Years After USAF and Navy Were Told to Up Fighter Readiness, One Fleet Has Done It: F/A-18

Dec. 3, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Navy is keeping its fleet of F/A-18 Super Hornets at 80 percent readiness, six years after former Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered both the Air Force and Navy to raise their fighters’ readiness levels. The Air Force, meanwhile, has abandoned that goal and its fighters’ mission capable rates are still lagging.

Speaking at the Stimson Center on Dec. 3, Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti said her service couldn’t afford to throw “more money and people at the problem” when Mattis ordered the increase in readiness rates, particularly for the Navy and Air Force’s biggest respective fighter fleets, the F/A-18 and F-16.

The Navy reached its goal with the F/A-18 “by unpacking the challenge,” Franchetti said of her aviation command, which looked for “the root cause, and started working on that.”

Service officials previously said that they succeeded with F/A-18 readiness by maintaining more comprehensive databases on each aircraft, using proactive maintenance, and streamlining the logistics and parts supply enterprise.

The Air Force dropped the 80 percent mission capable rate benchmark in 2020. The service said then that it had different challenges than the Navy, and that traditional mission capable rate metrics weren’t a good indicator of readiness anyway. For fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which the Air Force supplied data, the F-16 mission capable rate was 69 percent. The Air Force has, however, adopted many of the same practices that the Navy used to raise the F/A-18’s availability.

The Navy’s definition of aircraft readiness may also differ from the Air Force’s, which distinguishes between aircraft able to do some of their assigned missions, or “mission capable,” versus all its assigned missions, or “full mission capable.”

Broadly, the Navy’s goal is to have 80 percent of all its forces “surge ready” by 2027, when Chinese President Xi Jin Ping “has told his forces to be ready to invade Taiwan,” Franchetti said.

Her approach is getting those forces “in and out of maintenance on time … making them ready to go. So when we need them, we can call on them.”

Franchetti has 33 focus areas across the surface, subsurface, and aviation domains to increase Navy capability and readiness.

“Another one is integrating robotic and autonomous systems,” she said. “We have a lot of different experimentation going on, but how do we bring that capability and that mindset into our regular formations?” Her other main pushes are “investing in our people and high-end quality training [and] investing in our Maritime Operations Centers so we can command that broader fleet fight that we know are going to need to do in the future.”

She’s asked her service-wide Navigation Plan implementation team to focus on “things like long range fires; protection; logistics; live, virtual, constructive training” as the ways to “get after those enduring capabilities.”

Like her Air Force counterpart Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin, Franchetti said the character of war is rapidly changing, and “you can see that we are going to fight in a system-of-systems way. It’s really a joint warfighting ecosystem. … We are going to have capabilities that we deliver through the Navy that enable other services to use their capabilities, and it’s this ecosystem of interdependent capabilities that we need to be able to contribute to.”

Her plan will be different from previous ones in that “It has a date. So we are all focused on getting after these capabilities by 2027.” She said that year is “not a cliff, it’s a waypoint on the way to being more ready every single day.” Also, for each initiative, “there’s a single accountable individual,” and she said she herself will be accountable for the plan’s overall success.

“And we’re using metrics and data to understand where are we in getting after them,” she said.

A 296-Day Sprint: How the Air Force Brought Back Warrant Officers In Record Time

Dec. 3, 2024 | By David Roza

When the first batch of Air Force warrant officers in 66 years graduates from their new training school at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. on Dec. 6, it will mark not only a new era for the Air Force, but also a major bureaucratic achievement as career field managers, personnel gurus, and other experts sweated behind the scenes to stand up the new program in less than a year.

For an organization as large as the Air Force, big changes often take a while. But when Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall announced the return of warrant officers in February, he gave planners a tight deadline: graduate the first batch by the end of the year. Lt. Col. Justin Ellsworth, career field manager for cyberspace operations officers, clocked 296 days between the official announcement in February and the graduation on Dec. 6.

“We found out about it a few weeks prior to SecAF’s announcement, and from that point forward it’s been all hands on deck,” he said.

Enlisted and commissioned Airmen are developed to eventually serve leadership functions, but that takes time and focus away from hands-on skills, which is particularly disruptive in fast-moving career fields such as cybersecurity and information technology. Warrant officers cover that gap and serve as dedicated technical experts, said assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs Alex Wagner.

“With perishable skills, like cyber, like IT, where the technology is moving so rapidly, folks who are experts in that can’t afford to be sent off to a leadership course for eight or nine months,” Wagner said in April.

Bringing back warrant officers now is particularly crucial as the service tries to stay ahead of rivals such as China and Russia, said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin.

