Pay Raise for Junior Enlisted Faces White House Opposition, High Cost Estimates

Pay Raise for Junior Enlisted Faces White House Opposition, High Cost Estimates

June 11, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

President Joe Biden’s administration opposes a bipartisan provision in the House of Representatives to significantly boost pay for junior enlisted service members, arguing major changes should wait until the Pentagon completes its quadrennial review on compensation. 

At the same time, Congress’ own budget analysts estimate the proposed pay raise—a central part of the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act—would cost more than $24 billion over the next five years. 

The White House statement and the Congressional Budget Office analysis both came out June 11, just days before the full House is set to vote on the 2025 NDAA.  

It remains unclear, however, if either will be enough to derail the proposal, which would boost basic pay for troops ranked E-1 through E-4 by 15 percent, in addition to the 4.5 percent annual raise proposed in the President’s budget request. 

In its statement of administration policy, the White House noted more than 30 areas where it disagrees with the proposed NDAA but indicated broad overall support. And at a House Rules Committee hearing on the bill, lawmakers showed strong support for the pay raise, even with the estimated costs. 

“The junior enlisted need this lift,” said Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “And the committee, that vote may have been unanimous … from the 58 members of the committee who have looked at this issue and who studied the DOD budget inside and out, and that number is accounted for in our appropriation numbers.” 

“Many of our junior enlisted are struggling to afford housing; as housing costs have gone up, their pay has not kept pace,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. “This is a bold step to try and make sure that we support them, which incidentally will also help with recruitment and retention.” 

But while many House lawmakers support the pay raise, it will also need to make it through the Senate. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to take up its version of the NDAA this week, and once both bills clear the full chambers, they must be reconciled in conference, meaning the pay increase may remain up in the air for months to come. 

The proposal originated from the HASC’s Quality of Life panel, led by Air Force veterans Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), who argued in their final report issued in April that the boost was needed to keep pace with increasing wages for civilian low-income jobs. 

The costs, however, could prove troublesome given the budget caps imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act through fiscal 2025 and a broader push to modernize equipment across the entire Pentagon.  

The White House claims the budget increase would cost roughly $3.3 billion in 2025 and more than $21.9 billion from 2025-2029. The CBO, a nonpartisan budget analysis group, estimates the cost at $24.4 billion from 2025-2029. 

The White House estimate would exceed the Air Force’s entire aircraft procurement budget for 2025. The CBO estimate would exceed the Air Force’s procurement budget for the new B-21 bomber from 2025-29. 

That’s to say nothing of programs like the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, which is $35 billion over budget. Air Force officials have said they are considering all options to meet the funding gap, though the program must still be certified by the Secretary of Defense to continue. 

Beyond cost, the White House made the argument in its statement that now is not the time for a major change to the military’s pay tables while the Pentagon is still conducting its Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC). 

That review began in January 2023, with a final report scheduled for January 2025. In addition to pay, the review is looking at the ways the Pentagon calculates its benchmarks for pay, as well as allowances for housing, food, and more. 

House lawmakers took aim at some of those issues in the NDAA as well, including provisions that would expand eligibility for the Basic Needs Allowance and fully fund the Basic Allowance for Housing instead of the current “cost-sharing” arrangement that forces service members to pay for 5 percent. 

The CBO said it was too difficult to determine the costs of the proposed BAH change but estimated expanding eligibility for BNA would cost $260 million in 2025 and $1.4 billion over the 2025-2029 period. The White House has a much higher estimate of $14.8 billion for the basic needs allowance change and opposes the move. 

Behind the Scenes at NATO’s One-on-One Fighter Competition

Behind the Scenes at NATO’s One-on-One Fighter Competition

June 11, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany—In the span of roughly eight hours, 37 NATO fighters took off in rapid succession. The one-on-one fighter competition conducted on June 6 was a first for U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFA) and the air base here. 

The pilots did not know who they would be facing until they encountered their opponent in close proximity at more than 10,000 feet. They did not know exactly when they would be flying until they received an envelope at the end of the morning briefing. By the end of the day, pilots flew 67 sorties against each other.

“Dissimilar air combat is fundamental for all our air forces,” Deputy NATO Allied Air Commander Royal Air Force Air Marshal Johnny Stringer told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “It’s a fantastic test of at one level of just foundational air combat skills that all of our fighter pilots still need to possess.”

Air & Space Forces Magazine was granted unusual access to the exercise, close enough for the reporter to be blasted with jet wash multiple times on the flight line. 

