US Air Force News

[Poohbah]

Oregan ANG over does the clear water rinse! I think this jet is a Kadena refugee due to lack of tail decoration. OANG mishap.jpg

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Oregan ANG over does the clear water rinse! I think this jet is a Kadena refugee due to lack of tail decoration. OANG mishap.jpg

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[James1978]

USAF’s New ICBM Cancer Study to Examine ‘Everyone Possible’
May 18, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force is pressing to find out why some Airmen and former Airmen who worked wth the nation’s intercontinental continental ballistic missile fleet are being diagnosed with blood cancer—years after the service dismissed such concerns in the early 2000s.

A new Missile Community Cancer Study launched earlier this year aims to “make sure we get to the truth, whatever that truth is,” said Col. Robert D. Peltzer, a senior medical officer with Air Force Global Strike Command.

Air Force reviews of cancer rates among missileers in 2001 and 2005 could not identify an increased rate linked to missile service, but new medical knowledge has emerged since, Peltzer said. Doctors have “a better understanding” of factors that can cause cancer today.

“Look at [the herbicide] Roundup being one of those,” Peltzer said. “Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is the No. 1 cancer on the list when you look at it. We didn’t know [Roundup] caused those types of cancers back in 2001.”

Armed with greater knowledge and detection capability, the Air Force will also have better access to highly classified ICBM facilities and the health data for a broader range of personnel, including both those working in underground bunkers for 24-48 hours at a time.

Peltzer said maintainers, security forces, and food service workers—among others—will also be in the new study, not just those who worked in launch facilities. Members of the study team, which is led by the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, visited bases to better understand the facilities and potential exposure issues.

“We want to make sure we didn’t miss out or exclude groups that actually are just as much—or potentially as much—at risk, or more at risk, than those members,” Peltzer said. The research team is made up of experts experienced in conducting cancer studies, including one that showed increased risks of cancer among pilots in recent years. That study led to a broader Pentagon review that validated the Air Force study’s conclusions.

“This is the same team and through that they learned which data sources and what they could get and how long it took them to get it,” Peltzer said.

But to conduct a study, Air Force medical officials said, they first have to know what an ICBM base is and what ICBM forces do—from an “operational, occupational, and environmental” perspective.

Col. Tory W. Woodard, commander of the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that seeing the bases was a new experience for the research team. “Many of the medical experts had not previously been to a missile base or been in the operational locations where the missileers work,” Woodward said. “This visit was extremely important in order to inform the future cancer studies.”

Woodard was on the team that visited three ICBM bases— F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Minot Air Force Base, N.D.; and Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. The visit took place from Feb. 27 to March 7 and included his staff, members of the AFGSC Command Surgeon’s office, and experts from the Defense Health Agency.

“The team did not see any acute risks that needed immediate attention,” Peltzer said.

But Peltzer said there was no intention to dismiss cancer risks as they reviewed the facilities and flagged other possible medical concerns, such as running vehicles too close to air vents, burning documents indoors, or signage that indicated the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have long been banned and should have been removed. Whether the signs were left behind after the PCBs were removed years ago is not clear. To locate traces of PCBs and a long list of other possibly toxic substances will require extensive sample testing, according to AFGSC.

ICBM facilities are often surrounded by private land where agricultural products may have been used without regard to the potential effect on missileers working nearby. The next-generation Sentinel ICBMs that will eventually replace today’s 50-year-old Minuteman III ICBMs will likely also be safer, given modern understanding. But an AFGSC official noted that even new missiles will have their own hazards.

Air Force officials said these first visits were not intended to draw definitive conclusions.

“It’s not the epidemiology study, so it wasn’t looking at cancer-related items,” Peltzer said. “That will be done later through the actual study itself.”

Interest and focused attention on the issue comes only after long-held concerns among some members of the missileer community pushed to the fore earlier this year, following a presentation detailing cases of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma at Malmstrom by a Guardian who formerly served there. His Powerpoint slides later surfaced on Facebook, prompting AFGSC Commander Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere to call for and launch the study in February.

Bussiere, Woodard, and AFGSC Command Surgeon Col. Lee D. Williames briefed members of the ICBM community at a recent virtual hall, Air Force officials said. Bussiere directed his staff to explore the idea of assigning medical professionals directly to ICBM units, modeled on how flight surgeons support flying crews. Because of the remote and classified nature of ICBM work, that could yield more real-time access to sensitive areas.

While the study is inspecting the three current active bases, which have ICBMs spread out over five states, the service is going through military, federal, and state cancer registries. The study will then have to match that data with service personnel files. That is not a straightforward process as the Air Force has changed job titles over time. The study is expected to take 12-14 months from start to finish, according to Woodard. The time is largely due to the amount of data that needs to be collected and analyzed, Peltzer explained.

“They will look at everyone possible,” Peltzer said.

A number of since-shuttered bases will also be examined as the service reaches back four decades in its data gathering process. Only the on-site work is limited to those three-active bases.

Peltzer said researchers will use Air Force Specialty Codes, bases, and timelines. “We know them all and all locations that were active since 1983,” he said. “Those members will be captured into this data study because that seems to be a great concern, especially of those who are retirees or former retirees if they’ve already passed away.”

Former and current service members have expressed skepticism over previous Air Force health studies, criticizing them for leaving the Air Force to study itself. The new study leverages epidemiologists from the Veterans Administration and the National Cancer Institute to monitor the study and provide feedback.

“There’s going to be outside entities,” Peltzer said. They “will give us a fair and objective look at what we’re doing to make sure we’re aboveboard.”

[James1978]

Rolls-Royce Tests New B-52 Engines, Nacelles Before Early 2024 Critical Design Review
May 17, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

INDIANAPOLIS—Rolls-Royce is in the last few months of testing its F130-200 engines before a critical design review of the powerplants, which will equip the re-engined and upgraded B-52J, a company official said.

“We’re about one-third through” engine runs with F130-200 Nos. 1 and 2, F130 program manager Scott Ames said in a briefing at the company’s Indianapolis facilities where the powerplants will be assembled. The F130-200 critical design review is expected in January 2024, and Ames said Rolls-Royce sees no threat to passing the review.

Boeing, which built the B-52, is the overall integrator for the re-engining and upgrades, such as the radar, that will turn the Air Force’s 75 B-52Hs into B-52Js. Boeing and Rolls-Royce provided travel, lodging, and meals for reporters visiting the companies’ B-52 upgrade facilities.

The tests of the Rolls-Royce engines mark the first time two engines have been operated simultaneously on the same test stand, Ames said. The B-52 is unique in having two engines each in four pods under its wings, for a total of eight engines per aircraft.

The engines are being tested at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on a specialized test stand that allows a complete, two-engine pod to be operated under a variety of conditions. A giant wind fan tests the engines in simulated crosswinds of up to 50 knots from various directions, and a platform on a scissor lift in front of the engines can simulate operations at various heights above a runway.

Ames said Rolls-Royce is now on its seventh iteration of the pod design, in search of the best configuration under most conditions—as well as looking for unexpected interactions between the engines. So far, there have been no harmonic issues between the powerplants, nor has there been unexpected ingestion of gases from one to the other, Ames said.

What’s being explored is “how does the air coming into the engine nacelles … behave?” Ames said. “You don’t really see a lot of dual-pod configurations like this. So we want to make sure all our modeling matches … the physics of the situation.”

Three months into the tests with three more to go, Ames said “we’ve been able to operate both engines up to full power and all of the test data we’ve gotten back has been in line with what our models predicted. … It’s proven that we’ve got it right. And by the way, it matches what Boeing predicted as well. So that’s good, but it’s always good to do a physical test to back that up.”

To that point, Ames said, both Rolls-Royce and Boeing are “happy” with this latest pod design but are testing to “make double sure” it’s the right one.

After that, “we will run [a] similar test to this in a couple of years” on the final version, with all the equipment and auxiliary systems the aircraft and pod will have, he noted.

“We wanted to get the front end right now,” Ames said. “It was something we proposed to de-risk the overall program, because if you find that you’ve got to make some big change you want to know now and not three years from now.”

The F130-200 is a derivative of Rolls-Royce’s commercial BR725 engine, and will be manufactured from parts sourced from the same suppliers. It differs from the commercial version in the digital engine controls and connection of hydraulic and fuel lines, all of which are unique to the B-52 application, Ames said. The F130-200 factory will be patterned on the main BR725 production line in Germany but with improvements geared to the F130-200’s unique features.

Ames also noted the F130-200s are not “handed,” meaning they are not hard-wired to be on the left or right side of the nacelle, unlike the TF-33 engines now flying on the B-52. This will give the Air Force improved flexibility both at home and on deployments, he said.

With the TF33, due to its left- or right-side orientation, “you have to take extra spares on deployments,” he said. “With our engine, you don’t have to worry about that. So with the kit, you can change it from a left hand or right hand in about 90 minutes.”

Rolls-Royce tested that timeline with two veteran mechanics who did not have specific experience with the F130.

“We gave them a set of instructions and the kit of parts and said ‘Go convert this from one to the other,’” Ames said. “We videotaped it, and provided that to the Air Force. In about 90 minutes they were able to convert it over. We think it gives the Air Force a ton of flexibility.”

[James1978]

GOOD NEWS!

B-2 ‘Safety Pause’ Lifted, Flights Set to Resume Within Days
May 18, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The B-2 Spirit is returning to the skies, Air Force officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The first aircraft is projected to take off May 22 after a break in flying operations due to a safety pause.

The return to flight was recently approved by Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, after a roughly six-month safety pause following a mishap in December.

“The B-2 fleet safety pause is officially lifted,” Maj. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, commander of the 8th Air Force, which controls the nation’s strategic bomber fleet, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Gen. Bussiere, at my recommendation, made a final determination on the necessary actions taken and approved a return to flight.”

Gebara and other Air Force officials declined to say what the safety issue was or what was done that allowed the service to resume flight operations.

“I wish that the safety pause was not necessary,” Gebara said. “But I think that it was really important that we find out what happened and make sure that was all mitigated before you start flying again, and that’s what we did.”

Gebara said there would not be onerous restrictions on missions.

“I want them to come back in a disciplined, deliberate manner,” Gebara said. “But we will do full operational missions. So you’re not going to see one loop around and land kind of sorties. It’ll be a normal sortie. I actually am not concerned at all about the mission aspects of the force.”

He said there would be a “phased approach” as the fleet returns to flight, with the most experienced pilots getting in the seat first and “several weeks to get the entire community back up to speed.”

But Gebara added a cautionary note to America’s adversaries: “That is distinct, though, from having enough pilots for whatever mission is required if there was a crisis.”

The Air Force declined to reveal the exact cause of the mishap, which temporarily blocked the lone runway at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. The service also declined to detail what actions were taken to lift the safety pause. The pause began in late December after a B-2 was damaged after an emergency landing December 10 at Whiteman—the only base to host combat B-2s, assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing and its Air National Guard associate, the 131st Bomb Wing.

Bussiere, a B-2 pilot and the former 509th Bomb Wing commander, took over AFGSC just days before the mishap.

Air Force officials said the aircraft remained ready to execute missions if needed, serving a critical role as the nation’s only stealth nuclear-capable bomber in service.

“The B-2 fleet could still fly missions if so required,” Gebara said. “Our ability to provide nuclear deterrence never stopped.”

B-2 pilots spent time during the safety pause in the advanced simulators at Whiteman and increased repetitions in T-38 trainers. Only 21 B-2s were produced, costing over $1 billion per plane, according to the Air Force. One was destroyed in a crash in 2008. Nineteen of the current airframes are at Whiteman—one of which is a test aircraft normally based at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. One combat B-2 has been parked at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, which shares runways with Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu after the safety pause went into effect while the aircraft was at the base.

It is unclear what will happen to the B-2 damaged in December. The entire B-2 fleet will eventually be replaced by the B-21 Raider, which like the Spirit, is a stealthy flying wing produced by Northrop Grumman. The first B-21 is scheduled to fly later this year.

Air Force Global Strike Command has been conducting regular maintenance of all B-2s, and officials from the 509th Bomb Wing and Gebara said the stealth low-observable coating, which is critical for the B-2’s nuclear mission, was well taken care of.