“We are in a competition for talent, and we understand that technical talent is going to be so critical to our success as an Air Force in the future,” Allvin said in February.

But realizing that vision in such a short time was a challenge. Each rank in the Air Force has policies and systems for pay and benefits, retirement and separation, service commitments, constructive service credits, and other factors of day-to-day military life.

One of the planners charged with figuring out how those policies and systems would work for warrant officers was Lt. Col. Marjorie Barnum, chief of the retirement and separations branch within the Air Force Directorate of Manpower, Personnel, and Services, or A1 for short.

“There was a lot of behind the scenes work to make sure that the pay and personnel systems were ready to incorporate” the new ranks, Barnum explained. “It’s definitely still a work in progress, but the right thing to do by the new warrant officers is to have that done before they finish warrant officer school.”

Beyond that, planners also had to figure out how to convene boards for evaluating future warrant officers, how to strike the right force balance, and how to reintroduce the ranks to an Air Force that had not seen warrant officers since the 1980s.

Col. Andrew Feth, who represents the Air Force Chief Information Officer on the warrant officer project, likened it to a famous scene in the film “Apollo 13” where NASA engineers dump spare parts on a table to figure out how the imperiled astronauts could save their spacecraft with the gear they had on hand.

“We were all the parts on the table,” Feth explained. “We all had our own skills and knowledge within our own areas, as you see in a lot of large bureaucratic organizations where everybody has a role. We had to figure out ‘how am I going to get this done with all these different stovepipes?’”

U.S. Air Force Warrant Officer Training School class 25-01 in process to Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Oct. 8, 2024. Class 25-01 is the first class to attend WOTS and will be the first active duty warrant officers in the U.S. Air Force since 1980. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Evan Lichtenhan)

Just 10 days after the initial announcement, officials at Air Force headquarters met with representatives from the other services to learn the institutional roles of their warrant officer programs. Then they met with Air Force IT and cyber experts to figure what functional roles warrant officers ought to fill based on that guidance.

Eventually, the Air Force decided WOs would play three roles: professional warfighters, technical integrators, and trusted advisors. Meanwhile, Air University stood up a Warrant Officer Training School in June, to be staffed by Airmen who graduated from the Army warrant officer instructor course in July.

Back at Air Force headquarters, the cross-functional team stepped outside their usual lanes to hammer out the policy details.

“I learned a lot more about A1 personnel policy than I’ll ever need to know,” Ellsworth said.

Barnum said another key factor was support from the highest levels of the service, including multiple Air Force headquarters directorates, the Air Force Personnel Center, and Air Education and Training Command. Leaders from all corners agreed on the importance of having warrant officers and shared a vision for its success.

“That gave us the engagement down into the functional levels,” Barnum said. “If it’s a priority for your boss, it’s a priority for you.”

It helped that the rank-and-file were also fans of the effort. Nearly 500 Airmen applied for just 60 slots when applications opened in April, two months after the program was announced. Of those, 433 applications were deemed eligible, but the caliber of the applicants was so high that officials decided to bump the first cohort to 78 slots. As a career field manager, Ellsworth felt that enthusiasm in person during visits with Airmen.

“They were so pumped to see this come back again, we already have folks asking when the next board is going to be,” he said. “Just having that really helped make this a success.”

At the end of the day, it took elbow grease; when asked how many hours they spent working on the warrant officer project every week, the team members laughed.

“Let’s say we’re happy that the government doesn’t pay overtime,” one of them said. “Otherwise we’d have resource problems.”

Members of the Oklahoma National Guard cybersecurity team work together to defend networks during Cyber Shield 2023. Master Sgt. Mireille Merilice-Roberts/ONG

The work isn’t over: outstanding questions include modeling the right mix of skills and grades to retain as the number of warrant officers grows, and what professional military education will look like for the warrant officer corps. Further down the road, the Air Force is still working out its “street-to-seat” program, where qualified civilians go directly into the warrant officer corps.

The Army has a similar program for its cyber warrant officers, and the fiscal year 2025 defense spending bill includes language that would remove a one-year service requirement so that the Air Force can do the same.

“The idea is to fill specific roles where we don’t have a strong bench right now within the military,” Feth said. “We want to make sure we get the right people in the right positions so that we can get after the great power competition gaps.”

In the meantime, officials launched a warrant officer roadshow—a series of town hall briefings and leadership meetings at bases across the Air Force to get them ready for the new ranks.

“The last regular Air Force warrant officer retired in 1980, so it’s been a minute,” said Ellsworth. “We want to make sure when the warrant officer shows up, [the base] understands here’s how you utilize him or her within your organization.”