As aircraft, sensors, and weapons have gotten more advanced, the U.S. and the rest of NATO anticipate that many real-world engagements will be conducted beyond visual range. But the Ramstein exercise provided pilots with a chance to hone their basic fighter maneuver skills as they merged in the sky.

Adding to the challenge, the maneuvers involved dissimilar fourth- and fifth-generation types of fighters, including a multinational collection of F-16s, Eurofighter Typhoons, F-35s, and French Rafales. Nine of NATO’s 32 members participated: the U.S., the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, the U.K., Denmark, Finland, and Norway.

The wide array of aircraft was a far cry from much of the U.S. Air Force’s training—USAF aggressor squadrons usually fly only F-16s and F-35s.

“Forcing rapid decision-making, applying tenants of dissimilar air combat, where you’re immediately processing what you’re fighting so that you bring your best advantages to bear and hopefully minimize disadvantages in your platform,” Stringer said of the objective for pilots.

The exercise featured F-35s from the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands, and Norway—unsurprising given that 600 of them will be operating in Europe by the end of the decade. But it was the dissimilar training, which harkens back to the Cold War, which made it especially distinctive. 

“This is something that is a learning experience that I haven’t seen in many, many years,” said Col. Michael “T-Man” Trautermann, the senior German national representative to NATO Allied Air Command, recalling his experience in the F-4 Phantom where he would drop in at other nation’s bases. “We do not do that often enough, and these are things that need to be regained for NATO as an alliance to be able to be successful.”

The exercise was also a unique event for Ramstein and its Airmen. The base serves as a hub for U.S. military airlift capability around the world, and the nearby Landstuhl Military Medical Center is the key American military hospital outside the United States. The number of Americans on and around the bases is so large that a two-star general, Maj. Gen. Paul D. Moga—also the commander of the Third Air Force—is assigned to help manage the roughly 50,000 service members, families, and contractors. The Kaiserslautern Military Community, or KMC, is the biggest cluster of troops outside the United States.

But just about the only thing KMC generally lacks is fighters. Hundreds of locals gathered along the fence line in a country without a plane-spotting tradition to get a glimpse of fighters roaring through the air.

On base, Ramstein personnel helped marshall aircraft, pumped 160,000 gallons of jet fuel, and kept everyone safe in the skies through air traffic control. Though the base is large, the competition practiced the Air Force’s push toward building Airmen who can conduct a variety of tasks to complete a mission.

“I knew we were going to get value out of the fighting. But I didn’t understand what we were going to get here at Ramstein,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher F. Yancy, mobilization assistant to the commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe-Air Forces Africa.

“Rapid launch and recovery, ground ops … they did all those skill sets that we’re trying to exercise,” he added. “They’re used to working on heavies. They hadn’t worked on fighters.”

The airspace for the simulated fight was a 50-by-70-mile arena, divided in four roughly equal quadrants with a dogfight going on in each, according to an exercise planners. Each jet had 30 minutes to turn and burn to try to hit its foe with a simulated kill with guns.

Small maintenance footprints, some involving cross-national operations, were used to support the exercise. For the first time, Norway’s F-35s were serviced by U.S. maintainers.

“If you’re fighting with someone, it helps to know them,” said Norwegian Air Force Col. Martin “TinTin” Tesli, wing commander of Ørland Air Base, where the country’s F-35s are based, and a participant in the exercise.

Yancy also said the exercise proved valuable should the U.S. have to operate in a degraded communications environment, such as a wartime situation when modern fighters may have onboard systems jammed or command and control aircraft may be unavailable. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, both sides have used electronic warfare and air defenses that quickly upended pre-war plans.

“We may not be able to talk to somebody,” Yancy said. “To go out and not know who you’re going fight, you have to go, ‘Alright, my game plan is different for Hornet versus Rafale versus Tornado versus Typhoon versus Viper versus F-35, so I better have a little private time, or go to the vault with my weapons folks and figure out what my game plan is going to be for eight different aircraft. And I better be able to execute that.’”

Relationship building was also a key objective of the event.

“We can’t look at it as a bunch of lieutenants, captains, and majors. That’s the next air chief, that’s the next squadron commander,” Yancy said.

While fighter pilots are hyper competitive, steps were taken to prevent it from getting out of hand in order to ensure aerial safety. No trophies were handed out and no simulated wars were fought. 

“What is the Alliance? Clue in the title,” Stringer said. “Because just getting people together to chat, as well as do the flying, talk about their platform. Our engineers, meeting, talking, looking around jets, doing elements of cross-servicing. What you will get out of 48 hours here is fantastic.”

