Kay Sears, Boeing’s Vice President of Space, Intelligence & Weapon Systems, sat down with Air & Space Forces Magazine for a discussion on how Boeing approaches space as a warfighting domain, and how it supports the U.S. Space Force’s mission to protect and defend our nation’s interests in space.
The Space Force’s Polaris Awards annually recognize Guardians who best represent the Guardian Spirit. There are four individual award categories based on each of the core Guardian values—Character, Connection, Commitment and Courage—and a Team Excellence category that combines all four values. Air & Space Forces Magazine is highlighting each of this year’s winners before they receive their awards on stage at the 2024 AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo.
The U.S. Space Force selected Capt. Samantha J. Pereira of the 3rd Space Operations Squadron (3 SOPS) at Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., as the winner of the Polaris Award for Courage for “championing new ideas, accepting smart risks, and pursuing opportunities for innovation and mission success” in 2023.
The 3rd Space Operations squadron was only three years old when Pereira arrived in January 2023 to lead its engineering flight. At the time, the flight consisted of just her and two other Guardians.
“I remember gathering into a conference room being like, what the heck are we even supposed to be doing? What is our job?” Pereira said. “We spent numerous hours just outlining what the flight was supposed to look like.”
Pereira went to task mapping out a manning strategy to grow the flight into a mission-ready team of 16 engineers. She said the key to her plan was having an organized strategy to build the team her squadron needed—a strategy that required courage to present to her leadership.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever gone into a squadron manning meeting before, but going in and asking for 15 people, you’re probably going to get laughed out of the room,” she said. “But I had a three-month manning plan, a six-month manning plan, a year plan, a five-year plan. … I think because we were so organized [is why] going to my leadership and asking for a total of 15 people ultimately worked out.”
Pereira said that in the three years since 3 SOPS was stood up, the engineering flight hadn’t been a priority for the squadron. Her presence and dedication changed that. By addressing the way the 3 SOPS was structured, Pereira created eight engineering roles and appointed three tactical-level teams, the equivalent of a 75 percent manning increase.
The restructure led to a significant improvement around the squadron. Her teams identified nearly 491 critical systems issues, developed 81 unique workarounds, and resolved 152 errors under her leadership.
In the chapter on Courage, the Guardian Handbook calls on Guardians to “highlight areas that can be improved and encourage their teammates to do the same. Innovation requires a creative environment that challenges the established norms.” Pereira has taken these words—especially “innovation”—to heart in order to drive change.
“A lot of the processes that other squadrons have, 3 SOPS didn’t at that point. So everything that we were doing was innovation,” Pereira said. “And they had pre-established processes that were hard to break. So we were saying, ‘Hey, let’s take a risk. Let’s stop what we’re doing to make this better.’”
Pereira’s courage and leadership led the team to win four individual awards, Delta 9’s Team of the Quarter, and the Delta’s nomination for the Lance P. Sijan Leadership Award. Under her leadership, the squadron developed an accountability and configuration control process, which led to the unit’s first security inspection pass rating.
“When people think of courage, they think of running into a burning building and rescuing people. That is definitely an act of courage, but there are small acts of courage that we can do every day that amount to something bigger, that serve as force multipliers in themselves,” Pereira said. “Sometimes you have to be bold to get to see the change that needs to happen or just to correct what’s wrong.”
Now that the Space Force is recognizing her on a national level with the 2023 Polaris Award for Courage, Pereira wants to encourage fellow Guardians—and all her fellow service members—to be bold, break barriers, and champion new ideas that advance the mission.
“If you’ve got an idea that you think could change things, change problems, whether on a Space Force level or just in your section, pursue it,” she said. “Get organized. Drive change. No matter what your rank is, or what your specialty code is, or the number of years of experience you have, everybody has the ability to solve problems and drive change. You just gotta get organized.”
Meet the other 2023 Polaris Award winners below:
The U.S. fleet of F-35 fighters continued to be vexed by reliability, maintainability, and availability (RMA) problems last fiscal year, available for operations only 51 percent of the time—compared to a goal of 65 percent—according to the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation’s annual report.
“The operational suitability of the F-35 fleet remains below service expectations and requirements,” according to the report, published in late January.
Aircraft availability among all U.S. F-35s hit its high water mark in January 2021 but has declined since, the report authors noted.