The lieutenant colonel pointed out one last factor that helped stand up the warrant officer program so quickly: the threat of rivals such as Russia and China.

“This focus on great power competition has galvanized us as an Air Force to come together and get things done,” he said. “I’ve been in the Air Force just about 18 years and I’ve never seen us move this fast on a program.”

B-1 Bombers to Relocate from Ellsworth to Grand Forks Starting This Week

Dec. 3, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force will move 17 B-1 bombers and more than 800 Airmen to Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., for the next 10 months starting this week, so that Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., can undergo construction to host the new B-21 Raider.

The service first announced plans for the temporary move in August, contingent on a final environmental assessment and legal review. The 319th Reconnaissance Wing, the host unit at Grand Forks, confirmed the final basing decision Dec. 2, and a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the first two bombers are set to arrive this week, depending on weather conditions.

Those first aircraft will help prepare Grand Forks for maintenance operations, while the rest of the fleet will follow in January, the spokesperson said. Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the B-1 fleet, previously said the relocation would start in February 2025.

Construction at Ellsworth related to the B-21 has been ongoing for a few years now, but the B-1 relocation is necessary now to complete a runway construction project.

Grand Forks is the closest Air Force base to Ellsworth with a paved runway for fixed-wing aircraft. The two installations are separated by about 400 miles.

Grand Forks has a long history with bombers. Beginning in 1963, the base housed B-52 bombers under the 319th Bomb Wing until it transitioned to B-1 missions in 1986. The last B-1s departed in 1994 and the wing was re-designated as the 319th Reconnaissance Wing. It currently hosts RQ-4 Global Hawk drones.

The base still meets many requirements to host the B-1, such as minimum runway lengths and facilities for refueling and storing munitions.

“There’s no doubt integrating the B-1 community into our Grand Forks Unmanned Aerial System ecosystem will pay dividends for everyone involved,” said Col. Tim Monroe, 319th Reconnaissance Wing commander. “This temporary relocation is the vanguard of Air Force integration, readiness, and agile combat employment, and epitomizes the mantra of One Team, One Fight.”

A B-1 from Ellsworth landed at Grand Forks to conduct a hot-pit refueling operation in preparation for the move, and in November, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife met with civic leaders from Grand Forks, N.D.

The 17 B-1s heading to North Dakota represent more than a third of the Lancer fleet, which will stand at 44 aircraft following several recent crashes and regenerations from the “Boneyard.”

This is not the first time Ellsworth B-1s and Airmen have had to relocate. A crash in January closed the base’s runway and forced some of the bombers to move for a few weeks to Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, the other main B-1 base.

GPS: A Connecting Force

Dec. 3, 2024

Every day, over 12,000 miles above our heads, Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites work silently to keep everything from military exercises to everyday activities on track.

Their positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) are crucial to U.S. military operations that protect our national security and promote global stability. GPS satellites provide navigation for all major field assets, critical location information and supply delivery to troops in the battlefield.

In addition to these vital efforts, GPS also helps civilians get to where they need to go, serves as the backbone for banking, and enhances global farming activities, to name a few. The atomic clocks onboard these satellites also provide pivotal timing information that keeps our modern and rapidly evolving world operating smoothly.

Beyond our daily lives here on Earth, space is the ultimate high ground. It’s the fabric that surrounds us and connects all domains, and GPS’ positioning and timing capabilities are key to feeding a more comprehensive picture of the ever-changing threat environment in space.

Positioning Across Domains

With its 21st Century Security® model, Lockheed Martin is leading the industry shift to a mission-centric approach that uses the latest technologies to network these platforms together and vastly improve their effectiveness and deterrence value.

This comes as the Department of Defense recognized the imperative to connect across environments, and our customers have made steady progress on joint all-domain operations (JADO) and combined joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2).

As proliferated networks and the sheer number of assets in space continues to increase in the name of resilience, GPS satellites and the positioning information they provide through signal trilateration become even more critical for spatial awareness. The GPS constellation is integral to understanding the positionality of assets on land, sea, air and in space, which ultimately helps underpin the ability to seamlessly connect everything together to counter threats.

Continued Investment for Assured Security

The fleet of 31 GPS satellites above our heads is strong, but aging – with nearly half of them already operating beyond their intended design lives. More GPS satellites are needed in space to ensure there is never a gap in the advantages they bring.

Unlike other countries’ positioning and navigation systems, the U.S. has no back-up option, and so we must do what we can to stay ahead of the curve of time.

