KC-46’s New Remote Vision System Likely Delayed Until 2026

March 13, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The KC-46’s improved Remote Vision System, dubbed RVS 2.0, is “likely” to be delayed into 2026, the Air Force’s top acquisition executive said March 12.

Air Force assistant secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics Andrew P. Hunter also said the service is poised for progress on two other refueling tanker projects: the KC-135 replacement, previously called the bridge tanker or “KC-Y,” and the Next-Generation Aerial refueling System, or NGAS.

On KC-46, Hunter cited “schedule pressure” and “the FAA airworthiness certification process” as factors weighing on the Boeing tanker.

Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) asked Hunter as he testified March 12 if the timeline for RVS 2.0 was still on track—the latest projection was to start fielding in October 2025.

Hunter hedged: “I cannot guarantee you that we would be in a position to field in ’25,” he said, referring to the revised delivery date set in the fall of 2022. “Maybe ’26. That is actually likely.” Hunter promised to get back to the lawmaker “with a more detailed timeline for where we see the state of play of fielding.”

An Air Force spokeswoman declined to offer further detail and Boeing did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The KC-46’s Remote Vision System is necessary because in this tanker, the boom operator cannot look directly out the back, as in conventional tankers. Instead, the operator views the connection on a computer screen. But the original RVS was compromised in certain lighting situations, causing operators to bang the rigid, telescoping refueling probe into other aircraft while trying to connect. The black-and-white display washes out or blacks out in direct sunlight, and operators struggled with depth perception. The issue was particularly problematic for low-observable aircraft, such as the F-35 and F-22, because accidental damage from the probe could compromise the fighters’ radar-absorbing properties.

Boeing and the Air Force struck a deal to fix the problem in 2020, and in December 2022 Boeing offered a sneak peak of RVS 2.0’s upgraded cameras and color display to reporters. But progress has been slower than expected, apparently, and while the Air Force and Boeing have “made a ton of progress” toward gaining FAA certification, there is still more work to do, Hunter said.

Air Force and Boeing leaders have called RVS 2.0 a “quantum leap” forward in capability, including potential automation of the process, Hunter said.

“I actually recently had the opportunity to fly on a KC-46 and observe how the crew operates, both in the flying of the aircraft and also with the boom operations,” he said. “And I think there is a substantial opportunity to leverage autonomy in both areas of the airplane. Interestingly enough, one of my takeaways was that the RVS 2.0 is a key enabler for potentially a greater degree of autonomy in the refueling operation itself and the boom operations because the greater clarity of the camera system will support a higher degree of high-fidelity automation in that process.”

NGAS and KC-135 Recap

The Air Force, meanwhile, continues to pursue two other refueling tanker programs. The KC-135 Recapitalization Program seeks to ensure “continuous tanker recapitalization” between the end of KC-46 procurement and the beginning of the next-generation NGAS program.

He said the Air Force’s request for information on an interim tanker program yielded responses from Boeing and Airbus, and the service is now crafting its acquisition strategy for those tankers. The Air Force asked for $13.7 million for this effort in fiscal 2025, when it anticipates issuing a request for proposals. Spending would ramp up to $188.6 million in 2026 and $243.7 million in 2027 under present plans.

Exactly how many tankers that might buy is still unclear—“the total number of Tanker Recap aircraft procured will be influenced by the FY 2024 NGAS Analysis of Alternatives and dependent on NGAS’s first delivery,” budget documents state.

The 2025 budget includes $7 million “to complete the AOA, do some of the early stage modeling and simulation work that will support the AOA and also stand up the future tanker program office,” Hunter said. That office “will manage both NGAS and the Tanker Recapitalization effort,” he added.

Hunter declined to offer details on NGAS, besides acknowledging that stealth is one consideration for the aircraft. “I think it’s a huge element of the analysis of alternatives, to look at, what are the different technologies that can help us do refueling in a contested environment,” he said. “And what are the different ways to solve that very challenging operational problem? …. We’re leveraging the expertise of our force, we’re leveraging modeling and simulation to help us think through what might work to help us enable that.”

Hunter also said NGAS will draw upon the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter program. “These programs are closely related, both in their concept—how they operate within the force design—and also, I’m going to be pleased to tell you, in the way that they’re functioning and the way that they’re working together,” Hunter said.