“In [fiscal year 2023], aircraft availability was slightly below that in FY’22, after declining for most of FY’21,” the report assessed. “Available” means an F-35 can do at least one of its many assigned missions.
The RMA performance of the F-35 has been the subject of numerous congressional hearings and Government Accountability Office reports over the years, and the Pentagon has launched many initiatives meant to get mission capability rates up.
Newer aircraft—with more proven components—have tended to perform better than older ones across the 20-year-old program, and the Pentagon has argued that the complexity of the stealthy and computer-intensive jet means its availability shouldn’t be judged against less-complex earlier types of aircraft.
Even though the F-35 still has not met the developmental exit criteria to enter “full rate production,” the flying hours accumulated by the fleet mean it should be viewed as a largely mature system.
A total of 628 F-35s had been delivered to the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy by the end of September 2023, but that figure doesn’t include aircraft in developmental test or any of the F-35s completed but now in storage, awaiting completion of Tech Refresh-3 update testing. The report did not assess F-35 performance with foreign operators.
Aircraft that were combat-coded—which typically receive priority for spare parts and maintenance—achieved the best performance for availability, the report stated, noting that 61 percent were available on an average monthly basis. But that was still below the goal of 65 percent, and in only one month of fiscal 2023 did the F-35 fleet surpass the goal. Across all F-35s, the average was 51 percent.
Viewed in terms of full mission capability—which means an F-35 is “capable of executing all assigned missions”—combat-coded aircraft again did better than the overall fleet but fell well short of the goal. Across 2023, the combat-coded fleet achieved a monthly full mission capable rate average of 48 percent, versus 30 percent for the whole fleet. The full mission capable rate for the operational test fleet was only nine percent. Non-combat-coded aircraft include those down for maintenance, in depot, or being used as daily trainers.
Slightly more than half the fleet—51 percent, as of the end of September 2023—is now combat-coded, the report noted.
Aircraft dubbed “not available” are designated as such when they are in depot or unable to fly due to maintenance or supply issues. Rates of aircraft down due to supply was 27 percent; “relatively flat” but “slightly worse” than the fiscal 2023 rate, the report noted. It’s been on a worsening trend since July 2021.
Aircraft down because they were awaiting maintenance in 2023 was 15 percent.
“To improve aircraft availability, the program should continue to pursue maintenance system improvements, especially for common processes distributed among many different [Non-Mission Capable for Maintenance] drivers, such as low-observable repairs, adhesive cure times for attaching hardware such as nutplates,” and stocking enough of the “most critical” in-demand spares, the DOT&E report stated.
“The program should also focus reliability improvements on the components most often not immediately available in supply,” the report added.
Particularly for the Air Force F-35A version, “the significant shortage of fully-functional F135 engines contributed” to lower aircraft availability.
This was offset in part by “aggressive program efforts to lay in additional depot resources, improve depot efficiencies, and ruggedize key engine components,” and increasing “the number of spare modules ready for issue,” the report noted.
However, “other degraders such as canopy and egress system issues have contributed to stagnant, or slightly declining, availability.”
As a fleet, the F-35 still isn’t meeting the reliability and maintainability standards set in the Operational Requirements Document, the report noted.
“The F-35A meets two and the F-35B meets one of the three reliability requirements. No variant is meeting [all] the maintainability requirements,” it said.
The F-35A fleet was supposed to achieve a rate of 20 Mean Flight Hours Between Critical Failures after 75,000 fleet hours. But in 2023, it only achieved a rate of 10.5, despite having racked up more than 288,000 total flight hours since entering service. The F-35B variant, operated by the Marines, and the F-35C, flown by the Navy, both missed their goals as well.
The main drivers of critical failures were “troubleshooting (including software stability), attaching hardware (including nutplates), wires/tubes/ducts/ fiber optics, throttle grip, aircraft memory device, [low observability] repair, standby flight display, refueling door, position light,” the report noted.
The fix times for “critical failures” was double the operational requirement for the Air Force, nearly three times for the Marine Corps, and more than double for the Navy.
In the category of Mean Flight Hours Between Removal, all the variants did better, achieving 108 percent for the A model and 78 percent each for the B and C.
