GPS Without Space? DOD Looks to Quantum for an Answer

Nov. 27, 2024 | By Shaun Waterman

The Department of Defense is eyeing localized quantum sensors as a radical alternative to space-based Global Positioning System satellites in the face of increasing threats to GPS signals needed for precision navigation and timing.

In a peer conflict, notes Lt. Col. Nicholas Estep from the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), “you really must presume a denied and degraded environment in which you cannot rely upon external PNT signals like GPS.”

That’s why DIU, the Pentagon’s acquisition outpost in Silicon Valley, is seeking commercial partners to help develop distributed, localized alternatives that don’t rely on easily jammed signals from thousands of miles above the earth’s surface.

The military depends on GPS for navigation, timing, and targeting, and industries from transportation to agriculture to banking rely on its precision for a host of purposes. But the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have exposed how signal jamming and spoofing can deny access to signals from space, forcing users to seek alternatives.

“What are we going to do in order to maintain PNT-enabled solutions, to allow the joint force to execute its mission?” asked Estep, whose DIU portfolio includes quantum sensing, hypersonics and advanced materials.

DIU solicited industry seeking quantum sensing technology that could augment or back up GPS satellites for military applications within a couple of years. The “project will focus on demonstrating the military utility of quantum sensors to address strategic Joint Force competencies,” DIU said at the time.

Dozens of proposals poured in, Estep said: “We did get a very strong signal of interest from the community, a mixture of traditional primes, startups, and non-traditional companies.”

The solicitation was designed to encourage a variety of approaches and solutions, Estep said. “There won’t be one quantum sensor to rule them all, that that the Air Force will use, that the Navy would want to use, that the Army [would want to] … There’s no panacea—quantum or classical—to address all of the joint force PNT needs.”

Instead, he said, DIU would seek to marry the various approaches presented by industry applicants with appropriate use cases, based on the form factor and the maturity of the technology. “Some [approaches] may be better suited for aircraft. Some are better suited to support surface or subsurface vessels,” he said.

DIU is working with multiple services and other stakeholders in the Department of Defense to get these innovative solutions into warfighters’ hands as quickly as possible, Estep said, “And so we help to coordinate these different technology solutions, with what we think best correlates to service deployment mechanisms and diverse mission sets… in several different parallel [acquisition] pathways.”

The Space Force is also working on resilient space-based PNT solutions, including by spreading GPS signals out across a diversity of satellites in different orbits, as a means to make the system more robust and less susceptible to interruption. Indeed, resilient PNT was one of two capabilities identified by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall for use under the new “Quick Start” funding authorities enabled by Congress to let the Space Force move ahead on some programs without having to wait for a full legislative review.

Quantum Sensing

Quantum mechanics involves the extraordinary, counter-intuitive, and often confusing properties of subatomic particles first explored by Albert Einstein nearly a century ago. Recent advances in nano engineering have enabled labs for the first time to demonstrate and exploit the unique properties of quantum particles, generating renewed excitement about the technology.

Celia Merzbacher, executive director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), an industry-led stakeholder forum supported by the National Institute for Standards and Technology, said that quantum sensing is among the least understood but most mature of three quantum mechanics fields—the other two are quantum computing and quantum communications.

“Quantum sensing for PNT is, to some extent, already here,” she said. The technology is the same as that used in atomic clocks, which provide precise timing based on the movements of subatomic particles.

In a September report, QED-C noted that “Quantum sensors can provide navigational information in environments where GPS signals are unavailable or unreliable.”

The report and the DIU industry offering outline three ways quantum sensing can be applicable to PNT: Measuring movement, gravity, and Earth’s magnetic field.

Each offers a way for a plane, ship, or vehicle to accurately ascertain its position, without having to rely on radio signals from faraway GPS satellites.

Merzbacher predicted that DOD’s involvement could spur a commercial market for quantum sensing PNT within five years. Without DOD, it would take longer, she said, “because these companies that are developing quantum sensors for PNT and other uses are smaller companies, and they have somewhat limited resources to invest in anything that’s beyond two or three years to market.”

This is precisely the kind of problem for which DIU was created—as a bridge to private equity. “Private capital is expensive and very hard to get,” Merzbacher said. DOD is effectively vouching for its view that a market could emerge.

“Government can really accelerate progress by stepping in and helping to defray the cost of the engineering and R&D at this stage,” she explained. “Eventually the flywheel will be spinning, and as revenues are being generated, those companies can reinvest. But if the government doesn’t step in and invest … then progress will just be much slower.”

The QED-C report identified the transition from lab to battlefield as a key hurdle. “A big challenge is integrating these new components that are really just being developed in the lab, in a controlled environment, integrating and packaging those into something that can go onto a plane or a Space Platform,” and withstand the rigors of vibration or radiation, she said.

“There’s going to be a lot of work needing to be done,” she said.

Meanwhile, China and others are investing in their own solutions, said Dana Goward, a career U.S. Coast Guard officer who is now president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, a 501(c)3 scientific and educational non-profit.

