Ukrainian F-16 Pilots Arrive in the US for Initial Training

Sept. 28, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Ukrainian pilots have arrived in the U.S. to train to fly F-16s. In the past few days, several pilots arrived at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, to begin English language training, a U.S. official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed the move during a media briefing on Sept. 28.

“Training has started for several pilots,” Singh said. “The English language training will vary depending on proficiency and skill.”

The U.S. official said several pilots have arrived in the past week at Lackland and maintainers would be arriving in the U.S. soon.

Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, said in an interview earlier this month that “we think it’s going to be somewhere up to about 10 pilots … and then more maintainers.”

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder has said “dozens” of maintainers will be coming to the U.S. for training.

Singh said she could not provide further details on when pilots would begin transitioning to pilot training with the 162nd Wing at Morris Air National Guard Base, Ariz. The timeline may be affected by the impending government shutdown.

“Civilian personnel that are involved in the training of Ukrainian pilots, such as English language training is what we’re talking about right now, absolutely there could be impacts to training,” she said. “We’re still reviewing some of these details.”

When the decision was first announced to train some Ukrainian personnel on F-16 in the U.S., the Pentagon said English language training would begin in September and pilot training would start in October. But that was before a government shutdown looked likely.

“A shutdown is literally the worst-case scenario for this department,” Singh said. “We really don’t want to have to go through making painful decisions like this.”

Singh and other Biden administration officials have warned of a government shutdown, which appears highly likely as the House struggles to move forward with any bill to fund the government. The Senate has passed a short-term bill to keep the government open until mid-November, allowing the military to operate normally and to pay troops.

But the government is barreling towards a lapse in funding when the clock strikes midnight on Sept. 30. There appears to be little chance of Democrats and Republicans reconciling their differences and putting a bill on President Joe Biden’s desk before the end of the fiscal year at the end of the month. Government civilian employees are preparing for guidance on whether they will be furloughed. Military officials are preparing to pare down some activities and have their troops go without pay.

Certain military activities are “excepted” and Active-Duty Airmen will still report to work. However, most DOD civilian personnel will not report to work. Training of Ukrainian pilots will at least be subject to some of the far-reaching disruption expected across the Department of Defense, Singh said, as bases will not operate with all of their usual staff.

Additionally, training for the Ukrainian pilots is scheduled to occur with the Air National Guard, which is treated more like the civilian workforce during a shutdown than Active-Duty units, according to DOD guidance. The 162nd Wing is the nation’s primary F-16 schoolhouse for foreign F-16 pilots. Singh said it was too early to say what the impacts to that unit might be if the shutdown continued well into October or beyond when Ukrainian pilots were initially scheduled to arrive in Arizona.

“It’s definitely going have an impact to training whatever that might be,” Singh said. “Whether it’s actual personnel in the room or if this continues to go longer … training could be delayed for other aspects of pilot training.”

Minihan: These ‘Magic’ Airmen Need More SOF-Like Capabilities

Sept. 28, 2023 | By David Roza

As Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Mike Minihan assessed a recent major exercise in the Pacific, one clear lesson came through: the importance of the Global Air Mobility Support System (GAMSS), the network of Airmen who run airfields and move cargo for transport, refueling, and aeromedical evacuation operations down range.

“The Global Air Mobility Support System is the secret and the magic that will ultimately define our tempo,” Minihan told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Quite frankly, what is aspirational to others, they do on a daily basis.”

But the general wants to take GAMSS “to the next level” by boosting their ability to operate without the support and security they are used to, by fine-tuning the command and control elements overseeing GAMSS, and by pushing them to act in small, independent teams.

What Is GAMSS

The GAMSS is made up of two elements: air mobility operations and contingency response. The 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing headquartered at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and the 515th AMOW stationed at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, serve as regional hubs for mobility aircraft passing through on the way to operations further afield.

In contrast, contingency response (CR) groups act like bite-sized air bases, with enough maintainers, aerial porters, security forces, communication specialists, and other career fields to open up a small airfield for mobility business.

“If it’s somewhere new, then likely CR goes in first and that can be backfilled or augmented by AMOW forces,” one anonymous Air Force officer with experience in GAMSS told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Airmen from the 621st Contingency Response Squadron set up tents during Exercise Jersey Devil on Jan. 11, 2023, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Anastasia Tompkins

The officer acknowledged that in a conflict, AMOW units would likely be swamped at their fixed hubs moving troops and supplies to the operating location. Even so, AMOW Airmen practice picking up and moving elsewhere in line with Agile Combat Employment, the concept in which Airmen disperse from sprawling air bases and predictable routes that can be easily targeted by adversaries.

SOF-like

In preparing for ACE, Minihan wants his contingency response and air mobility operations teams to be more flexible and more prepared for combat than they are now.

“The way I’m describing it is I want the CR to be more SOF [special operations forces] and I want the AMOWs to be more CR,” Minihan said.

The general pointed to forward area refueling points as one example of a capability normally reserved for Air Force Special Operations Command that he wants CR to hone. Another is being able to carry out mission orders in small, independent groups. Minihan made an analogy to landing a C-130 while wearing night vision goggles, a qualification which many pilots pursued after Sept. 11, 2001.

“That used to be reserved for only special [qualifications] within a squadron or if you were in AFSOC,” he said. “Let’s not wait for the event to open up the capabilities that the entire force needs to have. Let’s take advantage of the time we have now.”

U.S. Air Force Airmen assigned to the 821st Contingency Response Group and Japan Air Support Command members integrate to accomplish contingency response tasks together at Yakumo Sub Base, Japan, July 11, 2023, during Exercise Mobility Guardian 2023. (Courtesy photo)

The anonymous officer with GAMSS experience said the direction to become more SOF-like was encouraging, as it could help contingency response prepare for adversaries “that can reach out and touch us.”

“We don’t want to make CR SOF, we want to make them more SOF-like where they are resourced appropriately, they are getting the training for these very high-threat environments that they need to survive and operate,” he said. “To be SOF-like means that they are able to shoot, move, and communicate more effectively on their own without a lot of oversight or overhead.”

Still, CR troops are not typically trigger-pullers, so the officer cautioned that if they are sent into high-threat environments, they would likely appreciate better situational awareness through tools such as small uncrewed aerial systems, which could also help move cargo or people between islands if needed.