There are four satellites remaining in the current GPS III constellation launching in the future, all of which provide eight times more anti-jamming power and carry the modernized secure military communications satellite code (M-code) signal. Once launched, these satellites will increase the number of on-orbit assets with this key capability for the warfighter.

A GPS III satellite undergoes testing within a Lockheed Martin Anechoic Test facility to ensure the signals of the satellite’s components and payloads do not interfere with each other during operations. Lockheed Martin photo.

What’s Next for GPS?

Lockheed Martin has already begun assembly of the next-generation GPS III Follow-On (GPS IIIF) satellites at its Littleton, Colorado, facility. These more advanced spacecraft will bring benefits like:

A boosted civilian signal for increased commercial flight safety.

An enhanced Regional Military Protection (RMP) derived from advancements in RF technology, which can overpower an attempted jamming signal in theater with up to 60 times stronger anti-jamming power.

A new Nuclear Detection System (NDS) ability to monitor unsanctioned nuclear detonation activities, helping ensure global nuclear test ban treaty compliance.

Lockheed Martin is working every day to bring GPS’ next-generation PNT capabilities to bear for our customers – bolstering civilian infrastructure and helping assure the safety of military operations around the world for years to come.

Space Force Adds $196 Million More for Its Long-Delayed GPS Control System

Dec. 2, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Nearly 15 years and $8 billion after launching a project to build a completely new ground system to manage GPS satellites, the Space Force is pouring another $196 million into its long-delayed GPS Operating Control Systems, known as OCX.

Contractor RTX, however, may be wearing out its welcome with Space Force leaders. The latest contract modification, issued Nov. 27, is “an undefinitized change order modification,” a change that does not represent a new option award, a new program, nor an engineering change proposal.

Indeed, it’s possible RTX would not even be eligible for such awards, given its performance on the OCX program. Originally foreseen as a six-year contract in 2010, with delivery in 2016, only Block 0 of OCX is currently in use. Blocks 1 and 2 remain unfinished, even though, according to a Department of Defense contract announcement, the Pentagon has now spent almost $4.49 billion on them.

The Government Accountability Office now estimates DOD has spent more than $8 billion on all the blocks of OCX, includig $433 million on Block 3F meant for future GPS IIIF satellites. The program has drawn the ire of watchdogs, lawmakers, and the Space Force’s top acquisition official, Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition, who has called OCX “troubled,” an “albatross,” and a “problem child.”

Calvelli has said repeatedly he wants to get the program across the finish line and into operations, but that now seems impossible on his watch, as the current administration will turn over in January with the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.

In early 2023, Calvelli said he wanted to field OCX that year. By November, he pushed the timeline to summer 2024. In February 2024, the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation estimated that the Space Force would not field OCX until March 2025 and not operationally accept it until July.

In May 2024, Calvelli told lawmakers in written testimony that he was hoping to transition the program to operations by spring 2025. In September, the Government Accountability Office said the Space Force wasn’t expecting final acceptance of the software until December 2025, and that was on a timeline with no margin for schedule slip.

Calvelli and other officials have said the program has struggled because it attempted to create an entirely new, very large software system all in one go, a practice now largely abandoned in favor of rapid, iterative updates. Developmental testing has been slow, and even after RTX delivers the program to the Space Force, there will be months of operational testing.

RTX Space

RTX, formerly Raytheon, has struggled with Space Force programs. In March, RTX pulled out of a $250 million agreement to build seven low-Earth-orbit missile tracking satellites for the Space Development Agency after determining it could not make a profit on the effort. In June, Space Systems Command dropped RTX from a planned missile warning/missile tracking satellite constellation in medium-Earth orbit. RTX officials have said they no longer want to be prime contractors for space systems.

Calvelli, who has led a charge for more accountability in space acquisition, has declined to say if RTX is on the Contractor Responsibility Watch List—which identifies companies not meeting cost or schedule goals on space programs. Space Systems Command has consistently declined to comment on that list, but last month SSC boss Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant told reporters “there is a company on the watch list today.”

“I won’t say who it is,” he added. “Those authorities reside with me right now. The [2025 National Defense Authorization Act] moves those authorities to the service acquisition executive, and Mr. Calvelli has indicated he would intend to use it perhaps more frequently.”

Garrant confirmed that the unnamed contractor is on high-priority programs for the Space Force, and said its placement on the watch list “has absolutely worked as intended: We’ve seen significant improvement in performance and attention at the most senior levels of the corporation.”

Garrant offered no other details. Speculation suggests RTX as the most likely candidate, especially since Garrant specifically ruled out Lockheed Martin, saying that firm is not on the list.

RTX declined to comment.