“The way that the B-2 is we have a stair step approach to low observable maintenance,” Gebara said. “So a certain number of B-2s are fully low-observable ready to go.”

Despite a pause in operations, Gebara said America’s nuclear deterrence was not undermined.

“It’s hard to get inside the head of another country and figure out what they feel,” Gebara said. “I think it would not have been wise for them to doubt our deterrence, and I’m reasonably confident they don’t.”

[James1978]

Air Force Will Look at CV-22, New Army Helicopter for Long-Range Combat Search and Rescue
April 27, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force will consider the Army’s recently-selected Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft as a possible solution to its long-range combat rescue helicopter needs—but the service will also look into using CV-22s and other new aircraft, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. told the House Armed Services Committee on April 27.

Brown, testifying on the fiscal 2024 budget request, was asked if the Air Force, which has purchased all the CV-22 Ospreys it plans to buy, would consider buying more to use for combat rescue in the Indo-Pacific, where long ranges challenge the new HH-60W Jolly Green IIs. The Air Force has cut its planned buy of HH-60Ws from 108 to 85 because they can only meet requirements in the European and Middle East theaters, USAF officials have said.

“I don’t see us actually going to additional CV-22s or opening back [up]” production, Brown said. “Once you shut down the production line, it’s very expensive to start back up. And oh, by the way, it’s technology that’s somewhat dated.”

The prototype joint-service V-22 rolled out in 1985 but the Marine Corps MV-22 did not enter service until 2007, having endured a lengthy and problematic development program. The Air Force declared the CV-22 variant operational in 2009. The Navy declared initial operational capability with its own unique variant of the Osprey, called the CMV-22, in February. The variant has been adapted to meet the Navy’s need for ship-to-shore logistics, replacing the venerable C-2 Greyhound.

Brown said the Air Force would evaluate the V-280, which won the Army’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) competition, and vehicles from “other industry partners…[who are] actually going down this path as well.”

Brown did not specify those other options, but the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant co-axial helicopter which lost the FLRAA, is available, and leaders such as Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mark Kelly have suggested an outgrowth of the service’s Agility Prime “flying car” technology as a possible fix.

In the interim, Brown suggested the CV-22 could be a solution for long-range combat rescue, as well as a resupply aircraft in the service’s new Agile Combat Employment concept, which will distribute small groups of aircraft and Airmen to remote or austere locations from central “hubs.”

“These are the kinds of things we’re looking at as an Air Force, not only for what the CV-22 is able to do for … hostage rescue but also for personnel recovery and other aspects of logistics in the Indo-Pacific,” Brown said.

Air Combat Command has stressed in recent months that it has no plans to claim Special Operations Command CV-22s to carry out the long-range combat rescue helicopter mission.

Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, told the Senate Armed Services airland panel on April 26 that 85 HH-60Ws “is more than sufficient” to do the combat rescue helicopter mission.

“There’s a big distinction in this portfolio between combat search and rescue and personnel recovery,” he added. “There are literally thousands of platforms in the Department of Defense that can do personnel recovery.”

The HH-60W fleet “is for something very specific. It was purchased for [the] Iraq and Afghanistan [theaters]. It is not particularly helpful in the Chinese AOR” or area of operations, Moore said.

Lt. Gen. James Slife, deputy chief of staff for operations, added to the SASC panel that the Air Force still regards the recovery of downed Airmen a “moral imperative.”

Recalling the effort to save “Bat 21” in Vietnam, Slife said, “the challenge is … no matter how dedicated you are, if you’re not in a platform that’s survivable to the threat environment, you end up losing more people” with an attempted recovery than were downed in the first place.

“We’re actively looking at non-traditional ways in order to fulfill that moral imperative,” Slife added. “… But until we can come to a definitive answer on that. I think the one thing we can say is, helicopters [that fly at 150 knots, refueled by C-130s] is probably not the answer in our most stressing scenarios.”

The 85 HH-60Ws can bridge the gap “until we can develop a more suitable solution for a contested environment,” he said.

Bell Textron won the Army’s $1.3 billion contract for the Valor in December 2022, and the Sikorsky-Boeing team’s subsequent protest of the choice was denied in April. Prototype V-280 aircraft will be fabricated over the next 19 months. Army officials said the Valor was selected as the “best value” proposal across considerations of performance, cost, and schedule.

The FLRAA is potentially worth up to $70 billion, as it will largely replace the Army’s aging fleet of UH-60 Blackhawks.

The Air Force has traditionally met its much smaller need for helicopters by tacking on to Army utility helo programs like the UH-60 and before that, the UH-1. However, the service did select the Boeing MH-139 Gray Wolf, based on the Leonardo AW139, as its VIP/missile field support helicopter.

The Army is slated to get its first Valor prototype in 2025 and achieve initial operational capability circa 2030.

[James1978]

Sikorsky spins up to defend HH-60W combat rescue helicopter from planned cuts
With possible alternatives still undefined and likely several years away, Sikorsky and supporters are leaning on Congress to rescue the HH-60W from planned cuts. But will the argument win the day?
By Michael Marrow
May 12, 2023

STRATFORD, Conn. — From the time an order is received at Sikorsky’s facilities, it takes about three years for a brand-new HH-60W Jolly Green II to arrive at this point: the fully assembled helicopter has officially been accepted by the Air Force, and will soon fly away to one day embark on rescue missions around the globe.

This particular helicopter is the 31st the service has taken possession of, but just how many more are slated to roll off its production line here is a source of controversy. As part of its fiscal 2024 budget request, the Air Force stuck to plans established last year to end procurement of the helicopter, dropping an original program of record from 113 to 75.

The Air Force’s dropped buy is driven by a shift in America’s strategic focus, service leaders say. When the program was developed, attention was on conflicts in the Middle East, where US airpower reigned supreme. But the Pentagon’s sights are now set on Europe and the Indo-Pacific, where formidable enemy air defenses threaten to make quick work of slow-moving, stealthless rotorcraft like the HH-60W that may also be forced to fly great distances across the high seas.

During a recent tour, Breaking Defense was provided an exclusive look at where the Air Force’s newest Combat Rescue Helicopter comes together, and while Sikorsky executives interviewed at the company’s headquarters were reticent to rebuke their customer out loud, their message was clear: their helicopter is needed for the mission, despite statements from Air Force leaders to the contrary, especially since no other option will exist in the near term.

“We’ve had very honest and frank discussions with the US Air Force about the impact that truncating the program will have,” said Nathalie Previte, Sikorsky’s vice president of Army and Air Force systems. “As long as there is no alternative,” she added, helicopters like the Jolly Green II represent “the best technology to perform the mission. And I truly believe that.

“When I think back about Igor [Sikorsky], his passion of really pushing the envelope on helicopters was really to save lives,” she added. “The fact that [the military is] putting that as not that critical – it’s becoming a passion of mine to make sure that we provide the Air Force crews that deserve to have the latest technology for combat rescue missions to get what they need.”

As Sikorsky strives to keep the helicopter relevant, it has natural allies in various corners – from the Connecticut congressional delegation, to the National Guard, and even among some airmen who feel the service is at risk of abandoning a core, “moral” imperative – to make its case. Though service leaders seem united in the decision, lawmakers have the final say, and already stepped in during the last budget debate to add helicopters back in.

As Congress nears the markup of the FY24 budget, the fate of the Jolly Green II remains an open question – one with significant repercussions for airmen and industry alike.

A Helicopter For A Different Era
A derivative of the Army’s iconic Black Hawk, the HH-60W is recapitalizing the Air Force’s decades-old fleet of HH-60G Pave Hawks overworked by continuous deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new helicopter is the Air Force’s second attempt to replace the Pave Hawk; the first, known as the CSAR-X program originally awarded to Boeing, was terminated after successful protests from Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin. (The latter acquired the former in 2015.)

With fewer Jolly Green IIs coming behind the fleet of Pave Hawks it will be replacing, lawmakers have expressed concern the helicopter’s truncated buy risks opening a gap in combat rescue capabilities. During budget negotiations last year, alongside the funds for 10 more helicopters, Congress additionally forbade the Air Force from using funds to close its production line.

Those worries featured once again in hearings this year. “I’m very concerned about the Combat Rescue Helicopter,” Sikorsky home state Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told top Air Force leaders during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in April. “Maybe you can tell me what your thinking is about terminating that program, when I think we all believe we have an obligation to leave nobody behind.”

“We believe [the current fleet is] more than sufficient to do combat search and rescue. There’s a big distinction in this portfolio between combat search and rescue and personnel recovery,” Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, responded to Blumenthal. (Personnel recovery “is not limited to combat operations,” according to Air Force doctrine.)

“There are literally thousands of platforms in the Department of Defense that can do personnel recovery. This fleet is for something very specific. It was purchased for Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not particularly helpful in the Chinese [Area of Responsibility],” Moore added.

“We recognize the moral imperative… to leave nobody behind,” Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for operations, said during the same hearing. Citing the attempted rescue of Bat 21 Bravo – where during the Vietnam War, multiple airmen and aircraft were lost in a desperate attempt to save Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton who had to punch out behind enemy lines – Slife went on to caution that relying on less survivable platforms to perform search and rescue could create more problems than they can solve.

“We’re actively looking at non-traditional ways in order to fulfill that moral imperative of leaving nobody behind, but until we can come to a definitive answer on that, I think the one thing we can say is that helicopters – and I have 3,000 hours as a helicopter pilot – that fly 115 knots refueled by C-130s with pararescuemen that ride a hoist up and down is probably not the answer in our most stressing scenarios,” Slife said, adding that the current HH-60W program “bridges the gap until we can develop a more suitable solution for a contested environment.”

Despite the views of the service’s top brass, some operators have pushed back. As a recent report in Air & Space Forces Magazine notes, improvements like electronic countermeasures could be fielded to increase the HH-60W’s survivability, coupled with weapons like missiles to make it more lethal.

“The Air Force has entered into a circular argument in the sense they have decided the helicopter is not survivable, so have underinvested in its survivability, which thereby ensures their viewpoint of it not being survivable appears true,” Lt. Col. Brandon Losacker, HH-60G weapons officer, told the magazine.

Still, JJ Gertler, a senior analyst with the Teal Group, highlighted how the war in Ukraine is providing ongoing lessons for planners, who have watched how integrated air defense systems have rendered much of the battlespace off limits for aircraft.

“All of the military services are still studying this war and the lessons continue to change,” he said. “They found out what it means to try to operate low, slow aircraft in a modern air defense environment.”

Even as the needs of modern war evolve, Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, pointed out there are still mixed opinions about a helicopter’s effectiveness on the battlefield, leaving open the question of whether the time for current rotorcraft has passed.

“People have reached divergent conclusions about the lethality of the airborne environment,” he said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘It’s the end of helicopter operations as we know them.’ Then the Poles said, ‘We’d like to place one of the biggest Apache orders in history.’ Yes, it’s gonna get messy up there. But this is how it has to be.”

The National Guard Weighs In
Active duty squadrons are going to bear the brunt of the truncated buy, according to an Air Force spokesperson, who said the current fleet is sized to meet federal needs.

“The Air Force remains committed to supporting the Joint Force by maintaining the Department of Defense’s only dedicated Combat Search and Rescue force and will look to utilize a combination of Air Force and Joint Force capacity for Personnel Recovery,” Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said in a statement to Breaking Defense. “The capability limitations of the HH-60W against current and future threats cannot be mitigated with additional capacity.”

Stefanek added that “The final disposition of HH-60W aircraft has not been decided. The Department of the Air Force is taking into consideration the 10 additional airframes authorized in the 2023 NDAA and appropriated above the request in the FY23 President’s Budget submission. Headquarters Air Force and Air Combat Command are finalizing the plan for a fleet size of 85 aircraft, in close coordination with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves, to be considered for resourcing in the FY25 budget.”

Though the Air Force insists that the active duty, not the National Guard or Reserve, are where the cuts will come from, that hasn’t stopped the National Guard from weighing in as the service sorts out how to allocate the fleet. The Guard is currently distributing a fact sheet [PDF] that lobbies lawmakers to restore another 20 helicopters back into the program of record – and to earmark them solely for the National Guard – for a total fleet size of 105 to fill out squadrons it says are at risk of being cut.

It’s important to understand that the Guard has an outsized political role in these fights. Each state has its own top officer, known as a TAG, who is in regular conversation with their state’s governor and legislators. Making sure the Guard is happy and not losing out on mission sets or equipment is a core function of members of Congress on the defense committees. And that could help gin up support from the delegations of the three states – Alaska, California, and New York – that the Guard’s fact sheet says are at risk of having squadrons cut.

It is not immediately clear what the fate of squadrons that will ultimately be impacted by the truncated program may be, though Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recently explained that the service strives to replace platforms with similar ones, or at least assign related missions for squadrons whose hardware gets cut.

“We’re trying to replace current aircraft we divest with like aircraft where we can – fighters with fighters, for example. If we can’t do that, then we try to replace a flying mission with a flying mission. And where we can’t do that, we put in another mission that’s going to have a lot of longevity and bring similar value to local communities,” he said May 9 during a forum hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project dedicated to the late former Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

National Guard personnel can be deployed abroad, though they also have domestic responsibilities when activated to respond to events like natural disasters. When asked about the impact the truncated buy could have on domestic missions, a spokesperson for the National Guard told Breaking Defense that “The National Guard will not speculate on possible effects, but as it relates to domestic missions, each Governor is able to request capabilities and personnel through the Emergency Management Assistance Compacts to meet emerging needs.”

Should the National Guard end up short on HH-60Ws, Gertler said training these squadrons on a different platform could still enable them to meet Title 32 needs – the statutory authority that guides the use of Guard personnel for stateside missions like natural disaster response – but leaving them without those helicopters would impact their ability to effectively rotate in on more traditional military deployments known as Title 10 missions.

“It comes down to a question of, Do you want your National Guard to be able to integrate seamlessly into combat activities side-by-side with the active, or do you want your National Guard tailored for the state mission?” he said.

Finding An Alternative
Key to Sikorsky’s argument for the helicopter’s relevance is that there is no clear other option on the table to do the mission, something the Air Force has tacitly agreed with.

The Air Force is “in exploration mode” to find whatever might provide the capabilities that the HH-60W can’t, a service official previously said, identifying potential key attributes like uncrewed and high-speed platforms.

“What you really see is the Air Force taking a technology pause to see what their options are,” Gertler reasoned about the service’s decision to halt procurement of the HH-60W. “The development of Future Vertical Lift by the Army is bringing new choices into the field and the Air Force is consciously waiting to see how those options mature, because they may be a better answer for some of the Air Force missions.”

David “Rum” Morgan, director of Air Force business development for Sikorsky, similarly noted that the service may have other options down the road, but it’ll be many years until they’re available.

“There are options for the Air Force to look at in the future,” Morgan said, pointing to the Army’s FVL, “but the problem is the timing. Those aircraft for the Army are not really going to be operational – and the Army’s looking at the first unit equipped in the 2030 or even later timeframe – and then the Air Force would have to develop a rescue variant, which would take a few years.”

Paul Lemmo, Sikorsky’s president, pointed to one of those future possibilities: a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort to develop a high speed vertical takeoff and landing plane – known as the Speed and Runway Independent Technologies program (SPRINT) according to a report in Defense One – though Lemmo said to the best of his knowledge the Air Force has not sought real input for the project.

“As far as I know they haven’t engaged anyone, at least in industry,” he said, pointing to a lack of a general announcement like a request for information.

Work is progressing to field underlying technologies key to unlocking the next generation of combat rescue. At the Yuma Proving Ground last year during the Army’s Project Convergence, an autonomous Black Hawk was programmed to move cargo and airlift a dummy patient to a hospital, which Lemmo cited as an example.

“In our view, [the HH-60W] fits in the modern battlefield in the ways that you would expect in terms of connectivity and capability. You know, obviously in the Indo-Pacific theater they may be looking at threats that we’re not aware of,” Lemmo said.

“They say this may not be survivable, but I’m not sure,” he continued. “The question would be, you’re replacing a certain number of [HH-60Gs] with a lesser number of [HH-60Ws], actually a significantly less number. Is that really going to cover what you need? I can’t answer that, only they can, but there is a big disparity in terms of just the numbers of aircraft that they’re going to have available.”

With much emphasis on autonomy, officials will have to overcome potential limitations. For example, a wounded service member may not be able to secure themselves in the vehicle alone. And once they’re in there, the vehicle has to make it back.

Floating out at sea, in the event of an Indo-Pacific scenario, a service member may have to hope a friendly vessel is nearby to pick them up; otherwise, an enemy ship – or an enemy shark – could get there first.

“If you think about a combat rescue helicopter, it’s still going to be much more responsive than the ships that might be [used] to rescue someone lost at sea under an INDOPACOM scenario,” Previte argued, using the shorthand for Indo-Pacific Command.

Lawmakers will soon weigh in on the future of the Jolly Green II, with key defense committees nearing the markup process, where lawmakers make suggested changes to budgets and policies as the House and Senate prepare for negotiations. However, an impasse over the nation’s debt ceiling has stalled that process, Politico reported.

Asked directly if the company was lobbying Congress on the issue, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson responded only with a general statement about the capabilities of the rotorcraft.

As part of the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, the Air Force was also required to submit a report on combat search and rescue requirements that includes the impact of truncating the HH-60W buy, though it’s not clear if that document has been sent to Congress.

Regardless of what lawmakers decide, industry, for now, is mostly left with questions about what comes next.

“I think the question will be, what kind of a platform, you know, do they want? Is it stealthy? Is it high speed?” Lemmo asked. “You know, what is it?”

[James1978]

In Secret Solicitation, Air Force Starts Bidding for NGAD to Replace F-22
May 18, 2023 | By Greg Hadley and John A. Tirpak

The Air Force kicked off the process for electing the contractor for its Next Generation Air Dominance fighter on May 18, releasing a classified solicitation to industry for Engineering and Manufacturing Development.

In a release, the service said it hopes to award a contract by 2024.

The NGAD is the Air Force’s ultra-stealthy and highly classified successor to the F-22 Raptor, which the service has said it must retire by around 2030 because its capabilities will be overcome by systems fielded by China and potentially other global competitors.

Details of the solicitation are classified for the secretive NGAD program. But the Air Force noted in its release that the solicitation defines expected requirements for the aircraft, which is intended as the world’s first sixth-generation fighter and the centerpiece of a planned “family of systems” that are one of Secretary Frank Kendall’s seven operational imperatives.

A service spokeswoman said the Air Force is “soliciting for an integrated weapon system,” and could not elaborate on the EMD statement as the program is “now in source selection.”

Typically, for a program of NGAD’s magnitude, there is a 60-90 day period in which offerors can ask questions about a draft request for proposals, followed by a similar period in which to respond to a final RFP, and then several months for source selection to be made, so late 2024 is a likely award timeframe. However, the NGAD may not follow a typical acquisition pattern.

“The NGAD platform is a vital element of the Air Dominance Family of Systems which represents a generational leap in technology over the F-22, which it will replace,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a statement. “NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the abilities to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly-contested operational environments. No one does this better than the U.S. Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don’t move forward now.”

The Air Force release noted NGAD will perform counter-air missions and be able to strike ground targets, confirming 2021 comments by Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, that the platform would also have “some” ground attack capabilities to provide theater commanders with options. The release also seemingly suggested the aircraft will have a Suppression/Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD/DEAD) mission as well.

From an acquisition standpoint, the NGAD program strategy seeks to stimulate and broaden the defense industrial base, the Air Force said, requiring an open architecture to encourage future competition for upgrades and “drastically [reducing] maintenance and sustainment costs.”

Past programs have incentivized contractors to lower up-front costs while seeking to make up for narrow margins there with long-term sustainment revenue. Maintenance costs have been a major concern with the F-35, for example.

The likely competitors include are not hard to guess. Last August, the Air Force awarded contracts to airplane builders Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman—in addition to engine-makers Pratt & Whitney and GE Aerospace—for the prototyping phase of its Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion engine program, which will power the future NGAD. Experts speculated then that their inclusion pointed to the importance of integrating engine and airframe designs.

In June 2022, Kendall said NGAD had entered the engineering and manufacturing development phase, though he later clarified the program remained a competition.

The Air Force typically does not enter into an EMD phase until it has conducted a competitive prototyping phase. Former Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper revealed in September 2020 that at least one NGAD prototype had already flown and “set records,” though he did not say what they may have been. Other Air Force and industry officials have said privately that NGAD has progressed past the Preliminary Design Review phase with at least two companies.

The service could not immediately say if the solicitation is open to only those companies who may have competed in the prototyping phase—and how many might be in that group—or whether the solicitation is truly open to any comers.

Competition for the program is likely to be fierce—Kendall has said the aircraft will cost “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars” per tail, several times the $80 million-per-copy cost of the Air Force’s F-35A. The exact size of the planned fleet is unknown, but Kendall has suggested a notional figure of 200 airframes. Senior Air Force leaders have also hinted that NGAD may come in at least two variants—one shorter-range model intended for the European theater, and one optimized for the longer distances required to operate in the Pacific theater.

At one point, led by Roper, the Air Force planned building 50-100 examples of an NGAD and moving immediately to a next iteration or completely new aircraft, retaining each iteration only 8-12 years, then retiring it, the better to keep at the cutting edge of technology. But Kendall has seemingly poured cold water on that notion, saying the system is too complex for that quick a rhythm.

The Air Force’s 2024 budget proposal seeks $1.933 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation for NGAD, a figure that will only grow in the years ahead. USAF projects investments of $16.23 billion on RDT&E for NGAD over the next five years. That includes funding to develop uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft that will will fly alongside the manned NGAD fighter.

The solicitation issued this month is independent of any CCA development, the Air Force said in its May 18 release.

US Air Force plans to award Next Generation Air Dominance deal in 2024
By Stephen Losey
May 18, 2023

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force plans to award a contract for its Next Generation Air Dominance platform in 2024.

The service said in a Thursday release that it sent industry a classified solicitation for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for the secretive and highly classified NGAD program.

The release of this solicitation formally begins the process of selecting a contractor to build the Air Force’s next advanced fighter system, which will replace the F-22 Raptor. The solicitation came with requirements the Air Force expects companies to include in their NGAD designs.

However, this solicitation and source-selection process does not include the drone wingmen the Air Force refers to as collaborative combat aircraft, the service said.

“The NGAD platform is a vital element of the air dominance family of systems, which represents a generational leap in technology over the F-22, which it will replace,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in the release. “NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the abilities to survive, persist, interoperate and adapt in the air domain, all within highly contested operational environments.”

“No one does this better than the U.S. Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don’t move forward now,” Kendall added.

The Air Force has repeatedly said its concept for an NGAD platform will not exactly mirror a traditional crewed fighter such as the F-22 or F-35, but will instead be a “family of systems” that incorporates a crewed aircraft component as well as collaborative combat aircraft. Increased sensor capabilities as well as advanced abilities to connect with satellites, other aircraft or other assets could also be part of NGAD’s family of systems.

The Air Force on Thursday said its acquisition strategy for NGAD “will invigorate and broaden the industrial base to deliver rapid and innovative warfighting capabilities.”

As the service develops NGAD, the statement said, it will use lessons learned from other recent acquisition programs, and will use open-architecture standards. The service said this will allow it to take advantage of as much competition as possible throughout NGAD’s life cycle, create a larger and more responsive industrial base, and cut down on maintenance and sustainment costs.

The Air Force said other technical and programmatic details on NGAD are classified “to protect operational and technological advantages.”

Kendall and other service officials said last year they hope to start fielding the crewed component of NGAD by the end of the decade, with collaborative combat aircraft possibly arriving first.

In June 2022, Kendall raised eyebrows when he said at a Heritage Foundation event that the service had “now started on the EMD program to do the development aircraft that we’re going to take into production” — a remark that some took to mean NGAD was already in the engineering and manufacturing development stage.

Kendall later walked back those comments, explaining that he was using the term EMD in a colloquial sense. He said NGAD was still being designed and had not yet gone through the Milestone B review process.

Milestone B marks the point where a program’s technology maturation phase finishes and an acquisition program formally starts in which the service takes its preliminary design and focuses on system integration, manufacturing processes and other details ahead of production.

Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in an email to Defense News that when the source-selection process finishes, NGAD will go to the service’s top acquisition official — who is now Andrew Hunter — for the Milestone B decision to award the EMD contract to the winning company.

Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have expressed interest in pursuing the Air Force’s NGAD contract.

It’s unclear how much the contact would be worth, but Kendall told lawmakers in an April 2022 hearing that each aircraft could cost “multiple” hundreds of millions of dollars, though he did not get specific about the potential price tag.

[James1978]

USAF Opens Bidding to Build Its 1st New Fighter in Decades
An engineering and manufacturing development contract is to be awarded in 2024 for the secretive Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft.

By Audrey Decker
May 18, 2023

The U.S. Air Force has formally launched a competition to build its new fighter jet, the Pentagon’s first in two decades, with the winner to be selected next year.

The acquisition strategy for the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, aircraft “incorporates lessons learned from recent Air Force acquisition programs and will leverage open architecture standards,” the Air Force said in a statement released Thursday. “This approach will enable the government to maximize competition throughout the life cycle, provide a larger, more responsive industry base, and drastically reduce maintenance and sustainment costs.”

This solicitation release “formally begins the source selection process” for NGAD, said the statement, which offered almost no details about the “engineering and manufacturing development contract” except that its winner is to be picked in 2024.

The actual solicitation sent to companies is classified “to protect operational and technological advantages,” the service said.

This bid does not include “collaborative combat aircraft,” the drones that will fly alongside manned fighters, the statement said.

The Air Force, which disclosed in 2020 that it flew an NGAD prototype that broke “a lot of records in the doing,” has revealed little else about the program. Even the identities of the companies doing the development work remain under wraps. Lockheed Martin and Boeing are the only two U.S. firms that currently build fighter jets. But Northrop Grumman, which builds the Air Force’s new B-21 Raider bomber, is a major supplier to both, providing aircraft structures and electronics for the F-35 Lightning II, F/A-18 Super Hornet, and EA-18G Growler jammer.

The NGAD fighter is to replace the F-22 Raptor, a fifth-generation stealth fighter that is considered one the best air-to-air combat jets ever built. The F-22 can fly at supersonic speeds without using an afterburner and has thrust-vectoring engines giving it more maneuverability than prior-generation jets.

NGAD is supposed to be the U.S. military’s first sixth-generation fighter. The U.S. Navy has a similar program by the same name that’s working to build a sixth-generation fighter, which it calls F/A-XX.

The Air Force last chose a new fighter jet in 2001, when it selected the Lockheed Martin X-35 over the Boeing X-32. The companies developed X-planes in the late 1990s.

In Europe, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan are working together to develop a sixth-generation fighter. France, Spain and Germany have a similar effort of their own.

The Air Force has requested $1.9 billion in research and development funds for the NGAD project in its fiscal 2024 budget request sent to Congress earlier this year.

"The NGAD platform is a vital element of the Air Dominance Family of Systems which represents a generational leap in technology over the F-22, which it will replace,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a statement.

"NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the abilities to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly-contested operational environments. No one does this better than the U.S. Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don’t move forward now,” Kendall said.

Kendall previously said the service plans to buy 1,000 CCAs: 300 F-35s will get two drones apiece, as will 200 of the NGAD aircraft. The secretary said he wants CCA production to start before the end of the decade and reach operational capability in a “comparable” timeline with the NGAD program.

Air Force plans to award sixth-gen fighter contract in 2024
The service plans to award a contract for the Next-Generation Air Dominance program in 2024, it announced Thursday.

By Mikayla Easley
May 18, 2023

The Air Force has solicited proposals from industry for its sixth-generation fighter aircraft — the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program — and plans to award a contract in 2024, the service announced Thursday.

The Department of the Air Force sent a classified solicitation to industry for “an engineering and manufacturing development contract” for the sixth-generation platform, which is intended to replace the F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft, the release noted. No public information regarding the requirements, when industry received the solicitation and response due dates were given.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said in the release that the NGAD platform will be “a generational leap in technology” over its predecessors.

“NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the ability to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly contested operational environments,” Kendall said. “No one does this better than the U.S. Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don’t move forward now.”
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The service plans to “leverage open architecture standards” during its acquisition of the aircraft that will “enable the government to maximize competition throughout the life cycle, provide a larger, more responsive industry base and drastically reduce maintenance and sustainment costs,” the news release said.

The Air Force’s press release added that the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) — groups of loyal wingman drones that will fly alongside the NGAD platform — are not part of the fighter aircraft’s solicitation.

Although its development has been a covert affair, the NGAD platform is considered one of the Air Force’s highest priorities. The service plans to spend over $22 billion in research and development funds over the next five years for the “Next Generation Air Dominance Family of Systems,” according to the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget request. That includes the NGAD, CCA and other related technologies.

The service plans to buy an initial 1,000 CCA drones, which will join both NGAD and other fighter aircraft like the F-35 in flight. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Andrew Hunter on Thursday at a discussion hosted by George Mason University noted that up to 30 vendors could be involved in building the drones, according to Breaking Defense.

[James1978]

New Boeing Pylon Could Shift Hypersonics Testing to B-1, Add Bomb Capacity
May 19, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

OKLAHOMA CITY—Boeing is proposing the Air Force shift the testing of hypersonic missiles from the B-52 to the B-1, using a new pylon for the bomber that could, as an added benefit, increase the B-1’s munition-carrying capacity by 50 percent for many existing weapons, the company says.

Boeing developed what it is calling the Load Adaptable Modular (LAM) pylon with its own money, but the Air Force is using some congressional add-on funds to test it. Those tests are now underway.

The Air Force has earmarked eight B-52s to test engine, radar, weapons, and other upgrades. With 10 to 12 more bombers expected to be in depot, repair, or upgrade at any given time for the foreseeable future, that leaves only 56-58 of the 76 B-52s available for operations, creating a potential issue because the B-52 has a nuclear deterrence mission, while the B-1 does not.

“The whole point of this … is for the B-1 to become the hypersonic testbed for the Air Force,” Jennifer Wong, Boeing’s director of bomber programs, told reporters at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla. Boeing and Rolls Royce provided travel, lodging, and meals for reporters covering B-52 upgrade efforts.

“Because of all the modernization efforts on the B-52, we can actually not take away from what we’re doing on the B-52 today to have it test hypersonics,” Wong said. “So we will be doing hypersonics testing on the B-1.”

The B-52 has been used to test the hypersonic AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), but the Air Force has said it is winding that project down—although some members of Congress have said they may add funds in fiscal year 2024 to keep it going. The service is also pursuing the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, an air-breathing cruise missile.

Boeing saw a need for the Air Force to test newer, heavier weapons, but “at the time didn’t have the funding for it or the requirement for it, and so we stepped in,” Wong said. Boeing built four of the pylons with its own funds but expects a contract soon to build more, she said. The Air Force is using some congressional add-on funding for hypersonics to conduct tests and potentially buy more LAMs. An official announcement about the program is expected soon.

The new unit was designed to be rapidly reconfigurable to carry a variety of different new and existing weapons. It works by having adjustable mounts and attach points that can be changed on the flightline to shift from one kind of weapon to another.

Attachment lugs “click into a new position … like Lego” on the pylon, Wong said. The LAM can carry heavy missiles in the same class as ARRW; up to 7,500 pounds per station.

For test crews and forward-deployed bombers, the unit means “one pylon versus seven,” Wong said, which would simplify the amount of hardware that weapon loaders would have to train on or take with them to theater.

The LAM can also “carry some future concepts” involving hypersonics, she added without elaborating.

The first pylon was delivered to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and installed on a B-1, and “they are going through ground tests as we speak,” Wong said. That will be followed by captive-carry tests with a dummy weapon this summer.

The LAM can be installed on the B-1’s external hardpoints, which were inactivated as part of the nuclear arms START treaty. But Wong said “we’ve woken them up” for use with the LAM. The hardpoints were originally intended to carry strategic AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missiles, so the structures can carry heavy weapons in those locations. The hardpoints can be used now because Russia has withdrawn from the New START treaty.

Because the LAM can carry such a heavy load—and the B-1 could mount six of them on external hardpoints as well as in its two bomb bays—it could significantly increase the B-1’s combat loadout as well, Wong said. She showed a chart indicating those increases, broken down by weapon type:

The airplane has the gross takeoff capacity to lift the heavier loads, Wong said.

“What this does for the B-1 is, it does keep it in the fight longer, it keeps it relevant, and again, takes some of the workload off the B-52,” she said.

The testing so far has generated interest, Wong said, and “we’ve actually had other, I’ll say ‘weapons providers’ come talk to us about possibly working with them to integrate their weapon onto it and get it tested onto a B-1” with the LAM. “We are weapons-provider agnostic. It could be a Boeing weapon, it could be somebody else’s weapon.”

However, the LAM will not fit on the B-52, Wong said. While there may be interest in a heavy stores pylon for the B-52 in the future, it would have to be a different unit, she said. There have been preliminary discussions with the Air Force about such a project, but “they’re not going there, just yet,” she said.

The Air Force is focused on the major upgrades now in the works for the B-52—radar, new engines, communications, integration of the new strategic LRSO missile, and others—and doesn’t want to further complicate that already-complex overall effort with another project, she said.

Although the Air Force is considering launching hypersonic weapons off the F-15EX’s centerline fuselage weapons station, the LAM cannot fit that aircraft, either, Wong said.

[James1978]

How Soon Can U.S. Air Force’s E-7A Rapid Prototype Be Ready?
Brian Everstine
May 16, 2023

Since the U.S. Air Force announced its plans to procure Boeing’s E-7A Wedgetail to replace its geriatric E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control fleet, one question has been circling the program: How much faster can it go?

“I’d like to accelerate [procuring] the E-7 if I could. We really need it,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall tells Aviation Week. “I’m motivated to go quickly—we need to get these things in the field, get them built.”

The E-7 seems to be the kind of program that would be easy to accelerate. Boeing already developed the 737-derived platform for the Royal Australian Air Force and has sold it elsewhere. The U.S. Air Force used rapid prototyping authority to try to bring on the initial test aircraft quickly, and Congress added $200 million in funding late last year to move it along even more rapidly.

Boeing says it is moving as fast as it can. The first two test aircraft are not due to be delivered until 2027. Now the focus is on finding funding to bring on the rest of the fleet as soon as possible. This is happening just as the 31-aircraft E-3 fleet is being retired, leaving a capability gap for the airborne early warning and control mission.

“The question that I get asked most often is: Can you go faster? Because we are acutely aware of the need and the gap and the capabilities needed in the battlespace,” Casey Madsen, Boeing’s manager of the E-7 program for the Air Force, told Aviation Week at the company’s emerging Wedgetail office at Boeing Field in Seattle. “And for the rapid prototype contract, we can’t go faster. . . . It takes two years to build the jets; it’s going to take two years to modify [them]. The clock has already started.”

Cutting of the metal for the fuselages of the first E-7s has begun at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, and production slots for the first two jets are scheduled at Boeing’s Line 3 in Renton, Washington, where it also makes the P-8 Poseidon submarine-hunter and C-40 executive transport.

The prototypes will be delivered as Boeing Business Jets with a 737-700 fuselage and 737-800 wings to Boeing Field across Interstate 5, where they will be disassembled. The top of the jets’ fuselages will be removed and reinforced to support the signature Northrop Grumman multirole electronically scanned array (MESA) radar.

The Air Force in late February awarded an initial prototype contract worth up to $1.2 billion to start the work. The service is resigned to the fact that the initial prototypes will not be delivered for four years and is looking at ways to speed up testing and training. This includes the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center working with the Royal Australian Air Force and the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) to meet certain test points so they only have to trial U.S.-specific systems. Up to 60 U.S. Air Force personnel are deploying to Australia this spring to train.

While the Air Force is set on the initial schedule, Congress is less keen after adding funding to the Air Force’s budget to speed up the prototypes.

“At the Air Force’s request, we appropriated another $200 million above the president’s budget to accelerate this program. It did not get accelerated, and we wonder why, where the $200 million went,” Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said to senior Air Force leaders in early May.

Air Force and Boeing officials say that since the prototypes cannot be accelerated, this funding went toward long-lead production items and preparing to move to procurement quickly when the time is right. “It was an investment, really, in the program to allow us to go faster when we move into production,” Madsen says.

The Air Force is seeking even more funding. In addition to a request of $681 million in the fiscal 2024 proposal, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., asked for about $600 million more in his unfunded priorities list to speed procurement for the program. The program’s budget is set to rise dramatically, to $1.2 billion in fiscal 2025, to buy the first procurement aircraft, with $7.4 billion through 2028 to buy 10. The Air Force has decided on a fleet size of 26 E-7s.

The plan is to increase procurement to a rate of four per year. That pace is set by planned production at Boeing’s Line 3 and Northrop Grumman’s MESA radar production rate capability. However, Madsen says studies and discussions are underway about rising to a rate of six per year. “There are plans being worked as far as what the lines will look like,” she says.

The plan is to build P-8s and E-7s at the same time on the same line. An STS Aviation facility in Birmingham, England, where the RAF E-7s are taking shape, has additional capacity. That facility could be key for changes to Boeing’s E-7 plans—the company recently responded to a request for information for NATO to replace its E-3s, and it says there are options for other E-3 operators or militaries that might see a need for the Wedgetail. “We have two viable lines right now, and we are looking at standing up other facilities,” Madsen says, adding that this would “depend on requirements and priorities.”

The Air Force has been enthusiastic about the E-7A’s capabilities, based on Australia’s experience with the aircraft as well as other operators such as the Republic of Korea Air Force and the Turkish Air Force. The U.S. versions will be based largely on the UK’s, with adjustments planned for satellite communication, military-code GPS, cybersecurity and program protection requirements.

Madsen says these advanced data processing, communication and network upgrades are designed to increase the aircraft’s connectivity with U.S. and allied aircraft and space assets. The U.S. versions are designed with open mission systems architecture to allow for easier upgrades.

Northrop Grumman says in a statement that it is producing the MESA with “mission-critical updates” and improved interoperability for the U.S. program. “In partnership with Boeing, we are committed to delivering MESA sensors at a pace that meets the needs of our customers,” says Ed Griebel, Northrop Grumman’s vice president for airborne surveillance programs. “We remain committed to providing multifunction sensors that address and reflect the evolving global battlespace environment.”

The first E-7A with a MESA installed was delivered to Australia in 2001, and the Air Force wants its program to include modernized aircraft as much as possible, even though Boeing’s commercial Next-Generation production line has ended. Madsen says the ongoing production of other commercial-derivative products means parts obsolescence and diminished manufacturing sources will not be a problem, especially if more customers buy E-7s.

The UK program is facing some issues. The RAF announced late last year that its first jet would not be delivered until 12 months later than planned, in 2024, as Boeing foresees an average increase in lead times of 244 days on certain parts. The delay is particularly frustrating for the UK, which bought two used Boeing Business Jets instead of new-build aircraft for its program.

The UK’s bad news could be good news for the U.S. These supply chain issues should be ironed out by the time the U.S. aircraft go into production, says Steven Wert, the U.S. Air Force’s program executive officer for digital. Boeing says it does not expect serious supply chain issues for the aircraft, the radar or the CFM56 engines.

As another step to keep the program’s cost low and schedule on time, the service intentionally kept its requirements low and similar to the UK’s, with upgrades to come later.

“What [Air Combat Command] knows they want is actually much more,” Wert says. “So this is the rare case of [them] not putting all those requirements on the table, [which] would add years to the process. They want speed to ramp [up], recognizing [that] we’re going to iterate on this platform.”

Kendall highlighted this goal to Congress in May, saying the Air Force is looking at upgrades to its aircraft alongside the Royal Australian Air Force, four years ahead of delivery.

“There are some modifications that have to be made for use in the U.S. airspace to comply with some of our communications requirements and so on, but they’re relatively modest,” he told Congress. “We are also working with the Australians on follow-on upgrades to the E-7 that would enhance its capabilities.”

In the meantime, the Air Force faces a high bill for keeping the remainder of its Boeing 707-based E-3s until the E-7 comes onboard. The service’s fiscal 2024 request includes $8.9 billion in operations and maintenance costs for the E-3 Sentrys, almost $1.6 billion more than is planned for the E-7s. The service faces increased maintenance costs for the E-3s, particularly with the Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines, old avionics and other aging parts.

Gen. Mark Kelly, commander of Air Combat Command and a longtime advocate for the Wedgetail, compares the two with a scenario of a Boeing 707-based U.S. E-3 and 737-based Australian E-7 deployed to a U.S. base in the United Arab Emirates.

“They both have a maintenance issue. Let’s say it’s the exact same part,” Kelly says. “The Australians will drive over to Dubai, and they’ll be back in 2 hr.—airplane’s up and running,” he says. “[Our airborne warning and control systems aircraft] breaks on the same part and breaks more often because it’s that old. We’ll have to call back, we’ll cannibalize it out of the boneyard . . . and two weeks later we’re gonna be back. That is not a way we’re going to be able to resource and sustain a fight. So we have a capability gap today for that, and the only way we’re going to plug that gap is going to be E-7s on the ramp as fast as we can and as many as we can.”

[James1978]

US Bomb Designed to Hit Targets Like Iran Underground Nuclear Sites Briefly Reappears Amid Tensions
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22 May 2023
Associated Press | By Jon Gambrell

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — As tensions with Iran have escalated over its nuclear program, the U.S. military this month posted pictures of a powerful bomb designed to penetrate deep into the earth and destroy underground facilities that could be used to enrich uranium.

The U.S. Air Force on May 2 released rare images of the weapon, the GBU-57, known as the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” Then it took the photos down — apparently because the photographs revealed sensitive details about the weapon's composition and punch.

The publication of the photographs comes as The Associated Press reported that Iran is making steady progress in constructing a nuclear facility that is likely beyond the range of the GBU-57, which is considered the U.S. military last-ditch weapon to take out underground bunkers.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT AMERICA'S MASSIVE ORDNANCE PENETRATOR?
The U.S. developed the Massive Ordnance Penetrator in the 2000s as concerns grew over Iran hardening its nuclear sites by building them underground.

The Air Force posted images of the bombs on the Facebook page for Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. The base is home to the fleet of B-2 stealth bombers, the only aircraft that can deploy the bomb.

In a caption, the base said it had received two Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs so a munitions squadron there could “test their performance.”

It is not the first time the Air Force has published photos and videos of the bomb that coincided with rising acrimony with Tehran over its nuclear program. In 2019, the U.S. military released a video of a B-2 bomber dropping two of the bombs. The Air Force did not respond to requests for comment on why it posted — and removed — the most recent set of photos.

WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM THE PHOTOS?
The latest photos revealed stenciling on the bombs that listed their weight as 12,300 kilograms (27,125 pounds). It also described the bomb as carrying a mix of AFX-757 — a standard explosive — and PBXN-114, a relatively new explosive compound, said Rahul Udoshi, a senior weapons analyst at Janes, an open-source intelligence firm.

The weight of the bomb, judging from the stenciling, shows the majority of it comes from its thick steel frame, which allows it to chew through concrete and soil before exploding. However, it remains unclear what the exact effectiveness of the weapon would be.

The Warzone, an Internet news site, first reported on the publication of the photographs. The AP contacted Whiteman Air Force Base and the Air Force’s Global Strike Command with questions about the images. Within a day, the Facebook post vanished.

Udoshi said the Air Force likely took them down because they revealed too much data about the bombs. “Immediate removal from the internet without comment (or) justification means there is a potential lapse,” Udoshi said.

WHAT ROLE WOULD THIS BOMB PLAY IN POTENTIALLY TARGETING IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM?
The AP reported on Monday that satellite imagery from Planet Labs PBC reveals Tehran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran. Excavation mounds at the site suggest the facility could be between 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet) under the ground, according to the experts and AP’s analysis.

Experts say the size of the construction project indicates Iran likely would be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium as well — not just to build centrifuges. Those tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional machines would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.

That could be a problem for the GBU-57: In previously describing the bomb’s capabilities, the Air Force has said it could tear through 60 meters (200 feet) of ground and cement before detonating.

COULD THE UNITED STATES STILL TRY TO DROP THE BOMB?
U.S. officials have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. But even then, the new depth of the Natanz tunnels likely presents a serious challenge.

Further complicating any possible U.S. military strike is that the B-2 had been grounded for months since December when one caught fire after an emergency landing. On Monday, Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, the commander of the Air Force's Global Strike Command, announced the B-2 grounding had been lifted.

“While the B-2 fleet safety pause is officially over, our ability to deliver nuclear deterrence and provide long-range strike was never in doubt,” he said in a statement.

[James1978]

U.S. Air Force wants to avoid F-35 mistakes on sixth-gen fighter
By Stephen Losey
May 22, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is focused on avoiding the mistakes that plagued past programs like the F-35, as the service officially kicks off its effort to build a sixth-generation fighter, Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday.

That includes ensuring the Air Force has access to all the sustainment data it needs from the contractor building the Next Generation Air Dominance platform, Kendall told reporters at a breakfast roundtable hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

“We’re not going to repeat the, what I think frankly was a serious mistake that was made in the F-35 program” of not obtaining rights to all the fighter’s sustainment data from contractor Lockheed Martin, Kendall said.

When the F-35 program was launched more than two decades ago, Kendall said an acquisition philosophy known as Total System Performance was in favor. Under this approach, he said, a contractor that won a program would own it for its entire lifecycle.

“What that basically does is create a perpetual monopoly,” Kendall said. “I spent years struggling to overcome acquisition malpractice [on the F-35], and we’re still struggling with that to some degree. So we’re not going to do that with NGAD.”

Kendall also singled out excessive concurrency — which occurs when an aircraft moving through development and into procurement at the same time, which can make it harder to fix problems discovered in testing — as a major problem that hindered the F-35 program.

There will be some concurrency on NGAD, as well as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, Kendall said. But he said the Air Force plans to do that “in a rational way, that doesn’t take excessive risk.”

Kendall said he wants the government to have much more control over NGAD than it does with the F-35. In addition to ensuring the government has access to the intellectual property it needs, Kendall said the Air Force will make sure NGAD’s manufacturer and subcontractors use modular open system design. That will allow the Air Force to bring in new and different suppliers as it seeks to upgrade parts of the system, he said.

The Air Force’s program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, who is now Brig. Gen. Dale White, will be in charge of the new program, Kendall said.

With NGAD expected to be a very expensive proposition — Kendall told lawmakers in April 2022 he expected each aircraft to cost multiple hundreds of millions of dollars apiece — the Air Force won’t be able to afford working with multiple contractors on the program, Kendall said. The service plans to choose a single contractor to build NGAD sometime in 2024, with Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman expected to compete for the program.

Kendall also said the acquisition strategy for collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) is moving forward in parallel with NGAD, and the Air Force is working with several potential suppliers to create autonomous drone wingmen associated with that concept. He said it’s too soon to say how many vendors the Air Force plans to work with, but that he wants “as many as possible.”

He declined to describe how CCA capabilities might compare to crewed fighters, saying that information is classified.

Kendall said NGAD’s origins date back to the Obama administration, when he in his previous role as the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics asked the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to study what the Air Force would need to ensure it could dominate the skies in a future war.

DARPA’s response, Kendall said, was that the service didn’t just need a lone fighter — it needed a “family of systems,” also encompassing weapons, connections to assets in space, and possibly autonomous drone wingmen.

Kendall then launched a program called the Aerospace Innovation Initiative to start to develop technologies that would form the core of a sixth-generation fighter. That effort led to the creation of experimental prototype aircraft, which Kendall called X-planes, to flesh out those technologies and prove they can work.

Advancements in model-based systems engineering and digitalization also made it possible for both government and contractor design teams to work together much more efficiently, he said.

That’s what’s happening now with the offices developing NGAD, according to Kendall, with government designers and bidding companies essentially working side-by-side at Wright-Patterson. Government designers have direct access to the databases companies are using to design their pitches for NGAD, he explained.

“Everybody lives basically in the same design laboratory, if you will, so we have intimate knowledge of what the competitors are doing in their design,” Kendall said. “We’re very involved with them. … We’re going to have as integrated and as fully integrated a design process and contracting process as possible.”

This is a more efficient approach than how acquisitions were run in the past, where the contractor would deliver “piles and piles of documents” to the government to sort through. “Now you don’t wait for documents, you can see the design firsthand,” Kendall said.

[James1978]

Air Force Working Closely with New-Jet Designers, Secretary Says
Service engineers are “living in the same design space” as the two companies doing NGAD development, Frank Kendall said.

By Audrey Decker
May 22, 2023



The two defense firms involved in the Air Force’s highly secret new fighter-jet project are working closely with program engineers at the service’s design-and-development hub in Ohio, service secretary Frank Kendall said Monday.

The Air Force has “intimate knowledge” of both companies’ early-stage work on the stealthy Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, aircraft, and has “separate teams working with each of them,” Kendall told reporters Monday during a Defense Writers Group event.

Kendall said he visited Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, home of the NGAD program office, where he saw a government engineer “working directly with one of the two contractors. He was on one of the teams and interfacing with them on the design.”

The Air Force “is living in the same design space” as the companies. “They have direct access into the database that’s being used for the design,” he said.

The secretary did not specify who the contractors are, or what he was looking at—just that there were two contractors.

Service officials announced last week that they will pick a builder for NGAD in 2024. The solicitation release “formally begins the source selection process” for NGAD, according to last week’s statement, but the actual solicitation sent to companies is classified “to protect operational and technological advantages.”

The identities of the companies doing development work on the U.S. military’s first sixth-generation fighter remain under wraps. Lockheed Martin (F-35, F-16) and Boeing (F/A-18, F-15) are the only two U.S. firms that currently build fighter jets. But Northrop Grumman, which builds the Air Force’s new B-21 Raider bomber, is a major supplier to both, providing parts for the F-35 and F/A-18.

Kendall said the NGAD program won’t repeat a “serious mistake” it made with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: allowing a contractor to retain ownership of the technical data rights. Lockheed Martin has such rights for the F-35 program, and that has given the company a significant amount of power to manage sustainment costs of the aircraft.

“I spent years struggling to overcome acquisition malpractice. We're still struggling with that to some degree, so we're not going to do that with NGAD. We're going to make sure that the government has ownership of the intellectual property it needs,” Kendall said.

The new fighter jet will have a modular design so the Air Force can bring in new suppliers and have a “tighter degree” of control over the future of the program, he said.

“It's been a real struggle with the F-35, quite honestly. It's not just about the prime, it's about the subs too, who are just as interested in maintaining their business position as anybody else's. We hope we've learned that lesson and are applying it effectively in NGAD,” Kendall said.

NGAD is set to replace the F-22 Raptor, a fifth-generation stealth fighter that is considered one of the best air-to-air combat jets ever built. The F-22 can fly at supersonic speeds without using an afterburner and has thrust-vectoring engines giving it more maneuverability than prior-generation jets.

The origin of the new fighter goes back to the Obama administration when the Air Force asked DARPA to conduct a study on air dominance, Kendall said.

“That was a fairly lengthy study that produced an answer that said what we needed for future dominance was a family of systems. It's not just the platform. It's the things around it and the things that support it. It's the weapons. We talked about its connections to space, potentially. It's a number of things, including the possibility of introducing uncrewed aircraft,” he said.

Near the end of the Obama administration, Kendall began a program called the “Aerospace Innovation Initiative” to develop sixth-generation technologies needed for future air dominance and build experimental prototypes, or “X-planes,” to “bring those technologies forward,” he said.

“We ordered that contract, I think, in 2015 and that produced experimental prototypes that have verified, validated, [and] proved out the technologies that we set out to acquire and so those are the bases for the NGAD program going forward,” Kendall said.

The Air Force has requested $1.9 billion in research and development funds for the NGAD project in its 2024 budget request sent to Congress earlier this year.

[James1978]

Boeing backs T-7 amid stinging GAO report that cites ‘tenuous’ strain with Air Force
A Boeing official tells Breaking Defense that the company is making strides on issues around the training jet's ejection seat.

By Michael Marrow
May 22, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Government Accountability Office [PDF] last week took a sledgehammer to the T-7A Red Hawk trainer’s schedule, warning that the proposed timeline carries significant risk of further delays and raising a series of other concerns — including citing Air Force officials who say the relationship is “tenuous” with Boeing over the delayed program.

“Air Force program officials said that they expect what they call a tenuous relationship with the contractor to remain a key element of managing the program, especially as the contractor continues to lose money,” the GAO wrote in the report, released May 18. “Thus, based on differing interpretations of contract requirements to date, program officials said disagreements between the Air Force and the contractor may become more likely as the contractor builds the aircraft.”

But in a series of responses to Breaking Defense, the company at points pushed back at the government watchdog’s criticism, including arguing that it is operating from outdated data.

Speaking to Breaking Defense ahead of the GAO’s report, a Boeing official shared details of the company’s reworked escape system design that will make its way into the Air Force’s own development jets used for flight testing, and expressed confidence that previous company-led test flights have smoothed the way for the aircraft’s remaining development.

“As with any development program, we encountered some challenges in that qualification testing,” Jim Young, Boeing’s program director for the T-7A’s emergency escape system, said in a May 10 interview. As a result, the program made changes to the system for a simulated ejection — known as a sled test that uses a strapped-in dummy — in February, which Young said “were validated as successful improvements.”

While noting more testing is needed to validate the design of the escape system itself, Young said the program has separately gathered about 7,000 individual data points from flights of two production-relevant jets Boeing has been flying with company pilots. The jets served as an opportunity to learn more about the trainer’s performance prior to flights with five development aircraft that will be piloted by the Air Force, which are on path for limited military flight release later this year following satisfactory results from the February sled test. (Escape system testing is reserved for sled tests to avoid risk of injury.)

“We’ve learned a lot from the T-7 program ahead of first flight of the [engineering manufacturing and development, or EMD] jets. And that goes a very long ways in getting confidence that when we get into EMD flight tests we’re not going to have major surprises,” Young said.

Yet according to GAO’s report, those flight tests carry the potential to identify new deficiencies with the jet’s flight control software, which may need as many as five-to-six additional iterations to fix. Along with at least seven more tests needed to qualify the escape system, other challenges with the trainer’s simulator and sustainment data still need to be fleshed out.

Even after development woes pushed the Red Hawk’s production decision to February 2025 and initial operational capability to January 2027, GAO seems skeptical about the current timeline, noting “the contractor’s schedule does not account for any delays during the remaining program development tasks, has an optimistic test flight schedule, and does not account for re-testing any test failures.”

The Air Force has allowed for a full year of additional delays without declaring a schedule breach, the report says, with the latest acceptable date to begin production set for February 2026.

Escape system difficulties
A top risk for greater delays stems from the test schedule for the aircraft’s emergency escape system, which GAO said will need about two years to finish. The planned seven remaining tests are scheduled to proceed every three months, a much quicker turnaround than the 15 months between a February 2023 sled test and one that preceded it, GAO observed.

Young explained that results from earlier sled tests “paused” further testing so that design changes could be incorporated. A key issue is accommodating a wider range of body types, a requirement from the program’s inception that Young said is mainly a concern for pilots on the lower end of the weight distribution around the “low-100 pounds,” which largely impacts female pilots but could affect male pilots as well.

“It really comes down to basic physics,” he said. “The rocket motor propels the seat out of the crew station. And the lighter weight pilot is accelerated at a much higher rate than a heavier pilot.” (The ACES 5 ejection seat used in the aircraft is manufactured by Collins Aerospace, which referred questions to Boeing.)

Boeing exclusively provided footage from the February sled test to Breaking Defense, which is included below.

Although the test showed improvements in the escape system, GAO says more work is needed to address issues with three critical steps in its activation — specifically, the aircraft’s canopy fracturing system, pilot ejection and parachute deployment.

Ejecting from the Red Hawk starts when a blast cord attached to the canopy explodes upward, blowing a hole in the glass for the pilot to escape through. According to GAO, activating the system creates what’s known as blast overpressure, or “significant pressure within the cockpit.” After previous results showed a risk of concussion in 20 percent of escapes — four times the program’s threshold of five percent — Air Force officials lowered the amount of explosives in the cord for the February test. Doing so “significantly reduced the blast overpressure in the cockpit,” though the report doesn’t say by how much.

Once the pilot is then propelled from the aircraft, “there remains a risk of canopy fragments hitting the pilot during ejection,” according to the GAO report. “In some tests,” including the one carried out in February, “large canopy fragments stuck to the test manikins as they passed through the exploded canopy,” creating the possibility of injuring the pilot or causing their seat to “rotate unsafely in the air.”

Lastly, dangers of high g-forces persist when the parachute deploys to separate the pilot from the seat, GAO found. The program made firmware updates that were included in the February sled test, and though the results showed progress, “additional improvements continue to be needed.”

And although GAO reported that “relatively minor design improvements” would “result in a fully approved and safer system,” getting the requisite testing done in time remains a chief concern due in large part to the 15 months needed between the last two tests to field design changes.

Notably, GAO appeared to identify relationship issues between the service and contractor over the tests. While GAO noted that “cooperation” between Boeing and the Air Force on the escape system “recently improved” after the service decided to fund additional sled tests, the watchdog warned that a mandate for Boeing to pick up the tab for at least four more tests “could result in a reversion back to previous levels of cooperation.” (The Air Force is funding three of the seven planned remaining tests, according to GAO, which stated Boeing is on the hook for the other four.)

“Boeing and the USAF are partnered on a path forward regarding the escape system to ensure aircrew will have the safest egress system in any trainer,” the company said in a statement. “The team completed a successful sled shot on Feb. 1, 2023 to test the system and provide confidence.”

Software, Simulator And Sustainment
Alongside the escape system, the program needs to address challenges with the T-7A’s flight control software, simulator and sustainment data. Boeing plans to deliver the final flight control software in mid-2023, but Air Force software experts interviewed by GAO said as many as five-to-six additional software iterations would be needed to fix deficiencies anticipated to crop up during flight testing. These corrections could postpone the software’s completion by more than two years and impact flight testing if more intensive changes are needed, GAO found.

“Boeing is flying with the current control law solution. This is part of our validation and verification process of flight control software,” the company told Breaking Defense. “Boeing will continue to evaluate findings and discovery during testing activities and will evaluate the need for additional software builds.”

Clarity issues with the projection system for the aircraft’s simulator also still need to be resolved, which GAO said the program’s subcontractor plans to address in 2024. Though GAO stated software that “enables real-time coordination between the [T-7] aircraft and simulators” is additionally pending completion, Boeing said in a statement that “the GAO finding appears to be dated. The software in the devices is the same as in our EMD aircraft. Earlier this month we successfully demonstrated the connection and stability of our embedded training solution.”

Since the T-7A program calls for as much government-led maintenance as possible, the Air Force still needs sustainment data from Boeing to carry it out. As of January 2023, Boeing has delivered about one-third of the aircraft’s bill of materials, which GAO said is more than three years later than what the program’s contract specifies.

The Air Force needs the data not only to support an eventual fleet of 351 Red Hawks but also to sustain the service’s five development aircraft that will be used for flight tests beginning later this year, GAO reported. This issue could be resolved in time, Air Force officials told GAO, but they were dismayed by “little progress over the last year.”

“Boeing is responsible for the maintenance of the aircraft during flight test,” the company said in a statement. “With our demonstrated performance of aircraft flights on [production-relevant] aircraft, our maintenance team is ready to support the EMD aircraft at Edwards [Air Force Base].”

Despite the availability of Boeing’s production-relevant jets, GAO found the company was only able to conduct 42 percent of 794 planned flight tests due to weather, maintenance and operations problems. Officials expect that rate of flight testing to increase once the five development aircraft that will be flown by Air Force pilots become available, but they anticipate maintenance challenges could cause delays.

Fewer test opportunities would thus cause the trainer’s schedule to slide further to the right or force the Air Force to enter production with less data. Assessing the remaining development risks, GAO found that the current schedule “includes little to no margin for failed tests, unscheduled software builds, potential escape system redesign, or other unexpected events.”

Boeing is feeling the pressure of the T-7A’s fixed-price contract that has already caused the defense giant to eat approximately $1.1 billion in charges, and Young said the company has decided to proceed at its own risk to order long-lead materials to build early production aircraft. According to Young, doing so will enable the company to be prepared for the current milestone C date or possibly beat it, though GAO noted the Defense Contract Management Agency cannot conduct oversight of the aircraft’s production through its normal mechanisms without a production contract.

Costs to mend any design shortfalls on work already completed would mostly be shouldered by Boeing due to the aircraft’s fixed-price contract, though GAO noted that more delays for the program could force the Air Force to undertake additional life extensions of the T-38 Talons the Red Hawk is replacing or prolong the need to use fighters with pricey flight hours like the F-22 to conduct higher-end training.

When the Air Force originally envisioned the Advanced Pilot Trainer program in 2010, what would later become the T-7A, the service expected initial operational capability for the new fleet would be reached in 2017. Officials didn’t end up awarding a contract for the aircraft until 2018, and to date, according to GAO, the Air Force has already spent about $300 million to keep certain legacy Talons flying.

Current plans require a sum of about $750 million to conduct these service life extensions, GAO reported, warning that any further delays for the Red Hawk “could increase this cost.”

Asked what remaining development risks remained, Young said, “as with any development program, we move into flights test. And the sole reason for doing flight tests is to make sure that we have a safe system that can be provided to the fleet. And so as part of entering flight tests here shortly, we’ll begin to work through those and qualify the overall system.”

[James1978]

Air Force Will Pick Just One NGAD Design in 2024, Kendall Says
May 22, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

Only one company will be chosen next year as the overall designer and developer of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) crewed fighter, despite years of prototype work on different designs by several companies, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said May 22.

Kendall added that there will be ongoing competition to supply NGAD’s systems after an overall winner is picked—but the original NGAD concept of rolling competitions, producing a series of incrementally better platforms, is too costly, he revealed.

“We’re not going to do two NGADs. We’re only going to do one,” Kendall said at a meeting of the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C.

Kendall told Air & Space Forces Magazine the original concept of rapidly-iterated NGADs, with competitions every few years—promoted by former Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper and meant to provide steady work to contractors to preserve their industrial capability—has been abandoned.

The NGAD’s “development phase is far too expensive,” to pursue such a strategy, he told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Such an approach is “not going to work, but we are going to design for modular open systems, on a number of [onboard] technologies, and that will remain competitive,” he added.

The Air Force released a classified solicitation for NGAD engineering and manufacturing development proposals May 18, saying a winner will be selected in 2024, but few new details of the highly classified program were released beyond that.

Even the size of the fleet remains publicly uncertain—Kendall has said a “notional” buy could number about 200 aircraft, but Air Force experts have said 250 is the more likely objective, as the minimum number of aircraft necessary to cover peacetime obligations along with minimal wartime surge capability.

Regardless, Kendall also said he is less concerned about the Air Force’s force structure—the number of aircraft and systems it has—than about modernization, which he said has been neglected for too long. China has been aggressively advancing its capabilities in air superiority and air defense, and “we have not responded as quickly as we should have,” he said.

As a result, Kendall said he is “prepared to take some risk” on the service’s force structure, but not with its modernization. The Air Force can only afford to field systems “that scare China” and contribute to deterrence, he said.

NGAD is key to that plan, as reflected in its planned capabilities the Air Force laid out in the May 18 announcement, such as enhanced lethality and the abilities to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly-contested operational environments.

Kendall offered other details May 22, noting his own his history with NGAD dating back to his time undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics in the Obama administration.

“I started a program called the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, which was to get to the sixth-generation set of technologies we would need for future air dominance, and to build flying prototypes—X-planes, if you will—to bring those technologies forward,” he said.

That initiative resulted in a 2015 contract that produced experimental prototypes and verified new technologies. Those prototypes formed the basis of NGAD, Kendall said.

Since then, he added, “model-based system engineering and digitalization … moved forward a significant amount, so that we could integrate our design teams between the government and contractors much more effectively and efficiently.”

Both the contractors and government officials work in a common design environment, giving the Air Force an “intimate” knowledge of each competitor is doing, Kendall said. The service even has teams working with each company.

The Air Force won’t repeat the “serious mistake” it made with the F-35, Kendall said—allowing one company to own the technical baseline of the aircraft, thus controlling the program’s life cycle and creating “a perpetual monopoly” on sustainment and future modifications and upgrades.

“We’re not going to do that,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that the government has ownership for the intellectual property it needs. We’re going to make sure … we have modular designs and open systems so that, going forward, we can bring new suppliers in.”

Whoever is chosen “as the platform integrator … will have a much tighter degree of government control over the future of that program than we’ve had” with the F-35, he said. “We’ve learned that lesson.”

Kendall also said the Rapid Capabilities Office will not be brought in to manage the NGAD program, despite its apparent success on the B-21.

Instead, Brig. Gen. Dale White, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, and his office will oversee the effort, in addition to their management of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. Kendall said NGAD and CCA will be developed “in parallel,” but he declined to say when a contract award for the CCA program might be awarded.

[James1978]

After 5 Months, B-2 Bombers Return to Flying After Mysterious Fire and Grounding

22 May 2023
Military.com | By Thomas Novelly

America's B-2 Spirit fleet resumed flying operations Monday, ending a five-month safety pause after one of the stealth bombers caught fire on a Missouri runway late last year.

Gen. Thomas Bussiere, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, rescinded the grounding on Thursday, and flights of the bombers -- a key component of the country's so-called nuclear triad -- resumed Monday. But it remains unclear what exactly led to the earlier incident and whether a fix was made to the fleet.

"During the safety pause, we erred on the side of prudence and caution to assess any possible safety of flight issues, deliberately and methodically, within the fleet," Air Force Global Strike Command spokesman Brus Vidal said in an emailed statement. "We successfully accomplished all necessary actions to safely return to full flight operations with the B-2 fleet."

The Air Force declined to provide answers when asked by Military.com about what issues were found with the fleet, whether any bombers remain out of commission and if the B-2 that caught fire in Missouri is back in the sky.

Vidal said the information is "privileged" and added that there will be an Aircraft Investigation Board report on why the B-2 caught fire "at some point in the future."

A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber caught fire at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, on Dec. 10 following an emergency landing.

Master Sgt. Beth Del Vecchio, a spokesman for Whiteman's 509th Bomb Wing, told Military.com at the time that there were no injuries as a result of the sudden landing or subsequent blaze.

It took 11 days for the base to clear the B-2 from the runway.

There are only 20 B-2 bombers in the Air Force's fleet, according to a service fact sheet, meaning that putting one out of commission can cause a notable impact to bombing missions. Each B-2 bomber costs approximately $1.157 billion.

The same day as the B-2 fire, the fleet safety pause was ordered. The stealth bomber is a key air component of the U.S. nuclear triad, which also includes nuclear ballistic missiles on land and nuclear submarines at sea.

Vidal said the fleet was still operational during the safety pause.

"Throughout the fleet safety pause, our ability to execute our mission was never at risk: The B-2 fleet could still fly missions on the orders of the President of the United States or in support of the National Command Authority," Vidal said in an emailed statement. "While the B-2 fleet safety pause is officially over, our ability to deliver nuclear deterrence and provide long-range strike was never in doubt."

The last major incident with a B-2 prior to the runway fire happened in September 2021, when a stealth bomber rolled off the runway at Whiteman. No one was injured, and the bomber didn't catch fire. More details emerged about that incident in a March 17, 2022, report from Air Force Global Strike Command.

That plane, assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron of Missouri's 509th Bomb Wing, was known as the Spirit of Georgia. A photo of the mishap was widely shared on social media, showing a jarring image of the massive aircraft slumped into the ground after appearing to have had its landing gear collapse.

That report revealed that the damage estimate to the plane was around $10 million, but further review is still needed. Air Force Col. Robert Cocke, the investigation board president, wrote in the report that the crash likely happened because lock link springs on the landing gear failed to provide sufficient pressure to maintain a locked position.

No error was attributed to the pilot or crew. But the report said there was no requirement for routine replacement of the lock link springs. The last time the bomber went through an in-depth inspection was 2014, according to investigators.

The Air Force unveiled its latest bomber, the B-21 Raider, late last year. It's the first new bomber in the American military's fleet in more than 30 years and aims to eventually replace the B-2.

The Pentagon plans to build 100 B-21s, more than the Air Force's B-2 and B-1B Lancer fleets combined, with an average unit cost for each bomber of nearly $700 million, according to a service fact sheet.

[James1978]

Over $85M in F-35 parts are unaccounted for, GAO says — and that number could be much larger
Because "the F35 JPO does not have an independent record of the global spares pool, and the values of the lost spare parts are not the fully burdened cost, the $85 million of identified losses by [the subcontractor] may not accurately represent the full quantity and value of lost spare parts,” the GAO found.

By Aaron Mehta
May 23, 2023

WASHINGTON — The government cannot account for more than $85 million in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter spare parts, a number that is likely far smaller than the actual total of untracked components, the Government Accountability Office has found in a new report.

But worse than the unknown number of “lost, damaged or destroyed” taxpayer-funded equipment is fact that the F-35 Joint Program Office lacks the ability even to be aware of what spare parts are out in the world, thanks to how the supply chain for the fighter is set up.

As with almost all aspects of the F-35, the supply chain arrangement is uniquely complicated by the international structure of the program. “Rather than owning the spare parts for their aircraft, the program participants share a common, global pool of spare parts that DOD owns and the prime contractors manage. These spare parts are held in over 50 domestic and international non-prime contractor facilities,” GAO explained.

The result is that the JPO does not track or have visibility into parts that are located outside of prime contractor facilities — parts ranging from big ticket items like engines, wheels and landing gear down to basic items like fasteners and screws.

“Without DOD taking steps to ensure that these spare parts are accountable under a contract, the F-35 Joint Program Office will be unable to either gain or maintain accountability over these spare parts and will not have data, such as locations, costs, and quantities, needed for financial reporting or to ensure that government interests are protected,” GAO warned.

The report comes at a time that the Pentagon and primary contractor Lockheed Martin are hashing out the future of the program’s supply chain. The two sides are expected to transition by the end of the year to a new five-year, performance-based logistics (PBL) agreement, which Lockheed has pushed for over the years.

However, program officials are making a drive for more rights to the data underpinning the sustainment picture as part of the PBL, so that more upkeep can be performed directly by the military services rather than contracted out. Lockheed, whose business model on the F-35 has always been predicated on a lucrative, decades-long sustainment tail, has traditionally pushed back .

GAO auditors, attempting to understand the full risks of the supply chain setup, dove into one particular test case of a subcontractor from May 2018 through October 2022. In that timeframe, GAO found that the subcontractor “incurred losses of over 1 million spare parts from the global spares pool totaling over $85 million.” But of those losses, the subcontractor only informed the JPO of “approximately 60,000 losses worth approximately $19 million” — meaning the JPO was made aware of less than 2 percent of the total quantity of lost items.

“Because, as previously reported, the F35 JPO does not have an independent record of the global spares pool, and the values of the lost spare parts are not the fully burdened cost, the $85 million of identified losses by [the subcontractor] may not accurately represent the full quantity and value of lost spare parts,” GAO added. “According to DOD officials, the full quantity and value of these spare parts may be significantly higher.”

The issue isn’t the subcontractor trying to hide anything, GAO said, but rather that there is a disagreement at a fundamental level about what these companies have to report back to JPO on. Hence, the GAO calls for four changes moving forward to how the F-35 manages its supply lines. Quoting directly:

* The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, in coordination with the F-35 Program Executive Office, should take steps to ensure that all spare parts in the global spares pool are categorized appropriately and are accountable under a contract.

* The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), should review all applicable guidance and policies for asset accountability and update as necessary to ensure clarity regarding when an asset is considered government-furnished property.

* The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, in coordination with the F-35 Program Executive Officer, should develop and document a process for contractors to report government-owned global spares pool losses of spare parts that are not accountable under a contract, until all spare parts in the global spares pool are made accountable under a contract and losses are entered into the GFP Module for DCMA’s adjudication.