NGAD, the planned sixth-generation fighter, will assuredly be stealthy. Hunter said NGAS will also draw upon the Air Force’s acquisition experience with NGAD. It will “leverage expertise from the agile development office to help them get started and take what I call the next-gen approach to our acquisition programs,” Hunter said. “We have large vendor pools, continuous competition, and iterations of capability that we can deploy in a relatively good timeframe.”

Air Force Looks to Reusable Hypersonics as ARRW Ends and HACM Gears Up for Testing

March 13, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force Research Laboratory is shifting its hypersonics efforts away from missiles and toward reusable platforms optimized for reconnaissance and strike, Lt. Gen. Dale White, USAF’s uniformed deputy to the service acquisition executive, told the House Armed Service Committee on March 12.

White also said the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), built by Lockheed Martin, will soon conclude testing with no follow-on production currently requested, and that the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM), to be built by Raytheon, will enter flight tests next year.

“The focus of the Air Force Research Laboratory Technology development efforts will shift to less-mature technologies that are needed to develop future reusable hypersonic platforms, which will provide multimission intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well as strike capabilities,” White said at a hearing on the Defense Department’s various hypersonic weapon efforts. Due to classification, the hearing adjourned to resume in a classified facility.

White gave no timetable for development of a reusable hypersonic platform, but AFRL officials have previously forecast that such technologies could be available for operational use in the early 2030s.

The AFRL is coming off a run of “many enduring contributions to the field of hypersonics,” with “significant successes with their recently-completed High-Speed Strike Weapon technology maturation program,” White said.

The HSSW “transitioned over 30 technologies to various DOD hypersonic programs ranging from advanced materials to propulsion technologies to vehicle designs,” White reported.

“Based on these successes, we look forward to the launch of [technology maturation] to further develop and transition technologies for next-generation hypersonic capabilities in fiscal year 2025.”

It wasn’t clear if White was referring to the HACM, but he said testing of the air-breathing HACM will take place in 2025.

“The Air Force awarded the HACM contract in September of 2022 and is developing the weapon using the middle-tier acquisition rapid prototyping authority,” White said. “We are working to mature HACM to critical design, along with other development activities to enable the flight test activities in fiscal year 2025.”

These efforts “to develop and field an operational hypersonic air-launched weapon will enable us to hold high-value, time-sensitive targets at risk in contested environments from standoff distances,” White said. “A hypersonic weapon, in concert with a wider weapons force mix, is key to providing a war-winning Air Force.”

The ARRW is “undergoing the final test of the all-up round with a planned test program completion by the end of second quarter fiscal year 2024,” White added.

Images of an all-up ARRW missile at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, were published last week by the Air Force, which said B-52 flight and ground crews were receiving “familiarization training” with the weapon there. Notices to Airmen and the positioning of test apparatus in the vicinity of the Kwajalein test area suggested that the final test flight of the ARRW in the Pacific was imminent.

“This test will launch a full prototype of the operational hypersonic missile and is focused on the ARRW’s end-to-end performance,” White told lawmakers.

The Air Force has been cagey about what it plans to do next with ARRW. Although service acquisition executive Andrew Hunter said definitively last year that ARRW would not be pursued into production after the test effort concludes, service officials briefing on the fiscal 2025 budget this week have said the Air Force will look at the results of the final test and then decide what to do.

“Future ARRW decisions are pending final analysis of all flight test data,” White said in the hearing.

“We do not have the ARRW in the ‘25 budget book,” he added. “However, we are continuing to analyze the test data that we have from that that capability.” He also said the Air Force is “pleased to report that the ARRW rapid prototyping program has been a categorical success to date,” despite mixed results from its flight test program, which resulted in several test failures. The most recent tests have been reported as successes.

Air Force budget documents indicate the service wants to invest $517 million in research, development, test, and evaluation for HACM in fiscal 2025, with planned investment of more than $1 billion through 2029. However, its funding profile declines every year through ’29, which is described as the development completion date.

An artist’s rendering of the HACM missile. Image courtesy of RTX

The HACM funding profile in the RDT&E accounts calls for:

2025: $516.97 million

2026: $448.55 million

2027: $274.10 million

2028: $200.83 million

2029: $202.59 million

However, there is no money to procure HACM in Air Force budget documents, even though a typical program would already be laying in long-lead money for procurement. The Air Force spent $387.3 million on HACM in fiscal 2023 and requested $381.5 million for it in fiscal 2024.

The Air Force was not immediately able to comment on planned HACM procurement funding.

At Last: After 23 Years, F-35 Enters Full-Rate Production

March 12, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

Nearly 23 years after Lockheed Martin won the contract for the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35 has been cleared to enter full-rate production, the Pentagon announced March 12.