Those investments may help the joint force, as CR forces operating out of isolated airfields in the Pacific could also help generate unmanned aerial vehicle sorties, Army troops positioning long-range fires, or other movements.

Command and Control

Coordinating operations over a vast area like the Pacific proved difficult during Mobility Guardian 2023, the massive exercise this summer where Minihan noticed shortcomings in unity of effort that sometimes led to aircraft being placed at greater risk than necessary. An Air Force Times article also found CR workload ramping up due to communication and coordination problems.

Minihan hopes to address that concern in part by connecting his troops with beyond line-of-sight communications, but another part of the picture is the mobility task force (MTF).

In an operation, a MTF acts like a forward-deployed air operations center that commands and controls the other components of the mobility mission, including GAMSS. During the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, a group of CR Airmen known as Task Force 74 oversaw mobility operations across dispersed locations despite limited communications. In a similar way, an MTF performed well during Mobility Guardian 2023, Minihan said, but it could use some polish.

“We’ve got a bit of fine-tuning to do,” he said. “Like with everything you do that is new, most of it is just ensuring the entire force knows what their role is so that you eliminate as much confusion out there as possible.”

DAF to Review Thousands of Discharges For Airmen With Mental Health Conditions or Trauma

Sept. 28, 2023 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Department of the Air Force announced Sept. 28 it will review the general or other-than-honorable discharges of thousands of Airmen affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), mental health conditions, sexual assault, or sexual harassment.

The decision follows a nationwide class action lawsuit, filed by Air Force veterans Martin Johnson and Jane Doe in September 2021. In the lawsuit, Johnson and Doe argued that since the start of the Global War on Terror, the Air Force has granted less than honorable discharges to many service members due to misconduct related to conditions such as PTSD, TBI, sexual trauma, and other behavioral health issues. The plaintiffs also alleged that veterans with these conditions were consistently denied upgrades by the Air Force Discharge Review Board.

In response, the Air Force agreed to settle the lawsuit, but denies the allegations made in it. The settlement was signed by both parties and filed with the court on April 24, an Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine, and the court preliminarily approved the settlement Sept. 26.

Under the terms of the settlement, which is pending its final approval in a hearing on Dec. 4, the AFDRB will conduct a thorough review of applications submitted between Sept. 13, 2015, and the date when the settlement becomes effective. This review specifically targets cases where the AFDRB had previously denied upgrade requests for veterans who cited mental health conditions or traumatic experiences as the reasons for their discharges under general or other than honorable (OTH) conditions.

Additionally, the settlement expands eligibility for veterans seeking discharge upgrades. Those who were discharged and submitted applications to the AFDRB between Sept. 13, 2006, and Sept. 12, 2015 but received unfavorable decisions will now have the opportunity to reapply.

However, the discharge upgrades are not guaranteed, and each application will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Johnson, who suffers from PTSD himself, expressed satisfaction with the Air Force’s commitment to addressing the mental health and trauma-related concerns of veterans.

“I am pleased that the Air Force is taking steps through this settlement to make the AFDRB more accessible to veterans like me who love and have served this country,” Johnson said in a statement. “I am glad the Air Force is committed to taking less-than-honorably discharged veterans’ mental health and trauma seriously.”

Alex Wagner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said the settlement and commitment to reviewing cases “underscore our continued commitment to provide former Airmen and Guardians fairness, due process, equity, and justice in all cases that are submitted to our review boards.”

In addition to reviewing past cases, the settlement introduces procedural reforms and new decision-making protocols for veterans seeking discharge upgrades in the future. These reforms aim to ensure a fair and supportive process for veterans dealing with mental health conditions, traumatic brain injuries, or evidence of sexual trauma.

Notable changes include the establishment of a one-year pilot program allowing veterans to supplement their records, documenting medical opinions, providing a phone number for inquiries, and conducting training on mental health issues and unconscious bias. The settlement also mandates the AFDRB to offer a universal video teleconference option for veterans who wish to have a personal appearance but cannot travel to Washington, D.C.

At the approval hearing in December, Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. will take any objections into account when deciding whether to grant final approval. An official at the Yale Veterans Legal Services Clinic told Air & Space Forces Magazine that if the settlement is not approved after the fairness hearing, depending on the reasons given by the Court for rejecting the settlement, the parties will resume the litigation or explore a revised settlement.

Watch, Read: Secretary Kendall on ‘Accelerating Readiness for Great Power Competition’

Sept. 28, 2023

Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall delivered a keynote address titled “Accelerating Readiness for Great Power Competition,” detailing his plans for a ”re-optimization” review of the Air Force to prepare for competition with the likes of China at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 11, 2023. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Frank Kendall

Good morning.

China, China, China. I knew you’d be disappointed if I didn’t say that. If nothing else, I’m consistent. It’s great to be here. I’ve been using these AFA events to mark my time in office. First, it means I’ve survived another year. It’s also a time to think about what we’ve accomplished and what we need to prioritize as we move forward. I’ll be talking about both today. Let me begin by thanking the AFA, especially Bernie Skoch, Orville Wright, Doug Raaberg, and the countless individuals who helped make this year’s Air and Space Force Symposium happen. We wouldn’t be here without your hard work enthusiasm and support, so thank you.

It’s also the 10th year since AFA’s Mitchell Institute was established. Congratulations to David Deptula and the Mitchell team for their decade of support to the Air Force and Space Force. We’re proud to have you all on our one team. I’d like to thank AFA for their flexibility with the schedule so I could be with Secretary Austin, and General Milley and the families of the fallen at the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial this morning. Honoring those we lost on Sept. 11, 22 years ago today. The threat of attack from violent extremist organizations still exists, and we will never forget those we lost on that tragic day.

Fifty years ago, 591 Americans returned home after imprisonment in North Vietnam. They endured years of hardship and torture to return as honored heroes. We’re honored today to have some of those brave Americans with us here. Can you please recognize Colonel Michael Brazelton, Colonel Robert Certain, Colonel Lee Ellis, Colonel Tom Kirk, and Lieutenant Colonel Tom Hanton.