All the variants came close to or beat the requirement for “Mean Flight Hours Between Maintenance Events (Unscheduled),” with the Air Force and Navy F-35s besting the requirement by 110 percent and 120 percent, respectively, while the Marine Corps hit 80 percent of the goal.
DOT&E’s recommendations regarding RMA mirrored those of the fiscal 2022 report. It urged continued maintenance system improvements and more investment in spares, “especially for F135 engines, to reduce down-time for aircraft waiting [for] spare parts by developing alternate sources of repair, including organic repair.”
The Department of the Air Force is planning a billion-dollar investment in its dormitories in the coming years, installations boss Ravi Chaudhary told lawmakers Feb. 7, as part of its response to a report on poor living conditions.
Chaudhary, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations, and environment, outlined the service’s initiative for the House Armed Services Committee.
“Pending passage of an appropriation, the department is planning its largest dorm investment program in over a decade, estimated $1.1 billion through FY22 through FY26,” Chaudhary said. “… If appropriated, the DAF intends to invest in three new dormitories from FY24 to FY28, to address capacity shortfalls and recapitalized facilities.”
The planned investment involves plans for renovations and restoration at approximately 60 installations— 23 of those 60 are planned to be completed in fiscal 2024, according to Chaudhary.
Chaudhary’s remarks come several months after the the Government Accountability Office released a report that revealed poor living conditions in military housing with issues such as mold growth, water quality problems, bugs, and overcrowded dorm rooms, impacting service members’ mental and physical health.
The GAO report didn’t specify which problems were observed at particular services’ dorms, but it identified shortcomings in how each service manages barracks, where junior enlisted unmarried service members are often required to live. Noting that the report authors visited two DAF installations, Chaudhary said the Air Force is working on issues across all of its installations.
“This year, the Air Force held project owners accountable for $58 million in cost to address mold problems in 560 units and more are on the way,” Chaudhary said. “In 2023, project owners were held accountable for approximately 600 payments to address health and safety issues totaling $60 million in cost, but there is more work to be done, and we recognize that.”
Chaudhary said he personally visited 25 Air Force bases and held 40 round tables with personnel for feedback, including bases hit by recent typhoons and hurricanes that are currently recovering in Guam, Japan and Florida. He claimed the department is “pulling out all the stops” to address the GAO report, with his visits shaping the Air Force’s investment plans.
“We’re accelerating efforts in privatized housing,” Chaudhary said. “We’ve also hired 218 civilians to add direct oversight, including resident advocates on base to represent our service members alongside the chain of command.”
Chaudhary highlighted the significance of infrastructure resilience against a range of threats, from extreme weather to great power competition. He pointed to Kadena Air Force Base in Japan as an example, which successfully weathered a typhoon without experiencing any power outages.
“These critical investments could prove to be the margin of victory in great power competition,” Chaudhary said.
Many of the GAO’s recommendations for the services and the Department of Defense involved overhauling how they conduct condition assessments. For instance, GAO analysis revealed that nearly 50 percent of Air Force dormitories classified as ‘at risk of significant degradation’ still had condition scores of 80 or above. The Defense Department needs to reevaluate those assessments and offer guidance based on its findings, the authors wrote.
“The DOD has, in too many instances, failed to live up to our role in making sure the housing we provide honors the commitment of the service members and their families and enables them to bring their best versions of themselves to their critical missions,” said Brendan Owens, the assistant secretary of Defense for installations, energy and environment. He highlighted that the GAO report shaped priorities, with the Pentagon now focusing on new standards, accessibility, maintenance plans, and quality of life of the service members.
“We anticipate implementing 28 of the 31 GAO recommendations this year,” Owens added.
The Air Force’s KC-46 tanker has been plagued by issues for years now, most of them related to its Remote Vision System and refueling boom. But a Pentagon report released late last month detailed problems with another key Pegasus feature: its Wing Aerial Refueling Pods.
The WARPs, mounted on the aircraft’s wings, are supposed to allow the KC-46 to refuel two aircraft simultaneously, as opposed to most of the current USAF tanker fleet that can only use a centerline drogue to refuel one aircraft at a time.
