Some B-1s and Crews Move From Ellsworth to Dyess to Train While Wreck is Cleared

Jan. 26, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

A number of B-1 bombers from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., and some 250 personnel have moved to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, the other Lancer base, to continue training and operations while the wreck of a B-1 that crashed Jan. 4 is investigated, Air Force officials said.

The number of aircraft moved is being withheld as an operational security matter, although an Ellsworth press release referred to “several” jets taking off from the base.

While at Dyess, where they are expected to remain for at least several weeks, Ellsworth aircrews will fly the bombers and Ellsworth ground crews will sustain them.

Dyess was not immediately able to say whether the visiting personnel are being put up in base housing or whether they are simulating a deployment to an austere location and setting up a tent city.

The Ellsworth runway has been closed since the accident, when a B-1 landed short of the overrun, continued onto the runway centerline, then veered off into the grass on the airfield. The four crewmembers ejected safely from the jet and were released from medical care after receiving treatment for minor injuries.

The Air Force has not yet said whether the jet will be written off or is repairable. Images of the wreck suggest the bomber was severely damaged. An accident investigation team has been assembled, but such probes can take months or even years to be completed.

An Ellsworth spokesperson said dispatching the bombers to Dyess indicates that the 28th Bomb Wing is ready for action despite the accident and subsequent closure of the runway. However, the runway was re-closed “until further notice,” after the bombers departed, he said.

The wreck remains just off the runway, he said, as the investigation continues. The base could not provide a timetable about when the bomber will be moved or dismantled.

“Base officials worked closely with the aircraft accident investigating team to inspect the airfield, ensured it was safe and then generated bombers for training missions that concluded with the aircraft landing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas,” the spokesperson said. In the aftermath of such an accident, the airfield must be closely searched to ensure that no pieces of the wreck, which may have flown off during the crash, could be ingested into aircraft intakes. Parts as small as bolts, screws or scraps of sheet metal could ravage an aircraft engine and cause another accident.

Col. Seth Spanier, commander of the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess, and former deputy commander at Ellsworth, said the deployment will allow B-1 crews to operate together and share knowledge, which will enhance readiness.

After Congress permitted the Air Force to divest 17 of its 62 B-1Bs two years ago, Global Strike Command has operated 45 B-1s at the two bases. Assuming the crashed aircraft is not returned to service, the Air Force will be down to 44 B-1s out of an original fleet of 100.

Since its introduction in the 1980s, the B-1 inventory has been reduced due to the expense of maintaining the swing-wing bombers. In the waning years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the B-1 was heavily tasked in combat, due to its high speed—to respond to troops in contact—as well as its large payload and the varied mix of weapons it could carry. Flying loitering patterns above the battlefield, though, the jets’ swing-wing pivot points were over-stressed, leading the Air Force to request reducing the fleet size. The service said at the time that it would cost upwards of $30 million per jet to restore the bombers to a condition that would allow them to achieve a normal mission capable rate.

With 17 recently-operational B-1s stored at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. “Boneyard,” it may be possible to return a retired B-1 to operational duty, but the Air Force has not said whether it is considering such a move.

The Air Force continues to conduct structural fatigue tests on a B-1 carcass and wing, bending and stressing them with bars and pulleys to simulate years of flying, in order to anticipate the kinds of material failures the fleet is likely to encounter in the future. The goal is to simulate two full lifetimes of B-1 operations. The tests are occasionally suspended to install strengtheners and other modifications being applied to the active fleet, in order to keep the test articles comparable to those in the field.

The B-1 is slated to be replaced by the B-21 Raider sometime this decade, and Ellsworth already has numerous military construction projects underway to be ready to receive the new stealth jets. Ellsworth will be the first operational B-21 base.

AFSOC Flies 3 Reapers With One Crew In Shift Towards Near-Peer Conflict

Jan. 26, 2024 | By David Roza

A single crew controlled three MQ-9 drones in a major step forward for Air Force Special Operations Command’s preparations to fly Reapers in a possible near-peer conflict. On Dec. 6, a standard crew of a pilot and sensor operator with the 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., flew three Reapers for about 30 minutes.

Six days later, the 27th SOW demonstrated another new capability by air-launching two smaller drones from an MQ-9 and controlling them with an additional crew member, a key benchmark for AFSOC’s goal to eventually use the Reaper as a “capital ship” from which smaller drones can establish a sensor grid or a communications pathway for other troops.

“Demonstrations at this level are not easy,” Maj. Lindsay Scott, chief of Autonomous Capabilities Development at AFSOC, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “This was the first time putting this system in the hands of the operators and we were able to accomplish many of our objectives.”

afsoc reapers — Technicians perform pre-flight checks on a dual launch pod for launching small UASs attached to an MQ-9 Reaper before an Airborne Adaptive Enterprise (A2E) demonstration at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., Nov. 28, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Nicholas Swift)

The flights last month were part of a larger AFSOC plan to ready its fleet of MQ-9s, which for the past several decades were used primarily for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike operations in theaters with relatively few threats to aircraft or communications. That could change as the Air Force prepares for possible conflicts against more technologically advanced adversaries such as China.