China (and U.S. allies South Korea and Saudi Arabia) already had a functioning terrestrial alternative to GPS in an Enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLORAN) system, Goward said. eLoran relies on hyperbolic navigation, where a plane, ship, or vehicle can ascertain its location by correlating signals from two or more terrestrial broadcast towers.

“It’s much more accurate, much more difficult to disrupt,” than GPS or other satellite-based PNT, said Goward.

Goward called quantum sensing “exciting,” but said it could be “many years” before the technology clears all the necessary engineering and regulatory hurdles necessary for broad adoption. “How close are we to something that is viable in any commercial application?” he asked.

GPS is now taken for granted by consumers and businesses, Goward said, and there is little understanding of how fragile it is. But technologies that require materials to be maintained at extremely low temperatures or to operate at extremely precise laser frequencies are hardly ready for prime time, he said. “They’ll keep making it better and better, and perhaps someday it will get down to the common folk like you and me.”

Quantum Orienteering

The supporters of quantum sensing for PNT say it represents a step change, away from the inherently fragile beacon-signal approach of GPS or even eLoran. “The next generation of PNT technologies returns positioning to the local vehicle or individual and it says, essentially, now we want to be able to navigate using only things that we measure locally,” said Michael Biercuk, CEO of Q-CTRL, a quantum technology company.

Because the Earth’s magnetic and gravitational fields vary minutely from place to place and because those variations have already been mapped, a tool that can measure those minute variations can accurately locate the user, Biercuk explained.

“If you combine a really good map of these geophysical phenomena with a really good local sensor, you can do what we sometimes jokingly refer to as quantum orienteering,” Biercuk said, “You can take your map and your sensor and figure it out where you are.”

The extreme technical requirements of quantum sensing equipment can be mitigated by the use of software algorithms, he said.

“The laboratory performance is extraordinary, but the performance outside the lab is tremendously degraded. Anytime you put it on a moving vessel, it’s really hard to keep it operational. They’re very, very sensitive devices,” he said.

But Q-CTRL had been “able to show that when you combine, obviously very good hardware engineering with software enablement, you can actually make these tools viable in real environments,” he said.

The company is working with Airbus on safety-testing a GPS-replacement inertial motion sensor that could be installed in commercial aircraft “within two or three years,” he said.

Watchdog: Air Force Needs Timelines and Metrics for New Force Generation Model

Nov. 26, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The Government Accountability Office wants the Air Force to explain who will run bases when wings deploy under the service’s new force generation model along with several other unanswered questions, saying the concept is long on vision but short on details.

In a report released Nov. 26, the GAO said it recognizes USAF’s old model of “crowdsourcing” deployments to fill operational units needed to be changed. But it’s concerned that the service hasn’t yet thought through its new models, AFFORGEN and Deployable Combat Wings, and that going ahead without nailing down the specifics risks creating serious gaps and shortages.

“Continuous deployments over the past two decades have reduced the Air Force’s readiness—affecting personnel, equipment and aircraft,” the GAO wrote in the congressionally mandated audit. But the service’s answer to those issues “has challenges,” it added.

“For example, the Air Force plans to eventually deploy an entire wing from an air base rather than individuals from multiple wings and air bases. But it hasn’t assessed whether bases will have enough staff to operate when units deploy—to fill jobs like guarding entrances or providing security. Also, it hasn’t set timelines for its efforts,” the report states.

Air Force leaders have publicly acknowledged these shortcomings since starting to roll out AFFORGEN in 2022 and the Deployable Combat Wing plan was announced early in 2024. But they have also said it’s urgent to start practicing the concept without waiting for all the details to be worked out.

The GAO acknowledged the Air Force’s explanation that AFFORGEN was swiftly put into action “to prepare for potential conflict with near-peer competitors.” Service officials “recognized that an implementation plan with goals, a timeline with key milestone, and performance measures would help ensure unity of effort across the service and a shared understanding of the path forward,” the audit agency said. But it hasn’t seen those yet, it said.

In a letter to Airmen dated Oct. 22, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said the Air Force is evolving its generation model from one that “prioritizes in-garrison efficiencies to one that prioritizes combat mission effectiveness.” Under the new system, forces will arrive in theater “pre-formed, pre-trained, and ready to fight.” As an intermediate step, six Air Task Forces have been activated and are working toward fiscal year 2026 deployments.

As for Deployable Combat Wings, Allvin said five such organizations will stand up in 2025, eight in 2026, and three in 2027. The Air Reserve Component will also start standing up DCWs in 2025, he said.

The GAO said it identified “several ongoing implementation challenge” to USAF’s plans.

The Air Force “has not completed an assessment of minimum U.S. base staffing needs,” the GAO said, and it’s unclear whether bases will have enough personnel to keep crucial functions running when the majority of their units deploy.

Also, while AFFORGEN “partially” aligns with “some selected leading reform practices,” it doesn’t align with others, the GAO said.

Those areas where USAF partially aligns with best practices in reforming its deployment model include:

establishing goals and outcomes

involving employees and key stakeholders

addressing longstanding management concerns

leadership attention and focus

employee engagement

strategic workforce planning.

But the service did not align with the best practices of “using data and evidence” to back up its plans, nor in “managing and monitoring” progress. The GAO said the Air Force did not fully align with any best practices for a major reorganization.

“While the Air Force has released visionary statements, it has not set goals to track implementation progress,” the agency said.

The GAO made four recommendations about the Air Force’s new deployment model:

The Secretary of the Air Force should ensure that Headquarters Air Force “creates a plan that establishes timeframes for the [Unit Type Consolidation] effort” before Deployable Combat Wings deploy.

The Secretary should ensure that HAF complete “a service-wide assessment of … base minimum staffing needs as it prepares to create in-garrison wings.” This plan should be coordinated with major commands and installations.

The HAF should also “assess potential gaps and risks associated with reduced in-garrison support for base related missions,” also in coordination with MAJCOMs and installations.

HAF should issue an AFFORGEN implementation plan “that includes leading reform practices, such as outcome-oriented goals, a timeline with key milestones, and performance measures.”

The GAO said it would report to Congress when the Air Force takes action to address the recommendations.

Busy BUFFs: B-52 Bombers Overfly Finland, Morocco, and More

Nov. 26, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

B-52 Stratofortresses popped up from the Middle East to North Africa to the Nordic region in recent days, as the U.S. Air Force flexed the reach of its bomber fleet.

On Nov. 22, B-52s already deployed for Bomber Task Force mission 25-1 to RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom, took part in a joint training mission with the Royal Moroccan Air Force. The task force operation is the first of the new fiscal year.

U.S. Airmen with the 20th Expeditionary Bomber Squadron approach their B-52H Stratofortress at RAF Fairford, England on Nov. 22, 2024. The squadron supported a U.S. Africa Command exercise in Morocco that same day. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Emily Farnsworth)

On Nov. 23, B-52s deployed to the Middle East flew patrols in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. mission to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The Air Force also released photos of F-15E fighters flying combat patrols.

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress prepares to receive fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility Nov. 23, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo)

And on Nov. 25, two B-52s flew from Fairford to conduct a simulated weapons drop training mission over Finland, integrating with Swedish and Finnish fighters along the way. It was the first such exercise over Finland involving a B-52.

A B-52 takes off from RAF Fairford in supper of a bomber task force mission with Finland. U.S. Air Force photo

U.S. Air Forces in Europe did not disclose details about the weapons drop training, such as what kinds of munitions were dropped and where they were released.

The trio of missions continue a busy stretch for the Stratofortress. Nearly 15 percent of the B-52 fleet deployed worldwide in recent weeks—six to the Middle East to deter Iran and its proxies in the region, and four for the first bomber task force of fiscal 2025 in Europe.

The B-52s previously dropped live ordnance over Lithuania, including GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). The mission included coordinating with Lithuanian, Czech, Swedish, and Norwegian joint terminal attack controllers.

In the Middle East, a B-52 landed in Bahrain for the Bahrain International Airshow, its first-ever appearance at that event, and another bomber in the region integrated with British Royal Air Force fighters on Nov. 18.

A B-52H Stratofortress assigned to the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron took off from RAF Fairford, England, for a training mission with the Royal Moroccan Air Force Nov. 22, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Mary Bowers)

What CMSAF Flosi Learned from 20+ Chiefs ‘Dying’ in an ACE Exercise

Nov. 26, 2024 | By David Roza

A group of the USAF’s top enlisted leaders learned an important lesson during an exercise in the Pacific earlier this year: don’t take cover next to a fuel tank.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David A. Flosi and about 30 other chief master sergeants were practicing a technique called Agile Combat Employment, where Airmen launch and recover aircraft from small, dispersed airfields. ACE is meant to reduce the chances of being targeted by a long-range missile, but the small teams mean Airmen have to pull security, refuel aircraft, load cargo, and other tasks outside their usual job specialties.

Flosi and the other chiefs “lived ACE for about a week” somewhere in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility, he said on a Nov. 23 episode of his interview series, “The Enlisted Edge.” Each of them had more than 20 years of experience in the Air Force, but that didn’t save many from a deadly, though still simulated, miscalculation.

“Our first iteration of a contested environment … there were 30 chiefs in the group, and through the exercise scenario, we lost 22 of them,” he said. “It turns out it’s not a good idea to go take cover right next to a 20,000 gallon fuel tank.”

While Flosi was not one of them, he noted how the circumstances pushed most of the chiefs to make the error. He and the other chiefs were trying to build a camp, establish communications, secure the area, and get an airfield going on a tight deadline to meet an incoming aircraft.

“And then you get an inbound [missile] and there’s no bunkers, this is not an improved airfield,” he said. “If you’ve not thought through all that in advance and you’re not making good risk decisions, you very easily can end up in a lethal situation.”

Indeed, risk management was the key topic of the interview, where Flosi spoke with Maj. Gen. Sean M. Choquette, commander of the Air Force Safety Center, and Chief Master Sgt. Amber Person, the center’s chief enlisted manager, about a new strategy to spread better risk management tools across the Air Force and Space Force.

Announced in August, the Integrating Risk and Readiness campaign aims to bake risk management principles into all training, career fields, and operational environments so that Airmen are better prepared both at home and in an ACE environment. The campaign complements a new Air Force Safety Center strategic plan unveiled in April.

Choquette wants to flip the status quo, where one Air Force safety specialist or squadron flight safety officer might be the risk management guru for an entire flight line.

“We’re really talking specifically about risk management and getting that skill set out there,” he said in the interview. “So it’s not a safety professional walking onto the flight line saying ‘hey, let’s look at these things.’ It literally is Airmen walking around their flight line or their operations area, their personnel office, the front gate, you name it, and saying ‘hm, is there a better way to do this?’”

The strategic plan is sparse on specific tools and training, but its goals include formalizing safety principles and risk management as core competencies, conducting a public affairs campaign to refocus on those concepts, conducting a six-month evaluation to figure out where risk management needs to align with future operations, then developing an implementation plan to bridge the gaps. The idea is for the risk management principles to be widespread across training and periodically reassessed.

While the specifics are still in development, Choquette and Person hinted at what it could look like. One example is in aviation career fields, where crews brief, debrief, and perform other formal risk management practices as a matter of course. That isn’t to say HVAC specialists, for example, need to adopt the same formal practices, but the Safety Center hopes to spread a similar kind of mindset.

“The assumption is ‘OK, so before I go out this weekend, do you want me to sit down and draw out the five-step process with my friends?’ And that’s not realistic, and no that’s not what we’re expecting,” said Person. “You do risk management when you are backing out of your driveway in the morning. You check to make sure that the bike’s not behind you, or the dog’s not running around, or whatever it might be before you actually back up. As simple as that seems, it’s not always that easy to do or to be mindful of.”

Every job in the Air Force and Space Force has lengthy regulations and instructions on how to do that job safely, Person said, but somewhere there is a disconnect where Airmen or Guardians get complacent or skip steps and introduce more risk.

“If we just try to implement more of that risk mindset of ‘OK I’m going back out of my driveway, I’m going to look behind me before I do so,’ with everything that we do, I think that we’ll be better for it,” she said.

Another example is “knock it off,” a phrase aviators use during an exercise to stop what they’re doing, return to level flight, and reassess. A third is promoting a culture where junior Airmen are empowered to address risk management issues.

“That’s that skill set … as they’re going through operations, can somebody in the team, whether it’s the senior person or not, can say ‘stop, knock it off for a minute,’” Choquette said. “Every day we do this, but if we can train to it and assess to it, it will just become a part of our DNA and how we operate.”

Those skills may not be new to operations and maintenance, Flosi said, but the idea is to enhance it in those fields and spread it to others.

“We’re going to up our operational IQ there and then we’re bringing it into the rest of the force that doesn’t have that,” he explained. “A lot of our support forces do, but not all.”

A group of Basic Military Training trainees walk together during a simulated deployment exercise known as Primary Agile Combat Employment Range, Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise or PACER FORGE at Joint Base San Antonio – Chapman Training Annex, Nov. 20, 2023. (U.S. Air Force photo by Vanessa R. Adame)

The hope is that expanding the mindset will bring down noncombat fatalities: fiscal year 2023 saw the deaths of 49 Airmen and Guardians, while 2024 saw the deaths of 42, Choquette said, though he did not specify if those were all due to safety mishaps. FY23 also saw two people die and 10 aircraft destroyed in a five-year high for aviation-related mishaps. That’s a tragedy and a loss of combat power, officials said.

“We don’t have spare Airmen,” Flosi said. “In order for us to be lethal and capable, we’ve got to eliminate unforced errors.”

Data could also help: another part of the strategic safety plan is to use artificial intelligence to analyze the center’s 40 years of data and forecast where the next mishap might occur.

“We’re going to have some real analytical rigor through some AI algorithms to say … ‘this is where we kind of know it’s going to happen,’ and here are some things, commander and chief, that you can do to maybe prevent that,” Choquette said.

In the meantime, the general promised that the safety center will create “some toolsets” to help Airmen and Guardians manage risk in the near future.

“We owe them that and the safety enterprise is working on some things,” he said. “This isn’t just talk.”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated Dec. 2 to correct details about the exercise involving Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David A. Flosi.

PACAF Boss Helps Deliver First US Aircraft to Vietnam in Decades

Nov. 26, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Kevin B. Schneider and other Airmen delivered five T-6 Texan trainer aircraft to Vietnam last week—the first U.S. aircraft delivery to the country since the Vietnam War.

The historic milestone was years in the making, as the U.S. lifted a decadeslong embargo on arm sales to Vietnam in 2016, then agreed to sell a dozen T-6s to Vietnam’s Air Defense Air Force in 2021 and 2022.

The T-6 is the first American aircraft to enter the Vietnamese air force, which is largely comprised of Russian and Soviet-era equipment. The U.S. left behind $2 billion worth of “serviceable” military equipment after the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975, a Defense Department official said at the time.

The trainer will be based at Phan Thiet Air Base, where Schneider landed Nov. 20.

“Today’s arrival of the first T-6 aircraft to the Vietnam Air Defense Air Force represents the promise we made to assist in your air force modernization efforts,” Schneider said. “This moment reflects our shared commitment to peace and the rule of law in the region.”

Another seven T-6s are slated to be delivered in 2025.

U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Marc Knapper attended the delivery ceremony and touted its importance in a statement.

“This delivery represents an important step forward in our growing partnership with Vietnam,” said Knapper. “The T-6C trainer aircraft will provide valuable support to Vietnam’s pilot training program, reflecting our shared vision for a strong, prosperous, independent, and resilient Vietnam that contributes to regional stability and security.”

Vietnam holds key strategic territory in southeast Asia and has a historically complicated relationship with the People’s Republic of China, with multiple analysts noting territorial disputes in the South China Sea as a source of recent strains.

The U.S. has sought to gradually strengthen its defense ties with Vietnam in recent years, docking aircraft carriers there, selling excess cutters to the Vietnamese coast guard and small ScanEagle drones to its military.

However, the T-6 is the “most important U.S. military equipment sale to Vietnam,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted in a 2023 analysis, worth tens of millions of dollars.

In its own release, PACAF noted that “the United States remains committed to supporting Vietnam’s defense resilience in alignment with Vietnam’s conditions and needs. This collaboration strengthens a defense relationship rooted in shared security interests, regional stability, and respect for international laws.”

According to media outlet Reuters, the U.S. and Vietnam have discussed the sale of F-16 fighters and C-130 transport planes in recent years, though those negotiations have yet to yield an agreement.

U.S. PACAF Commander Gen. Kevin Schneider and a T6-C pilot disembark a T6-C training aircraft in Phan Thiet, Vietnam, on Nov. 20, 2024. General Schneider landed the first of five T6-C aircraft. Seven more training aircraft will be delivered to the Vietnamese Air Defence Air Force by 2025.

New Report: China Cuts Pilot Training Time, Aims to Modernize by 2030

Nov. 26, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

China is cutting down on the time it takes to train raw students to be fighter pilots and transitioning to a full fleet of fourth-generation training aircraft—but won’t have a fully modernized pilot training system until 2030, according to a new paper from Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute.

In the paper, analyst Derek Solen cited “new developments” in pilot training divulged by China in the last few months. The Shijiazhuang Flight Academy, one of three training centers for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, has “completely replaced an older training program and the aircraft used in it,” referring to third-generation fighters equivalent to Russia’s Mig-21. This change has cut about year from the four-year training program.

“Meanwhile, the Xi’an and Harbin Flight Academies are establishing new units to train recent graduates to transition to fighter aircraft, shifting the burden of that training from combat units to the academies,” Solen wrote. “Both these developments indicate that the [People’s Liberation Army Air Force] is steadily making progress in long-standing efforts to streamline and centralize its initial fighter pilot training program, efforts that should be complete by the beginning of the next decade.”

Solen told Air & Space Forces Magazine that China’s pilot training academies have been consolidated from six to three over the last decade, and that a further year could be cut from the curriculum because of the success of the Hongdu JL-10 trainer, a derivative of the Russian/Italian Yak-130. The fly-by-wire, glass cockpit trainer is the aircraft around which the People’s Liberation Army Air Forces seems to be building most of its flight instruction, he said. No other advanced trainer appears to be in the works.

Solen offered an educated estimate that China is producing about 400 pilots a year—and that number is increasing slowly. By comparison, the U.S. Air Force is producing about 1,350 pilots per year, though that figure is short of its goal between 1,800 and 2,000.

PLAAF pilot production “kind of bottlenecks at the university,” Solen said, and this limits the flow of students through the system. To substantially increase production, “it’s going to require more aircraft and more instructors,” he added.

China’s flight instruction program from basic aviation/officer student training to frontline service takes about four years, about twice as long as the Air Force’s program, in which students go from primary instruction to operational squadrons in about two years.

Solen said China is not yet mimicking USAF’s new plan of using simulation and individualized instruction to accelerate the time it takes for a flyer to go from undergraduate student to flight lead, with students progressing at their own pace. However, China is increasing its use of simulators, and they are becoming more advanced, with a high-fidelity cockpit surrounded by a video dome, used primarily at operational units.

Pilots chosen for transports and bombers are usually those who don’t succeed in the fighter track, Solen said. The PLAAF’s concept is to maximize the investment already made in those students, he noted. Each of the flying academies have separate programs within them for large, multiengine aircraft.

Solen noted in his analysis that China doesn’t have service academies or generic officer training schools. Rather, after three years of officer training and education at PLAAF’s aviation university, students begin primary flight training. They complete that school after a fourth year, after which they do a year of intermediate training, followed by a year of advanced training. Those that graduate go on to a year of specific instruction with the combat unit to which they’re assigned.

Shijiazhaung seems to be eliminating that intermediate year of instruction.

“The Shijiazhuang Flight Academy’s elimination of intermediate flight training and its retirement of the JL-8 indicates that almost all the academy’s training brigades now operate the JL-10,” Solen wrote in the paper. “The academy is almost certain to have one last training brigade operating the JL-9, but it is likely to retire the JL-9 next year after the last group of pilot candidates to have undergone intermediate flight training in the JL-8 complete their advanced flight training in mid-2025.” He expects the Harbin academy to transition fully to JL-10 instruction in 2026.

The J-10 is China’s equivalent of the F-16, and two-seat versions are used for advanced fighter and strike training.

“Although only flight instructors have been mentioned training in the J-10 at the Xi’an Flight Academy, it is likely that the academy will begin conducting transition training for new pilots in the autumn of 2024 if it has not already done so,” according to the paper.

“This would conform with past practice: the Shijiazhuang Flight Academy received the J-10 one year before it began conducting transition training. The Harbin Flight Academy is likely to have begun transition training with the J-11 by late 2023 because flight training commences in September of each year, so the air-to-ground attack training indicates the existence of a training program that began in the previous year.”

The PLAAF has not more radically accelerated or reformed its pilot training program because it’s largely locked into the traditional tempo of the instruction, Solen said.

“They’ve … retained that cyclical induction process,” he noted. “I suppose they could go more quickly, but if they do that actually kind of screws everything up,” because officer instruction paces flight training. The tempo calls for a September-to-July instruction period, followed by graduation, for each phase of instruction.

“They’ve worked to kind of separate some of the officer training and some of the aviation education, but it’s still kind of mixed together. It’s all at the same pace,” he noted. “And so every year, they’re inducting new potential pilots, but they do it at the very same time each year … because they can’t bring anybody on [at] a different schedule.” The idea is not necessarily to take more time to produce more seasoned pilots, but throughout their training, students get substantially more flying hours than their American counterparts, and the Chinese seem comfortable with that.

“The schedule dictates everything,” Solen said.

“It’s a very deliberate process,” he added. “It hasn’t been fast, but I can see steady progress.” Since the arrival of the JL-10, “that was really the final piece needed to really get this process moving. Until then they were … hindered by lack of an appropriate trainer. While they were trying to reform the curriculum, it wasn’t well matched with the aircraft that they had.”

That was problematic because the PLAAF’s trainers were preparing students for third-generation fighters as it was introducing fourth- and fifth-generation fighters like the J-10, J-15, and J-20. That extra year may have been necessary to help students make the transition.

“It didn’t really match,” he said. Even the JL-10 may be insufficiently advanced to prepare students for the J-20, China’s premier stealth fighter, Solen noted.

While the PLAAF will likely “retain some old trainers and the old training program for almost as long as it continues to operate some third-generation fighters given the progress of the PLAAF’s effort to replace such fighters, it is safe to predict that [they] will all be retired around 2030,” Solen said. The older fighter trainers “will probably be left to a shrinking group of experienced pilots whose retirements may coincide with the retirement of their aircraft,” Solen wrote.

“It is likely that the PLAAF will need until at least 2030 to establish enough new training brigades to completely shift transition training away from combat units,” he concluded. The pace of this effort “could increase as each flight academy acquires more experience and personnel to accomplish it.”

New Drone Sightings Spark Mystery at USAF’s UK Bases

Nov. 25, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

A collection of small drones was spotted flying over three U.S. Air Force bases in England last week—the latest in a worrying series of incursions that previously had been reported in Virginia.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe disclosed in a release that unidentified drones flew over and around RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell from Nov. 20 to 24.

“The number of systems fluctuated, and they ranged in sizes and configurations,” the release stated. “The sUASs were actively monitored and installation leaders determined that none of the incursions impacted base residents, facilities, or assets.”

The command declined to say if any action was taken against the drones, saying only that “we retain the right to protect our installations.”

Drones were previously reported flying over Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., where the Air Force’s F-22 Raptors are based, and officials have yet to determine who was behind them.

Other instances have also been noted. A senior defense official told reporters in May that the Pentagon was recording roughly two to three cases a week of drones flying into the airspace around domestic U.S. military bases, and in October, the Wall Street Journal reported that DOD was still investigating the drones at Langley.

Inexpensive, commercial drones are now widely available worldwide, ramping up concerns about how they could be used to spy on or disrupt military activities during peacetime and at war. The war in Ukraine has seen huge numbers of drones in combat. 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.

The appearance of drones over UK bases hosting F-35 and F-15E fighters, KC-135 tankers, RC-135 surveillance aircraft, adds a new wrinkle to the matter. Whether this is a similar pattern repeating itself in a new location, or local hobbyists making a nuisance of themselves remains to be seen.

Report: Instructor’s ‘Overconfidence’ Blamed for 2023 Wyoming UH-1 Crash

Nov. 25, 2024 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force blamed the loss of a $5 million UH-1N helicopter on a civilian flight instructor and the Air Force pilot whose actions precipitated the August 2023 crash at Cheyenne Regional Airport, Wyo., according to a new Accident Investigation Board report.

The pilot, an experienced member of the 37th Helicopter Squadron at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., with 1,500 flying hours—almost all in the Huey—was practicing an emergency landing procedure following a three-month break from flying for medical reasons at the time of the crash. The civilian instructor had 4,000 hours of experience.

Officials faulted the instructor pilot for failing to properly assess the risk and clearly order recovery steps, determining the instructor was overconfident in the pilot, fixated on specific cues, and task saturated at the time. The investigation also faulted the pilot for not having control of the helicopter and failing to perform a power recovery as instructed. Also on the flight was a current and qualified flight engineer.

After taking off from F.E. Warren, the crew performed a series of maneuvers without incident and then made the short flight to Cheyenne Regional Airport to finish the sortie by executing a 180-degree autorotation landing. This emergency procedure is used to land safely in the event of an engine failure, and requires the pilot to make a 180-degree turn, then descend, using the resulting air flow to keep the helicopter’s rotors moving. To practice the maneuver, crews put the engine into idle.

When the pilot executed the turn, however, it was with “excessive right bank, excessive nose low attitude, and uncoordinated flight (being out of trim),” the report stated.

Instead of descending at no more than 3,000-feet per minute, as called for, the helicopter descended rapidly, averaging 4,185 feet per minute; at one point, it was falling at 5,200 feet per minute. Even so, the instructor “relied on an overconfident assessment of [the pilot’s] ability to fix the attitude despite the rapidly decreasing timeframe,” investigators wrote.

While the instructor told the pilot to “watch your nose down”—and the pilot told investigators he brought the nose up—flight recorder data indicated he did not. The instructor did not realize the extent of the risk until, at only about 200 feet, calling for the pilot to “go around.”

It was too late. With the engine still in idle, the aircraft could not generate power, and continued to sink; the instructor tried to execute a flare, but the bank, lack of power, rotor speed, and forward airspeed left the aircraft unrecoverable.

The last-ditch effort to flare caused the helicopter’s tail to hit the ground first, and the aircraft bounced back and forth between its tail boom and its skids until both broke off. Freed of the tail boom, the helicopter spun and rolled, its rotor pounded the ground and broke off, and the main fuselage spun several more times before coming to rest upside down.

Miraculously, the military crew members escaped with minor injuries (so did the civilian instructor, but that individual’s medical records were not released to investigators.)

Investigators said the instructor “was ultimately responsible for the [aircraft] and the mission” and determined the instructor failed in not explicitly calling for a power recovery. But they also faulted the pilot for poor flight control and causing the excessive sink rate in the first place, and cited the entire crew for failing to properly execute a power recovery once the instructor called for a “go around.”

The aircraft was a total loss.

The Air Force has flown the UH-1N since the Vietnam War, but plans to phase out the aging choppers in favor of the new MH-139 Grey Wolf. F.E. Warren has yet to receive its first of the new aircraft.

341st Security Forces Group tactical response force Airmen get dropped off by a 40th Helicopter Squadron UH-1N Huey while participating in Advanced Recapture Recovery Operational Warfighter at Camp Guernsey, Wyoming, Aug. 15, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Sarah Post

How the Air Force Can Evaluate Officers Better

Nov. 25, 2024 | By David Roza

A recent watchdog report found that the Air Force has one of the best officer performance evaluation systems among the services, but it falls short in two key areas: aligning performance expectations with organizational goals, and reviewing officer evaluation systems for bias and accuracy.

“By revising policy or guidance to direct raters to explicitly align individual officer performance expectations with organizational goals, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force can better ensure that officers’ daily activities and performance are cascading upwards to meet the goals of the organization,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a Nov. 13 report.

GAO developed 11 key practices after reviewing publications on performance evaluation in the private and public sectors. The Air Force had fully incorporated eight out of the 11 practices, more than any other service. But only the Army had aligned its officer performance expectations with organizational goals, while the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps had not.

air force officer evaluation — The Government Accountability Office scored the military services based on 11 key practices for performance evaluation. (Screenshot via GAO)

Every year, Air Force officers receive an officer performance brief (OPB), where superior officers assess them in four performance areas: executing the mission, leading people, managing resources, and improving the unit. Between those four areas are divided 10 Airman Leadership Qualities. Raters write their assessment of the officer’s performance in each area in just a few sentences.