The Air Force said it successfully tested the pods in 2019, and Boeing officials expressed confidence in January 2021 that they would receive FAA certification soon. But the Director of Operational Test & Evaluation’s 2023 annual report released in January noted that the pods, along with well-publicized RVS and boom redesigns, are delaying the completion of initial operational test and evaluation for the KC-46.
IOT&E, necessary for a full-rate production decision, was supposed to happen for the WARP system in April 2023. Instead, the process was suspended, the report said.
“The WARP system was not able to enter IOT&E or be released for operational employment, because it failed several compliance criteria for FAA supplemental-type certification,” the report stated.
Specifically, the WARPs did not meet certification requirements for cowling bird strike, lightning tolerance, and wiring corrosion protection.
Boeing referred queries to the Air Force, and an Air Force Life Cycle Management Center spokesman said the KC-46 program office “is in the process of obtaining all the required FAA certifications … [and] currently conducting a schedule risk assessment to obtain firm completion dates.”
The report, based on data and information through the end of fiscal 2023, suggested the program office hoped to have the WARP system ready for IOT&E by the first quarter of fiscal 2024—the last three months of calendar year 2023.
But the Air Force spokesman said the process was “slightly delayed.”
“Preparations are underway for a start in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024,” the spokesman said, adding that FAA certifications will not delay testing, “as IOT&E will be conducted using one of the production article pods.”
Other issues remain as well. The KC-46’s operational readiness and mission capable rates “remained steady at well below their threshold requirements,” the report stated.
“A notable factor adversely affecting availability metrics is the time-based maintenance driven by underlying commercial 767 requirements, along with commercial parts supply chain delays that contribute to a significant portion of the aircraft down-time,” the report explained.
The Air Force spokesman said Boeing and the service have reviewed the “A Check” maintenance schedule and shifted those tasks from every six months to every two months to improve availability. Other reviews are ongoing and “changes will be made when performance data and analysis supports a change,” the spokesperson said.
The DOT&E report also noted continued problems with the Automatic Performance Tool and technical documents meant to guide the KC-46’s cargo operations. Those problems were part of what led the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) to issue a Category I emergency deficiency report for cargo operations in 2022, though that deficiency was later lowered to a Category II.
The report authors recommended that the Air Force and Boeing complete development of an “improved” cargo operations manual, and the AFLCMC spokesman said that effort is still in progress, with an anticipated release date in the third quarter of fiscal 2024.
The Space Force’s Polaris Awards annually recognize Guardians who best represent the Guardian Spirit. There are four individual award categories based on each of the core Guardian values—Character, Connection, Commitment and Courage—and a Team Excellence category that combines all four values. Air & Space Forces Magazine is highlighting each of this year’s winners before they receive their awards on stage at the 2024 AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo.
The U.S. Space Force selected 1st Lt. Jonathan Novak of the 3rd Space Operations Squadron at Schriever Space Force Base, Colo., as the winner of the Polaris Award for Commitment for “displaying devotion to personal development and self-improvement, utilization of resources, and unique strengths and skills” in 2023.
As the squadron’s engineering officer in charge, Novak leads a team of 15 technicians, analysts, and engineers in technical management and error resolution for the Space Force’s Protect and Defend mission. But it’s his commitment to the Space Force outside of his work—in fact, since his final days at the U.S. Air Force Academy—that earned him a Polaris recognition.
In 2020, when Novak was two weeks away from graduating from USAFA with a slot for Air Force pilot training, he received an acceptance letter from MIT’s Technology & Policy graduate program. Lacking the funding and personnel slot from the Air Force to pursue this last-minute opportunity, Novak reached out to a mentor to see if the Space Force could support his continued education.
The response came just three days later as an email from his mentor: “John, see below comments from your future boss.” Below that was the forwarded message, “I will make that happen. JWR”—as in, Gen. John W. Raymond, Chief of Space Operations.
“I couldn’t believe it at first, but he called me a few days later,” Novak said. “I remember just standing at attention in my room because I didn’t know what to do—a four-star chief of a service was calling me. And he goes, ‘Lt. Novak, I just want to let you know you’re squared away. You’re going to be working with Lincoln Labs. You’re fully funded, you’re slated to go.’”
Two short weeks later, Novak commissioned as the 57th Guardian of the U.S. Space Force and packed his bags for MIT. He said that phone call was what incited his “commitment to mastery” and dedication to the Space Force.