We are all grateful for your service and devotion to our nation. I’d also like to thank those currently serving the hundreds of thousands of active Reserve Guard and civilians, Airmen and Guardians who support the department of the Air Force and who serve their country honorably every day. Every time I visit an installation across the world, I’m amazed by the work that you do and the efforts you are taking to keep our nation strong and safe. I especially want to thank the military families who assume a huge burden while the service members support our nation.

Thank you. Without your love and sacrifice, our nation could not be protected. We are responding to your needs, this year we have provided more resources to recruit and retain childcare providers. We have and will continue to increase spouse employment opportunities and we are partnering with local governments to ensure that all service members and their families can live and thrive in supportive communities. Thank you also to our industry partners, traditional and non-traditional who provide the products, services, innovation and ingenuity that we count on to do our jobs. Thank you also to the many nonprofit groups who support our men and women in uniform. A special thanks to our civic leaders who take care of our military families living in their communities across the nation. Thank you to our international partners and allies, many represented here today. Thank you for our shared values and our goals as we confront threats around the world together.

Finally to our partners in Congress, members and staff. Thank you for the many ways that you support the Air Force and Space Force and the entire Department of Defense. We have great relationships with our four oversight committees on both sides of the political aisle. I’d be remiss today, however, if I didn’t acknowledge some recent concerns with regard to the Congress. With us today, our number of general officers who have been waiting for up to six months for Senate confirmation of their promotions and for the opportunity to take over the commands and roles that they are slated for. With us also are many general officers who have delayed retirement or have been asked to fill a position of leadership on an acting or temporary basis. With us are a great many Airmen and Guardians who are in a unit or organization that doesn’t have confirmed permanent leadership. Let’s give all these people around of applause to thank them for helping us cope with this unprecedented situation.

This is a situation that one senator has created for us. My message today for that one senator, causing all this corruption and uncertainty, is that all these men and women and their units and their families are having their readiness in their lives negatively impacted by your unprecedented actions. They’re all doing their duty and making whatever sacrifice we ask of them, including the ones associated with your holds. They all took an oath to defend the constitution and they are fulfilling that oath today. US Senators take a very similar oath on behalf of all the men and women serving their country honorably today who cannot speak for themselves, I’m asking you to lift the blanket hold you have on over 300 general officers awaiting Senate approval of their well-earned promotions.

As we approach the end of the fiscal year in a few weeks, I do have some requests of the Congress. First as I just discussed, do not hold up the promotions of all of our general officers because of opposition to a policy that they did not create and cannot change. We need these people in the leadership positions they are being assigned to. Second, do not hold all of our reprogramming requests because of a disagreement with a basing decision. We need the ability to reallocate that money to where it can meet our national security needs. Third, do not shut down the government in three weeks. Many of us have been through shutdowns, they are extremely damaging to our readiness, retention and morale.

Fourth, do not put us under a continuing resolution for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Now, the ship may have sailed on this request, but CRs of any length are hugely inefficient and delay much needed modernization. Fifth, do not extend any CR beyond December. We can manage a short CR as we have many times. Beyond that, much more serious damage will be done to American security. Finally, and most of all, do not trigger either temporary or permanent sequestration-like cuts to our military. The cuts under a long CR and the reductions required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 if a budget is not passed will lead to severe reductions in modernization and readiness. We endured this kind of irrational cut 10 years ago and are still recovering. We never want to endure that, something like that again.

Under a long CR or mandatory cuts we also could not initiate or increase all the modernization efforts identified as needed to meet our operational imperatives and to be competitive with China. We have already lost far too much time waiting for the Congress to act on our modernization funding needs, under the normal process. As we look out into the next week and months, we urge you to give us the authorization, appropriations and confirmations that is your duty to provide for our military. Our men and women in uniform and the people who also support them are doing their jobs. Congress, please do yours. One team, one fight.

OK. Speaking of teams, I’ve had the privilege to work with a fantastic team the last year. I brought on the honorable Kristyn Jones to perform the duties of the undersecretary of the Air Force. General Salty Saltzman was confirmed as the new Chief of Space Operations. We’re going to miss General CQ Brown, who will hopefully confirmed soon. But soon I hope that General Dave Alvin, who has his confirmation hearing tomorrow, will be confirmed as the new Chief of Staff of the Air Force and that General Jim Slife will also be confirmed and replaced General Allvin as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Each morning before most senior leaders start our day with a 30 or 45 minute tag up to think, plan, strategize, and collaborate. Our team has made great progress in furthering our goals for the department. I’m going to talk about that progress and discuss what we’re doing next.

Before I begin, there are two departing leaders I’d like to especially recognize. The first is Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, Roger Towberman. CMSSF, you are going to be a legendary as a… I’ll do it again: You are going to be legen, wait for it, dary as a major component of the foundation of the Space Force, as the first senior enlisted leader of the Space Force, you have personally and directly created a culture of excellence, leadership, and innovation. You have secured your legacy in building today’s Guardians and all of those that will follow. Thank you, we wish you and Rachel all the best.

There was also one other person on the DAF Senior leadership team and we expect will be speaking here with us for the last time, at least as the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. CQ, where are you? For the last two years, we’ve met almost every morning and often throughout our day, several times collaborating, helping the Air Force grow through this challenging time. Your contributions to the Air Force and the Department of the Air Force will long outlive your time as Chief of Staff, as you accelerate the change that our team needs.

I’m proud to call you a friend and colleague. While I’m sad to lose you from the DAF team, I could not be more excited that if you’re confirmed, you are going to two floors down to become the Senior Military Advisor to the President and the Secretary Austin. Our nation and our military need your strategic leadership guidance and wisdom to help us through the challenging times. I look forward to continuing to work with you and Secretary Austin as we deter our pacing challenge and shape the military into the force it needs to be to prevail against any threat. I’m going to miss you, as we all are, but I’m glad you won’t be far away and you will be serving your country in an Air Force uniform. Thank you for your service.