Apollo 8 Astronaut, Ambassador, and Air Force Maj. Gen. William Anders Dies

Apollo 8 Astronaut, Ambassador, and Air Force Maj. Gen. William Anders Dies

June 10, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Air Force Maj. Gen. William A. Anders, the Apollo 8 astronaut who, on the first mission to orbit the moon, took the iconic “Earthrise” photo—died June 7 when the aircraft he was flying alone crashed northwest of Seattle. He was 90.

Anders was an Air Force pilot, ambassador to Norway, member of the Atomic Energy Commission, and the first chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He worked in the aerospace industry, rising to lead the General Dynamics Corp. as Chief Executive Officer, restructuring the company after the end of the Cold War.

Passionate about military aircraft—he founded and was chairman of the Heritage Flight Museum in Washington state—Anders was flying a Beech T-34A Mentor when he crashed. His body was recovered; the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the accident.

Anders was born in Hong Kong in 1933 to a naval officer. The family, with young William in tow, survived Japanese attacks on China during WWII, including the close-by bombing of Nanjing.

He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1955 with a degree in electrical engineering but chose to accept an Air Force commission. After earning his wings, he served as an F-89 Scorpion pilot, flying with the 84th Fighter Interceptor Squadron in California and the 57th FIS in Iceland, participating in some of the first intercepts of Russian bombers approaching the U.S. He later returned to the 84th to fly the F-101 Voodoo.

Anders undertook a Master’s program in nuclear engineering through the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 1958. It was a specialty assigned to him, though he had requested aeronautical engineering. So he concurrently studied aeronautical engineering, taking night classes at Ohio State University. He graduated with honors from AFIT in 1962 and was assigned to work on nuclear reactor projects with the Air Force Weapons Lab, maintaining his pilot proficiency as a part-time jet instructor.

In 1963, Anders applied to both the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School and NASA. He was chosen for the third group of astronauts, known as “The 14,” a class that included future moonwalkers such as Buzz Aldrin, David Scott, and Gene Cernan. Anders was among the few who had not already been a test pilot; it was the first group where it wasn’t required. He wasn’t accepted to the test pilot school.

Anders was picked to be the backup copilot for Gemini 11 and was then in line to fly Gemini 13, but the Gemini program was ended before that mission, having accomplished all its objectives.

Anders and Neil Armstrong were the first astronauts to fly the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle, or “Flying Bedstead,” a Lunar Module live-fly simulator powered by a vertically-mounted jet engine. Several crashed—Armstrong famously ejected from one only two seconds before it hit the ground—but pilots insisted it accurately matched the handling of the lunar module and should be retained.  

As a spaceflight rookie, Anders was picked for the prime crew of the Apollo 8 mission, the original purpose of which was to test the lunar module in deep space; Anders was to be the lunar module pilot. However, intelligence indicated that the Soviet Union planned a two-man lunar orbit mission that could be construed as “winning” the space race to the moon, and the U.S. lunar module was not yet ready for flight, so Apollo 8 was reconceived as a lunar circumnavigation mission. Anders accepted the assignment, despite there being no lunar module for him to fly.

Anders, along with mission commander Frank Borman and command module pilot James Lovell, launched on Dec. 21, 1968. It was the first crewed flight of the giant Saturn V rocket.

The mission was the first to another celestial body, and the crew completed 10 orbits before firing their main engine and returning home. On one of the first orbits, Anders noticed the blue ball of the Earth coming up over the horizon and took the first color photo of this sight. The image has been hailed as one of the most iconic in the 20th century and was one of the inspirations for Earth Day.

Anders told Forbes Magazine in 2015 that the image pointed out the beauty of the Earth and “helped kick start the environmental movement.” He described the earth as looking like a shiny blue but fragile “Christmas ornament.”

The mission was also noteworthy in that the crew, during a live Christmas Eve broadcast, took turns reading passages from the biblical Book of Genesis.

After a year of traumatic events including the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Tet offensive in Vietnam, and race riots and divisive college demonstrations in the U.S., Apollo 8 was considered a rare bright spot in national and world affairs. NASA received a telegram after the mission, addressed to the crew, reading in part, “you saved 1968.” The crew was cheered with parades in major cities and made an address to a joint session of Congress.

Anders was assigned as the backup command module pilot for Apollo 11, the first moon landing mission, but after its success, did not believe he would get a chance to command a moon mission before the Apollo program ended. Upon exiting NASA, Anders remained in the Air Force Reserve.  

