which were frequently painted with nicknames such as “Big Ass Bird” or “The Hun Hunter.”

When Strait arrived at his base in the U.K. in 1943, he wanted to name his P-47 “Jersey Bounce,” in honor of his home state. But his crew chief, Doc Watson, who Strait described in a 2008 interview as “a real tough kid, a leather worker from Boston … he always had a beard,” pushed back on that idea.

“Jersey Bounce,” was already taken by an aircraft in another squadron, Watson said—it was the name of a hit swing song, and by the end of the war the nickname was bestowed to at least four B-17 bombers, a B-24, three P-51s, and a C-47 cargo plane. One pilot named a P-51 “Jersey Bounce III” after the first two were destroyed or retired.

“So I said, ‘well, let’s give it some thought,’” Strait recalled. After five missions with an unnamed plane, Watson and the rest of the maintainers came up with something unique: Jersey Jerk.

“I said, ‘For Christ’s sakes, Watson, I’m not a jerk,’” Strait recalled. “He said, ‘Sir, let me tell you why we want to name it that. Any guy that would take off in a single engine airplane, cross the North Sea in the wintertime, and take a chance of getting his ass shot off by the Luftwaffe or by anti-aircraft fire has got to be a jerk.’”

While today a “jerk” means a cruel or obnoxious person, back then a “jerk” was more of a fool or a pathetic person, as The Ringer noted in 2023.

Either way, Strait liked it, and “Jersey Jerk” carried him through 122 combat sorties, where he shot down 13.5 enemy aircraft (half-credits are awarded when more than one pilot shares a shoot-down), though some of those victories took place while he flew a P-51 of the same name.

Major Donald Strait with P-51D “Jersey Jerk” in Europe, 1945.

Strait was the highest-scoring pilot in the 356th Fighter Group, rose from second lieutenant to major in a little over a year and a half, and commanded the 361st Fighter Squadron. But his career was just getting started. After the war, Strait joined the New Jersey Air National Guard, a homecoming since he had started his military service as an enlisted man in 1940, back when the unit flew O-46 and O-47 observation planes.

Strait commanded the 119th Fighter Squadron, then its parent unit at the time, the 108th Tactical Fighter Wing, and eventually the entire New Jersey Air National Guard, where he had tremendous influence. According to the 2008 interview, Strait led the construction of the current base at Atlantic City, kept the 119th flying fighters rather than switch to tankers as many other Air National Guard units did, and at one point held down a Pentagon job while also commanding the 108th.

“Now let me tell you that was a lot of responsibility,” he said. “Here I am serving in the Pentagon, Friday night I’m hopping in an [F]-86 and flying to McGuire and sleeping there over the weekend. My family didn’t have me. We had three children then. So that was a big chore.”

Strait’s long list of awards and decorations include the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, and the Distinguished Flying Cross with two Oak Leaf Clusters. The Air Force changed a great deal by the time he retired in 1978 as a major general, Chief Master Sgt. David Anderson wrote in the introduction of his 2008 interview of the fighter ace.

“His first unit flew an airplane with fixed landing gear, one whose enclosed cockpit was something of an innovation; his last command flew a supersonic fighter heavier than the bombers he had escorted as a fighter pilot twenty years before,” Anderson wrote. “His career would be impossible to replicate now, on educational, technological, operational, and even legal grounds.”

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael “Miles” Long, 119th Fighter Squadron commander, 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard, poses for a photograph in front of an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet with a ‘Jersey Jerk’ tail decal, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, June 6, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Connor Taggart)

Lt. Col. Michael Long, who commands the 119th Fighter Squadron today, described Strait in a Dec. 8 press release as “a legend of the Jersey Guard. I would even say the Air Force as well.”

Strait passed away in 2015, but his legacy continues: commanders of the 119th fly with the callsign “Jerk 01.” A photo dated June 6, 2024, shows Long with the same F-16 and “Jersey Jerk” written in blue across the bottom of the tail. The new tail flash is a step up, and its orange color and radial pattern refer to the rising sun on the squadron’s emblem.

“I really believe that much of our unit’s greatness is built on Strait’s back and the work he did before us,” Long said in the release. “To have our new 119th Fighter Squadron flagship carry the name ‘Jersey Jerk’ is an absolute honor and will serve as a constant reminder of just how great this fighter squadron is.”

f-16 jersey jerk — Service members assigned to the 119th Fighter Squadron of the New Jersey Air National Guard pose for a photo in front of an F-16C Fighting Falcon fighter jet at the 177th Fighter Wing, Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, Dec. 5, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Darion Boyd)

DOD Officials See Progress in Tackling Weapons Cybersecurity but a Long Way to Go

Dec. 13, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

The Pentagon’s cyber and IT professionals have made progress raising awareness among senior military leaders about cyber threats to weapons systems and other critical technology, but there are still some who don’t take it seriously enough, DOD Chief Information Security Officer David McKeown told an audience of Air Force contractors Dec. 13.