Sharene, I want to thank you also for all your many contributions to the Air Force. We’ve become good friends also, and if CQ’s new position doesn’t give you enough to do, I know that you can always thrive with the DAF. Thank you for your support to our Airmen and their families. A few weeks ago I spoke at the Air Force Sergeant’s Association. Was impressed by the perceptive questions about the threat that I was asked by the audience. You understand the nature of the challenge we face, the necessity that we change to meet it China, China, China. China’s by far our pacing challenge. The acute threat from Russia, potential rogue states, Iran and North Korea and violent extremist groups are all on our list of challenges. These are threats that the Air Force and Space Force will continue to deter and engage daily across the globe.

Airmen and Guardians are working with allies and partners to help Ukraine defeat Russian aggression, deterring Iranian or North Korean aggression and combating violent extremist organizations throughout the Middle East and around the globe. But China is the pacing challenge, but as the President articulated just this weekend, we want China to succeed but to succeed by working within the rules that benefit all nations, including China. As the President indicated, there is no desire to contain or decouple from China, but there is a strong desire to live in a world free of aggression, which all nations can prosper in peace. After the first Gulf War, China recognized that it needed to redesign and modernize its military if it hoped to compete with the United States, and to achieve its goals in the Western Pacific, particularly with the integration of Taiwan to communist China. China dramatically shrank the size of its ground force so it could acquire a force more relevant to deterring or if necessary defeating the United States and its allies’ ability to protect power in the Western Pacific.

China created two new military services, the Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force and it substantially increased the capabilities of both the People’s Liberation Army Air Force and the PLA Navy. The Rocket Force is intended to attack America’s high value assets, aircraft carriers, forward airfields and key C2 and logistics nodes. The strategic support forces are designed to achieve information dominance in the space and cyber domains including by attacking our space-based capabilities. China has been re-optimizing its forces for great power competition and to prevail against the US and the Western Pacific for over 20 years, we must do the same. China has been building a military capability specifically designed to achieve their national goals and to do so even if opposed by the United States. I want to ask you to conduct a little thought experiment. Humans aren’t great at assessing risk, but let me give you two examples.

Imagine it’s 1940 and you’re considering the risk that Japan will launch an attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Now compare that risk to the risk you see today of an attack on Taiwan by China sometime over the next several years. Do one more thought experiment. Imagine it’s January 2021 and you’re assessing the risk of Russian invading Ukraine. Compare that to the risk you see of an attack on Taiwan by China over the next several years. War is not inevitable and our job first and foremost is to deter aggression. History, including some recent history, tells us that deterrence can and sometimes does fail. If our power projection capability and capacity are not adequate to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan or elsewhere, war could occur. If it does and we cannot prevail, the results could cast a long shadow. I’m going to get a little wonky on you now.

My staff warned me against this, but I’m a history buff, so I’m going to ask you to indulge me a little bit. I want to share a historical analogy with you. History does not repeat itself and I don’t think it even rhymes, but it can teach us. In 1905, two years after the Wright brothers’ first flight and half a world away, a European great power went to war with a rising Asian power.

The war was the Russia-Japanese war of 1905. That war culminated in a decisive battle in the western Pacific waters between Japan and Korea and the straits of Tsushima. Russia had sent its grand imperial fleet on a voyage of 15,000 miles to defend its outposts at Port Arthur in what is now China, from a Japanese attack. Russia was one of the leading powers in Europe and less than a century before had defeated Napoleon. Japan was an upstart Asian country that had been opened to western trade and technology by American commodore Matthew Perry, in a way Admiral Aquilino’s predecessor, just 50 years before. The battle of Tsushima straits did not go well for Russia. The entire Russian fleet was completely destroyed and the Japanese Navy lost three minor combatants.

Now obviously Imperial Russia and Japan in 1905 are not the United States and China today. Russia’s inability to project power in the Western Pacific then has little to do with our situation today. But let’s talk about the consequences of the battle to Tsushima Strait. A major power, Russia lost its influence in Asia, a major power, again Russia, saw its military credibility evaporate. An arms race in this case between Britain and Germany was amplified. In Europe, another major power Germany seeing how weak Russia was, felt comfortable about entering a two front war nine years later in 1914, World War I. The Russian naval mutinies that followed the battle helped pave the way for the Russian Revolution In 1917 and the creation of the Soviet Union. In Asia, a rising power, Japan gained the confidence to defy European powers and the US, Japan and next Korea in 1910, ceased Manchuria in 1931, invaded China in 1937 and attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The point of all this is that operational tactical defeats, especially when they involve rising and existing great powers, can have major strategic consequences. I will leave it to you to speculate about the consequences of an American power projection failure in the Western Pacific today. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen by deterrence if at all possible, but by our readiness and our military capability and by force if necessary. That is why the Air Force and Space Force exist. Two years ago, recognizing that we were in a race for military technological superiority, we moved to accelerate the pace of modernization in the Department of the Air Force. We initiated the effort to meet seven imperatives that describe the operational problems we needed to solve. We finished the first round of analysis of those problems more than a year ago. Where we could, we started work immediately.

We allocated approximately 5 billion to new modernization programs in 2024 alone and about 30 billion from ’24 through ’28. We’ve continued this work and expanded it as we’ve learned more and as the threat has become more severe. We’ve established the so-called cross-cutting operational enablers in the areas of munitions, mobility, training and testing, Counter-C4ISR and electronic warfare. For those of you who may be wondering when we’ll get back to normal, this is normal. We have a well-resourced strategic pacing challenge that is showing no sign of slowing down or quitting. We are in a race for technological and operational superiority that we can expect to last for the next several decades. Even though China is currently experiencing serious economic problems, which the President noted yesterday, this does not reduce the risk of aggression. There is no evidence at this point to indicate that their goals, China’s goals, or their methods to attain them are going to change.

Today we are waiting for Congress to act on the FY24 budget we submitted in March of this year, which was for the funds we had identified that we needed nearly a year before in the spring of 2022. Waiting does not make us more competitive or enhanced deterrence, but despite my impatience, I feel that we have made a good start on the modernization front and that our way forward is now well-defined. The other members of the DAF senior leadership team and I are not as comfortable with other aspects of our enterprise. Our consensus is that during the past 30 years, the Department of the Air Force has gradually optimized many aspects of how it organizes, trains and equips the Air Force and Space Force for the deployments and fights we have been in and for the operations that we are we’ll routinely conducting today in peacetime.