He accepted an appointment from President Richard Nixon to be executive secretary of the National Aeronautic and Space Council, a cabinet-level panel chaired by Vice President Spiro Agnew. In that capacity, he developed multidepartment policy for national aeronautics and space development. The NASC’s recommendations were generally not implemented, however, and Anders recommended the panel be dissolved, which it was, in 1973.

Nixon then appointed Anders to the Atomic Energy Commission, where he worked on nuclear research and development policy, and on a détente-driven joint fission/fusion technology exchange program with the Soviet Union. The AEC was eventually split into two organizations: one to conduct nuclear power R&D and another to supervise commercial plants. Anders was appointed by President Gerald Ford to head the latter, the new Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He was credited with setting up the NRC’s processes and making its deliberations and decisions transparent to the public.

Anders was next appointed by Ford to be Ambassador to Norway, a post he held from 1976 to 1977.

He then entered the commercial world, heading General Electric’s Nuclear Products Division, supervising its nuclear plant operations. After a stint at the Harvard Business School, in 1980, Anders became head of GE’s Aircraft Equipment Division.

In 1984, Anders joined Textron, as executive vice president for aerospace, moving up in two years to senior vice president for operations.  During this time he also consulted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the NASA Advisory Council and the Defense Science Board.

In 1988, he retired from the Air Force Reserve, having served 33 years.

He agreed to join General Dynamics as vice chairman in 1990 with the proviso that he could be a test pilot in the F-16, then made by that company. In 1991, he became chairman.

Anders was credited with turning General Dynamics around, shedding non-core divisions and operations and boosting its stock from under $20 a share to over $250. He succeeded at this despite the failure and termination of the A-12 stealth attack jet program for the Navy, on which GD was partnered with McDonnell Douglas. He arranged the sale of GD’s aircraft division to Lockheed for $1.5 billion in 1993, and then retired from day-to-management of the company, though he stayed on as chairman until 1994.

Soon after, he founded the Anders Foundation, an environmental education organization which in turn supported the many national parks foundations.  

In 1996, Anders founded the Heritage Flight Museum, which flies 15 historic military aircraft and operates a museum of artifacts donated by veterans. Anders personally owned a P-51 Mustang, which he flew in air races, and he held as many as six flying records. He and Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, who also owned and flew a P-51, would often occasionally fly their aircraft together at air shows.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Space Shuttle and International Space Station astronaut, issued a statement on social media saying that Anders “forever changed our perspective of our planet and ourselves” with the Earthrise photo, and “inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Anders “gave to humanity one of the deepest of gifts an explorer and an astronaut can give” with the Earthrise photo. He quoted Anders as saying “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

Nelson said Anders’ life was “the iron will of a pioneer, the grand passion of a visionary, the cool skill of a pilot, and the heart of an adventurer, who explored on behalf of all of us.”

How the Air Force Slashed EW Update Time From Weeks to Hours

How the Air Force Slashed EW Update Time From Weeks to Hours

June 10, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s lone spectrum warfare wing is getting faster—much faster—in gathering data and responding to new threats, its leader said last week. 

The world of electronic warfare is often compared to a game of cat-and-mouse, with both sides constantly shifting tactics, frequencies, and software to both jam and evade jamming. For the Pentagon’s EW leaders, that means a need to rapidly detect and adapt to changes, they said June 5 at the C4ISRNET conference.

“We’re in an area of perpetual novelty, and our adversaries are going to be able to move and change and be agile on the spectrum just as much as we are,” said Col. Joshua Koslov, commander of the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing.  

Last September at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Koslov told reporters he wanted his wing to be able to sort through data to detect any changes in an adversary’s EW approach, develop a software solution, and deploy it in three hours. Such a capability, he said, would be a “moonshot” and a vast improvement over the weeks or months it can often take the Pentagon to update software. 

“We just executed our first internal exercise … we call it exercise Rapid Raven, and at AFA I said we need to be able to do this in three hours,” Koslov said June 6. “That’s based off the Force Commander requirements. And quite frankly, we’re very close to that, if not exceeding that in most of the systems that we cover in the spectrum warfare wing.” 

The wing first announced Rapid Raven in March, saying in a release at the time that it “simulated 24-hour operations” by challenging Airmen to sense, respond, and reprogram against new threats in the spectrum. 

The exercise pressed Airmen to work fast and also showcased where the wing needs more resources, the release noted. 

Out of more than 70 EW systems his wing touches, Koslov said “more than half of our systems are near or underneath the deadline that I set out over at AFA. And most of that is just a re-honing of our [tactics, techniques, and procedures] and our process.” 