Under the 2018 law establishing the watch list, the Space Force cannot “award a contract to, execute an engineering change proposal with, or exercise an option” with contractors so designated. The contract change announced Nov. 27 does not meet that description.

Allvin: USAF Force Design Maps Out Plan to Scale Up—or Down

Dec. 2, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

Air Force Chief of Staff David W. Allvin said the principal aim of his much-advertised but still secret force design is to refine the service’s thinking and give it options to maneuver in the face of evolving threats—or different budgets.

“The design is, it’s almost more conceptual, but we’re designing the force to be able to account for the environment. That environment is one that has varying levels of and varying densities of threat,” Allvin said in a recent interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The Air Force’s approach differs substantially from the force designs that have been issued by other services, especially the Marines. In the case of the Marine Corps, its concept was a detailed roadmap that called for getting rid of all of its tanks, eliminating all of its bridging companies, and upping its missile batteries.

In contrast, the Air Force design does not prescribe precisely how the service plans to fill out its force in terms of aircraft or personnel—at least in an unclassified executive summary or in public statements.

Rather, the fundamental intent is to establish a framework to facilitate tough decisions as the service tries to prepare for future threats with resource levels that have yet to be determined in the years ahead.

“The design of the force is something that helps you put together the structure,” said Allvin. “You can you can build a bigger force or a smaller force, but that force can do what you need it to do in the environment. How much it can do depends on how much Air Force you get.”

The force design sorts capabilities into one of three “Mission Areas,” ranging from initiatives to cover a broad spectrum of threats to those for a more permissive environment:

Mission Area 1 capabilities “have attributes that allow them to live within and generate combat power from the dense threat area which will be under constant attack from adversary ballistic and cruise missiles or attack UAVs.”

Mission Area 2 is less high-end, with “attributes that afford them the range to operate from the defendable area of relative sanctuary beyond the umbrella of most adversary ballistic and cruise missiles or attack UAVs and project fires into highly contested environments.”

Mission Area 3 envisions the “flexibility and mass to span a range of potential future crises” under “limited adversary attack.”

The specific capabilities themselves to address those range of threats have yet to be spelled out publicly, though they include programs that are well underway. The force design will also be key to informing priorities for the service’s new Integrated Capabilities Command, Allvin and Deputy Chief of Staff for Air Force Futures Lt. Gen. David A. Harris told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“We’re looking at the right mix of the high-end, sophisticated, most capable capabilities, along with lower-end capabilities and asymmetric capabilities that provide the outcomes that we need,” Allvin said. “You can’t build a force design that doesn’t take cost in mind, so we’re trying to develop the force … to make sure we have the appropriate survivability and lethality and agility that adapts to the different levels and densities of threat.”

The service is analyzing the future of its Next-Generation Air Dominance crewed fighter, with a decision likely before the end of this year. It is also setting up an experimental test unit to figure out how its semi-autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones will function in the real world.

Those decisions loom as the Air Force prepares for a new political landscape, with the Trump administration set to nominate a new Secretary of the Air Force, as well as a Republican-controlled Congress.

While President-elect Donald Trump has broadly promised an agenda based on “peace through strength,” how much money his incoming administration and the next Congress will allocate toward the Air Force remains unclear.

As the Air Force plans to cope with the uncertainty, Allvin pushed back when asked about criticism from some quarters that the service doesn’t have a clear plan for the future.

“If you give me a dollar value, I know exactly where I want to go,” Allvin said.

“To say, the Air Force doesn’t know where it wants to go, I think that that may be a refrain. But we are trying to narrow down the variables, because as we are coming to key decision points, what we don’t want to do is commit ourselves to something that on the other end of it, we misinterpreted the future, and we are too invested in one thing, rather than being able to pivot,” Allvin said. “It’s got to be resource-informed.”

Air Force Moves to Streamline Officer Recruiting with New Accessions Center

Dec. 2, 2024 | By David Roza

The Air Force permanently stood up the new Air Force Accessions Center on Dec. 2, a move officials hope will improve coordination and consistency between the service’s various organs for bringing in new Airmen and Guardians, particularly officers.

AFAC places the Air Force Recruiting Service (AFRS) and the Jeanne M. Holm Center for Officer Accessions and Citizen Development, which previously fell under Air University, under one command.

AFRS is in charge of enlisted accessions for both the Air Force and Space Force, as well as officer accessions when candidates go through Officer Training School, the 60-day boot camp at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

The Holm Center oversees the execution of OTS and the new Warrant Officer Training School. It also administers the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), the service’s largest source of commissioned officers, and the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), a youth development program that does not incur a military obligation, but which many high schoolers go through on their way to joining the Air Force.