The sequestration era reinforced this direction and forced an emphasis on efficiency over effectiveness. The Air Force and Space Force are incredibly capable, but we need to re-optimize the department for greater power projection and for great power competition. The war we need to be most ready for if we want to optimize our readiness to deter or respond to the pacing challenge is not the type of conflict we have been focused on for many years. Our need to re-optimize is widespread. Some early manifestations of this fact that I observed were the absence of existing organizations that could address the operational imperative problem set, the lack of integrating organization for command control, communications and battle management, the lack of centers of technical excellence focused on sustaining superiority in the various cross-cutting operational enablers were further evidence of the need for change. But the need to re-optimize the DAF extends beyond how organizations are structured to ensure technological superiority.

As I have visited units and bases and been exposed to our current approach to functions such as manning, training, deploying and sustaining the Air Force and Space Force, it’s become clear that change is needed in almost all areas. As I have asked questions about the deployability of our war fighting and combat support organizations and about how their readiness to deploy and fight are being evaluated. As I learned how we had optimized to support current deployments, especially to the Middle East, it’s become increasingly clear that more change is needed and that we need to accelerate that process. We need to examine all aspects of how the Department of the Air Force is structured and operates and be open to major changes that reflect the requirements of the National Defense Strategy to deter, and if necessary prevail against China or Russia. We must ensure that the Air Force and Space Force are optimized to provide integrated deterrence, support campaigning and ensure enduring advantage.

Fortunately, many needed changes are already underway. Major initiatives in the Air Force and Space Force such as AFFORGEN in the Air Force and the evolving allocations of responsibility across Space Force field commands are all moves in the right direction. On Friday, I approved the Air Force creation of three new air task forces to serve as pilots in order to experiment with ways to more efficiently provide deployable integrated units, two for CENTCOM and one for the INDOPACOM. These are not the final permanent deployable units we expect to form, but they are a major step in the right direction and we will learn from this experience. Training in both services has always evolved towards greater focus on our pacing challenge. Concepts like multi capable Airmen and agile combat employment are aligned with meeting the pacing challenge, but they have not been fully implemented. We also have two current legislative proposals before Congress that will help optimize the Air and Space Forces.

The first is the Acquisition Quick Start Initiative to buy down risk by ensuring, initiating our highest priority and most urgent programs immediately, without having to wait for even a regular budget cycle to say nothing of a CR imposed delay. We already waited for well over year, as I said, to start work on our modernization issues. By giving the department the flexibility to quick start its most urgent programs early, this initiative will prevent us from losing ground unnecessarily to the military technological race with China. The second is the Space Force Personnel Management Act, which will give us the flexibility our nation’s newest service needs to recruit and promote and manage the talent we need for great power competition. It will also expand promotion opportunities. We want to thank the House and Senate for their support of these proposals and look forward to working with the Congress for final approval.

Nevertheless, there is much more that we need to accomplish. Over the next few months the Department of the Air Force Senior Leadership team will lead a broad review of all aspects of how the DAF performs its basic missions to organize, train, and equip the units and capabilities that we provide to the combatant commands and to the joint force. This effort was initiated with kickoff meetings in the Secretariat Air and Space Force staffs just last Thursday and Friday. The goal is to identify and begin execution by January 2024 of a range of changes that will re-optimize the Department of the Air Force for great power competition. At that time, the major effort will shift from identification and analysis of alternatives, to execution of recommendations. There is no time to lose. This effort will be conducted by five teams formed from the Department of the Air Force headquarters of the secretariat, the air staff, and the Space Force staff, with participation from the field.

These teams will conduct major lines of effort focused on the following aspects of the department’s core functions. One line of effort will focus on how we are organized, both in the headquarters and in the field. A second will focus on how we equip the force. A third line of effort will focus on personnel, how we recruit, train, and retain our people, including how we optimize career paths and manage talent. The fourth line of effort will address readiness, how we create, sustain, and evaluate readiness across the Air and Space Forces. A fifth line of effort will examine how we provide support to the operational Air and Space Forces to include providing installations, mobilizing, demobilizing, providing operational medicine and so on. All these efforts will be closely guided by the departments senior leaders. It’ll be an inclusive process open to and encouraging of innovative thinking.

Just as we have challenging and innovating potential adversaries, we must be open to new ways of organizing and doing business ourselves. My goal is by the time we meet at the next AFA, the changes we need to re-optimize for great power competition, and possibly for conflict, will be well underway. Last week we briefed some of our outside advisors on this effort, one of them was born in China and is a leading expert on Chinese culture, history and government. Her reaction was interesting, her view is that the five lines of effort that I just described, organizing, equipping personnel, readiness and support are essentially identical to the lines of effort Xi Jinping has been implementing since 2016 to prepare China for war with the United States. I’ll let that sink in for a second. Over the last few years, you have heard various pithy statements from your senior leaders, accelerate change or lose, integrated by design, competitive endurance. What got us here won’t get us there. One team, one fight. Change is hard. Losing is unacceptable.

You’ve heard these various mantras from leaders in the department and you might think it’s difficult to make out what they all mean and how they all relate. They all mean the same thing. We’re all talking about the fact that the Air and Space Forces must change or we could fail to prevent, and might even lose a war. Not the kinds of war we’ve fought or been fighting for the last 30 years, but a war between modern great powers with enormous costs and consequences for the US and its partners and for the world. We cannot let that happen. I recently sent a letter marking my two years in office to all of our Airmen and Guardians. I mean, let me be clear about my intent with that letter.

If we are going to deter, we must be ready for war. We must be ready for a kind of war we have no modern experience with. My aid has been reading a book called “The Aviators,” it’s about Rickenbacker, Doolittle, and Lindbergh. In the 1930s they were all invited to Germany to see the Luftwaffe being created. They all came back and tried to warn the nation that Germany was preparing for war, the nation didn’t listen. Today the intelligence couldn’t be clearer. Whatever its actual intentions may be, I could not say, but China is preparing for a war and specifically for a war with the United States. Again, war is not inevitable and no one can predict when or if it will occur. Our job is to deter that war and to be ready to win if it occurs. Being prepared for war means ensuring that our competitive advantages are continuously and consciously strengthened and maintained.