Although the designation is in some ways moot—the F-35 production enterprise is already operating at a rate close to its capacity—the designation means the Joint Program Office can now negotiate multiyear contracts for the fighter.

Pentagon acquisition executive William LaPlante signed an acquisition decision memorandum approving Milestone C, or full-rate production, after a March 7 meeting of the Defense Acquisition Board, which he chairs. He made the call “after considering the results” from F-35 operational test and evaluation, live-fire testing, the System Development and Demonstration exit criteria, applicable laws, and future production strategy, the Defense Department said in a press release.

Proceeding to full-rate “requires control of the manufacturing process, acceptable performance and reliability, and the establishment of adequate sustainment and support systems,” the release noted.

For the last four years, the full-rate decision was stymied by difficulty integrating the F-35 with the Joint Simulation Environment, a wargaming system that helps decision-makers find the right mix of platforms and weapons for given war scenarios. That hurdle was cleared in September 2023, the Pentagon said.

Lockheed executive vice president for aeronautics Greg Ulmer recently forecast that the F-35 program will have a stable production rate goal of about 156 aircraft per year for at least the next five years.

The F-35A has been operational with the Air Force since 2016. The service continues to pursue a planned fleet of 1,763 aircraft.

Negotiations between the JPO and Lockheed Martin for production Lots 18 and 19 have been underway since last fall; Lot 20 is expected to be the first contract under which multiyear status can play a role. Under a multiyear contract, contractors can be assured of a longer run of production and make economic order quantities of materiel, reducing their costs and the cost to the government.

In a press release, LaPlante called the milestone “a major achievement for the F-35 program,” highlighting for the military services, international partners, and FMS customers that “the F-35 is stable and agile, and that all statutory and regulatory requirements have been appropriately addressed.”

He called the fighter the “premiere system that drives interoperability with our allies and partners” while contributing to integrated deterrence and the precepts of the National Defense Strategy.

The F-35’s status means it’s now “well-positioned to efficiently produce and deliver,” LaPlante said. He praised the efforts of program director Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt and the Joint Program Office, saying the program has made “significant improvements over the last decade, and we will always be driven to continuously improve sustainability, interoperability and lethality” of the fighter. The program can now “focus on the future of the F-35, instead of the past.”

There are still some ongoing issues with the F-35, according to Raymond O’Toole, acting director of operational test and evaluation, which greenlighted the jet’s Milestone B.

“The program is working to address” some of those issues, which include a need for improved test infrastructure for developmental support, and to ensure “readiness to test of the upcoming Block 4 capabilities,” O’Toole said in the announcement release.

The F-35 program has delivered more than 990 aircraft to the U.S. military services, partners, and FMS customers, the Pentagon said.

Ironically, the full-rate announcement comes as F-35 deliveries are on hold pending testing of the Tech Refresh 3 hardware and software, on which the Block 4 upgrade depends. Lockheed is storing about 70 completed F-35s until that testing concludes—expected in mid-to-late summer—but production continues.

To Help Explain Re-Optimization Changes, DAF Has Senior Leaders ‘Going Out’ to the Force

March 12, 2024 | By Chris Gordon

The Department of the Air Force is undertaking its biggest overhaul since the Cold War, with new commands, ranks, units, and training.

Now, the Air Force and Space Force must sell the changes to nearly 700,000 Airmen and Guardians, the DAF’s top civilian in charge of personnel noted March 12.

“One of the biggest challenges is having our force understand why these changes are coming,” Alex Wagner, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said at an AFA Warfighters in Action Event.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall concluded in the fall of 2023 that the service was not sufficiently prepared to confront China’s rising military might and ordered a sweeping “re-optimization” unveiled in February at the AFA Warfare Symposium.

“The Secretary challenged all of us and said, ‘What do we need to do to put ourselves in a position to meet the growing threats and the competition, particularly from the People’s Republic of China?’ and talent plays an outsized role in that,” Wagner added.

A number of initiatives are underway. Air Education and Training Command will become Airmen Development Command, offering more modernized and holistic training. The services will be deployed in new ways, with the Air Force creating Air Task Forces and Combat Wings as “units of action” to replace the current, more ad-hoc model. Large-scale training exercises and no-notice readiness events are also in the offing. Then, there is the introduction of the much-ballyhooed warrant officer track for the cyber and IT career fields.

“I think, in general, people are skeptical of change but receptive to leadership,” Wagner said of how the service will explain the alterations to service members.

Top leaders have already visited bases to discuss the changes. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin’s stops have included Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., and he has also addressed students, faculty, and staff from the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

The newly installed Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, David Flosi, who took over on March 8, says he is prepared to move out to sell re-optimization to Airmen. Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman and Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna are expected to conduct their own sales pitch.

“When you see the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Chief of Space Operations, and the Secretary of the Air Force all operating from exactly the same page, it says this isn’t an initiative that’s going to last one year or two, but it’s going to last throughout their terms,” Wagner said.

Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force; Kristyn E. Jones, Performing the Duties of Under Secretary of the Air Force; Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations; Gen. David W. Allvin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force during a Reoptimizing for Great Power Competition: A Senior Leaders Discussion panel at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo. Feb. 12, 2024. Photo by Jud McCrehin/Staff

The Air Force has plastered QR codes with more information on re-optimization changes in prominent places and conducted a sustained campaign to promote the changes on its social media pages. Wagner said more outreach is planned.

“We always undervalue the degree to which we communicate,” Wagner said. “I want to ensure that the force understands the strategy, understands the threat, and understands why we’re taking the steps that we’re taking. Our two best messengers are, in the Air Force, the Chief of Staff for the Air Force and the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force. In the Space Force, the Chief of Space Operations and Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force. They are in the process of going out and speaking to the force.”

Allvin has noted some of the changes may take his entire four-year tenure as Chief to materialize. Kendall has said he is confident the changes will live on even if he departs his position. Wagner said that the acceptance of the changes would also be a process.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” Wagner said. “Because it’s complex, and change is going to be hard. But we’ve got a unified team focused not only on making these changes, but helping people understand what it means for them and their families.”

NORAD Boss: Chinese Aircraft Could Start Operating Near US This Year

March 12, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, the new head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, warned lawmakers March 12 that Chinese warplanes could begin operating near the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) as soon as this year.

“Fortunately, we haven’t seen Chinese aircraft operate near our air defense identification zones yet, but I think that that’s coming as early as this year,” Guillot told the House Armed Services Committee in his first congressional testimony since swearing in as NORAD and NORTHCOM commander in February. “That shows an overall concern I have about the growing capability of China not only with aircraft, but also with ships and even submarines being able to range further from China and closer to our shores.”

Air Defense Identification Zones are buffer regions that extend beyond territorial boundaries, covering airspace hundreds of miles from the coastline that nations use to track approaching aircraft. NORAD tracks aircraft using a network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars, and fighter aircraft, and all aircraft entering or exiting U.S. airspace from abroad must be identified beforehand.

Russian fighters and bombers enter the U.S. ADIZ on a regular basis without entering U.S. or Canadian airspace. Occasionally, NORAD will scramble fighters to intercept those aircraft and escort them out of the ADIZ. In February, NORAD reported three instances of Russian aircraft operating in the Alaskan ADIZ.

Chinese aircraft entering the U.S. ADIZ, however, would mark an expansion of the People’s Liberation Army’s reach. In recent years, the PLA has entered the ADIZ around the island of Taiwan hundreds of times, sometimes sending dozens of planes in one day, in moves that observers warn could be probing Taiwanese defenses or lulling them into a sense of complacency.

U.S. and Chinese aircraft have dealt with each other in the Indo-Pacific—the Pentagon revealed in 2023 that Chinese aircraft conducted over 180 risky intercepts of U.S. planes in the past two years, surpassing the total incidents from the previous decade, heightening concerns about China’s unpredictable and increasingly provocative behavior.

At the same time, Chinese surveillance balloons have entered U.S. airspace five times in recent years, with the Pentagon missing several at the time they occurred before one traversed the entire continental U.S. in January 2023, eventually being shot down after a few days.

Guillot told lawmakers that NORAD has taken steps to better identifying objects like spy balloons that may have gone unnoticed in the past, closing the “domain awareness gap” highlighted by his predecessor, Gen. Glen D. VanHerck.

“First and foremost, my predecessor … directed the radar sensitivities to be adjusted, which would allow better detection of low radar cross section slow moving and high altitude objects,” Guillot said, adding that the system however introduces some clutter due to receiving more data.

“Second, when our operators see intermittent hits that in the past would be passed off to most usually weather or other phenomena that would cause an inconsistent hit, they’re now continuing to track those more carefully and more consistently to ensure that it is not a balloon or some other phenomena,” Guillot said.