“Since the Space Force was going to be my team moving forward, I wanted this team to be as great as possible,” he said. “And because they trusted me with this, I wanted them to know that they made the right choice.”
Novak spent 12 hours a day for the next two years writing a research thesis on resilient space architectures. He graduated from MIT in 2022. In January 2023, his thesis was published in Acta Astronautica, an international aerospace engineering journal.
Following its publication, Novak had the opportunity to distill his 200-plus-page paper into a presentation for 60 middle- and high-school STEM teachers. He said his presentation was more than just an opportunity for amplifying STEM education—it was an opportunity to educate teachers and students about the Space Force.
Building on his research, Novak identified an educational pipeline gap for 2,000 acquisition-coded personnel and spearheaded an effort to craft the Space Force’s first-ever space-centric acquisition training program. In April 2023, he brought his training concept to the inaugural Guardian Field Forum, a professional development forum where Guardians presented ideas to the Chief of Space Operations, the Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, and other senior leaders from Space Force Headquarters.
Novak secured $500,000 to develop his curriculum.
“I didn’t want to just bring this problem in front of the CSO, I wanted to bring it with the solution,” Novak said. “They heard my concerns with acquisitions, but I still wanted to see if I could steward this on my level … Everyone was willing to listen to me. That’s really what I think was special about this experience, is not only how many times the senior leaders were willing to listen to us, but also the fact that it was able to happen on the tactical level.”
Novak also mentored more than 110 cadets at USAFA and three ROTC detachments on officership, partnership, and career field opportunities. He said these engagement opportunities were a full-circle way to advocate for the Space Force the way it advocated for him in 2020.
“When you open up these opportunities and take care of people, they’ll return that favor, and they’ll take care of the mission,” Novak said. “And so I remember when [CSO] said, ‘I will make that happen.’ That short, five-word email, that’s when I was committed. That’s when I started reaching out to people and I started seeing the Space Force as my team.”
“They gave me the trust, and I just wanted to steward that trust as best as possible,” he added. “Their trust is what underpins that commitment.”
Meet the other 2023 Polaris Award winners below:
The Air Force is reimplementing a program to bring back officers and enlisted Airmen in an effort to stem an ongoing staff shortage in a wide range of career fields.
The Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program (VRRAD) will restart Feb. 8 after a three-year hiatus: the program was last active from 2017 to 2021, according to slides shared on Reddit and the Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco. Air Force officials confirmed the slides appeared to be authentic.
“The VRRAD program is a strategic enabler to embrace experienced talent, tapping into a valuable resource of retired members to fill critical roles to close the gap against our peer competitors,” Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services, said in a Feb. 7 statement.
The program allows for up to 1,000 retired officers or enlisted troops to return to Active Duty. The deadline for applications is Jan. 31, 2026, and the period of service is limited to 48 months. Retired applicants selected for Extended Active Duty can expect to return to active duty about four to six months after applying.
Airmen who return to Active Duty will return to their retired grade, the slides explained. They will be ineligible for the aviation bonus, promotion, and SkillBridge, a transition program that helps service members prepare for civilian jobs. VRRAD participants will deploy only if they volunteer or are assigned to a combat-coded unit, but they may be subject to permanent changes of station or assignment.
Early reactions on social media were unimpressed with the lack of perks for returning to service. The return of VRRAD marks the latest effort to mitigate an ongoing staff and recruiting shortage in the Air Force. Other recent efforts include:
The regular Air Force missed its recruiting goal by just under 11 percent for fiscal 2023, but Alex Wagner, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said in December that he is “cautiously optimistic” about this year’s enlisted accession goals.
“Lack of familiarity is the most important thing,” Wagner told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “What’s important to realize is that once people become familiar, they want to join, they understand the benefits of service, they understand the opportunities—whether they be educational, financial—they understand the community, being part of a team.”
On the officer side, VRRAD is taking applicants who retired in the grade of captain through lieutenant colonel. While all members who meet eligibility can apply, the Air Force is targeting these specific career fields:
On the enlisted side, the Air Force wants applicants who retired in the grade of staff sergeant through senior master sergeant. All eligible members can apply, but the focus is on the following career fields:
The U.S. Air Force, Marines Corps, and Navy, along with four partner nations, flexed their airpower in an “elephant walk” at Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, to kick off Pacific Air Forces’ largest annual multilateral exercise, Cope North.