We all have that task individually and in our organizations today, tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. That is what my letter was trying to say. There is no greater or more important moment to serve our nation than this one, when the threat is the most challenging and the most consequential. It is your initiative, professionalism, and dedication that gives us our enduring competitive advantage. The PLA Air Force and the PLA Strategic Support Force are attempting to replicate the training and attributes embodied by our Airmen and Guardians. They will fail, they will fail because they cannot copy or duplicate the initiative, the professionalism and the dedication that I see in you every single day. I’m proud to be your Secretary and I will continue to fight for all of you to ensure you have the resources you need and to assure that you and our nation are ready for any conflict that may come. Semper Supra, air power anytime, anywhere, one team, one fight. Thank you.

SPACECOM Nears FOC, But Fight Over Its Homebase Rages On

Sept. 28, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

U.S. Space Command will reach full operational capability before the end of 2023, its commander Gen. James H. Dickinson told members of Congress on Sept. 28, even as the fiery debate over where to base the combatant command shows no signs of letting up.

President Joe Biden announced in July his intent to keep SPACECOM’s permanent headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., reversing a previous decision by then-President Donald Trump to move the command to Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

But just as Trump’s decision outraged Colorado lawmakers and prompted multiple investigations into the Air Force-led basing decision, Biden’s choice has infuriated Alabama legislators—most critically Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

After Biden announced his decision, Rogers vowed “this fight is far from over.” At a full committee hearing Sept. 28 featuring Dickinson, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, he went a step further.

“I am going to ask the Inspector General for the Department of Defense to investigate this,” Rogers said. “In the meantime, I intend to work to make sure that no funds are authorized or expended to be spent in Colorado Springs for the building of a permanent headquarters.”

Rogers’ key role as HASC chairman in drafting and passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes funding and can set policy for the Pentagon, makes his voice particularly crucial in the ongoing fight.

Dickinson confirmed during the hearing that Space Command is on pace to reach full operational capability by the end of 2023, a little more than two years after he declared initial operational capability in August 2021. The Pentagon had previously said FOC would be declared in August, but a change in mission requirements led to the delay.

“We received an additional unified command plan task in the latest one that came out in May of this year, which is trans-regional missile defense,” Dickinson said. “So I’m assessing to make sure I have the proper functions and personnel in the headquarters to be able to do that task.”

Dickinson has previously said uncertainty over the command’s future basing was also delaying FOC.

What impact a potential DOD Inspector General investigation might have on the basing timeline is unclear. Rogers also requested a Government Accountability Office investigation into the matter in August.

Previous IG and GAO investigators determined the basing decision process that led to Alabama’s selection did not violate any laws or policies, though both reports identified issues of concern and irregularities in the selection process.

Redstone Arsenal gate — The gate of Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala. Courtesy photo.

Differences in Opinion

While Kendall, Dickinson, and Saltzman all said they supported President Biden’s decision to headquarter SPACECOM in Colorado, Dickinson and Kendall in particular acknowledged they had offered contrasting recommendations—Dickinson favored keeping SPACECOM in Colorado Springs, while Kendall supported the move to Alabama.

During the Department of the Air Force’s re-evaluation of the basing decision, Kendall said his team concluded that “there would be some operational risk associated with moving the provisional headquarters in Colorado to any other location.” But while Dickinson argued that operational risk was “significant,” Kendall said he and the Air Force strategic basing team believed mitigation measures were available, including greater reliance on contractors instead of government civilians.

Dickinson said the decision to stay in Colorado “ultimately maintains our readiness at the highest levels while imposing the least disruption to the mission and workforce.” He pointed out that 60 percent of SPACECOM’s headquarters is staffed by civilians, who are not obligated to move with the command, as uniformed personnel would be. He said an internal analysis concluded that 88 percent of those civilians “would probably not move” from Colorado to Alabama.

Kendall, however, said he believed the long-term cost savings of a move from pricey Colorado to more affordable Alabama, provided appropriate mitigation measures, outweighed the operational risk.

Kendall had previously told lawmakers that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had delegated the basing decision to him and that he had received “no indication that the president is going to do anything with regard to that decision.” But during the Sept. 28 hearing, he said he was informed that the president was making the final decision “shortly” before it was announced.

The gate at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. U.S. Space Force image

Space Force Considers New Component in Japan, As Saltzman Bolsters Ties With Visit

Sept. 27, 2023 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Space Force may establish a combatant component in Japan soon, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Saltzman said in a news conference in Tokyo on Sept. 25. According to multiple media reports, Saltzman said setting up a new unit in Japan represents the “next phase” in joint initiatives aimed at enhancing space defense across the Indo-Pacific region.

Such a move would mark yet another step in the Space Force extending its footprint in the region. U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific, a component under U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, was established at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, in November 2022.

That was followed by the establishment of U.S. Space Forces Korea under U.S. Forces Korea, a sub-unified combatant command, at Osan Air Base, South Korea, the next month. U.S. Forces Japan is another sub-unified command under INDOPACOM.

Saltzman also said during the Tokyo news conference that the Space Force has been internally exploring the idea of establishing a communication hotline with China to avert space-related crises, as reported by Reuters.

However, the Space Force has not been in contact with its People’s Liberation Army counterparts, a U.S. Space Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The representative added that Saltzman noted any effort of this nature would be led by the State Department and have to be approved by the President of the United States.

Space is a key arena in the strategic competition between the United States and China. According to a recent report from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Beijing has developed various counterspace weapons, including ground-launched anti-satellite missiles, electronic warfare systems, and offensive satellites, making it a rapidly advancing player in space.

Saltzman’s visit to Japan, spanning six days from Sept. 21-26, had the overarching goals of strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance, supporting its modernization endeavors, and bolstering integrated deterrence through collaborative space security initiatives. In a series of high-level meetings, Saltzman engaged with Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara, Chief of Staff for the Japan Self-Defense Forces Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, Chief of Staff for the Japan Air Self-Defense Forces (JASDF) Gen. Hiroaki Uchikura, and President of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Dr. Hiroshi Yamakawa.

Those talks built on the progress made in previous bilateral initiatives, including the first-ever Space Engagement Talks (SET) held in July. They also included discussion about how the U.S. might use Japan’s future deep space radar and avenues to enhance collaboration in satellite communications, research, and development.