“And third is better Domain Awareness between the other combatant commands. As we get JADC2 … the ability to share data from one combatant command to another, instead of stopping at a black line on a map that divides the regions, now we can seamlessly share that information electronically to increase our awareness further away from our shores.”

Still, Guillot said NORAD and NORTHCOM’s surveillance systems need further investment, calling over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) and the Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) his “top priorities.”

The Missile Defense Agency said in January a LRDR missile defense system in Alaska is mostly complete and will begin operations late this year. Both the U.S. and Canadian militaries have invested in OTHR, with the U.S. Air Force planning to build four OTHRs for NORAD and NORTHCOM. Guillot added that Alaska will have one OTHR. As the process is still in its early stages, he stressed that keeping the program on track is pivotal.

“That would give us capability against cruise missiles, traditional air tracks, as well as the hypersonics,” Guillot said. “Keeping that program on track is the number one priority of from NORTHCOM, because of that great capability that it would bring.”

Guillot added that hypersonic weapons pose a greater threat than Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) due to their ability to fly at lower altitudes and their maneuverability.

“Hypersonics are probably the most destabilizing weapon that we face now,” Guillot said. “They shorten detection time and the fact that they don’t follow a traditional ballistic track means they’re very unpredictable and the area of uncertainty is huge, based on their speed and their maneuverability. That’s what makes them such a challenge to not only detect, but to track and eventually defeat.”

Air Force Promotes Largest Number of Senior Master Sergeants Since 1991

March 12, 2024 | By David Roza

Out of 15,151 eligible candidates, the Air Force selected 1,734 master sergeants for promotion to senior master sergeant this year, the highest total since 1991, when 2,208 master sergeants were selected for promotion, according to a spokesperson for the Air Force Personnel Center.

This year’s selection rate was 11.44 percent. The full 24E8 promotion list will be available on the Air Force Personnel Center public website on March 14 at 8 a.m. central time, AFPC wrote in a press release March 11.

This year marks the latest in a five-year climb for senior master sergeant promotions, growing from 1,184 (7.62 percent) in 2020 to 1,629 (10.16 percent) in 2023. Airmen in other grades may not be so lucky: Air Force officials have warned of lower promotion rates for some noncommissioned officer ranks as the service tries to rebalance its NCO corps.

Last year saw the smallest number of new staff sergeants (9,000) since 1992, and the lowest selection rate (17.4 percent) since 1997. Airmen also faced long odds when applying for the rank of tech sergeant, but the selection rate for master sergeant went up a small amount between 2022 and 2023.

Senior Master Sergeant Promotion Statistics

Year	Selected	Eligible	Promotion Rate
2024	1,734	15,151	11.44%
2023	1,629	16,031	10.16%
2022	1,443	17,419	8.28%
2021	1,194	17,107	6.98%
2020	1,184	15,544	7.62%
2019	1,434	13,316	10.77%
2018	1,549	13,054	11.87%
2017	1,391	11,788	11.80%
2016	1,467	11,904	12.32%
2015	1,257	14,362	8.75%
2014	999	14,823	6.74%
2013	1,367	12,834	10.65%
2012	1,702	12,351	13.78%
2011	1,274	12,378	10.29%
2010	1,269	13,741	9.24%

Space Force Rolls Out New PT Gear, While Airmen Have to Wait a Little Longer

March 12, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Space Force officially started rolling out its new physical training uniform on March 8, giving Guardians their first ever finalized service-specific uniform.

Airmen, meanwhile, will have to wait one more month before the Air Force starts distributing its new PT gear.

The Space Force uniform—black shorts, a dark gray T-shirt, black sweatpants, and a black windbreaker, with a patterned “USSF” on the sleeves of the shirt and jacket, “Space Force” on the back of the shirt, and the Space Force’s Delta logo on the left side of each item—was first distributed to new Guardians at Basic Military Training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

Over the next several months, the service will deliver the gear to Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) locations with Space Force personnel, including Peterson, Schriever, Buckley, Vandenberg, and Patrick Space Force Bases, Los Angeles Air Force Base, and the Pentagon, according to a service release.

Officials are asking Guardians to only buy one uniform set to start, as supplies will be limited.

“The PT uniform cost will be calculated into the Guardian uniform replacement allowance beginning April 2024,” the release noted.

The Space Force first unveiled its PT uniform for wear-testing in September 2021 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference—2nd Lt. Mahala Norris, an NCAA track star at the Air Force Academy, sported the gear in a promotional video. In April 2023, the service said it would roll out the uniform in early 2024.

It’s been a slightly longer process for the Air Force’s new PT uniform, the design of which was first released in March 2021, with the plan to release it to Airmen in October 2022. Supply chain issues delayed that process multiple times, and a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the service now expects to roll out the gear in April, also to BMT trainees.

The latest delay of about a month was “due to a previous fabric shortage and pending resolution of an ongoing color match concern for the running and all-purpose short,” the spokesperson said.

There is no timeline for AAFES locations to start stocking the uniform, the spokesperson added.

The Air Force PT uniform consists of a jacket, pants, and two types of shorts—all in dark blue with a gray stripe and the Air Force logo—as well as a gray T-shirt with the Air Force logo on the upper left chest and a patterned “Air Force” across the back. The gear is significantly less bulky than the current uniform, which was first introduced in the early 2000s and is notorious for its “noisy” fabric.

Air Force Uniform Office members 1st Lt. Avery Thompson and 2nd Lt. Maverick Wilhite put updated versions of the Air Force PT uniform through their paces at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, Feb. 25, 2021. Air Force photo by Jim Varhegyi.

Both the Air Force and Space Force PT uniforms are being crafted with soft, quick drying, antimicrobial “performance” fabrics to wick moisture and control odors. Both services are also making men’s and women’s sizes, instead of unisex, for better fit.

The PT uniform marks another step as the Space Force establishes its identity as an independent military branch. Another major step is its service dress, where USSF is testing a distinctive look with a dark blue coat—almost black—that has an upturned collar and closes with a diagonal row of six buttons, as well as dark gray pants and a lighter gray shirt. In September, more than 100 Guardians across the globe started wearing the prototype at least three times per week as part of “wear testing,” the final stage before the uniform is produced and rolled out to Guardians everywhere in 2025.

For day-to-day wear, the Space Force still uses the same Operational Camouflage Pattern uniform worn by the Army and the Air Force, but with service-specific blue nametape.

Air Force’s 2025 Budget Lags Inflation But Is ‘Acceptable’ Within New Constraints

March 11, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force’s fiscal 2025 budget request is adequate and defensible but doesn’t provide the speed with which senior leaders would like to bring on new systems to compete with the likes of China, they said in rolling out the new spending plan.

All told, the Department of the Air Force is requesting a budget of $262.6 billion for 2025. That total includes $188.1 billion for the Air Force, $29.4 billion for the Space Force, and $45.1 billion in “pass through” funding that the Air Force does not control.

The Air Force request marks 1.6 percent growth, or $3 billion over the fiscal 2024 budget request, while the Space Force request marks a decline of $600 million, or 2 percent. All figures are in constant dollars, not adjusted for inflation, indicating both services would actually see a decline in buying power.

“We are not quite keeping up with inflation,” acting Air Force undersecretary Krysten Jones told reporters.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall hinted as much March 7 at the McAleese defense programs conference when he told attendees there was “no real growth” in the budget.

However, Kendall told reporters ahead of the budget rollout that “I consider this to be an acceptable budget. I can defend it.” The spending plan is “moving forward on the things that we prioritize. Again, I’d like to be able to move faster, but you know, we do have constraints.”

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, passed by Congress last summer—but after the Department of the Air Force had already largely built a budget—required DAF leaders to “make some hard choices to fit within those boundaries,” Kendall said.

Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter told the McAleese defense conference on March 7 that the service had to cut around 2 percent from its budget topline due to the FRA. Though that percentage “sounds small,” Hunter said, the service could not touch personnel accounts, so the cuts fell disproportionately on modernization and readiness.

Air Force budget director Maj. Gen. Michael A. Greiner said the FRA reductions amounted to just over $2 billion.

However, those cuts will not have a dramatic effect on the Department of the Air Force’s recently-announced restructuring plans, Kendall said. Though new organizations will be created, “they’re going to be created out of pieces we already have,” he said, “so we’re not talking about big manpower increases, and we’re going to minimize, to the extent we can, the movement of people and the acquisition of real estate and so on.”

The “Re-Optimization for Great Power Competition” effort will not be “zero cost,” Kendall added, but he expected the chief expenses will come in the form of adding capabilities and resources to deployable wings. That cost won’t be known for a while as the service classifies wings and takes stock of what it needs.

In general, the Air Force’s budget outlook beyond 2025 appears challenging.

“We’ve got some tough choices … when we get to [FY] ’26, which we’re building now,” Kendall said. Among the challenges in that budget will be accommodating a nearly $40 billion overrun on the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, although the Air Force is looking for economies and that bill doesn’t have to be paid in a single year.

In making choices, Kendall said his priority “is to get to a next generation of capabilities” to offset China’s military advances. As a result, the budget seeks to “protect” Kendall’s seven Operational Imperatives—the key modernization investments he first outlined in 2022. Consequently, there was “a tradeoff” between what he called “the mid-term force”—things that are already developed and which the Air Force is buying—and research and development of “the longer-term force.”

“What we’re doing, essentially … is buying options for people to procure things in the future. So all that research and development essentially doesn’t give you anything immediately, it gives you an option to then exercise for production later,” he said.

As an example of leadership’s thinking, the budget reduces buying in-production F-35 and F-15EX fighters, but preserves previously-planned developmental funding for the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter and the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. The Air Force buy of F-35s drops from 48 in 2024 to 42 in 2025, and the buy of F-15EXs will drop from 24 to 18.

That will also reduce the program of record for the F-15EX from 104 to 98, with production ending in 2025, said Greiner. At one time, the Air Force expected to buy upwards of 180 F-15EXs.

Funding of NGAD and CCA development amounts to $3.3 billion in 2025, up $815 million and $165 million, respectively, from FY’24 requested levels. But for both programs, “life gets a lot harder after ’25,” Kendall said, without elaborating.

Jones said it will cost about $1 billion extra to achieve the same levels of readiness and flying hours in fiscal ’25 as it did in ’24. This drove “difficult decisions” in munitions, for example, where “we are buying, in some cases, slightly fewer munitions for the same price” as in fiscal 2024, she said.

Kendall said the Air Force is “trying to continue what we hope will be multiyear” contracts for the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile, the AGM-158 JASSM-ER stealth ground-attack missile, and its variant, the LRASM anti-ship missile.

Absent congressional authority to do multiyear procurement—which allows buying in bigger lots and economic order quantities for materials—”the funding that we have laid in there [previously] will not be able to buy the items that we had planned for,” Greiner said.

“But either way, we have money in there, we’re going to continue to procure those munitions that we know are critical,” he said.

Strategic Funding

Developmental funding for the Sentinel ICBM stayed flat at $3.7 billion from fiscal 2024 to 2025. That’s in addition to $700 million in military construction costs.

Research, development, test, and evaluation funding for the B-21 bomber will decline from $3 billion to $2.7 billion. The budget also includes money for B-21 low-rate initial production procurement, but the number of aircraft and the amount of funding is classified.

B-52 engine, radar, and other upgrade development stays flat at $1 billion. The Long-Range Stand-Off missile (LRSO), the nuclear cruise missile that will equip the B-52 and later, the B-21, was funded at $623 million to continue design, development, and test.

Pilot Training

Asked about the ongoing pilot shortage, Kendall noted that flying hours tick up slightly in the ’25 budget, from 9 hours per month to 9.2 per pilot, for a total of 1.1 million flying hours, which officials hope will help retention and readiness. Kendall said he promised Air Force pilots that “we would not cut flying hours,” and former Chief of Staff—now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told Kendall there would be increased risk if flying hours were reduced any further.

But Kendall also argued that the term “pilot shortage” is a misnomer. The Air Force can fill its cockpits, he said. Rather it has “a shortage of staff officers who were supposed to be pilots.”

There’s also no shortage of people who want to be pilots, Kendall added.

“The problem is the pipeline to produce,” he said, “And the biggest impediment in that is the T-38, and its reliability.” The T-38 is old, its engines are getting hard to repair, and the Air Force is “waiting for the T-7 to come online and replace it.”

The Air Force is in flight test with the T-7A, and the 2025 budget includes $233 million for seven airplanes. But the T-7 has been delayed and its initial operating capability, initially planned for this calendar year, will be deferred several years, forcing extended reliance on the T-38.

‘Right Direction’

Overall “we’re very, very fixated on being competitive with the pacing challenge” of China, Kendall said of the 2025 budget.

‘I think the budget that we’ve submitted moves us forward; not quite as fast as we would like to, but it moves us forward, in the right direction, while maintaining the current capabilities that are essential to the nation. So, I’m pretty comfortable with what we’re asking for, given the constraints that we have,” he said.

Space Force Faces First Ever Budget Cut in 2025, Driven in Part by Fewer Launches

March 11, 2024 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Space Force budget could be headed for its first ever dip in fiscal year 2025, as the service unveiled a $29.4 billion request March 11, a 2 percent drop compared to its 2024 budget request.

In its first four budget cycles, the Space Force saw explosive growth as the new service established itself and brought in new personnel and missions.

Space Force Budget Requests By Year

Year	Amount	Year-over-Year Growth
2021	$15.4 billion	N/A
2022	$18.05 billion	17.21%
2023	$26.1 billion	44.60%
2024	$30 billion	14.94%
2025	$29.4 billion	-2.00%

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and other leaders highlighted fewer planned satellite launches as a key reason for the smaller budget. In a briefing with reporters, Kendall pointed out that “payloads have not been ready,” leading to delays in launches and resulting in a smaller number of launches than initially planned for the fiscal year.

“Last year, we had planned 15 total space launches, and that’ll be 11 in the ’25 budget plan.” Maj. Gen. Michael A. Greiner, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for budget, said on March 8. “That was not necessarily due to [spending] caps or having to make tough choices, that’s really just how we look through the long-range strategic satellite launch manifest. These are the capabilities in the launches that we need, in order to get the satellites on orbit that we need as well and those that are ready to go.”

Of the 11 launches planned within the National Security Space Launch program, four will be designated for deploying satellites in low-Earth orbit for the Space Development Agency’s constellation. FY25 will mark the first year of NSSL Phase 3 procurement, which is meant to increase competition and open the door to smaller launch providers through a so-called “dual-lane” approach.

Kendall also noted that under the spending caps set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act and with the readiness demands of the current force, there was only so much he could do to protect the Space Force’s budget, which is skewed heavily toward future capabilities.

“Sixty-three percent, I think, of the Space Force budget is R&D,” Kendall said. “We’re not moving as fast there as we would like to, but we didn’t have any place to make any adjustments. And I have some ability to move money between the Space Force and the Air Force, but I didn’t see any trades here that we had already done that we hadn’t already done or had talked about, did we want to make.”

Accordingly, the Space Force’s research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) and procurement budgets saw a decline from the fiscal 2024 request, while operations and management (O&M) and personnel funds went up slightly.

Account	Fiscal 2024 Request	Fiscal 2025 Request
Operations & Maintenance	$4.9 billion	$5.2 billion
Military Personnel	$1.2 billion	$1.2 billion
RDT&E	$19.2 billion	$18.7 billion
Procurement	$4.7 billion	$4.3 billion
TOTAL	$30 billion	$29.4 billion

With the Space Force trimming $500 million from its research and development budget in FY25, the service is prioritizing the modernization of existing infrastructure to enhance defense and surveillance capabilities.

In particular, the branch plans to invest heavily its missile warning and tracking (MW/MT) capabilities, to the tune of $4.7 billion. That includes $2.1 billion for the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) constellation, as well as $2.7 billion for other programs like the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer for its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture in low-Earth orbit. The Space Force’s budget documents indicated they are interested in medium-Earth orbit capabilities as well.

Satellite communications will also receive significant investment. In particular, the service wants to invest a little more than $1 billion in the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communication network, for nuclear command, control, and communications, and almost $600 million for Protected Tactical Services (PTS), a jam-resistant system.

The service plans to expand its total workforce by 4 percent to 15,084, combining military and civilian personnel. That will include 9,800 uniformed Guardians, an increase of 400 over last year. That jump will come primarily through inter-service transfers. That, combined with raises in pay, Basic Allowance for Housing, and Basic Allowance for Subsistence, contributed to the Military Personnel account inching up $50 million from 2024, to a total of $1.2 billion.

The O&M budget request also went up marginally—$300 million—to a total of $5.2 billion. This budget will support the operations, sustainment, and maintenance of crucial assets, including satellites and ground-based systems, as well as a 2 percent civilian pay raise.

While the overall budget is slightly down, Kendall did note that the “pass-through”—a section of the budget not controlled by the Air Force that goes to classified intelligence programs—does have funds that will enhance the capabilities of the Space Force.

“We’re working very closely with the intelligence community, particularly with NRO,” he said, referring to the National Reconnaissance Office. “And there are dual-use capabilities that can be fielded in space that are valuable both for intelligence and military applications. And that’s why I’m saying that some of the things that are in the pass-through are beneficial to the Space Force.”

Kendall declined to elaborate, however, on whether the Space Force’s budget reduction was directly related to the pass-through increase.