All told, 35 aircraft from the U.S., Royal Australian Air Force, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, French Air and Space Force, and Republic of Korea Air Force lined up in a united formation on Feb. 5, according to a PACAF release.
The roster comprised 13 U.S. Air Force, 8 Marine Corps, 10 JASDF, 2 French Air and Space Force, 1 RAAF, and 1 ROK Air Force aircraft, encompassing fighters, airlifters, and command and control aircraft, 36th Wing spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
“On behalf of RAAF, JASDF, and the USAF exercise leadership, we are excited to kick off Cope North 24 with this successful demonstration of interoperability through the Elephant Walk,” Lt. Col. David Overstreet, Cope North lead planner, said in the release. “Throughout the exercise we aim to aggressively practice combat air forces and mobility air forces dispersal activities in concert with all six participating nations. Our network of alliances and partnerships remains the backbone of global security.”
The demonstration illustrated the U.S. and its allies’ airpower presence and readiness across the Indo-Pacific region. It is the second multi-national elephant walk on Guam in recent months, after a 23-aircraft formation with six participating nations rolled out in July.
“The sheer amount of aircraft and the way our Allies and partners operate together with us is inspiring,” said Senior Airman Robert Rennie, an Air Traffic Controller assigned to the 36th Operations Support Squadron. As one of the Airmen who directed and oversaw the process, Rennie added that seeing the elephant walk reminds him that the team is “moving in the right direction to ensure deterrence.”
The larger three-week Cope North exercise provides a chance for the U.S. to cooperate with regional partners through sharing data and intelligence, refining tactics, and improving interoperability.
“The planning and execution was excellent,” said Master Sgt. Steven Hood, 756th Air Refueling Squadron KC-135 boom operator. “Everyone’s professionalism and eagerness to work together will propel our war-fighting capabilities in the Pacific.”
Cope North 24 is in full swing. PACAF shared photos Feb. 6 of a B-52 Stratofortress from the 5th Bomb Wing flying over Tinian and Saipan islands, about 120 miles north Guam. The heavy bomber was escorted by a USAF F-15, two F-16s, a Navy E/A-18 Growler, and a Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet, as well as JASDF F-15J Eagles, U-125A, and two F-2s. B-52s from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., deployed to Anderson last week to support the multinational exercise, running through Feb. 23.
About 700 service members from five nations, including the Royal Canadian Air Force, will join some 1,700 U.S. Airmen, Marines, and Sailors in training together to enhance agile combat skills, better integrate mission planning, and execute aerial missions. In addition, the exercise will include humanitarian assistance and disaster relief training and command and control operations, including airlift and logistics training from various locations.
In anticipation of the exercise, the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy engaged in three days of training to qualify members on fueling operations last week.
Originated in 1978 at Misawa Air Base, Japan, as a quarterly bilateral drill, Cope North relocated to Andersen in 1999.
Moderately capable—and moderately costly—Collaborative Combat Aircraft would be extremely valuable in a war with China, so long as they are “additive” to new crewed aircraft already planned and used independently and not just “tethered” to those crewed aircraft, according to a new report from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
A series of wargames run by the Mitchell Institute showed that when used by the U.S. Air Force in large numbers, CCAs—autonomous drones meant to supplement the manned fleet—compelled China to expend large numbers of missiles, created beneficial chaos in the battlespace, and overall were a cost-imposing factor on the adversary, participants said Feb. 6.
Retired Col. Mark A. Gunzinger, retired Maj. Gen. Lawrence A. Stutzriem, and Bill Sweetman summarized the wargames’ findings in a paper, “The Need for Collaborative Combat Aircraft for Disruptive Air Warfare.”
The CCA program, still in its infancy but expected to grow quickly, represents “an opportunity for the Air Force,” Gunzinger said during an online event. Given that the Air Force fleet is the smallest and oldest it’s ever been and there is a growing mismatch between “the supply and demand for Air Force airpower,” Gunzinger said, an injection of low-cost CCA drones in large numbers to match or overwhelm China’s air assets makes USAF potentially dominant in such a fight.
Gunzinger further emphasized the importance of low costs.