In addition, the leaders talked about deepening interoperability through space education, training programs, joint exercises, and more.

U.S. Space Force equipment sits on pallets inside a C-17 Globemaster III assigned to the 436th Airlift Wing, Dover Air Force Base, DE, at Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 10, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jarrett Smith

Saltzman’s itinerary also included a stop at Fuchu Air Base, where he met with Col. Kimitoshi Sugiyama, the Commander of the JASDF Space Operations Group. The Space Operations Group, responsible for JASDF space domain awareness operations, was established in March 2022, expanding upon the previous Space Operations Squadron.

The U.S. and Japan have been charting a tighter path together in space for a while now. In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed alongside their Japanese counterparts to recommit that their mutual defense policy would extend into space, meaning any attack on either country’s satellites could lead to the invocation of Article V of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, in which the two countries could “act to meet the common danger” if either country is attacked on Japanese territory.

First Step to Modernizing Air Force Tech School: Free Wi-Fi in the Dorms

Sept. 27, 2023 | By David Roza

The Second Air Force, which oversees BMT, tech school, and other training programs, wants to move its enlisted technical training beyond classrooms and PowerPoint slides, but first it must implement what many civilian schools take for granted: free, widespread wireless internet access.

Many students at tech school, where enlisted Airmen train in their job specialties after Basic Military Training, have to pay $55 per month for Wi-Fi in their dormitories, without which they have limited access to coursework.

“They should be able to learn on demand anytime, anywhere, whenever they’re ready to do it,” Maj. Gen. Michele Edmondson, commander of the Second Air Force, told reporters on Aug. 22. “If they want to go back to their dormitory or sit outside at a picnic table and practice what they learned that day or prepare for a lecture the next day, we give them an environment where they can do it.”

Six locations within Air Education and Training Command (AETC), to which the Second Air Force belongs, now provide Wi-Fi in dormitories at no cost to Airmen. Two new investments of $18.5 million and $25.8 million should expand that access to new locations. All of AETC’s 15 main training locations are expected to be online by the end of fiscal year 2024, followed by geographically separated units.

Expansion is expensive; installing no-cost Wi-Fi at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, alone took $6.5 million. But officials there say it has improved student retention and attention in and out of class. Edmondson said campus-wide Wi-Fi is the foundation for modernizing tech school.

“We can make the environment something they’re used to learning in, rather than saying, ‘come sit in a brick and mortar classroom eight hours a day, in a desk, with an instructor standing in front of you with a whiteboard and PowerPoint slides,’” she told reporters. “That’s not how they’ve been learning in school.”

The general referenced her own 13-year-old daughter answering science questions while watching video lessons at home. The Second Air Force must adapt to the learning model its trainees grew up with so that Airmen can hit the ground running when they arrive at tech school, Edmondson said.

“I’m not saying that we’re going to 100 percent across the board look like every high school classroom in America, but there is a lot of goodness we can learn from that,” she said.

tech school — An Airman assigned to the 362nd Training Squadron, Detachment One, reads instructions from a tablet while performing a knowledge check on Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, simulator at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, July 16, 2021. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Sarah Dowe.

The Second Air Force is pursuing several changes to make enlisted education more personalized, such as allowing instructors to tailor the training pace to each Airmen and giving Airmen access to course materials through tablets, audiobooks, videos, or augmented or virtual reality.

The personalized model is showing promise at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., where cyber Airmen have “a degree of choice about direction and pace of their pathway, which often results in completing the curriculum more quickly than in the past,” Edmondson told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Some students with previous cyber experience are graduating early after demonstrating they have the skills to do so.

Wider access and self-paced learning also seems to be making a difference at Sheppard, where maintenance trainees interact with virtual C-130 aircraft. Instructors are seeing improved performance compared to students in the past, who were limited to purely hands-on interaction with aircraft.

“The Airmen, when it came to doing their hands-on tasks throughout tech school here, were far more competent,” Tech. Sgt. Kyle Ingram, a curriculum development writer at Sheppard, said in a 2022 press release. “They knew exactly where to go and what to do on that aircraft right then and there. You only had to tell them what to do, and then they knew exactly where to go and what to do in that procedure.”

Edmondson said her command has learned much from the 19th Air Force, which oversees flying training and recently reformed undergraduate pilot training with a greater emphasis on self-paced learning, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and increased simulator time. A key takeaway was developing faculty to keep pace with the new technology, new changes, and to “understand the ‘why’ behind what we’re doing,” she said.

Other changes are in the works. One idea is to use artificial intelligence to analyze Airmen’s learning records and give commanders real-time knowledge of “the training readiness of the force,” one press release explained. A unit of AETC known as Detachment 23 is building an application within the learning management system myLearning called MOTAR (Member Operations Training Analysis Reporting) to pursue that idea.

“Our vision, all the way up to the Air Force chief of staff, is for commanders to be able to log in on one system and view their commander dashboard,” detachment commander Maj. Jesse Johnson said in the release. “This is going to tell them the readiness of the entire force right then and there.”

333rd Training Squadron cyber warfare officers complete cyber tasks in the cyber escape room inside Stennis Hall at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, November 10, 2021. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Seth Haddix

Edmondson also hopes to integrate nutrition, sleep hygiene, and physical fitness into tech school so that any health gains made by Airmen in BMT do not stop after graduating. But pursuing all these efforts will take time, money, and, in some cases, major renovation of the Air Force’s IT infrastructure, which many critics say is outdated and dysfunctional.

“Current informational technology infrastructure does not support the most relevant existing or emerging instructional approaches and technologies due to limited connectivity, access, speed and reliability,” Marilyn Holliday, a spokesperson for AETC, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Not all changes will be high-tech: even just having tables with dry-erase boards can “completely change the dynamics of a classroom,” Edmondson said. Still, from now through mid-fiscal 2024, the Second Air Force will be focused on modernizing its facilities by expanding access to Wi-Fi and possibly remodeling or building anew.

With modern infrastructure in place, Edmondson wants fiscal 2025 to be a year of “aggressive transformation.” Within five years, she hope all technical training units will be up to speed and ready to keep pace with evolving modern weapon systems.