While “executing the mission” and “managing resources” sound like goals, GAO classified the four areas as organizational values—the moral code of an organization—not organizational goals, which are end results expected to be achieved within a specific period.

When the end results are not spelled out, it leaves raters to decide whether the officer actually achieved them, explained Dr. Bradley Podliska, an associate professor at Air University who co-wrote an article for War On The Rocks in March about improving the Air Force commander selection process.

“‘Executing the mission’ can or possibly cannot be related to organizational goals. It’s up to the individual rater whether to make that determination,” Podliska told Air & Space Forces Magazine, adding that his views do not necessarily represent those of the Air Force or the Department of Defense.

“The GAO is saying that these reports have to make it explicitly clear what the organizational goals are, so therefore that officer is going to be rated based on that standard,” he said.

For example, at Air University, teachers are expected to teach a certain number of courses and achieve a minimum positive student evaluation score, among other distinct goals, Podliska said. At an aircraft maintenance squadron, the organizational goal might be to reach a certain aircraft mission-capable rate. But under the current system, when an officer achieves those metrics, it might not necessarily factor into their rater’s assessment of them, Podliska said.

“You would assume that that’s how they’re being evaluated, but because it’s not explicitly clear with the organizational goals, it’s dependent on that individual rater how well they are actually doing in the evaluation,” he said. “I would think, if you talk to any officer, they are going to have stories about how what their rater wrote down about them had almost absolutely nothing to do with what they did. Anecdotally, everybody has stories like that.”

OPBs also require stratification, where officers of the same grade are ranked one through five, for example. The ranking makes it easy for promotion boards to select a winning officer, but without concrete performance metrics, they may be based on “basically useless data,” Podliska said.

The GAO made a similar argument and pointed out that organizational goals can help align officer training and provide concrete starting points for evaluating the effectiveness of a squadron, group, wing, or other organization.

Replace the Abstract

GAO is not the first to call for changes to the Air Force officer evaluation system. Col. Jason Lamb, then using the pseudonym Col. Ned Stark, sparked renewed interest in the topic from 2018 to 2020 when he wrote a series of essays on improving Air Force officer promotion and leadership development.

“We have some great leaders in our Air Force, but we need to do a better job of finding and developing more of them while weeding out toxic leaders before they have a chance to do significant harm to our Airmen and missions,” Lamb wrote in one essay.

The Air Force is not alone in its soul-searching: in 2020, the Army launched a Battalion Commander Assessment Program, where candidates are evaluated based on a five-day series of cognitive tests, interviews with a psychologist, communication assessments, reports from peers and subordinates, and other tests.

So far, the results are promising: under the first BCAP, 34 percent fewer officers were chosen for command than under the old system, which was just a board reviewing personnel files. Many Soldiers rejected under the first BCAP came back the next year after learning from their mistakes. Ninety-four percent of the participants said BCAP was a better way to select battalion commanders than the old system, and 97 percent said the Army should continue BCAP.

In their March article, Podliska and his co-author, Air Force Maj. Maria Patterson, pointed out that BCAP is part of a larger Army effort to identify specific command leadership attributes in its doctrine, then use objective data to assess how close Soldiers are to the mark. The Air Force needs to spell out its own command leadership attributes to guide development, they said.

“Within the Air Force, a plethora of doctrine, regulations, instructions, manuals, and technical orders exist, ranging from how to properly use a chair to developing a strategy for modern international warfare with near-peer threats,” wrote Podliska and Patterson. “Still, one of the most critical aspects of the military foundation is neglected—leadership in command.”

A complementary effort would be to align individual performance expectations with organizational goals, so that the Air Force could better identify high-performing officers with objective data, Podliska said.

“Let’s replace the abstract with actual metrics,” he said. “What does it mean to lead people? How do you actually define that in terms of quantifiable variables? Let’s look at some of the research.”

Numbers may not account for everything, Podliska cautioned, which is why more abstract values could still play a role, particularly for taking care of subordinates. But if the Air Force does decide to change its system, it needs a way of checking to see if it works; the GAO reported that none of the services had fully incorporated such a mechanism.

“[T]he Air Force makes incremental changes—such as policy updates—to the performance evaluation system as needed and has a process for ensuring completeness of performance evaluation reports,” the report said. “However, it has not regularly evaluated the system’s processes and tools to help ensure the effectiveness, accuracy, and quality of the system, and it does not review ratings or related trends to ensure fairness or accuracy of individual ratings.”

For its part, the Air Force partially concurred with GAO’s recommendation to explicitly align officer expectations with officer goals.

“The Air Force recognized that there can be confusion between the core values and organizational goals as they relate to the evaluation system and noted that the service would examine how to incorporate the requirement most effectively into its policy,” GAO noted. “[W]e are encouraged by the Air Force’s stated commitment to examine how to clarify its organizational goals and align those goals with officer expectations in policy.”