“It’s unreasonable to assume” the Air Force will be able to match China aircraft for aircraft, missile for missile, and so it must invest in an “asymmetric” approach which will disrupt China’s operating plan and impose costs upon it, he said.
In the wargames, three separate “Blue” teams were free to ask for CCAs ranging from “exquisite,” $40 million-plus autonomous aircraft with capabilities near that of a crewed fifth-generation fighter—2,000-mile range, six missiles onboard, very-low observable stealth, onboard radars and infrared trackers, and runway independent—to more basic craft, under $15 million apiece, with far fewer weapons and stealth.
The result: teams scarcely used “exquisite” CCAs in the early days of a fight because of the risk of losing them.
Curtis Wilson, senior director of emergent missions at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, participated in the games and said if a CCA “only needs to last 30 minutes, the cost goes way down” relative to an aircraft expected to serve for decades and built to do so. He also noted that the artificial intelligence needed for such aircraft can be more generic and less capable than would be needed for high-end “exquisite” systems.
Wilson recommended that CCAs be generically designed to take advantage of existing ground support equipment, rather than “bespoke” aircraft requiring significant investment in specialized handling and maintenance gear.
Independently, all the teams involved in the Mitchell wargames chose to use large numbers of moderately-capable, moderately priced mid-range CCAs. These autonomous airplanes sharply reduced the risk to crewed aircraft by soaking up adversary missiles, and China was forced to “honor” each one as a threat that could not be ignored, Gunzinger said.
Their deployment across a wide range of austere air bases, some launched from aircraft or islands with no runways, also compelled China to meter its use of ballistic missiles against the usual well-established operating bases, he noted.
Moreover, Blue threats “attacking early from every axis” vastly complicated China’s defense problem, Stutzriem said, and forced China to maintain a high pace of defensive operations around the clock.
“There is a need to break from the mindset that the CCA always operates in support of crewed aircraft,” Gunzinger said. “CCAs that are appropriately designed to have the right mission systems [and] the right degree of autonomy, can also be used as lead forces to disrupt the enemy’s operations.”
Still, when CCAs were used cooperatively with crewed aircraft like the F-35 or the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, “it made the fighters better” at accomplishing their missions, Mitchell fellow Heather Penney said.
Robert Winkler, vice president of corporate development and national security programs at Kratos Defense and a wargame participant, said CCAs added considerably to crewed fighter survivability.
Participants from industry, the Air Force and other experts participating in the wargames “unanimously agree” that the CCAs must be “additive and complementary” to crewed aircraft programs already in the pipeline and not a substitute for them, Gunzinger said.
“They’re not going to reduce the Air Force’s requirements for F-35s, NGAD, and B-21s and other critical modernized systems,” he said. Their maximum combat value “will be realized by taking full advantage of the attributes of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, that each bring to the fight.”
Asked if CCAs should have their own squadrons and organizations or be blended with crewed combat aircraft organizations, Gunzinger said this was a heavy topic in post-games analysis.
The conclusion, he said, was that “we need to build future units that consist of both CCA and fighters …bombers, maybe even tankers … So they can operate every day like they’re going to fight, so they can develop the tactics, techniques, procedures, concepts and so forth.”
At the same time, when employed, CCAs don’t need to be “co-located with fighter units or bomber units,” Gunzinger said. They could be crated up and pre-positioned at austere fields, ready for use at need.
Winkler noted that CCAs work best when they are positioned “inside the first island chain” of China’s sphere of operations, rather than operating at long ranges. Doing so increases their operating tempo and further taxes China’s ability to respond, he said.
While the Air Force considers how it will organize and use CCAs, Gunzinger stressed that it is important to recognize that “as the capabilities increase, so will your costs.” Stealth and high-end sensors “all add up to more cost, just like other aircraft, so the secret sauce is developing CCA forces” with the right mix of capabilities.
Certain capabilities are crucial—Stutzriem said a “major insight” of the games was that CCAs must have enough survivability “to reach their weapons launch point.” CCAs that weren’t stealthy enough to survive obviously played little role in the battle.
The report authors recommended that the Air Force:
Gunzinger said CCAs “could dramatically change the Air Force’s air combat operations, but it will not happen if the Air Force is forced to rob money from its other modernization programs to pay for it.”