* The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, in coordination with the F-35 Program Executive Officer, should develop and document interim procedures to ensure that disposition instructions are provided, consistent with federal regulations, for the disposition of spare parts in the global spares pool that are excess, obsolete, or unserviceable, until such spare parts are entered into the GFP Module for disposition.

In a response included with the report, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment Bill LaPlante concurred with the GAO’s findings.

A Lockheed spokesperson told Breaking Defense in a statement that the company “manages F-35 spare part inventory in compliance with contract requirements. We continue to partner with the Joint Program Office to increase insight into spare part availability and support fleet readiness.”

In a statement, JPO spokesman Russ Goemaere said that “Although the F-35 JPO concurs with the recommendations it is important for the American people and our global partners to understand that we know where the vast majority of F-35 spare parts are in the global supply chain. At this time, our error rate is around 1%, and while this is considered much better than the government goal of 5%, we will continue to work with the services and our industry partners to improve spare parts accountability and drive readiness for our warfighters.

“Accountability of F-35 spare parts is currently managed through a non-government system; however, we are working with industry to move this data to a government system,” Goemaere added.

[James1978]

2 companies have worked on Air Force’s NGAD next-gen jet, but more competitors are possible
"We have not received any proposals yet but we expect multiple proposals in the future," an Air Force spokesperson told Breaking Defense.

By Michael Marrow
May 23, 2023

WASHINGTON — Two contractors were working with the Air Force on the design of its secretive Next Generation Air Dominance fighter prior to a formal invitation for bids launched last week, the service’s top civilian said Monday, in a rare disclosure for the program that has long been shrouded in secrecy.

Frank Kendall, the Air Force secretary, further confirmed that only one vendor would move forward once the fighter’s engineering, manufacturing and development contract is awarded next year.

Speaking during a breakfast hosted by the Defense Writers Group, Kendall was discussing how digital design tools have enabled the service’s program executive officers to exist “in the same design space” as the contractors working to build the platform, when he subsequently revealed how many were previously in the mix.

“I was out at [Wright-Patterson Air Force Base] and I saw a government engineer who was very capable working directly with one of the two contractors. He was on one of the teams interfacing with them on the design,” he said — an indication there were only two competitors active on NGAD at the time of the secretary’s visit to the base.

Asked to clarify Kendall’s comments, an Air Force spokesperson said that the presence of two contractors should not be taken as a sign that there are two formal competitors.

“We have not received any proposals yet but we expect multiple proposals in the future,” the spokesperson said. “We will not be able to provide the company names or the number of offerors for the NGAD Platform source selection. The acquisition strategy accounts for an engineering and manufacturing development contract intended to be awarded in 2024.”

Defense giants Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have at times indicated interest in the program, and there was widespread assumption that all three were actively going to seek the NGAD contract. Notably, the three companies were awarded contracts last August, worth up to $975 million each, for technology maturation on the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program. According to a report in Inside Defense, bringing on the airframe primes in the ongoing engine work — where General Electric and Pratt & Whitney are facing off to power the sixth-gen NGAD fighter — would enable the service to have propulsion options available for any NGAD platform.

Asked last week about the Air Force’s NGAD solicitation, Boeing and Northrop did not respond to Breaking Defense’s request for comment. Lockheed said in a statement that “Lockheed Martin continues to work with our customers to advance critical technology areas to enable the next generation of air dominance mission capabilities, to outpace emerging threats and deliver true 21st Century Security solutions to our nation’s military forces.”

Kendall said Monday that to avoid the high-profile woes that hindered the F-35 program — which the secretary previously famously labeled “acquisition malpractice” — the Air Force intends to run “as integrated and as fully transparent a design process and contracting process as possible.”

Importantly, the secretary said, the Air Force is “not going to repeat what I think, quite frankly, was a serious mistake that was made on the F-35 program,” where an idea that previously prevailed in Pentagon acquisitions called “Total System Performance” meant that “when a contractor won a program it owned the program. It was going to do the whole lifecycle of the program.”

Allowing that kind of arrangement “creates a perpetual monopoly,” Kendall said, as opposed to approaches that would facilitate more government-led maintenance sometimes called organic sustainment. Kendall emphasized that issue in some ways remains today, where government officials are currently locked in negotiations with Lockheed over obtaining more data rights for the Joint Strike Fighter as the Pentagon moves toward a new performance-based logistics model.

“We’re going to make sure the government has ownership of the intellectual property it needs. We’re also making sure we have modular designs with open systems so that going forward we can bring new suppliers in — [regardless of] whoever we choose as the platform integrator. And we’ll have a much tighter degree of government control over the future of that program than we’ve had,” he said.

[James1978]

Biden picks Brown to be Joint Chiefs chairman

By Stephen Losey and Bryant Harris
May 25, 2023

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he has nominated Air Force Gen. CQ Brown to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a brief ceremony in the White House’s Rose Garden.

“Gen. Brown is a warrior, descended from a proud line of warriors,” Biden said, referencing Brown’s Vietnam veteran father as well as his grandfather, who led a segregated unit in World War II.

Brown’s command roles in the Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East and Europe give him “an unmatched firsthand knowledge of our operational theaters, and a strategic vision to understand how they all work together to ensure security for the American people,” Biden said, flanked by Brown, Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“While Gen. Brown is a proud, butt-kickin’ American airman, first and always, he’s also been an operational leader in the joint force,” Biden said. “He gained respect across every service from those who have seen him in action, and have come to depend on his judgment. More than that, he gained the respect of our allies and partners around the world, who regard Gen. Brown as a trusted partner and a top-notch strategist.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Brown — who has served as the Air Force’s chief of staff for nearly three years — will succeed Army Gen. Mark Milley as the military’s top uniformed officer.

Milley sat in the front row of the audience at the ceremony, next to Brown’s wife Sharene. Biden, wearing his signature aviator shades, thanked Milley and his family for their years of service.

“As chairman, you’ve led our military through the most complex security environment our world has faced in a long, long time,” Biden said. “We’ve strengthened our alliances from NATO to the Indo-Pacific, and built new partnerships like AUKUS [the trilateral defense agreement between the United States, U.K., and Australia]. ... You’ve helped set our country and our military on a course that will put us in the strongest possible position to succeed in the years ahead.”

And Biden saluted Sharene Brown for her work to improve the quality of life for military families as part of her “Five and Thrive” initiative.

As chairman, Brown would advise the president on military matters, including the potential defense of Taiwan if China invades and NATO’s effort to support Ukraine in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion. He would also regularly consult with top military leaders across all services to gather their thoughts on strategy, operations and budgets, so he could present a range of options to Biden.

The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Brown’s nomination to become Air Force chief of staff in June 2020, which made him the first Black person to head a branch of the U.S. military, and he is expected to be easily confirmed as the nation’s top military officer. However, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has placed a hold on Defense Department nominations over the department’s decision to provide leave and travel services so troops can obtain abortion services, which could create a stumbling block for Brown’s confirmation.

During his three years as Air Force chief of staff, Brown has focused on overhauling the service, a plan he dubbed “Accelerate Change or Lose,” which has also become something of a mantra for him. This effort involves reshaping the service’s structure, changing how the service prepares for potential conflicts with major adversaries like China and Russia, and divesting old and outdated air frames like the A-10 Warthog, E-3 Sentry and older F-15C fighters, which he and other Air Force leaders say would be unsuited for future high-end wars.

Biden singled out Brown’s Accelerate Change or Lose strategy as exactly what the military needs.

“General, you’re right on,” Biden said. “To keep the American people safe, prosperous and secure, we have to move fast and adapt quickly. We have to maintain a combat-credible force capable of deterring and defeating any potential threat.”

A retired general officer familiar with the discussions told Air Force Times Biden strongly considered both Brown and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger for the job, but ultimately chose Brown.

Brown would be the second Black person to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman, with the first being Army Gen. Colin Powell under President George H.W. Bush. It would be the first time in the nation’s history that both the top civilian and uniformed leaders in the Defense Department are Black, as Austin is the first Black secretary of defense.

An ‘unflinching’ video
In June 2020, shortly after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and days before the Senate voted to confirm him as chief of staff, Brown made an emotional video in which he spoke about Floyd’s death and his own experiences as a Black person in the military. The video went viral, and observers say Brown’s frank talk helped spark conversations about racism and injustice in the military community.

Biden said that “unflinching” testimonial shows Brown is “unafraid to speak his mind [and] will deliver an honest message that needs to be heard, and will always do the right thing when it’s hard.”

Biden said the video also showed “his deep love of our country, to which he’s dedicated his entire adult life.”

Republicans praised Brown’s nomination and called on him to remain out of politics should the Senate nominate him for the post.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, praised Brown as an “exceptionally qualified officer” and said he should maintain a “laser focus on readiness, deterrence and warfighting instead of politics.”

“I have also known him to be a thoughtful advocate of accelerating innovation so that our armed services can be ready to defend our country and deter potential threats, especially those from the Chinese Communist Party,” said Wicker.

House defense appropriations Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., said Brown “must be focused on maintaining our edge in the air, land, sea and space and not be distracted by other issues that don’t ultimately result in the enhanced lethality of U.S. forces.”

Calvert praised Brown’s tenure as Air Force chief, noting he understood “we must innovate and equip our warfighters with the next generation of resources to secure our nation” in order to “surpass the technological advancements of China and other adversaries.”

Ties around the world
In a Wednesday interview with Defense News, retired Gen. Dave Goldfein — Brown’s predecessor as Air Force chief of staff — said Brown’s skills, honed throughout his nearly four decades in uniform, and the bonds he’s created with counterparts across the world will be vital as the United States faces multiple challenges.

“When it comes to … Ukraine or China or Korea or Iran, or you name the challenges that he will face, he has built enough relationships and enough credibility that he can walk into the room and, in his very thoughtful way, provide his military advice and assessment of the risks involved, allowing the president and the senior civilian leadership to make the most informed decisions,” Goldfein said.

Since he first met Brown in the mid-1990s — when Brown was aide-de-camp to then-chief of staff Gen. Ron Fogleman and Goldfein was aide to the commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe in Naples, Italy — Brown has always been a deep thinker and a quiet consensus builder, Goldfein said. Those traits will serve him well as he advises Biden on the nation’s most pressing military matters.

“He really thinks things through,” Goldfein said. “He’s not usually the most vocal at the table, and he’s certainly not the loudest, but he always has the most to say. … When he spoke in a meeting, everybody was leaning forward, listening, taking notes.”

Goldfein pointed to the 2019 Pacific Air Chiefs Symposium at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii as an example of Brown’s skill in bringing together people from different backgrounds and with different interests to build common ground.

During that conference, attended by air chiefs from about 18 nations, then-PACAF Commander Brown set up a series of small panel discussions that brought every attending nation’s air chief to the table. During those talks, Goldfein said, the “chemistry” between Brown and the other Pacific nations’ air chiefs was evident.

“What struck me was the relationships that he’d invested in across the region, which were on display during the entire conference,” Goldfein said. “It was relationships built on trust, it was relationships built on confidence in each other, it was relationships built on how he valued each of them and their participation and their input. Because he’s such an incredible listener, they knew that he was paying attention to everything they had to say.”

Brown’s breadth of experience in some of the world’s most vital military theaters is unparalleled among general officers today, Goldfein said — particularly his time commanding the nation’s air forces in the Pacific and the Middle East, and serving as a senior leader in Europe.

“I don’t know that we’re going to find an officer who has had more time in joint operations, in every theater, than CQ Brown,” Goldfein said.

The kind of relationship-building Brown excelled at during the 2019 Pacific conference will be vital in his new role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Goldfein said. Brown has already built up a considerable contact list of top leaders around the world, such as ambassadors, top defense ministers and heads of state, during his last three years commanding the Air Force, Goldfein said. He predicted that as chairman, Brown will be able to quickly form ties with international leaders he doesn’t yet know.

“When there’s a crisis and you need to talk to one of your counterparts, that’s the worst time to start building a relationship,” Goldfein said. “You want to build on relationships that you’ve already invested in. … He’s going to bring relationships — across the highest levels of government — with some of the most important countries we ever have to deal with.”