AFSOC’s plan is called Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E), where MQ-9s would become mobile control centers for a network of small drones or other systems which could form an “expansive sensing grid” to find targets or create a communications pathway “for our special operations forces that will be in the deep battlespace,” AFSOC boss Lt. Gen. Tony D. Bauernfeind told reporters in September.

AFSOC wants its crews to be able to fly multiple MQ-9s and other uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) with less equipment and more flexibility, which would allow them to perform more missions in more contested environments than ever before. Future AFSOC MQ-9 crews may be able to launch multiple small UASs that can serve as standoff sensor systems, loitering munitions, or data transport nodes for mesh communication networks, a 27th SOW press release explained.

“Adaptive Airborne Enterprise is vital to thickening the Joint Force kill web throughout the spectrum of conflict and continues to be a top AFSOC acquisition priority,” a Cannon Air Force Base spokesperson said.

There are five phases to A2E:

Phase One: AFSOC transitions from the older ground control stations for piloting MQ-9s to a lighter, more modern system that allows crews to operate different kinds of aircraft “from the back of an AC-130, home station, or even urban environments,” the press release explained.

Phase Two: Single crews fly multiple MQ-9s rather than the historical standard of one aircraft per crew. “We’re moving towards a crew or a single operator controlling multiple aircraft,” said Maj. Joshua Radford, director of the RPA Operations Center at the 56th Special Ops Intel Squadron. “And it doesn’t necessarily need to be the same platform.”

Phase Three: Single crews control several types of UASs, from small systems such as the RQ-11B Raven to the larger strategic assets such as the Reaper.

Phase Four: Single crews control formations of UASs out of mobile or austere locations, which would pave the way for the final phase.

Phase Five: Create “new effects-based ISR units,” the press release explained. “These units could be comprised of UASs, forward deployed ground forces, cyber operators, and space operators that can collaboratively employ UAS capabilities in permissive, contested, or denied environments.”

MQ-9 Reaper in flight — An MQ-9 Reaper flies a training mission over the Nevada Test and Training Range, July 15, 2019. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class William Rio Rosado)

The first three phases are already underway. During the tests in December, the MQ-9 crew used a new common control interface called the AFSOC RPA Control Suite (ARCS), which allowed a single crew to control multiple platforms. They also showed they could attach, air-launch, and control several small UASs from an MQ-9. In this case, the smaller drones were two Altius-600s, a modular aircraft that can serve as an ISR platform, a communications relay, or a loitering munition, in addition to a long list of other roles.

During the demonstration of three MQ-9s, the aircraft were launched and landed using the typical MQ-9 ground control stations, Scott explained. In between, the aircrew handed off control to an ARCS system, which was used to fly the three Reapers for about 30 minutes.

“The objectives for the demonstration were to perform a handover from a GCS to ARCS and to conduct basic aircraft and payload control to mimic a typical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission,” she said. “After gaining each aircraft, the aircrew performed basic maneuvering by moving the aircraft loiters and performed a climb and descent.”

AFSOC is not the only organization experimenting with new ways to fly the Reaper. In July, student operators at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. launched, flew, and landed two MQ-9s at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.M. solely via satellite connections. Usually Reapers are flown by operators in faraway ground control stations but launched and recovered by Airmen closer to the runway, but an autopilot function known as the Automatic Takeoff and Landing capability allows one crew to perform the entire operation, which cuts down on the footprint required for MQ-9 operations.

“There’s this monumental change in mindset, that I don’t need to pack all this stuff up and go,” Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, then-commander of the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron, said in 2022. “I can go places just with a very small piece of maintenance equipment and less amount of people.”

AFSOC also wants to make operating unmanned systems less manpower-intensive.

“Our ISR infrastructure, specifically our MQ-9 architecture, has really been the same architecture that we have seen since the 1990s,” Bauernfeind told reporters in September. “It takes over 150 personnel or Airmen to maintain a single MQ-9 orbit. That doesn’t seem too unmanned to me.”

Airmen assigned to the 27th Special Operations Wing remotely piloted aircraft community prepare a Small Unmanned Aerial System for takeoff during an Adaptive Airborne Enterprise Exercise Talon Spear at Melrose Air Force Range, N.M. June 21, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo Senior Airman Alexcia Givens)

Still, it could be a long road getting to more efficient, more capable operations.

“A2E is a complex system and requires extensive planning, organization, resources, engineering, and networking to test out new capabilities and integrate different components to work together,” Scott said. “The key takeaway was the importance of the integrated team of military, civilians, contractors, and industry partners to identify challenges, work solutions and better inform requirements for the future of the system.”

Upcoming demonstrations this summer will “improve control of multiple aircraft and payloads from one station,” she added. “The goal is to provide multiple platform and payload control through ARCS, incorporate autonomous behaviors and transfer control to a ground party.”