Broadly speaking, Koslov added, the entire joint EW force has improved its high-end exercises and training by “leaps and bounds.” 

But it’s not just training that will help speed up the process. Spectrum warfighters also need the infrastructure and tools to do so, said Army Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare, and sensors. 

“Some of these capabilities based on the pace of the enemy, they’re going to become very perishable,” Barker said. “So it’s our ability to iterate quickly and having the openness in the architecture and understanding the data, that’s really the critical aspect.” 

For the Air Force, that means investing in things like the Crowd Sourced Flight Data program, which creates “the ability to receive lots of data from joint, coalition platforms and then rapidly turn that into combat capability and transmit that back out to the force,” Koslov said. 

For the system to work, Koslov added, the service must have the architecture to handle the massive streams of data coming in and send out updated software to hundreds of different systems in the field. It will also need artificial intelligence and other technology to sort through and detect changes in that data. Koslov noted that such tech might not quite reach the level of what some call “cognitive” EW just yet, but said his wing is interested in near-term solutions. 

“What we’re proposing is, as we develop the near-term solutions using Crowd Sourced Flight Data, is democratizing the data that we’re able to collect within our data architecture, and providing that to our joint force partners or academic partners or industry partners in order to develop a system that’s able to develop new and novel things very quickly,” he said. 

PHOTOS: Fourth- and Fifth-Gen Fighters Hold Combat Training in Hawaii

PHOTOS: Fourth- and Fifth-Gen Fighters Hold Combat Training in Hawaii

June 10, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

A combination of fourth- and fifth-generation fighters will wrap up a large-scale simulated combat exercise around Hawaii in the coming days.

Sentry Aloha, which first began more than 20 years ago, is a fighter-focused exercise hosted by the Hawaii Air National Guard. The latest edition began May 29 and will last through June 12. F-22s from the 199th and 19th Fighter Squadrons at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam are flying alongside F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-35 Lightning IIs and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, as well as KC-135 and KC-46 tankers and some C-130s.

The biannual fifth and fourth-gen combat training returned in January this year after a two-year break. Hawaii’s strategic Pacific location makes it an ideal military training ground as Sentry Aloha keeps growing and evolving with each iteration.

This iteration had a total of 42 aircraft from nine states, with 1,060 personnel participating. A spokesperson for the Hawaii Air National Guard’d 154th Wing confirmed the participating aircraft with Air & Space Forces Magazine:

  • F-22 and KC-135 from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.
  • F-16 from the 177th Fighter Wing, Atlantic City Air National Guard Base, N.J.
  • F-35 from the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
  • F-16 from the 162nd Wing, Tucson Air National Guard Base, Ariz.
  • F-16, A-10, KC-135, and HC-130J from the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Test Center, Ariz.
  • KC-46 from the 157th Air Refueling Wing, Pease Air National Guard Base, N.H.
  • HC-130 from the 129th Rescue Wing, Moffett Air National Guard Base, Calif.
  • MQ-9 from Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 3, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Hawaii.
  • C-130H aircraft from the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Test Center and the 189th Airlift Wing, Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark.
  • KC-135 from the 186th Air Refueling Wing, Key Field Air National Guard Base, Miss.

The spokesperson declined to say the number of each aircraft type, citing operational security.

The fighters and other aircraft are manuevering through Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, with additional operations occurring around Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay and Kona International Airport in Kalaoa, where the aircraft are staged for the training.

“The state offers great airspace and weather to maximize training such as Agile Combat Employment and distributed operations,” Maj. Michael Oliver, the exercise director and a pilot of the 154th Wing, said in a release.

The 154th Wing is the largest wing in the Air National Guard, hosting Raptors, Stratotankers, and C-17 Globemasters, backed by some 2,500 personnel. In April, the 199th and 19th Fighter Squadrons of the Wing deployed their F-22s to Kadena Air Base in Japan as part of the rotation to maintain a constant fighter presence at the key location.

Tech Sergeant Promotions Inch Back Up After Tough Few Years

Tech Sergeant Promotions Inch Back Up After Tough Few Years

June 10, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s selection rate for promotions to technical sergeant neared 20 percent in 2024, bouncing back from historically low rates the previous two years while still trailing the highs of the late 2010s. 

Out of 35,328 eligible staff sergeants, 6,914 were tapped for promotion, a rate of 19.57 percent. Both the number of those selected and the percentage dwarf last year’s statistics, which set a 27-year low: 5,354 selected for a 14.5 percent rate. 