“There have been two occasions over the last several [budget and planning] cycles where my boss, the [Chief Information Officer], has sent a warning to a service secretary that he may not certify your budget because you are not adequately addressing this [cybersecurity] requirement that we’ve asked,” he said.

Those requirements are laid out in a five-year plan produced and annually updated by the CIO’s office known as Capability Planning Guidance, McKeown explained during a panel discussion at the AFCEA Northern Virginia Air Force IT Day.

“That’s where we outline what services and agencies are supposed to do [in terms of cybersecurity], and that means: Put your money where your mouth is. You have to fund things that are going to solve the problem we’re telling you about,” he said.

The CIO—currently Leslie A. Beavers on an acting basis—has to sign off on service budgets to certify that they are dealing with the issues identified in the guidance.

McKeown said the CIO’s warnings about noncertification are “a pretty big deal, and it gets [service leaders’] attention, and they quickly rectify that.”

But often, he said, that rectification might mean other, less critical cyber measures will not get funding.

DOD Senior Information Security Officer David McKeown holds an off-camera, on-the-record virtual press briefing at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Nov. 22, 2022. DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders

“We know that even inside the services, we’re often robbing Peter to pay Paul, so when we tell them to do something like that, something else is probably going to fall off the plate,” he said.

At the program level, McKeown said, there are still officials who didn’t see cyber requirements as critical.

“I think there’s an increased awareness. A lot of the top leadership is getting it,” he said. “In certain programs, it still gets ignored. I’ve heard acquisition professionals tell me that ‘We know about these cyber vulnerabilities, and they’re critical. They can take down the weapon system, but there are a lot of other operational requirements that we have to pay for this year in this particular weapon system. So therefore the cybersecurity stuff didn’t meet the cut line.’”

Panel moderator and AFCEA committee member Greg Garcia, a former senior official who held civilian cyber and IT leadership positions in the Army and the Air Force, recalled that, during the years before he retired in 2021, many commanders would basically ignore online threats. “Every time there would be a cyber threat [warning], I remember operational mission impact statements that would override every single cyber threat [measure], because the operational commander would say, ‘I accept the risk’ without any clue of what they’re actually accepting,” he said.

These days, added Air Force Brig. Gen. Heather Blackwell, deputy commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, or JFHQ-DODIN, more commanders understand the need to think of their networks like a battlespace: terrain they need to control to fight.

JFHQ-DODIN is responsible for maintaining and protecting the Pentagon’s global IT networks, but it is the operational commanders who have to do that protection on the ground, she said.

“I can’t do command and control for 3.2 million endpoints” from her 450-strong team, she said. Commanders have to be accountable.

“Do I have a single commander that I can go to, to say ‘You have not done your cyber [measures] tasked to you. You might have a compromise. You might be compromising this mission … Making sure that somebody owns that terrain is one of the biggest pieces,” she said.

In general, although there is much greater understanding now of the threats, much work remains to turn that knowledge into operational measures, added panelist Nick Freije, the assistant chief engineer for mission architecture at the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command.

Currently many threat analyses are conducted without a real appreciation of the risks that enemy hackers could present, Freije said. “A lot of times, we’ll do a threat analysis and it’s like ‘Yes [given a] perfect, sunny day uncontested, sure, I can do everything. I can do my mission in this perfect world.’ No, we have to start bringing in reality to this. … And then also start hearing, ‘Wow, that’s not going to quite work. Maybe we won’t be able to get that information or that material solution to where you’re going to need them.’”

Tabletop exercises and cyber red-teaming or penetration testing are also key ways to raise awareness, said McKeown.

“The tabletops are a good start,” he said, “The red-teaming is a much better start. I wish that weapon system platforms and critical infrastructure platforms constantly were red-teaming their own things and then fixing those things.”

So-called “purple-teaming,” where red teams identify vulnerabilities and then blue teams fix them, is the ideal way to proceed, McKeown said. “We need more of that as we go forward.”

The bottom line, he said, is that in a shooting war, the military could find itself suddenly bereft of crucial capabilities if it hadn’t cyber-secured them in advance.

“Our weapon systems, our critical infrastructure, are definitely at risk, and they may not be there at the critical time that we need them if we don’t address these cyber vulnerabilities,” he said.