Farther out, artificial intelligence could help AFSOC crews fly a wide range of drones over a large area in unfriendly skies.

“Can we establish a network that goes 5 miles, 50 miles, 500 miles?” Bauernfeind said. “I don’t know, we have to work the physics and the tactics, techniques, and procedures to find out how far we can push these networks out that will then give us that grid that we need to support the joint force.”

Northrop Grumman Eats $1.56 Billion Loss On First B-21 Bomber Lots

Jan. 25, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Northrop Grumman announced a $1.56 billion pre-tax charge against its B-21 program, spread across the first five production lots of the new stealth bomber, the company announced during an earnings call Jan. 25. Company officials blamed inflation and supply chain problems for the loss, but said it might mitigate it over time with production line efficiencies.

After a review in the fourth quarter, “we now believe it is probable each of the first five LRIP (Low Rate Initial Production) lots will be performed at a loss,” Kathy Warden, Northrop’s president, chairman, and CEO said in a results call with reporters.

Though “disappointed” by the charge, Warden said she’s confident the B-21 will deliver what the Air Force requires of it.

“The charge is largely driven by a change in our assumptions” regarding inflation “and higher projected manufacturing costs,” based on information from suppliers and experience in competing the first aircraft, which rolled out in December 2022 and flew in November 2023.

Dave Keffer, corporate vice president and chief financial officer, said that with completion and first flight of the first B-21, “we have a lot more information than we did this time last year” about actual costs.

The “after-tax cash impact” of the loss will be spread over several years, Warden said. That amount is about $1.19 billion.

Warden also acknowledged that Northrop received the LRIP contract after the first flight; an action the Pentagon acknowledged last week. It also said the B-21 has flown more than once at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., but is withholding developmental progress details due to operational security.

While the Pentagon provided $60 million of assistance in 2023 to help with higher-than-expected inflation, Warden noted, the company is not counting on any further such assistance, although discussions continue. The charge was therefore larger than Warden had been hinting at in previous earnings calls throughout 2023.

Keffer said the effect will be “an average of a couple of hundred million dollars a year of after-tax impact” on the B-21 program over about five years, after a higher amount in the earlier part of that period. The 2023 effect was a $143 million loss on B-21.

Offsets will be sought, he said.

It is a “core focus of our team to continue to drive efficiencies in the learning curves, [and in] successful outcomes of our negotiations with suppliers,” he said. “We continue to engage and partner with our customer to understand the macro-economic impacts on the program and address opportunities for funding relief, so we’ll continue to address all of those opportunities.”

The Air Force has not disclosed how many B-21s are included in the five LRIP lots, although the Congressional Research Service used 21 aircraft across those five lots as the notional figure for their assessment of the program in 2021.

The Air Force uses 2010 as the base year for calculating B-21 costs. The unit cost of one of the bombers was contractually set at $550 million in the original 2015 contract, which means that in current dollars, each B-21 must come in under $778 million. Northrop’s announcement indicates that if the five fixed-price lots comprise 21 aircraft, each one will cost $75 million more than predicted; a cost that Northrop must bear.

Warden also reiterated comments she made in previous quarterly calls that the company is being more careful in bidding fixed-price contracts, and may not bid on future programs if the “risk-reward calculation” isn’t compelling. The same sentiment was voiced on quarterly calls this week with Lockheed Martin and RTX, although Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said government is also clearly pushing fewer fixed-price programs.

The B-21 will eventually make money, Warden said.

“This is a game-changing capability that will be of great value to our nation. And we are focused on executing the program in a way that also delivers value to our shareholders over the coming decades,” she said.

The Air Force continues to say the B-21 program is aimed at producing “at least 100” aircraft, with the first usable asset available in “the mid-2020s.” But various think tanks, including the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies—and former heads of Global Strike Command—have called for as many as 150-225 B-21s to maintain the pace of operations necessary to successfully conduct a war with a near-peer adversary like China.

Northrop is also the prime for the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM program, which was reported by the Pentagon to Congress last week as having incurred a 37 percent cost increase and a two-year schedule delay. Warden echoed Air Force comments that the missile itself is developing well, but that the cost increases are largely due to higher costs for the military construction and communications infrastructure elements of the program, on which the Air Force takes more of the lead. Warden said Northrop will work with the Air Force to reduce Sentinel costs.

USAF General Facing Court-Martial Asks to Retire Instead. So Now What?

Jan. 25, 2024 | By David Roza

Facing court-martial on charges including sexual assault, conduct unbecoming an officer, and controlling an aircraft within 12 hours of consuming alcohol, Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart has filed a request to retire instead, giving both sides a chance to rethink the prosecution.

Stewart was relieved as the head of Air Force pilot training by Robinson on May 9, and his court-martial is scheduled for June 17 at Joint Base San Antonio-Randoph, Texas. If convicted on all charges, Stewart could face 60 years in prison, Addicott said.

But first Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, the head of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), must decide whether or not to endorse the request and Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, who has the power to approve or deny the request, must make his decision.

“We’re waiting on the Secretary of the Air Force to give us a thumbs-up or thumbs-down,” Jeffrey Addicott, a member of Stewart’s defense team, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Retired Col. Don Christensen, a former chief prosecutor of the Air Force and not involved in the case, observed that the sooner a decision is made, the better.

“You would hope that if they are going to approve it, that they would do it expeditiously so a lot of resources are not allocated to get this trial going,” he said.

Trying a general officer at court-martial is an expensive affair, requiring jurors and extensive preparation. If the request dangles until the day before the trial starts, Christensen said, “they would have probably flown in a lot of general officers to be potential court members, and flown in witnesses, counsel, judges.”

He added: “Justice should be served timely. It doesn’t get better with age.”

Still, such a decision must go through several layers of review, at AETC, the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and ultimately Kendall’s office. The input of the alleged victim should also be considered.

“They should be looking at the best interests of justice: the strengths and weaknesses of the case, whether it is consistent with other cases,” Christensen said. “I’m certain there will be some political influence. … How is this going to play with the media? How is this going to play with Congress?”

Stewart’s request to retire comes about three months after his Article 32 preliminary hearing, held Oct. 24 at Randolph. Such hearings are similar to a civilian grand jury evidentiary proceeding, and held to determine if there is enough cause to continue to court-martial.

Col. Brian Thompson presided over the Article 32 hearing, recommending that the Air Force drop the sexual assault charges and then resolve the remaining charges administratively, Addicott said. But Robinson overruled him, referring all charges to a court-martial in December.

Addicott accused the Air Force of unfairly targeting his client. “They’re railroading him to a court-martial,” he said. “Therefore, what type of due process can you expect at a trial? It’s looking more and more like a kangaroo court.”

Such stances are normal in the pretrial gamesmanship that often surrounds such cases. Christensen said Stewart’s request to retire could suggest the defense does not believe it can beat the other charges, and that even if they do beat the sexual assault, a federal conviction and punishment could still mar his record.

Addicott was confident in the defense, and he countered that the other charges are not worthy of a court-martial proceeding.

“The other charges, if they’re true, which we denied, would be handled with a letter of reprimand, an administrative admonishment, maybe relieved from command,” he said. “This is not stuff that should go to a court-martial.” He said Stewart will plead not guilty if the case proceeds.

Stewart would then have to decide whether to ask for a trial by judge alone or by a panel (the military equivalent of a jury) of his peers. For a two-star general like Stewart, panel members would have to be at least two-star generals or senior.

But if Stewart’s request to retire is granted, Kendall would have to convene a board to determine at what grade Stewart should retire. For Stewart, who has 33 years of service, the difference between retiring as a two-star or dropping a grade and retiring as a one-star would amount to a loss of more than $25,000 a year in retired pay for the rest of his life. Dropping two grades would be a lost of $41,000 annually. Over a 20-year lifespan, and adjusting for inflation, that would approach $1 million.

Years ago, retirement-eligible general officers would often seek to retire instead of face the shame of a court-martial. In the past two decades, two general officers, Maj. Gen. Thomas Fiscus and Brig Gen. Richard Hassan, were demoted to colonel in 2005 and 2006, respectively, as punishment for engaging in unprofessional relationships with subordinates. Neither faced court-martial. Indeed, not until April 2022 did any Air Force general officer endure a court-martial. Maj. Gen. William Cooley, former head of the Air Force Research Laboratory, was tried and convicted of abusive sexual contact for forcibly kissing his sister-in-law in 2018.

If Stewart’s case goes to trial, he would be the second Air Force general officer court-martialed in just two years.

Times have changed. In the past, Christensen said, “You would often see, particularly general officers, get slapped on the wrist and then retire quietly. This one can’t be retired quietly because there is a lot of media interest in it.”

Stewart’s charges include six specifications:

Two specifications of violating Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, failing to obey a lawful order or regulation, first for allegedly failing “to refrain from pursuing an unprofessional relationship” and second for allegedly controlling an aircraft within 12 hours after consuming alcohol. The first specification allegedly dates to March 6 and May 9, while the second allegedly dates to on or about April 14 at or near Altus Air Force Base, Okla.

Two specifications of violating Article 120 of the UCMJ, which covers rape and sexual assault, for alleged nonconsensual sexual contact, dated on or about April 13 and 14 at Altus.

One specification of violating Article 133 of the UCMJ, conduct unbecoming an officer, at or near Denver, Colo., on or about March 6 and March 8, where it alleges that Stewart, “while on official travel, wrongfully invite [redacted] to spend the night alone with him in his private hotel room[.]”

And one specification of violating UCMJ Article 134, which refers to “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces,” for allegedly engaging “in extramarital conduct” on or about April 13 and 14 at or near Altus.

The 5 Firms Selected to Build the Air Force’s Fleet of Autonomous CCA

Jan. 25, 2024 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak

The Air Force awarded contracts to five companies to design and build Collaborative Combat Aircraft that can fly autonomously alongside manned platforms, a spokesperson confirmed. They are:

Boeing

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Anduril

General Atomics

Acting Air Force Undersecretary Krysten E. Jones had disclosed Jan. 24 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that five companies had been selected, but did not specify the winners.

Details about the contracts remain under wraps. The spokesperson said only that the companies are “under contract to continue rapid development for production for CCA.”

Anduril released a statement Jan. 25 confirming its selection, and spokespeople for Northrop Grumman and Boeing confirmed their selections to Air & Space Forces Magazine. General Atomics and Lockheed Martin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“We commend Secretary Kendall and the U.S. Air Force for their leadership and commitment to integrating new technologies into the force,” Anduril’s release stated. “Anduril was founded to transform U.S. and allied defense capabilities with software and hardware, combining technology including artificial intelligence and computer vision with a rapid approach to autonomous hardware development and manufacturing for defense platforms. We are honored to be the only non-traditional defense company selected to be a part of the CCA program.”

The Boeing spokesperson said the company is “honored to participate in the program and confident in our ability to provide the U.S. Air Force a capable, versatile, and affordable Collaborative Combat Aircraft fleet that can be produced efficiently and delivered at scale.”

Northrop is “working closely with the U.S. Air Force … using our extensive expertise in advanced manufacturing, digital technologies and autonomous systems to deliver Collaborative Combat Aircraft capabilities rapidly and affordably,” their spokesperson said.

The Air Force envisions CCA as an uncrewed, relatively low-observable aircraft that can escort or coordinate with crewed aircraft, performing missions such as electronic warfare, suppression of air defenses, communications, or as a flying extra magazine of weapons. Adding these aircraft could provide additional critical “mass” in a peer conflict, expanding the combat force at lower cost than crewed aircraft.

USAF officials have indicated they want to move quickly on the program, even as experimentation and testing on manned-unmanned teaming continues. The service has advanced the concept through efforts like its Skyborg and X-62 programs.

In its fiscal 2024 budget request, the Air Force outlined plans to spend $5.8 billion on CCAs over the next five years, and $392 million in fiscal ’24 alone. That figure is a small down payment on what is shaping up to be an enormous program. While Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has set 1,000 CCAs as a working number of such aircraft—a figure intended to signal to developers just how seriously he views the program—he has said the Air Force will need far more. Last March, he told the McAleese defense conference, “We’ll end up with more than that. …It could be twice that number or more.”

Industry has responded enthusiastically. General Atomics unveiled its concept for a “Gambit” series of uncrewed aircraft last spring, with optional external configurations optimized for sensing, fighter escort, defense suppression and ground attack, all using a common core to increase commonality and modularity. Anduril, meanwhile, is pushing its “Fury” aircraft—originally developed as an autonomous and stealthy “red air” option—as a multi-mission solution.

Progress threatens to be slowed as the Air Force, along with the rest of the Pentagon and other federal agencies, waits for Congress to pass a fiscal 2024 budget. As things currently stand with the government operating under a continuing resolution, the Air Force can conduct some CCA actions using authorized and appropriated fiscal 2023 funds, but much of the program is considered a “new start” and is on hold.

Regardless, while the Air Force has selected five companies to work on the project for now, service acquisition executive Andrew Hunter has said the objective is to have “on-ramps” for companies not picked in the initial rounds, so that missing a contract now does not preclude participation later.

4 Ukrainian Pilots Undergoing F-16 Training in Arizona as Pentagon Reveals New Details

Jan. 25, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

As Ukraine awaits the delivery of F-16s in 2024, a U.S. defense official revealed new details on the training of Ukrainian pilots and maintainers in America.

There are currently four Ukrainian pilots undergoing F-16 training in the United States, the official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The instruction is occurring at Morris Air National Guard Base, Ariz., in Tucson, where they are training with the 162nd Wing, the U.S. Air Force’s dedicated foreign F-16 training unit.

Several other pilots are undergoing English-language training, the defense official added, while approximately 20 maintainers are also undergoing English-language training at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, for the next several months.

The new details come after assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Celeste Wallander said F-16 pilot training for Ukraine is “on track” after a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of over 50 countries that coordinates military aid.

The F-16 efforts are coordinated by an Air Force Coalition within the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. The U.S. government must sign off on any F-16 transfers, a move the Biden administration initially resisted before promoting the effort. However, the U.S. does not plan to provide its own F-16s.

Pilots at Morris complete the six-month “B Course”—or Basic Course—designed to instruct foreign and American pilots familiar with other combat jets in the fundamentals necessary to transition to the F-16. That is the course the four Ukrainian pilots are now undergoing, the defense official said.

The 162nd Wing has been training foreign pilots for decades, with pilots from over two dozen countries traveling through Tucson to learn to operate one of the most successful multi-role fighters in history.

Ukrainian pilots began their training in Tucson in late October. In November, the Pentagon estimated training would take five to nine months, based on the skills of individual pilots.

Denmark is leading efforts in Europe to train Ukrainians on F-16s. In August, Denmark said it had begun training eight pilots and over 60 maintainers. An additional six pilots were sent to Denmark after spending time learning “aviation-specific” English and spending time in Royal Air Force training aircraft—the RAF does not operate F-16s—to learn the “NATO standard approach to flying,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense announced in late December. “Alongside the pilot training, dozens of Ukrainian aircraft technicians are also receiving English language training, geared towards engineering,” the U.K MOD added.

While Ukraine has many experienced pilots, they also must learn Western airpower doctrine to be most effective with the F-16. Ukraine has previously flown MiGs and Sukhois, not Western jets. F-16s are single-seat, single-engine airplanes with a complex hands-on throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) system, with toggle switches and buttons on the flight control that can conduct the full range of F-16 functions.

In Tucson, pilots spend extensive time in the simulator, even before getting airborne. Once aerial training begins, typically three-fourths is done with pilots on their own in the cockpit in single-seat F-16Cs, with time in dual-seat F-16Ds with an instructor in the back weighted towards the beginning of the course.

To achieve proficiency, a pilot must spend around 90 hours flying to learn and demonstrate all the necessary skills of the B-Course. However, training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots is not expected to precisely follow a rigid model, especially as training is occurring on multiple continents simultaneously.

But pilots are just one part of a complex weapons system.

“We are very slowly and very methodically going about this, and there is no great sense of urgency to get this moving forward,” retired Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Now, there’s good and bad to that. If we rushed these guys forward, we could rush them to fail.”

Breedlove said Ukraine and its allies need to start thinking about how the F-16s will be used with command and control and sensing platforms to better engage targets, where the F-16s will be based to prevent them from being destroyed, and where munitions will be stored.

“There’s so much that has to be done before the F-16s can be used effectively and effectively protected as an asset,” said Breedlove, a former F-16 pilot who commanded training and operational units. “An F-16 is a magnificent aircraft, and it will bring great capability to Ukraine. But an F-16 thrown into this conflict without any connective capabilities and without a good plan for protecting it as an asset on the ground is not a good recipe.”

Yurii Inhat, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, indicated a comprehensive approach to employing Ukraine’s F-16s was needed before the aircraft could be put in combat.

“Partners are ready to provide us with these capabilities. The question is whether everything is ready for their operation in Ukraine,” Inhat said on Ukrainian television recently. “It is clear that everything must be prepared, including pilots, infrastructure, and maintenance engineers, and also there are other factors that are not discussed as widely.”

PHOTOS: Alabama Guard Wing Carries on Red Tail Tradition with New F-35

Jan. 25, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Red Tails live on.

The Alabama Air National Guard’s 187th Fighter Wing upgraded from the F-16 to the F-35 in December but is keeping up its tradition of honoring the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, as the wing released photos this month of one of its F-35s with its tail painted red.

“The Red Tail legacy is known across the entire Air Force. We do not want to forget and want to continue that legacy not only for our Airmen but for the entire Air Force,” Maj. Brent Ivey, a maintenance squadron commander with the wing, said in a statement. “This tail is a reminder that through excellence we will overcome many obstacles regardless of gender, race, or religion. We are all here for the same mission and that is to protect our nation.”

The Tuskegee Airmen, trained in Alabama, were the Army Air Force’s first African American pilots who broke racial barriers during World War II. They flew more than 15,000 sorties between May 1943 and June 1945, getting the nickname ‘Red Tails’ for their distinctive deep red plane markings and earning eight Purple Hearts, fourteen Bronze Stars, three Distinguished Unit Citations, and 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses.

A 187th Fighter Wing spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that a single F-35 aircraft was approved to honor the Red Tail tradition.

Unlike the wing’s previous F-16s, applying paint to the F-35 fighter can be a tricky business. While the precise purpose of the F-35’s specific paint and coatings is classified, it is known to help reflect radar to reduce the aircraft’s radar return. The dull gray color also enhances the F-35’s visibility during nighttime operations. The spokesperson added that if the jet is tasked to deploy, the heritage tail “will return to stock configuration and be fully mission-capable alongside our other fighter jets.”

The only other F-35 color variant in the service is the Aggressor Squadron introduced in 2022 at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., sporting a distinct “Splinter” camouflage pattern.

Residents near Dannelly Field might catch a glimpse of the red-tailed F-35 soaring through the skies—earlier this month, the wing shared a picture of the fighter on its Facebook page with the caption: “We cannot wait for you to witness this jet in the skies around the great state of Alabama.”

The 187th FW welcomed three new stealth fighters to Dannelly Field in December, seven months after the wing retired the F-16s it had flown for 35 years. There are now three Guard units with fifth-generation aircraft, including the Vermont ANG’s 158th Fighter Wing and Wisconsin ANG’s 115th Fighter Wing.

Dannelly Field was selected to get F-35s in 2017, and construction on new facilities began four years later. The wing formally began the conversion process in March 2023, as pilots and maintainers were embedded in other F-35 units around the country to learn to fly and maintain their new aircraft.

The wing is set to receive additional aircraft deliveries from Lockheed Martin later this year. The fleet will eventually consist of 20 F-35s, with the goal of achieving full operational readiness by February 2026.

Pentagon: Ukraine Expected to Employ F-16s in 2024

Jan. 24, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. and Western allies expect the Ukrainian Air Force to achieve “initial operating capability” on F-16s by the end of this year, a senior Pentagon official said Jan. 23.

F-16 pilot training by the U.S. and European countries is “on track,” assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Celeste Wallander told reporters. But the effort to provide Kyiv with the stalwart American fighter is complex one, she said.

“We are aiming to provide an initial operating capability for Ukraine with its F-16 program in 2024, which would entail trained pilots, the platforms, but in addition, trained maintainers and sustainers, infrastructure, and spare parts, ammunition,” Wallander said after a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a gathering of some 50 countries that coordinates military aid to Kyiv. Efforts to provide F-16s fall under the Air Force capability coalition—one of several groups set up to focus on specific needs.

“All of these pieces is what the coalition’s responsible for, and so we gave a briefing on where that stood this year,” Wallander said, though she did not provide further details.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been coy on the training specifics. The spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yurii Ihnat, said the West is “training our pilots very, very confidentially” in remarks on Ukrainian television Jan. 22. The 162nd Wing of Arizona Air National Guard in Tucson, Ariz.—the home of the Air Force’s foreign F-16 pilot training—is providing the U.S. training to “several” Ukrainian pilots, the Pentagon says. European countries are also conducting training, led by Denmark.

A more immediate concern in Washington and other Western capitals is the ability to keep providing current capabilities to Ukraine, let alone new ones.

The Pentagon says it has no more aid packages to give after running out of funding—the DOD still has roughly $4 billion in authority to take stock out of its inventory to give to Ukraine, but it does not have money to replenish those stocks. Meanwhile, European allies have lagged in promises to ramp up critical artillery production.

Some U.S. aid promised in previous assistance packages is still rolling in, while long-lead items, such as contracts awarded under another funding program, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), have yet to be produced.

“We do continue to provide support, for example, training, and of course, leadership,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said Jan. 23. “But the point is, in order for us to provide the capabilities that Ukraine needs on the battlefield today, but also in the longer term, we would really appreciate the support of Congress.”

Ukraine aid funding is tied up in Congress as part of a broader political dispute over border security and government spending.

Pilot training is not affected by the funding issue, the Pentagon says. But while some American officials predicted ambitious F-16 training timelines after the Biden administration gave the sign-off late last summer, both the West and Ukraine have now tempered expectations.

Ryder said in November shortly after American training of Ukrainian pilots began that instruction would take five to nine months, with the timeline “very much predicated on the skill level of the individual pilots.” Ukrainian pilots are transferring over from twin-engine Soviet-style Sukhois and MiGs to single-engine, multi-role F-16s, an added learning curve.

“That’s an assessment that essentially is tailored to the current situation,” Ryder said of the training timeline. A typical F-16 training course with the 162nd Wing takes roughly six months.

The F-16, which first flew almost exactly 50 years ago, has been steadily upgraded over the years, and could employ weapons such as AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles to protect Ukraine’s skies from Russian missile and drone attacks. AMRAAMs, which are also used in NASAMS air defense systems, have been hinted at as a possible weapon for Ukraine’s F-16s by Ukrainian and U.S. officials. Some American weapons, including JDAM Extended Range guided bombs and HARM anti-radiation missiles have already been jerry-rigged to Ukraine’s legacy fleet.

While specifics of training remain murky, many materiel questions remain. Denmark has pledged 19 used F-16s and the Netherlands says it will give 42 jets, but exactly when those planes will arrive is unclear. Norway and Belgium are also donating F-16s. The first Danish planes have been delayed until the second quarter of 2024. How Ukraine will maintain F-16s has also not been fully spelled out. Nor it is clear what type and who would provide the weapons for the F-16s. The U.S. does not plan to provide its own F-16s but must sign off on any transfer.

The lack of airpower has become one of the defining features of the war in Ukraine—instead, missiles and drones come from afar. Russia’s aircraft have largely been confined to standoff range due to Ukraine’s air defenses. But Russia has advanced surface-to-air systems of its own, including S-400 long-range systems based inside the Russian Federation—which has been deemed off limits for Ukraine to target using Western-provided weapons—and in occupied Crimea, forcing Ukrainian Air Force pilots to fly low and try to mask themselves with the terrain. As a result, neither side has air superiority.

“We have seen surges in Russian air activities against Ukraine,” Wallander said. “We’ve seen them not only continue to use ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and UAVs, but we have seen periods in which they are using coordinated barrages of those capabilities … to try to overwhelm Ukrainian defense capabilities in a particular location, but also to seek to force the Ukrainians to use ammunition to create vulnerabilities in Ukrainian civilian and critical infrastructure targets, but also front lines in order to be able to try to exploit those potential vulnerabilities.”