The full list of those selected for promotion will be available publicly June 13 at 8 a.m. Central Time. 

The E-6 promotion numbers continue a slight upward trend across the enlisted Air Force. In May, the service announced promotions to master sergeant with the highest total number selected in six years and the highest rate in three. And in March, the service had its highest selection rate for new senior master sergeants in six years. 

In 2022, the Air Force warned Airmen to expect lower promotion rates for the next several years, particularly for noncommissioned officers, due to recent enlisted grade structure revisions and high retention. Leaders said too many Airmen were getting promoted without enough experience. 

“The majority of the experience decline was attributable to the Air Force trying to achieve an enlisted force structure with too many higher grades,” Col. James Barger, Air Force Manpower Analysis Agency commander, said in a release at the time. “We also found that experience levels would continue to decline unless the Air Force lays in more junior Airmen allocations and fewer E5-E7 allocations.” 

In both 2022 and 2023, the NCO ranks saw some of their lowest promotion numbers since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War. 

Even the 2024 cycle for new technical sergeants, while an improvement over the previous two years, is a far cry from as recently as 2019, when more than 9,000 Airmen were selected with a promotion rate approaching one-third. Based on data back to 2003 provided by the Air Force Personnel Center, this year’s selection rate is just slightly below historic averages.

Officials have said it could take until 2025 before the service has a “healthier” distribution of Airmen across grades, suggesting at least one more year of lower numbers. 

While the Air Force has now announced E-6, E-7, and E-8 promotion statistics for 2024, E-5 numbers are still to come later this summer. 

Air Force E-6 Promotion Statistics

YEARSELECTEDELIGIBLERATE
20246,91435,32819.57
20235,35436,91314.5
20225,43033,93516
20219,42234,97326.94
20208,24628,35829.08
20199,46729,32832.28
20188,41627,55530.54
20178,16725,55231.96
20167,50133,56922.35
20158,44635,86323.55
20146,68438,34417.43
20135,65437,60815.03
20128,51837,40222.77
Sources: Air Force news releases, Air Force Times
B-52 Crew Awarded for Averting In-Flight Catastrophe

B-52 Crew Awarded for Averting In-Flight Catastrophe

June 9, 2024 | By David Roza

Three Airmen were preparing to land their B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Dec. 13, 2022, when the cockpit lights went out and the 185,000-pound aircraft began an uncontrolled left roll.

“The emergency was sudden and caused brief but extreme disorientation to myself and the other crew members,” Capt. Matthew Walls, the copilot, said in a recent press release. “All the systems kicked off at once, and the aircraft went completely dark, engines flamed out, and controlling the aircraft became a battle.”

The next three minutes would decide the fates of the Airmen aboard and of thousands of people living in Bossier City below. The crew, flying under the callsign Scout 94, were returning from Nellis Air Force Base Nev. and dodging severe thunderstorms, a difficult task even when flying a healthy jet, Dave Prakash, a former B-52 operational test pilot and flight surgeon, explained to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Landing a large, old aircraft requires the focus of the entire crew as they run through their landing checklists and confer with the control tower. When two of the jet’s four electrical generators tripped off, it likely contributed to the “extreme disorientation” the crew felt at the time.

“Trying to troubleshoot when you’re in a critical phase of flight is what’s so disorienting,” Prakash said. “Your mind was focused on this very important task, and now you’ve got to suddenly shift gears, especially when you lose all power in the plane.”

b-52
U.S. Air Force pilots from the 343rd Bomb Squadron guide a B-52 Stratofortress over the Louisiana state capitol buiding in Baton Rouge, May 1, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Lillian Miller)

The aircraft commander, Capt. Charles Powell, realized that all four of the engines on the jet’s left side had failed, a perilous situation for a B-52 at slow speed.

The bomber’s eight engines generate thrust that pushes the aircraft forward, Prakash explained. When the engines on the left side of the aircraft stop producing thrust and the right side continues working, the plane turns towards the left, thereby pushing the swept-back right wing almost perpendicular to the airstream, where it generates more lift. Meanwhile, the left wing generates less lift as the plane turns, which makes the aircraft start to roll over.

“If it happened at like 400 knots at 30,000 feet, it would not have been as dangerous and there would not have been such a rapid roll,” Prakash said. “It’s the combination of slow speed and losing the left wing’s power that caused the problem.”

The crew did have one thing on their side: the plane had likely burned off much of its gas during the flight from Nellis to Barksdale and was therefore much lighter than it had been at takeoff, making the bomber more manageable.