The command has spent about $35 million over the past fiscal year focusing on Wi-Fi and classroom and infrastructure updates, with another $57 million earmarked in fiscal year 2024. The Second Air Force is targeting maintenance, security forces, cyber, and intelligence training for now, but the scope could expand in the future. The command oversees about 16,000 tech school students across 265 Air Force specialty codes.

“It’s a monumental undertaking, so this isn’t something that is going to happen overnight,” Edmondson said. “I think we’re really optimistic though … five years from now, holistically this enterprise is going to look significantly different.”

How a Government Shutdown Would Affect Airmen and Guardians

Sept. 27, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

With a government shutdown looking increasingly likely on Oct. 1, Active-Duty Airmen and Guardians will still report for duty. But things will be far from normal.

For weeks, defense officials have warned of the impacts of a continuing resolution (CR), a short-term stopgap to keep the federal government funded. Now, the Biden administration and defense officials say that is the best hope to keep the military running normally and to pay the government’s bills, including paychecks to service members.

“The shutdown is the worst thing that could happen,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Sept. 25. “We’re hoping that Congress can find a way to avert that, but planning for the worst.”

The Air Force and Space Force are under broad DOD-wide guidance, which is being distributed across the Department of Air Force, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. That means troops are in line not to receive paychecks and thousands of civilian employees will be furloughed under the Pentagon’s “Contingency Plan Guidance for Continuation of Essential Operations in the Absence of Available Appropriations.”

“Military personnel on Active-Duty, including Reserve component personnel on Federal Active-Duty, will continue to report for duty and carry out assigned duties,” the document says. But they will not be paid on schedule unless some legislation is passed that continues to pay troops, as has been the case in the past. And service members would have to cover some work that is normally done by furloughed civilian workers.

“Troops would go without pay,” Singh said. “Military families would be impacted, of course. For folks that are not getting paychecks, that impacts how and when you can buy groceries, childcare—all of these things. Commissaries would be closed on bases.”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and other Republican Senators have put forward legislation that would provide “funds to pay members of the armed forces” if an agreement is not reached and passed by midnight on Sept. 30. A separate bill aiming to pay troops sits in the House. The White House says the best solution is to fund the government.

Legislators should “work in a bipartisan manner to keep the government open and address emergency needs for the American people,” the White House said in a Sept. 26 statement. The Biden administration added a shutdown “would prove disruptive to our national security.”

Most civilian employees of the Defense Department would be furloughed—they would not report work but eventually receive back pay—as they are deemed “not necessary” to support limited, approved activities, including some civilians employed overseas.

“We’re just sending them home and saying, ‘you’re not essential,’” undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment William A. LaPlante said at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Sept. 26. “It’s just, it’s just horrible. There’s really nothing good you can say about it.”

Roughly 45 percent of DOD civilians are exempt because they are essential under the DOD’s guidance or they are not funded by annual appropriations, according to defense analyst Jim McAleese.

But a shutdown would be particularly troublesome for the Air Force and Space Force, which want to modernize their forces despite Congressional gridlock.

“If the government shuts down, testing will stop and acceptance by the government of equipment when it is finished and ready to be accepted stop,” said LaPlante, who served as the Air Force’s acquisition chief in 2013 during another shutdown, which he said all but put a halt to F-35 and munition production.

Recruiting and “initial entry training” would continue under current DOD guidance. But how a shutdown could affect things such as flying hours is unclear. For Airmen and Guardians, many normal activities, such as temporary duty travel (TDY) would be canceled—including for many senior military officers. The Air Force spokeswoman said DOD guidance was being distributed across the Department of the Air Force so commanders and leaders are prepared implement it if directed.

“It’s just extremely disruptive,” LaPlante said.

While Democrats and Republicans are at odds over who is at fault for the funding impasse, both sides say troops and DOD civilians have been caught in the crossfire.

“Senators and congressmen often like to say how much they support our military members—now they have an opportunity to show it,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a co-sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement.

U-2 Makes First Flight with Updated Avionics, Navigation, and Comms

Sept. 27, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

An Air Force U-2 Dragon Lady has flown with its new updated avionics system, Lockheed Martin announced Sept. 26. The open-mission systems hardware and software update should carry the aircraft through the rest of its planned service life.

The Avionics Tech Refresh (ATR) updates the U-2’s communications and navigation capabilities and features a new mission computer with an open mission systems standard. It will allow the aircraft to communicate with networks and platforms in all domains and “at disparate security levels,” according to a Lockheed release.

In addition to the new avionics systems, the U-2 received new cabling, software, and displays that should ease pilot workload by “enhancing presentation of the data the aircraft collects to enable faster, better-informed decisions,” the release added.

Lockheed won the ATR contract, worth $50 million, in 2020.

During the first flight with the new system, the test U-2 performed low-altitude functional checks.

The flight “is a significant moment in our journey to rapidly and affordably field new capabilities,” Sean Thatcher, Lockheed Skunk Works U-2 ATR program manager, said in a statement. The new open architecture will allow the aircraft to integrate with the Joint All-Domain Operations battlespace, he said.

Lockheed plans to make the U-2 the first fully OMS-compliant fleet, Lockheed said.

Follow-on testing will “solidify a mature software baseline before mission systems are introduced to ensure both functionality and interoperability to meet operational needs,” the company said in a press release.

The Air Force plans to retire its fleet of 27 U-2s in 2026, and the semi-autonomous Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk a year later, but the Air Force has not discussed a replacement for the two very high altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms. Instead, officials have suggested their ISR missions will transfer to space-based assets.

Congress has blocked previous efforts to retire the U-2, and for years even prevented the Air Force from retiring the wet-film Optical Bar Camera system used in the U-2 for decades. The system was finally retired in favor of a digital system in July 2022.

The Air Force is said to already be operating a secret, stealthy, uncrewed aircraft successor to the RQ-4 and U-2, called the RQ-180, but the service has declined to discuss it. Sources say the aircraft was built by Northrop Grumman, and that its success with the type helped the company win the B-21 bomber contract in 2015.

The U-2 is based at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., but there are detachments of the aircraft operating all over the world. The jet flies at altitudes up to 70,000 feet on missions that can last up to 11 hours. Lockheed’s depot for the U-2 is at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif.