RAF Unveils Its Own Plan for New Drones to Fly Alongside Fighters

RAF Unveils Its Own Plan for New Drones to Fly Alongside Fighters

May 2, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force has unveiled a new electronic warfare drone designed to fly with fighter jets into contested airspace, including alongside its fleet of F-35s. 

Called StormShroud, the prop-propelled aircraft will support RAF F-35B fifth-generation stealth fighters and fourth-generation Eurofighter Typhoons “by blinding enemy radars, which increases the survivability and operational effectiveness of our crewed aircraft,” the RAF said in a statement. 

That is not the only new system the British are working on. RAF says it plans to develop more drones to work with its warplanes, just as the U.S. Air Force is leaning heavily into its approach of teaming unmanned systems with crewed platforms.

Still, the aircraft unveiled recently differs in key ways from the USAF’s flagship Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, said Stacie Pettyjohn of the Center for a New American Security, who has been briefed on the RAF’s plans.

StormShroud is far less advanced than the jet-powered CCAs and is not designed to be directly controlled by fighters, but rather to fly a planned route.

The Royal Air Force’s StormShroud. Courtesy photo

The platform for StormShroud is the Tekever AR3, which the RAF said was selected because it has been proven in Ukraine. The prop-powered aircraft will carry an electronic warfare package made by Leonardo because StormShroud is designed to jam radars and disrupt enemy integrated air defense systems.

The first increment of CCAs, by contrast, are meant to carry extra weapons for manned fighters.

“[StormShroud] is intended to be used as a stand-in jammer or decoy that would be employed with F-35Bs or Typhoons operating inside of enemy air defenses,” said Pettyjohn, the director of CNAS’s Defense Program. “Thus, while StormShroud is intended to operate with fighters, it is not a loyal wingman, which differentiates it from the USAF’s CCA program.”

The first tranche of CCAs, Pettyjohn added, are much larger than StormShroud and are capable of advanced autonomy to operate in formations with F-35s. In contrast, this RAF drone is a more specialized and limited capability with more limited endurance, range, and intelligence, she added. 

The StormShround is a drone that provides “cheap, precise mass and that has been rapidly developed and fielded,” said Pettyjohn.

Specifically, the new system draws on lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine and will give U.K. “frontline military personnel the cutting-edge capability,” British Defense Secretary John Healey said.

The RAF, Pettyjohn noted, differentiates its drones by tiers—tier one aircraft are disposable after one use, and tier two drones are attritable, meaning they might be lost after a few missions. A tier three drone is survivable and could be used many times.

StormShroud is a tier two system, and therefore less costly than a tier three survivable variant, which CCAs generally considered to be. It is designed to be launched by ground forces that are trained to operate in small teams in high-threat environments, the RAF said. The drone will be operated by the RAF’s 216 Squadron.

Still, the StormShroud is not a cheap quadcopter or first-person view style drone that Russia, Ukraine, and increasingly the U.S. military plan to field.

The RAF has a plan for a fleet of drones of varying degrees of sophistication and price.

“This is a seminal moment for the RAF to maintain our advantage in air combat and national security,” Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the head of the RAF, said in a statement. “The RAF is committed to exploring cutting-edge technologies that can enhance its lethality and survivability in a more contested and dangerous world. Autonomous collaborative platforms will revolutionise how we conduct a range of missions, from intelligence gathering to strike and logistical support.”

Space Force Tells Vendors: We Want AI, but It Needs to Be Specific

Space Force Tells Vendors: We Want AI, but It Needs to Be Specific

May 2, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

There are many use cases for different kinds of artificial intelligence in the Space Force, but the service is moving cautiously towards adoption, hampered in part by a disconnect with vendors, officials said May 1. 

At the ACFEA Northern Virginia chapter’s Space Force IT Day in suburban Virginia, Lt. Col. Jose Almanzar had a blunt answer when asked how the unit he commands, the 19th Space Defense Squadron, is using AI.

“To make a long story short, we’re not,” he said.

However, he told the audience of defense industry contractors, “We do know how to spell AI, so that’s good.” 

Joking aside, Almanzar said his squadron is looking at using NIPRGPT, a generative AI model cleared to run on the military’s Non-secure Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet), an unclassified global network run by DOD.  

NIPRGPT is an experimental chatbot developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, which Almanzar said had “helped tremendously in mission planning and reducing administrative actions and helping to standardize a lot of the appraisal writing and award writing and whatnot.” 

But the 19th, as one of the Space Force units responsible for tracking objects in space, has a big data problem, and it needs to use other kinds of AI to get after that, Almanzar said. 

“Where we need help is, we have a lot of data,” he said, explaining that the squadron receives about 1 million observations a day from the service’s Space Surveillance Network, comprised of over 20 different sensors, both in space and on the ground. That’s on top of a daily feed of commercial SDA data compiled by the service’s Joint Commercial Office, he said.  

Validating data from new private sector sensors for inclusion into the Space Force’s definitive data catalogue is very time-consuming, Almanzar said.  

“Having AI tools to help our analysts in [Space Operations Command] and [Space Systems Command] adjudicate the information that these new sensors bring on so we can validate [it] and use it in our gold standard catalog would be extremely helpful,” he said. 

Machine learning AI could also help with preparing ‘Conjunction On Launch’ Assessments (COLA), which the 19th provides to the FAA as part of the aviation regulator’s approval process for space launches in the United States. 

COLAs are designed to ensure that a launch won’t collide with an existing satellite, but they take “hours upon hours upon hours,” Almanzar said. Safety assessments for on-orbit maneuvers—to ensure satellites’ new locations are safe and their new orbits won’t cause collisions—are similarly time consuming.   

“If there’s ways that we can automate that and make it go faster,” he said, “how do we compress that timeline, especially in scenarios that we have had recently when a satellite in [Geostationary Earth Orbit, or] GEO blew up and generated a lot of debris? How do we get that data quickly and make sense of that?”

On top of all that, Almanzar pointed out, the Space Force had historical domain awareness data “going back to Sputnik,” which could be useful to train machine learning AI systems to spot anomalies in current orbital data.  

“Ideally, what I would like for us to do with it is predictive analysis,” he said: “Predictive AI on patterns of behavior, patterns of life [in the data], helping us with orbit determination.” 

Part of the issue with AI adoption, his fellow speakers on a panel discussing data and AI said, is a disconnect with vendors. 

“We absolutely have plans to leverage AI,” said Shannon Pallone, program executive officer for battle management and command, control, and communications at Space Systems Command. 

She said AI could bring immediate value in “helping [with] a lot of mundane administrative tasks. So, how can I start putting information that I had in the templates [for procurement documents]? How do I use it on the back end? How can I be auto generating documentation and … all the artifacts that I need to get an [Authority To Operate on DOD networks].” 

But getting vendors to focus on those issues isn’t easy, she said. 

“One of the biggest challenges I have is you all come in and you’re like, ‘Look at this cool AI stuff I’m doing!’ That does not solve any of my problems,” Pallone said.  

In many vendor pitches, she explained, it isn’t clear, “what is it that your company brings to the table? Is it a large language model? OK, anybody can do that. Is it the data you trained on top of it? That might be more interesting, but is that data relevant to what I’m doing? Or is it just data you picked because it was readily available?” 

Above all, she said vendors had to answer the question: “How does [your product] help me get after the problems I’m trying to solve? How does it get after more space-specific problems? And unless I can see that last piece, I’m struggling to find where the value is,” she said. 

The Space Force’s Space Data and Analytics Officer Chandra Donelson added that vendors needed to go back to basics: “The first question is: What problem are we trying to solve? … And I cannot tell you how many times people walk into my office and they’re like, ‘Hey! We have a solution. Now let’s go look for problems across the Space Force that we’re able to get after with it.’ That is the wrong thing.”  

She said starting with the problem meant you can look for a solution, even if it isn’t the latest buzzy concept. 

“Once you identify the problem, maybe artificial intelligence is a solution. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it is a specific type of artificial intelligence,” she suggested. 

She also urged vendors to focus on their core strengths, since that is their value proposition and what makes them an attractive partner for the Space Force. 

“In all aspects of our life,” she said, “choosing a partner is the most important decision you’re ever going to make. So when we choose our technology partners, those are the most important decisions that we have to make. So for our partners, I want you to also be realistic about what capability you can provide for the service. If you are not an AI company, do not try to become an AI company, just because that’s what’s selling right now. Do what you do very well, and let’s have some real, I would say, critical and crucial conversations about that.”  

Experts caution that building trust with operators is vital to the acceptance of AI tools, and Col. Ernest “Linc” Bonner, commander of the Space Force’s Futures Task Force, said the service needed to be careful as it moved towards adoption. 

“There needs to be a deliberate examination of both what the capability of the technology is at this time and how those things can be brought to bear, and what would be required for them to be brought to bear for the service, for our various missions,” he told an earlier session. 

“AI has a lot of potential, and I think it’s still unclear where that’s going to take us. There’s certainly potential in terms of things like mission planning and generation of courses of action to facilitate that type of decision making.” 

He said another use case was autonomous defense systems for the large-scale, low-Earth orbit constellations, “and I’m sure there are others that I haven’t even scratched the surface of.” 

Trump Proposes $1 Trillion Defense Budget for 2026

Trump Proposes $1 Trillion Defense Budget for 2026

May 2, 2025

President Donald Trump is proposing a 13 percent increase in defense spending for fiscal 2026, pushing the budget plan over $1 trillion for the first time ever, according to a budget document obtained by Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

“The budget increases Defense spending by 13 percent, and prioritizes investments to: strengthen the safety, security, and sovereignty of the homeland; deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific; and revitalize America’s defense industrial base,” the document outlining a “skinny version” of the President’s Budget Request states. 

The 13 percent increase would take the Pentagon’s 2026 budget to $1.01 trillion, based on the $893 billion fiscal 2025 budget approved under a full-year continuing resolution in March.

Both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have pledged repeatedly to take the budget over $1 trillion. Bloomberg News first reported the $1.01 trillion figure. 

However, some Republican lawmakers in Congress are arguing the 13 percent increase cited by the White House is misleading, because it includes funds from the reconciliation package currently being worked on Capitol Hill.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget “is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget,” Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Roger Wicker said in a statement. “It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms. This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage. … I have said for months that reconciliation defense spending does not replace the need for real growth in the military’s base budget.”

The money in the reconciliation bill can be spent from fiscal 2025 through fiscal 2029—the entirety of Trump’s term. In another budget document, however, OMB noted that “the Administration assumes enactment of a reconciliation bill later this year that will include at least $325 billion in additional resources (including $175 billion for border/non-defense and $150 billion for defense) to supplement certain discretionary activities. For 2026, the administration assumes a total of $163.1 billion will be allocated with $113.3 billion going to the Department of Defense, $43.8 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, and $6 billion for NNSA.”

“Make no mistake: a one-time influx reconciliation spending is not a substitute for full-year appropriations. It’s a supplement,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, chair of the powerful Appropriations defense subcommittee. “OMB accounting gimmicks may well convince Administration officials and spokesmen that they’re doing enough to counter the growing, coordinated challenges we face from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and radical terrorists. But they won’t fool Congress. The correct response to the most dangerous threats to U.S. interests in decades is not a fifth straight budget request that proposes a real-dollar cut to the U.S. military.”

More details on the 2026 budget are expected later this month. The so-called skinny budget outlined in the budget memo emphasizes investment in Trump administration priorities, including the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, shipbuilding and munitions production, and countering China in the Pacific. 

Republicans recently unveiled a $150 billion reconciliation package identifying many of the same priorities.

The government’s fiscal year runs October 1 through September 30, but Congress has rarely passed budgets in time for the start of a fiscal year in recent decades. When that happens, Congress must first pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running; those bills typically freeze spending at the prior year’s level and prevent new programs from starting. 

The president’s budget request is a proposal. Because Congress has the power of the purse, lawmakers can add or subtract from the proposal before passing it.  

A $1 trillion defense budget was once seen as unimaginable, but inflation over time has made it more and more likely. The Biden administration had projected spending trillion-dollar defense budgets by the end of the decade, but the one-year increase of 13 percent accelerates that by several years.  

Assuming the detailed budget mirrors the proposed reconciliation package, the military branch that stands to benefit the most will be the Navy, which has long articulated an argument for increased shipbuilding. Although far smaller, the Space Force would also likely gain significantly in percentage terms. 

Data Is Fundamental to the Space Force. But Sharing It Is a Challenge

Data Is Fundamental to the Space Force. But Sharing It Is a Challenge

May 1, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

The Space Force relies entirely on data—but it lacks the systems and tools to analyze and share that data properly even within the service, let alone with international partners, officials said May 1. 

“It’s the backbone of everything that we’re going to do, every application that we’re going to build, every system that we use,” Shannon Pallone, program executive officer for battle management and command, control, and communications at Space Systems Command, told an audience of defense contractors at the ACFEA Northern Virginia chapter’s Space Force IT Day in suburban Virginia. 

She said space is increasingly a “system of systems environment … You don’t have satellite A over here, and satellite B over there and they never talk to each other. Everything interacts.” She compared it to a mapping app on a modern smartphone: “They’re interacting with data, they’re getting smarter over time. They’re pulling in restaurant reviews, pulling in real-time traffic data, pulling in weather,” she said.  

In the same way, Pallone said, the Space Force has to think about data as a principle element in all its technology. “If we’re not thinking about it with a data-first mentality, we’re going to end up buying the wrong things. They’re not going to talk to each other, and we’re never going to get to where we need to go.” 

“It’s the most foundational and fundamental thing that we need to get right as a Space Force,” she told a panel on data and artificial intelligence. 

Data “really enables all our space operations,” agreed Lt. Col. Jose Almanzar, commander of the 19th Space Defense Squadron, which is one of the Space Force units responsible for tracking objects in space. “You can’t do launch, can’t fly satellites, can’t really de-orbit or even operate satellites safely without having that fundamental space domain awareness data. … Without [that data] I think all the other functions we do in space are in jeopardy,” he said. 

Tracking 46,000 objects in orbit generates about 1 million observations daily, Almanzar said. That’s on top of a daily feed of commercial SDA data compiled by the service’s Joint Commercial Office, he said.

Such a huge volume of data creates a couple of challenges, he explained. “One, how do we prevent important data from falling beneath the noise floor, and it goes unnoticed? That’s a big risk. But, two, when a lot of things are coming at the operators, how do we minimize the risk that they get inundated with useless data? And how do we tease out what’s useful, what’s not, in different environments?” 

Providing that firehose of SDA data, even to other Space Force components, is challenging, Almanzar said, because of the limitations of aging legacy systems. 

Some of the Guardians that joined his team “probably saw some really nice commercials on TV with really cool graphics and whatnot,” Almanzar said. 

“And when they show up to [our unit], and they see the system that we’re working with, they’re like, what is this? What are we dealing with? And that’s not just a 19th [Space Defense Squadron] thing, that’s across the Space Force,” he said, adding that the service was investing heavily to modernize quickly. 

But, in the meantime, he said, “there’s risk there, because a lot of the systems we’re using aren’t interoperable.” 

He explained that, to move data around, operators frequently have to burn it onto a CD. “Those are small round plastic discs for the folks that don’t remember,” he joked. 

Those problems are even worse when it comes to international partners, explained Group Capt. Jonny Farrow, the deputy director for strategy, futures, partnerships, and requirements at Space Force HQ and a Royal Air Force exchange officer, during an earlier session. 

As a result of over-classification and other restrictions on information, he said, adversaries can know more about what U.S. forces could achieve in space that allies do. 

“To put things in terms of red and blue, I would say collectively, the red forces probably know more about blue capabilities than the blue forces know about each other. And that’s an absolute fact. And it’s certainly something that we really need to get over if we are going to get further,” he said. 

He added it was frustrating because in an operational context, “when there’s an existential threat or risk to life, then we’re able to move these barriers away. And then when we go back to steady state, normal jogging, the barriers come back down again.” 

Sexual Assaults in Air Force Tick Up, as Hiring Freeze Affects Prevention Workforce

Sexual Assaults in Air Force Tick Up, as Hiring Freeze Affects Prevention Workforce

May 1, 2025 | By David Roza

The total number of reported sexual assaults in the Department of the Air Force ticked up about two percent in 2024 while still being lower than the total from 2022, as Pentagon officials say a hiring freeze on federal government civilian employees limits their ability to fill critical sexual assault prevention and response jobs.

The total number of reported sexual assaults across the military declined four percent, according to the fiscal 2024 edition of an annual report on sexual assault and harassment data briefed to the media on May 1. The estimated prevalence of sexual assaults in ‘24 was not calculated in time for the new report.

The goal is for the estimated prevalence to decline, but officials actually want to see an increase in the reporting rate, since it indicates victims feel they can receive the resources they need and hold offenders accountable.

“We’re still reporting at historically high rates,” Dr. Nathan Galbreath, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), told reporters. “And so even though we’d like to see the number of reports increase, I’m still very satisfied that our military members know that they can come forward, they can report in any number of ways and get the help that they need to recover.”

Number of Reported Sexual Assaults

YearDODDepartment of the Air Force
202481951879
202385151838
202289421928
202188661701
202078161661

Against the backdrop of the report are changes to the sexual assault prevention and response workforce, including response coordinators, victim advocates, and special victims’ counsels, who help guide and support victims through the investigation, recovery, and justice processes.

“For the prevention workforce, each of the military departments did have targets that they were aiming to hit in terms of hiring each year,” Dr. Andra Tharp, director of the Office of Command Climate and Well-Being Integration, said during a media roundtable. “So any kind of pause is going to impact their ability to hit those targets.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the civilian hiring freeze in late February in alignment with President Donald Trump’s efforts “to make the federal government more efficient and responsive,” the secretary wrote in a Feb. 28 memo. Since then, there have been what Tharp described as “multiple waves of off-ramps” including two deferred resignation programs and a widespread firing of probationary employees. 

Meanwhile, about 300 prevention workforce positions on the USAJobs website are essentially on hold, she added—though the Air Force and possibly other departments have successfully bid for exemptions for prevention positions.

While victims’ counsels are uniformed attorneys, the other roles are held by both uniformed and civilian employees. Data shows that full-time SAPR workers are vastly more effective than “collateral” workers who have other primary duties.

“Our survey of sexual assault responders this year again confirmed that our full-time sexual assault response coordinators and victim advocates delivered the vast majority of services to victims,” Galbreath said. “Exceptionally few collateral duty personnel assisted victims, with the median number of victims served being zero.”

The full-time SAPR workforce stood at 1,648 in 2024, with plans to grow to 2,600 by fiscal 2027. Meanwhile, the Pentagon aims to cut the collateral, or part-time, workforce from 18,897 in 2024 to 3,400 in 2027, limited to ships, submarines, and other hard-to-fill locations. The move should save hundreds of thousands of hours in training time every year, Galbreath said.

These are demanding positions: an annex to the May 1 report found that about half of SARCs and victim advocates felt burnout, along with 74 percent of victims’ counsels. Victims’ counsels are particularly strained, Galbreath said, leading SAPRO to ask the services to “review and update where needed their resourcing and training of these important personnel to help reduce some of the stress that they’re experiencing.”

SAPRO is still assessing how the waves of off-ramps will affect these issues: “we’re really trying to get our arms around the total impacts of that,” Tharp said.

Galbreath said he sent information to the military departments on April 30 encouraging them to seek exemptions for the sexual assault response workforce. OSD did not respond in time to questions about whether the services had acted on that message.

“In the meantime, we’re using this time to ensure that we really have right-sized this workforce,” Tharp said. “And we’re creating contingency plans just to ensure that we don’t kind of lose ground while we’re making these adjustments.”

Senior defense officials said the Defense Department is delaying plans to hire at least 1,000 more civilians to prevent sexual assault, suicides, and behavior problems in the military, the Associated Press reported April 28. The same day, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote to Hegseth concerned about reductions to SAPR services.

“Even minor reductions risk compromising decades of progress toward ending sexual abuse and harassment in the Department,” they wrote.

Five days earlier, Hegseth directed the services to review their Military Equal Opportunity and civilian Equal Employment Opportunity programs, the offices charged with investigating discrimination and harassment complaints.

The secretary called for dismissing any complaints “that are unsubstantiated by actionable, credible evidence,” and considering administrative or disciplinary actions against troops who knowingly submit false complaints.

False complaints of sexual assault are rare: the May 1 report showed that the rate of sexual assault cases determined to be unfounded or false has not exceeded three percent since 2014. The rate of such cases in 2024 was one percent.

Advocates worried Hegseth’s memo would have a chilling effect on military sexual assault reporting. But Galbreath said he did not expect the memo would affect the number of reports going forward.

“At the end of the day, the standard of proof remains the same with regard to any sexual harassment complaint,” he said. “All complaints are reviewed, the evidence is analyzed, and a legal officer often opines on whether or not action can be taken.”

Lohmeier, Nominee for Under SECAF, Defends Record in Confirmation Hearing

Lohmeier, Nominee for Under SECAF, Defends Record in Confirmation Hearing

May 1, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

Matthew Lohmeier, who was fired from a Space Force squadron command just two years ago, took another step in his unlikely journey to the Department of the Air Force’s No. 2 job May 1, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee that his background as an Air Force F-15C pilot and space operations officer have prepared him well for the post.

“I speak the language of both the Air Force and Space Force,” he said. “I am air-minded and space-minded. I understand the necessity of United States superiority in both of those warfighting domains.” 

Lohmeier graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2006 and flew the T-38 as an instructor pilot and the F-15C operationally. By 2015, he was in his first space-focused assignment, and in 2020, he transferred to the Space Force, commanding the 11th Space Warning Squadron and providing missile warning and tracking worldwide. 

In 2021, he self-published a book alleging that Marxist ideology had become widespread in the military and criticizing the Pentagon’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion under President Joe Biden. After he expanded on those thoughts during a civilian podcast interview, he was removed from his command.

Lohmeier promised his focus as undersecretary of the Air Force would be on challenges like nuclear modernization and ensuring a resilient space architecture while Democrats on the Armed Services Committee challenged his past record with questions about his political views.

Lohmeier said in written testimony that “the modernization of the nuclear portfolio and ensuring the resilience of our space-based architecture will be [his] most pressing challenges.” As undersecretary, he wrote, his job would be “communicating that nuclear modernization is not an option; it is the very foundation of our national security strategy—and we must get it right.” 

Lohmeier defended his rapid rise from an obscure fired squadron commander to being on the verge of becoming one of the Pentagon’s senior civilians. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) pressed him on whether his experience is sufficient for overseeing programs such as Sentinel, the next intercontinental ballistic missile program, which is projected to cost $140 billion—among the most costly defense programs ever.

“This is a question of scale or scope, and I’ll say that I’ve always been faithful to the trust that’s been committed to me, even though the scale has been much smaller,” Lohmeier said. “I’ll say humbly that I believe I’m up to this challenge. I’m well qualified for this job. I’m air-minded and space-minded and I understand very well the threats especially that we face from our peer competitor in China.” 

Calling himself a “fast learner,” Lohmeier said he would rely on expert advice as he backs up Air Force Secretary nominee Troy Meink, also a former Air Force officer, but one who has held senior positions for a decade. (Meink already cleared his confirmation hearing, but the Senate has yet to vote on his nomination.)

Lohmeier echoed many of the same points Meink made in his confirmation hearing, calling for the Space Force to develop “both offensive and defensive space control” systems and to exploit commercial technology as much as possible. 

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a retired Army officer, challenged Lohmeier on taking his criticism of the military public rather than working within his chain of command. He replied that he had exhausted every official avenue for expressing his concerns about the politicization of the military before writing his book, but said he could not recall if he ever considered filing an official complaint under Article 138 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

“You were relieved of command not for your beliefs,” Duckworth admonished, “but for how you chose to express them on Active-Duty while holding a position of authority.”

But Lohmeier pushed back. “I will reject the idea that I did anything unlawful or unethical,” Lohmeier responded. “I never publicly criticized my chain of command. I never publicly was politically partisan while acting in an official capacity. And both of those allegations were the reasons I was relieved of my command and I wasn’t found guilty of either of those things.” 

Lohmeier was relieved by now-U.S. Space Command boss Gen. Stephen N. Whiting and Maj. Gen. Devin R. Pepper. Asked by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) if he would recuse himself from any personnel decisions relating to them, the nominee said he was “focused on moving forward in the future.”

He pledged: “I will treat all people fairly according to the law and I’ll try and do my job to the best of my duty if I’m confirmed.”

Democrats on the committee questioned whether Lohmeier could lead Airmen and Guardians who possess different viewpoints, but Lohmeier committed to maintaining an apolitical military.

“I’ve been out of uniform for the past four years nearly and have rather enjoyed my ability to speak freely and express a full range of the expression of my ideas on platforms such as X,” Lohmeier said. “However, I’m very committed … to making sure that we eliminate political distractions from the military workplace.”

Air Force Exercises in Pacific Could Expand with $622 Million Extra from Congress

Air Force Exercises in Pacific Could Expand with $622 Million Extra from Congress

May 1, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

Air Force exercises in the Indo-Pacific may soon get even bigger and more robust, as lawmakers move to invest more than $620 million in such efforts.

The bulk of that money, contained in a $150 billion reconciliation package currently making its way through Congress, is $532.6 million for earmarked for “the Pacific Air Force biennial large-scale exercise.”

PACAF has been planning Resolute Force Pacific, or REFORPAC, for summer 2025 as one of the largest Air Force exercises in recent history by aircraft count.

It will involve up to 300 aircraft across 25 locations with partner nations. The service will “flood Airmen and aircraft” into the region this summer for two weeks to better prepare the Air Force for the “galvanizing threat” of war against China, according to the Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin. The event will also dovetail with other major exercises like Bamboo Eagle and Talisman Sabre.

The Air Force declined to comment on the pending legislation’s impact on REFORPAC, but officials had previously said the scale of the exercise could be impacted by whether Congress passed a new budget for fiscal 2025. Lawmakers wound up passing a continuing resolution instead of a new budget, but the reconciliation package would add money in 2025 and allow it to be spent through fiscal 2029—meaning the funds could also pay for future editions of REFORPAC.

An additional $90 million is designated more generally for Air Force exercises in the Western Pacific region, which could support the service’s extensive, regular drills with regional allies like Australia, Japan, and the Philippines.  

Airmen with the 317th Airlift Wing prepare for a Max Endurance Operation outside a C-130J Super Hercules equipped with external fuel tanks enroute to support Exercise Balikatan 25 at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, April 17, 2025. Balikatan is a longstanding annual exercise between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and U.S. military. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Caleb Schellenberg

The extra money for exercises are part of a section in the reconciliation package that includes $11 billion for activities focused on the Indo-Pacific. The proposal comes amid steadily rising tensions between the U.S. and China; the Pentagon identified the People’s Republic of China as the U.S.’s “pacing threat’ in its latest National Defense Strategy, and President Donald Trump’s new tariff measures have ignited a trade war.

In addition to more money for Air Force exercises, the package sets aside $20 million for “exercises with Taiwan.” It also includes $850 million dedicated for activities aimed at “protecting U.S. interests and deterring Chinese Communist Party aggression through military support and assistance to Taiwan’s military and security forces.”

Last year, U.S. and Taiwanese naval forces conducted joint drills in the South China Sea, though officials tried to keep it under wraps, according to Reuters.

China has ramped up military activities in the waters and air defense zone near Taiwan as it seeks to reinforce its territorial claims over the island. Washington and Taipei have been strengthening their military ties in response to include weapons sales, with the U.S. approving a $385 million arms package for Taiwan primarily focused on upgrading its fleet of F-16 fighters.

The reconciliation package also has funds for military construction projects in the Indo-Pacific region; $450 million toward airfield development and $200 million to accelerate the Guam Defense System. The Pentagon will receive an additional $1.1 billion for infrastructure development across the region.

These additional funds could support several defense projects already underway; the Guam Defense System is a $1.7 billion initiative to enhance Guam’s air and missile defense aims to provide 360-degree protection against ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic threats. The plan involves integrating land-based Aegis systems with the existing Patriot and THAAD systems, which protect against intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The integrated defense systems, comprising radars, sensors, launchers, and command-and-control systems will be deployed across 16 locations on the island.

The Air Force also planned $400 million for upgraded runways and expanded facilities on the small island of Yap, located between Guam and Palau, as part of its 2025 budget request. Additionally, the Pentagon is planning $128 million in infrastructure projects across seven military installations in the Philippines.

The largest single allocation within the $11 billion, however, is a mystery—$4 billion set aside for classified space superiority programs, a sum that could significantly augment the Space Force’s $30 billion budget.

Meeting the Software Challenge: How the New Acquisition Pathway Came to Be

Meeting the Software Challenge: How the New Acquisition Pathway Came to Be

May 1, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series exploring the opportunities and challenges facing the Trump administration’s changes to how the Pentagon buys software. Part 1 is available here.

The new rule book for buying software that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently made mandatory has its origins in problems with an aircraft. 

“The F-35 was always talked about as a computer wrapped in a jet,” said Bess Dopkeen, who served until January as a senior advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu. “And there were lots of wonderful people working on it. But the way it was purchased and developed, in reality, was that they built a jet, thinking, ‘Someday we’ll plug in that computer and it’ll all work fine.’ And of course it didn’t work fine, because you made the software an afterthought.” 

The F-35 was only one of many major Pentagon programs that had problems with software, but the yearslong delays and budget overruns made it the poster child for widespread dissatisfaction in Congress and elsewhere with the way the Defense Department acquired software.

“There was a lot of frustration on the Hill,” said Dopkeen.

It was apparent, even in 2017-18, that the Pentagon was a generation behind in its thinking. “Software was definitely thought about as a secondary backroom thing in DOD. We buy a jet. We buy hardware. We put software in it later. Even seven, eight years ago, no serious commercial concern thought like that. They were all ‘Software First’” she said. 