“If it was heavy, it would have been a lot harder to control,” Prakash said. “I can’t tell you how lucky they were that they were at landing weight when this happened.”

Over the next three minutes, the crew traded altitude for airspeed, generating enough airflow to restart engines three and four, which reduced some of the asymmetrical load on the aircraft, the press release stated. At 1,200 feet above ground level, the crew regained control of the aircraft, but they still had to avoid bad weather and contend with the jet’s reduced performance as they prepared to land.

Newer aircraft have more automated systems that reduce the workload for the pilot, but the older B-52 requires much more of the pilot’s focus and brain power as he or she wrestles it to the ground, Prakash said. 

“When you level off and hit the autopilot button, your IQ goes up like 30 points,” he joked. “But when you’re in the seat in an emergency, all of your cognitive capacity is consumed by controlling the aircraft.”

A B-52H Stratofortress lands at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, Dec. 13, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class William Pugh)

Luckily, the crew of Scout 94 knew what they were doing. Both Powell and radar navigator Lt. Col. John Conway belonged to the 11th Bomb Squadron, a formal training unit for B-52 air crews. Instructor pilots teach pilots how to handle a wide range of emergencies in countless simulator runs, and part of the training to become a B-52 instructor involves flying a sortie single-handedly, with a safety pilot standing by in the right seat, Prakash said.

“I was very fortunate to have a crew who handled their responsibilities so I could focus on the one thing that mattered in the moment—fly the jet,” Powell said in the release. Conway was equally grateful.

“I believe that the reason Capt. Powell was able to recover the aircraft safely is because he has trained to a six-engine approach many times and holds himself to a high standard when he trains,” the navigator said. “This allowed him to instinctively fan the throttles and not make a bad situation worse by creating more of an asymmetric situation than we had.”

The Airmen put the bomber down safely on Barksdale’s Runway 15, saving an $84 million jet and avoiding a collision with the city below. They recently received Air Force Global Strike Command’s Gen. Curtis E. LeMay award for outstanding bomber crew performance. 

“I’m very proud of how we handled the situation,” Walls said. “It was fast and intense, and there wasn’t time for discussion, just action. In my opinion, everyone fell into their role and did what was required.”

First Operational F-15EX Arrives in Oregon; Milestone for Air Guard

First Operational F-15EX Arrives in Oregon; Milestone for Air Guard

June 7, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The first operational F-15EX Eagle II was delivered to Portland Air National Guard Base, Ore., on June 6, the first all-new weapon system to be delivered to the Air Guard before serving with the Active-Duty force.

The aircraft, serial #008, is the first of 18 that will serve with the 142nd Wing of the Oregon Air National Guard. Another 13 are slated to arrive within the next year, and four more in the years after that. Military construction is underway to accommodate the influx of new airplanes, which will backfill F-15C/Ds at the base. The jet was flown directly from Boeing’s production facilities in St. Louis, Mo., to Portland.

“It’s incredibly exciting, super humbling,” 142nd commander Col. Michael B. Kosderka of the Oregon Air National Guard told the Armed Forces News Network.

“This is the first time, to my knowledge, that an Air National Guard Base got a major weapon system before the Active component. So it’s a super big deal that the Guard is getting to have this major weapon system, first.”

Aircraft #007, already painted and undergoing final checks, will be delivered in the next two weeks, a Boeing spokesperson said. The aircraft at Portland bear a stylized Eagle tail flash unique to the wing.

Previously delivered F-15EXs are being used in a combined Developmental/Initial Operational Test and Evaluation program, Phase 1 of which—including participation in 19 exercises—was completed last fall.  

The EX program is about a year behind schedule, but Boeing will hit its contractual marks if it delivers the remainder of Lot 1B—five more airplanes—in the coming weeks. The jet is based on the F-15QA developed for Qatar. Indonesia has declared its interest in buying the EX version as well.  

Originally planned to number 144 aircraft, the F-15EX fleet is now anticipated to top out at 98 aircraft, according to the Air Force’s fiscal 2025 budget request. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, voicing concern about the Air Force’s decreasing fighter inventory, have indicated they may add more F-15EXs in the 25 budget.

The F-15EX, which was originally inserted into the 2020 budget by the Pentagon leadership over the Air Force’s objections—it wanted to buy more F-35s instead—is now welcomed by the service as a complement to the F-35, and one which can be absorbed in the fleet more rapidly. Whereas it takes two years or so to equip a wing with new F-35s, the transition from F-15C/Ds to the F-15EX typically takes only a few months, the Air Force has said. Eagle pilots easily adapt to the F-15EX’s fly-by-wire handling and new displays, and the jet can use all the same aerospace ground equipment used by the F-15C/D.