Budget Officials: USAF Modernization at Risk If Sequester Hits, But Sentinel ‘Will Be Funded’

Jan. 24, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

If Congress does not pass a new budget by April 30, the Department of the Air Force—along with other federal agencies—will see their budget slashed one percent from fiscal 2023 levels, a cut of billions of dollars from the planned 2024 budget. Such a result would be “catastrophic” to the department’s efforts to modernize, already years behind schedule due to slow congressional action, acting Air Force undersecretary Kristyn Jones said Jan. 24.

The sequester caps were implemented as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed last June, in an effort to ensure lawmakers passed a timely budget. Instead, Congress has repeatedly passed continuing resolutions, which keep funding levels frozen at the previous year’s level, to keep the government open. The latest CR for the Pentagon expires March 8.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jones said a one percent reduction in funds relative to fiscal 2023 levels would be “pretty catastrophic” for Air Force modernization.

“For us, going to the ‘23 [spending levels] minus one percent … is a $13 billion decrease in buying power, and that’s not adjusting for inflation,” she said, quoting a figure that covers both the Air Force and Space Force. “It impacts 89 new starts, cancels $2.8 billion in Space Force growth, impacts seven national security space launches, 34 construction projects that would not happen. I could go on and on.

“And then, because of the fact that we’ve had a really historic increase in our pay for this year, both military and civilian, we’ve had to absorb that already, starting at the beginning of this calendar year. And so that requires us to make even bigger impacts in the non-pay areas.”

This reduction would frustrate the Air Force’s efforts to keep pace with China, Jones said. Quoting Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, she noted that the Air Force has lost four years out of the last 12 due to continuing resolutions and other budgetary delays, time that Kendall often points out is not recoverable in a great power competition.

Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore Jr., Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said the Air Force share of the $13 billion cut is $8.8 billion, and the sequester “is shaping up to look much like 2013 did,” when the Budget Control Act slammed the Air Force’s spending power for acquisition, operations, and sustainment.

“A decade later, we’re still not past that,” he said, referring to lingering effects of that budget reduction.

The timing compounds the problem, Moore added.

“By the time this implements, we’ll be halfway through the fiscal year, but the number doesn’t change. So that means the last two quarters of this fiscal year, we’ll have to find $4.4 billion [of] things that we thought we were going to be able to do, that we now can’t.” Those effects range from deferred but needed military construction to program advancement, he said.

“It will take us a long time to get past this. The combat capability that we need to field in order to stay relevant and to try and keep up with the pacing threat, [those things are] not possible under fiscal guidance like this,” Moore argued.

Sentinel

While the threat of sequestration looms, one of the Air Force’s most expensive modernization efforts faces another threat—last week, the Air Force announced that the Sentinel ICBM program will cost 37 percent more than expected and take at least two years longer than previous projections. Now in breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, the program needs certification from the Secretary of Defense to not be canceled.

Yet Moore said the effort is too critical to national defense to be delayed and will be funded. However, the nuclear modernization “bow wave” will slip to the right as a result, he added.

Asked about the Sentinel cost and schedule breach, Jones noted that the Air Force is modernizing two legs of the nuclear triad—bombers and silo-based ICBMS—and that the B-21 is doing well and moving into low-rate initial production.

But Sentinel is “core to national defense,” Jones said.

“We have predicted that the nuclear ‘bow wave’ for the Air Force”—the must-do modernization of the bomber, cruise missile, warheads, command and control and ICBM—“would peak in 2027,” Moore said. “We now see that that is slipping to the right: probably 2028, and maybe even 2029.”

At the peak of the nuclear modernization effort, it accounts for “a third of the investment portfolio of the Air Force. It’s not just two-thirds of the nuclear triad, by the way, it’s also 75% of the nuclear command and control that we have,” he said.

All the nuclear portfolio programs “stack up on top of each other” and are “a daunting task” to fund, he observed.

While the Sentinel missile itself is “doing pretty well” in development, Jones said the breach mainly has to do with the program’s civil engineering aspect: the silos and infrastructure of deploying the missile, which is a huge undertaking the Air Force has not really done since the 1960s.

As to covering the $40 billion-plus overrun on Sentinel, Moore said the program is not optional, and there are no workarounds.

“Sentinel will be funded,” he said. The Air Force will “make the trade that it takes to make [Sentinel] happen. We’ll see as we work through this process what the results are, but we are committed to Sentinel and that not going to change. It is funded now. And that’s also not going to change.”

Moore also ruled out any possibility of extending the service’s existing Minuteman III missiles for any lengthy period of time.

“There is not a viable service life extension program that we can foresee,” Moore said. Minuteman III was fielded in the 1970s.

“We will do everything we can to keep it in the field” until Sentinel is ready, he said. “It will remain safe, secure and reliable, but extending it for some lengthy period of time, that’s not a viable option.”