To drag DOD into the 21st century, Congress mandated the Defense Innovation Board, an advisory council of industry executives, venture capital founders, and academic luminaries, “to undertake a study on streamlining software development and acquisition regulations” for DOD and the military services. 

The Software Acquisition and Practices (SWAP) Study was helmed by innovation board members CalTech scientist Richard Murray and former United Technologies executive J. Michael McQuade, and Dopkeen was the initial director. It published its final report in March 2019. 

But, in the fashion of modern software development, it had already released several advance features— including an October 2018 concept paper titled “Detecting Agile BS” that skewered the practice of using contemporary agile terminology about traditional legacy programs in order to make them seem more modern and relevant.  

The paper went viral on Reddit, revealing that the practice of dressing legacy mutton up as agile lamb was not restricted to the DOD. 

“It turns out everyone was doing it,” said Dopkeen. “We were really on to something and speaking to people who were frustrated, even in the commercial sector, by people pretending to be doing agile, but really holding on to the old ways of doing things.” 

Along with the report, the board also published a set of six two-or-three page case studies, based on visits and interviews with ongoing acquisition programs, where they dissected the ways current programs of record were succeeding or failing at buying software. 

“We really wanted to avoid ‘Innovation Tourism,’” said Dopkeen, which she defined as just telling the Pentagon, “‘You suck at everything, including buying software.’” 

“There are smart people working very hard on this stuff. It’s not bad because they suck, it’s bad because it’s an extremely complex, difficult problem with multiple underlying causes,” she added. 

The vignettes were designed “to make sure everyone understood there aren’t any easy answers,” and to help come up with recommendations that could address real problems in a detailed way. “We wanted to move beyond simply: ‘Don’t buy software the way you used to,’” she said. 

By the time the final report was published in March 2019, Dopkeen was working on the House Armed Services Committee and helped staff a bipartisan effort to put the recommendations of the study into law in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, including:

  • Directing a new policy on talent management for digital and software professionals.
  • Directing a Department-wide strategy for software science and technology
  • Granting authorities for continuous integration and delivery of software applications and upgrades
  • Directing software development and acquisition training and management programs

The Color of Money 

It took one more year to get a legislative fix to a different but very much related problem: The color of money. 

“We had to get the appropriators on board to deal with that,” said Dopkeen, referencing the congressional committees that actually allocate funding, as opposed to those that authorize policy. The NDAA is drafted by the Armed Services Committees in each chamber. But the appropriations bills that allocate spending are written by the appropriations committees.  

DOD has several different “colors” of funding, Dopkeen explained, representing the different purposes for which money is appropriated by those committees. Research, development, test, and evaluation, or RDT&E, dollars can be used for prototyping and testing new capabilities, but buying them needs procurement dollars. Once they’ve been purchased, money that’s spent on sustaining them has to come from operations and maintenance (O&M) dollars. 

That might work for buying a tank, said Dopkeen, but software is different. And the budget planning process means program managers have to predict two years out what proportion of their activities will be dedicated to which color of money. “Every time I push an update, I am fixing bugs, which is probably O&M, but I am also introducing new capabilities, which should count as procurement, and I might be beta testing the next round of new capabilities, which is arguably RDT&E. It just doesn’t make sense for software,” she said. 

Worse, the problem meant that even software projects which were funded by a big program of record like F-35 might find themselves unfunded if they needed the wrong kind of money in the wrong year.  

“If you’ve decided or been told that you are O&M, and the program manager only has RTD&E dollars that year, then you are out of luck,” she said. “It is literally paralyzing to the point where it slows things down for years. Because the manager might be, ‘OK, I can request O&M funds next year,’ but in the meantime all the work on software has just ground to halt.”  

To get around the problem, reformers created a new funding stream under RTD&E. The seven existing budget activities under that color, Dopkeen explained, spanned the full developmental lifecycle from basic research to deployment. BA8 was a special activity for software which could be used at any stage of its development, she said, “because software is never done.”  

Part 1 looked at how the Air Force is embracing the new Software Acquisition Pathway. Part 3 will look at questions about the pathway and the flexible acquisition tools that accompany it. 

CCA Fighter Drones Start Ground Testing Ahead of First Flights; New Organization Unveiled

CCA Fighter Drones Start Ground Testing Ahead of First Flights; New Organization Unveiled

May 1, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The two prototypes for the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program have started ground testing, Air Force Chief Staff Gen. David W. Allvin announced May 1, ahead of a planned first flight this summer. The service also announced it has created a new kind of organization to operate the new aircraft.

The developments are another sign that the Air Force’s plans to move fast on the initial “Increment 1” of the program are on track.

“This is a huge milestone and another step toward first flight and rapid delivery to our warfighters,” Allvin wrote in a post on X. He had recently teased there was “big news” coming on the CCA program following a meeting with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth this week.

The two CCAs are the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems YFQ-42A and Anduril Industries’ YFQ-44A—the first unmanned aircraft in the Air Force inventory to receive a fighter designation. A winner for the Increment 1 competition is supposed to be announced sometime after October. Production of as many as 200 of the autonomous aircraft is supposed to be underway by 2028.

“We’re moving fast because the warfighter needs this capability,” Allvin said in a press release. “CCA is about delivering decisive advantage in highly contested environments. The program is accelerating fielding through innovative design and acquisition strategies—and both vendors are meeting or exceeding key milestones. These aircraft will help us turn readiness into operational dominance.”

General Atomics president David Alexander said “we remain on schedule to test and fly YFQ-42 in the coming months.” He also touted GA’s experience in unmanned systems, having “pioneered more than two dozen different unmanned aircraft types for the U.S. and its allies, including multiple unmanned combat jets flying today, and logged nearly nine million total flight hours.” Work on the YFQ-42 “will further expand the field of unmanned aviation, and we remain excited for the future.”

Jason Levin, Anduril’s senior vice president for air dominance and strike, noted that readiness for ground testing of the prototype aircraft came “just one year” after Anduril was chosen as a finalist for the CCA program. The milestone “highlights the program’s aggressive commitment to schedule,” he said. The YFQ-44A passed its critical design review in November 2024 and received its nomenclature in March.

“We are on schedule to fly YFQ-44A this summer,” he said.

Anduril and the Air Force are “pioneering a new generation of semi-autonomous fighter aircraft that will fundamentally transform air combat,” Levin said. “The YQ-44A delivers highly capable, mass-producible, and more affordable fighter capability at the speed and scale required to stay ahead of the threat.”

Delivering the first aircraft “at unprecedented speed” will ensure that the pilots developing tactics for the new aircraft “have ample opportunity to experiment and build the trust required to support operational fielding of CCAs before the end of the decade,” Levin said.

New Unit

The Air Force also announced May 1 that it has created a new organization to operate CCAs, and it has selected Beale Air Force Base, Calif., as the preferred location to host the new unit.

This “CCA Aircraft Readiness Unit” will “provide combat aircraft ready to deploy worldwide at a moment’s notice,” the service said.

“CCA are semi-autonomous in nature, so the ARU will not have to fly a significant number of daily sorties to maintain readiness,” according to USAF. “The aircraft will be maintained in a fly-ready status and flown minimally so the number of airmen required to support the fleet will be substantially lower than other weapons systems.”

The establishment of this new organization demonstrates “further progress toward operationalizing CCA capabilities.”

Beale is home to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, which operates the crewed U-2 Dragon Lady and uncrewed RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft. The base developed facilities and procedures for the RQ-4 series, until now the Air Force’s only semi-autonomous aircraft.

“The pace of innovation must outmatch the pace of the threat,” Allvin said. “CCA is how we do that.”

These first CCA aircraft are intended for a purely air-to-air mission: to carry additional missiles for the F-22 and F-35, which have a limited number of shots because they must carry missiles internally to remain stealthy. Pilots of the two frontline fighters have for years asked the Air Force to find a way to expand the number of weapons they can shoot per sortie. The CCA has emerged as at least one solution.

The CCA program is intended to provide the Air Force with “affordable mass,” dramatically expanding the number of aircraft and missiles the combat fleet can put in the air, and compelling an adversary to treat each one as a fully-capable threat aircraft. The idea is to overwhelm and confuse a defender as aircraft approach on multiple axes of attack.

Both the Anduril “Fury” and the as-yet unnamed General Atomics CCA take off and land conventionally on a runway. The Air Force has experimented with other autonomous craft, however, that launch from a vehicle on the ground and are either recovered vertically or are caught in a net.       

While future iterations of the CCA are expected to carry out missions such as electronic warfare and ground attack, the Air Force has not yet released a roadmap explaining its plans for those aircraft.

In fact, the characteristics of Increment 2, which is set to get underway next year, remain undecided, according to Maj. Gen. Joseph D. Kunkel, head of Air Force Futures, who nevertheless has suggested it will be less, not more sophisticated than Increment 1.

Speaking on an AFA Warfighters in Action discussion April 24, Kunkel said that while there remain options for Increment 2 to be a “more exquisite” aircraft, “it’s probably going to closer to this low-end thing.”

Though Air Force leaders in the Biden administration suggested that Increment 2 would need more capabilities than Increment 1, Kunkel said extensive wargaming has shown that “there’s going to be room … for other capabilities that aren’t as exquisite … that are cheaper, that provide mass.”

He also said that in the quest for operational flexibility and low cost, CCAs might be launched in “other ways” than from a runway, “that don’t rely on bases,” suggesting they could be air-launched.

It’s unclear, though, where the Air Force sees the cost and capability boundaries between Increment 1—with an estimated price of $27-$30 million apiece—Increment 2, and expendable cruise missiles. The service has in recent years conducted “Rapid Dragon” experiments in which pallets of cruise missiles are dropped out of the back of cargo aircraft. Those experiments did not involve a recovery mechanism, though.

The CCA program parallels the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program and is funded through the same budget line. The “family of systems” that comprise NGAD include CCAs and the crewed centerpiece of the formation, now known as the F-47. Service and industry leaders have recently said that tests have shown that F-22 and F-35 pilots can manage as many as six CCAs concurrently with their other flying demands.

Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed to this report.