Each ROTC detachment has an officer assigned to recruiting duty, but the ROTC recruiting system was not always coordinating with the AFRS recruiting system.

For example, last fall, ROTC expected to under-produce officers in the 2024 spring graduation season, forcing AFRS to move fast to compensate with more OTS graduates, the new head of the Accessions Center Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

“If we’d seen this a year or more earlier, we could have had more options and been more deliberate in how we responded, rather than run that in a very short period of time,” said Amrhein, who is also keeping his position as head of AFRS.

Another example is Gold Bars, a program for newly-commissioned second lieutenants just out of ROTC who embed with Air Force recruiting squadrons for a year and serve as a kind of ROTC ambassador for interested recruits. Under AFAC, recruiting squadrons, Gold Bars, and the ROTC detachment recruiters are all in the same tent, which is faster than having to coordinate across to Air University and on down, Amrhein explained.

That integration could prove vital at a time when fewer young Americans are willing or able to serve, and the competition with private industry remains fierce. In 2023, the Air Force missed its recruiting goals for the first time since 1999. The service rebounded in 2024 and has set even higher goals for 2025, but Amrhein has cautioned that the service “cannot take our hand off the throttle.”

Every recruit counts, so if a policy needs to change or if a recruiter has a new idea, that information needs to spread across the recruiting enterprise fast.

“As we look for the attributes OTS wants or that ROTC is looking to produce, well now I can communicate that guidance to one force looking for that talent,” Amrhein said.

That should help for the people across the desk, too: now possible recruits, cadets, or candidates should get a more comprehensive, consistent picture of all the possibilities of Air Force or Space Force service than they might have under the old bifurcated system.

The general pointed to a recent conference where ROTC regional commanders and AFRS recruiting group commanders shared best practices for outreach, lead development, and other strategies. AFAC should enable more of that cross-pollination.

“There are all kinds of possibilities with this,” Amrhein said. “It just seems like a better alignment under AFRS rather than under Air University.”

JROTC will be “a big focus item” under AFAC, the general said. There are JROTC detachments in hundreds of high schools that Amrhein wants to better integrate with the rest of the recruiting enterprise. Same goes for ROTC cadets, many of whom boast large followings on social media. That could be a way to raise the brand recognition for the Air Force, a tough task at a time when most Americans have little to no connection with the military.

“Now that I have them, I intend to put some guidance out there to help them tell our story, because they fall under this command,” Amrhein said. “Now we can be very deliberate in that space.”

Jeanne M. Holm Center Change of Assignment ceremony attendees clap after the change of assignment at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Oct. 8, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Evan Lichtenhan)

The provisional AFAC first stood up Oct. 8, but the Dec. 2 ribbon-cutting marks it becoming permanent and reaching initial operational capability. Amrhein likened it to standing up a numbered Air Force (NAF), a larger entity composed of several wings. AFRS was already considered a NAF, while the Holm Center was not, but bringing it under AFAC will put it under the right umbrella. AFAC itself falls under Air Education and Training Command, which will soon reorganize into Airman Development Command.

“A provisional organization can be stood up and stood down, but [Dec. 2] will signify that the Air Force Accession Center is no longer provisional,” Amrhein said. “It’s a full-up organization.”

It’s a big change, but the branding for the AFRS, ROTC, and other programs across their many platforms and social media channels will remain the same.

“It is an organizational design so that we can understand and see ourselves, more than an external agency seeing us,” the general explained. “It’s really about taking these core things that are already there, and how do we organize that to be more effective … it’s about seeing issues and challenges earlier, having the flexibility, agility, and the authority to make decisions that will solve those problems at the lowest level.”

More Drones Spotted Over USAF Bases in UK

Nov. 27, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Air Forces in Europe reported more mysterious small drones flying around a cluster of USAF bases in the United Kingdom and said for the first time that drones had been seen at RAF Fairford, 130 miles away, where four U.S. B-52 bombers are currently deployed as part of Bomber Task Force 25-1.

U.K. officials said that jets had scrambled in response and British troops are deploying to the bases, as well.

USAFE first reported the small drones operating around and over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell on Nov. 25. Varying numbers of drones, in different sizes and configurations, were seen from Nov. 20-24. Who owns and operates the drones and what they are doing remains a mystery.

On Nov. 26, USAFE issued an update, reporting that “small unmanned aerial systems continue to be spotted.” The update included RAF Fairford among the bases experiencing incursions.

“None of the incursions impacted base residents, facilities, or assets,” the update asserted.

Parliament took up Air and Missile Defenses on Nov. 27, with MP Nick Timothy, who represents the area around Lakenheath and Mildenhall, saying “residents were concerned to hear aircraft being scrambled in the middle of the night to intercept them.”

Timothy’s comments confirm media reports that Lakenheath had scrambled fighters and highlighted the challenges commanders face when it comes to regulations about civilian safety.

USAFE has not indicated what kinds of defenses it is employing, but has stated “we retain the right to protect our installations.”

UK airspace is controlled by the a government agency, the Civilian Aviation Authority, much as U.S. airspace is the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration. Military operators must work within those civilian frameworks, severely limiting the options commanders have for defending against such incursions. Because bases are frequently close to densely populated areas, those options are further limited. Indeed, it can be difficult to maintain routine operating schedules in some cases, as residential development encroaches on military bases, let alone empowering them to take actions involving radio interference or, even less likely, kinetic weapons.

The BBC and Sky News reported Nov. 27 that roughly 60 British troops are deploying in response to the drones, including some with counter-drone expertise.

The incidents in the UK come about year after similar drone incursions cropped up at U.S. military bases, notably over Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., where the Air Force’s F-22 Raptors are based. Even now, nearly a year later, officials have yet to determine who was behind them, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A senior defense official told reporters in May that the Pentagon was recording roughly two to three cases of drones flying into the airspace around domestic U.S. military bases every week. The official did not specify locations.

Inexpensive, commercial drones are now widely available worldwide, fueling concerns about how they can be employed to spy on or disrupt military activities during peacetime and at war. The Air Force has been seeking low-cost solutions for defending against drones and drone swarms for years, especially means that don’t involve firing high-end missiles, and is also seeking to take a larger stake in air base defense, a mission that is typically tasked to the Army.

Musk Revives F-35 Criticism, but Could It Actually Lead to Cuts Under Trump?

Nov. 27, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Elon Musk—the SpaceX and Tesla founder tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to run a new commission dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency—thinks the F-35 fighter is an obsolete and poorly functioning weapon system whose mission is best overtaken by uncrewed aircraft.

Depending on the latitude given to Musk when Trump takes office in January, his view on the F-35 may carry major implications for the massive program, though Trump has been very complimentary of the fighter.

Musk offered his latest criticisms of the F-35 in a post on X, the social media site he owns. The fighter, he said, is a “jack of all trades, master of none” because it was “required to be too many things to too many people” and was the result of a “broken” requirements system. In a separate post, he referred to the jet as the “worst military value for money in history.”

“Success was never in the set of possible outcomes” for the fighter, he wrote, adding that “manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed.”

The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people.

This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes.

And manned fighter jets are… https://t.co/t6EYLWNegI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2024

Some US weapons systems are good, albeit overpriced, but please, in the name of all that is holy, let us stop the worst military value for money in history that is the F-35 program!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2024

Musk’s comments are an extension of views he first expressed four years ago at AFA’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium, where he shocked the audience by declaring that “the fighter jet era has passed.”

In a fireside chat at that conference, Musk said “locally autonomous drone warfare is where the future will be,” offering apologies to the attendees but insisting, “it’s simply what will occur.”

He also said the F-35 program would benefit from being placed in competition with drones employing a combination of remote control and onboard autonomy. But in such a competition, he wrote later on social media at the time, “the F-35 would have no chance.”

Senior Air Force officials and think-tankers at the time said Musk was putting too much faith in autonomous technology, and that there would always be a competitive advantage for the human mind in a dogfight. But since then, the Air Force has put increasing emphasis on autonomy, and the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program has risen to become the service’s key method to achieve affordable mass in air warfare.

And unlike in 2020, Musk is poised to potentially act on his critiques. In addition to becoming a close adviser to President-elect Trump, he is one of the heads of the unofficial “Department of Government Efficiency,” tasked with finding ways to slash billions from the federal budget.

The exact authorities and powers that Musk and his commission will have to reach that goal are still not completely clear, but some officials, including Democrats, have suggested the Pentagon’s budget is a prime place to go for such savings.

In response to a query from Air & Space Forces Magazine, the F-35 Joint Program Office defended the F-35 as a solid performer that has been adopted by 20 countries and is lauded by pilots as a technological leap over previous fighters.

The F-35s in service today “perform exceptionally well against the threat for which they were designed,” a JPO spokesperson said.

“Pilots continually emphasize that this is the fighter they want to take to war if called upon,” he said. “The air system’s international footprint amplifies the platform’s benefits, and it is the aircraft of choice for partners and allies.” The JPO noted that the F-35 serves with three U.S. military branches, seven international partner nations and 11 Foreign Military Sales customers, “and FMS interest continues to grow.” The JPO noted that, within 10 years, “there will be 700 F-35s in Europe, and only 60 of these will belong to the U.S.”

Asked to respond to Musk’s comments, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said “As we did in his first term, we look forward to a strong working relationship with President Trump, his team, and also with the new Congress to strengthen our national defense. The F-35 is the most advanced, survivable and connected fighter aircraft in the world, a vital deterrent and the cornerstone of joint all-domain operations.”

The Air Force declined to comment on Musk’s F-35 posts.

If Musk does decide to push for cuts to the F-35 program, it isn’t clear how much or how soon that could happen. The JPO reached a handshake agreement with Lockheed Martin last week covering prices and payments for production Lots 18 and 19, but it is not yet a signed contract.

“We have reached an initial agreement as part of ongoing negotiations for the Lot 18/19 Air Vehicle Production Contract,” the JPO said, adding, “We will share the aircraft quantity and cost figures when a final agreement is reached.” Industry sources said that process could take several months; well into the beginning of the second Trump term, and potentially giving the incoming administration significant influence over the deal. The two lots are expected to cover an estimated 300 or so aircraft.

Any change would also have to get the approval of Congress, and Lockheed’s team has placed F-35 contracts in nearly every state. Many Republican members of Congress have voiced support for the program, especially in Texas, Georgia, and California, where most F-35 airframe work is done, and Utah, where the Air Force’s F-35 depot is located. Connecticut and Florida delegations are also staunch F-35 supporters, because its engine, the F135, is made by Pratt & Whitney in those states.

On top of that, it’s also unclear how much flexibility the government would have in curtailing the F-35 program, as it has a financial partnership with nine other countries to develop the fighter.

It’s also possible that the Trump administration does not want to cut the F-35, regardless of what Musk says. Trump himself has praised the F-35, mentioning it by name at several campaign rallies; calling it “beautiful” airplane that is “invisible” to radar and boasting that he bought “many, many” of the fighters during his first term. He has said the F-35 is “very special” and “it wins every time.”

The F-35’s strong record of foreign sales would also seem to be a selling point to Trump, who has consistently played up the importance of the weapons export business, even bucking domestic and international pressure in his first term over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government to say he wanted to proceed with a huge arms sale to the Saudis.

Trump also takes credit for obtaining big discounts on earlier lots of F-35s, inserting himself directly into negotiations with Lockheed’s leadership during his first term.

F-35 Readiness

Musk’s post on X was in part a response to a story from Bloomberg quoting from a redacted report on the F-35 from the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation’s annual report in the spring. The report stated that the F-35’s reliability, maintainability and availability remain below the levels expected for it at this point in its service life. It also noted continuing issues with the F-35’s gun and its cyber defenses. These issues have resisted correction over the F-35 program’s 25-year history.

“Cyber threats are dynamic and thus require agile defense in depth,” the JPO said in response. “As such, the F-35 JPO aggressively maintains one of the most robust cybersecurity testing programs in DOD, which spans Developmental Test, Operational Test, and Sustainment. Results of all cyber tests are analyzed and prioritized for mitigation in a continuous cycle of assessing and improving, while the JPO actively seeks increasingly dedicated cyber test infrastructure.”

A spokesperson also said that the readiness issues pertaining to the F-35 during operational test are “not new or unknown.”

“We initiated the ‘War on Readiness’ and assembled a Fleet Readiness Team dedicated to understanding and addressing complex challenges that negatively affect fleet mission capability,” the spokesperson said. “The F-35 Executive Leadership Team is engaging directly with suppliers to ensure necessary focus is placed on top degraders affecting the fleet.”

Uncertain Future

In the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration, the Air Force is in the midst of rethinking its approach to air superiority. The Next-Generation Air Dominance manned fighter, long seen as the key to the future of air superiority, is under review, both for the technologies involved and their cost. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall had previously suggest the fighter would cost “multiple hundreds of millions” of dollars each, but in September said he thinks it might be possible to pursue an alternative approach that could cut the price to that of the F-35.

If that proves feasible, the Air Force’s plans for the F-35 might radically change. The service has never wavered from its requirement—set in 2001—for 1,763 F-35s, but under the previous Trump administration, Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper suggested the end figure might be reduced to about 500 because of stubbornly high operating costs. Roper also pushed for a rolling series of NGAD-like aircraft built in small lots and succeeded every few years by aircraft with fresh technology. Kendall has voiced a similar approach to the CCA program, which shares its budget line item with NGAD.

The Air Force has taken delivery of about 450 F-35As so far.