In addition to being new with fresh engines—Kosedrka said they seem quieter than the older F-15s—the EX has additional sensors, a much more powerful processor, a new glass cockpit, and an additional weapon station under each wing. The only obvious physical difference from the F-15C are missile warning blisters on either side of the canopy rail.

However, the fourth-generation F-15EX is not a stealthy aircraft and costs about the same as an F-35 at around $80-$90 million per plane. Boeing has pushed back against the “fourth generation” descriptor, arguing that the aircraft’s electronic warfare suite, the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS), gives the fighter significantly more capability to approach highly contested airspace than the F-15C/D.

The jet can also carry oversize munitions that won’t fit in the F-35’s weapons bay, such as anticipated hypersonic missiles.

While the bulk of the F-15EX fleet is to have conformal fuel and weapons pallets—similar to those on the F-15E Strike Eagle—the Air Force did not buy them for early EX aircraft, but included them on an Unfunded Priorities List it provided to Congress.

Why the Space Force Wants to ‘Flip the Script’ On Space Domain Awareness

Why the Space Force Wants to ‘Flip the Script’ On Space Domain Awareness

June 7, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force wants to “pivot” and change how it does space domain awareness with a new generation of capabilities, and it wants industry to take a leading role in shaping that future, a top official said this week. 

Earlier this year, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said “actionable” space domain awareness is essential for his Competitive Endurance theory, which is meant to guide the entire service. Col. Bryon McClain is leading that push as program executive officer for SDA and combat power. 

McClain’s team took their first big step earlier this spring when they released a request for information from industry about ideas for space domain awareness in geosynchronous orbit. 

Right now, the Space Force relies on five Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites to monitor GEO, along with one Space Based Space Surveillance satellite and the secretive “SILENTBARKER” collaboration with the National Reconnaissance Office. 

But as the entire service shifts towards smaller, proliferated satellites and dynamic operations, space domain awareness will likely follow suit, McClain said June 4 during the C4ISRNET conference. 

“I think this is really where we’re trying to pivot and do things differently,” said McClain. Specifically, he cited the influence of assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration Frank Calvelli—who has emphasized larger numbers of small satellites, delivered quickly—and Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, former Space Systems Command boss—who has argued the service should only build new satellites when it cannot use existing systems or buy commercial capabilities. 

“Those two ideas, those mentalities really go hand in hand,” McClain said. And we’ve tried to embody that in this RFI, which means … a whole bunch of different ideas that really could mix together.” 

Specifically, the RFI suggests McClain’s office is interested in multiple satellites that can be refueled and move around to get closer to other objects on orbit, that can integrate into existing networks and ground stations and be built quickly and cheaply.  

Many specific requirements, however, were not included in the request, which McClain said was a deliberate choice. 

“Instead of the more traditional system, we just opened up the door and said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to share any requirements documents, because that starts getting into the classified world,'” he said. “‘But I want to figure out what you think you can do in this area.’ Huge number of responses.” 

McClain’s team is sorting through those responses and planning to speak with Guardians who perform SDA missions every day, asking them what they need and what ideas could address that need. 

“Sometimes, we spend too much time thinking we can always guarantee the outcome and know exactly what’s the most important thing,” McClain said. “And so we miss new innovations and new ideas from industry. So we’ll try to flip the script a little bit here and take industry and use that to influence our requirements script, which is why don’t have a specific answer for what we’re looking for.” 

Given fiscal constraints, progress on these new SDA systems may take a few years, McClain said. In its 2025 budget request, the Space Force focused heavily on missile warning/missile tracking and satellite communications—missile warning programs accounted for $4.7 billion or 25 percent of the research budget, while SATCOM got more than $1.6 billion, 8.8 percent. Space domain awareness systems, by comparison, got around $484 million, just 2.6 percent.

“The future for some of that RFI may not be until the 2026-27 timeframe, for some of the uniqueness of it and some of the new ideas,” McClain warned. “You may not see immediate action on it.” 

In the interim, the service could eye commercial capabilities as a way to close the gap. In its new Commercial Space Integration Strategy released in April, the Space Force ranked SDA second among all mission areas in terms of commercial market maturity and the urgency of military requirements. 

To implement that strategy, McClain said, his office needs to understand the commercial marketplace and make sure that the requirements they do set don’t exclude commercial solutions.