To Secure Arctic, NORTHCOM Builds Closer Ties to Pacific, European Commands

To Secure Arctic, NORTHCOM Builds Closer Ties to Pacific, European Commands

Sept. 26, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

U.S. Northern Command plans to sign an agreement with its European and Pacific counterparts to enhance coordination and close security seams in the Arctic, a strategically vital region where all three commands converge, U.S. officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

NORTHCOM’s Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, U.S. European Command’s Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, and U.S. Pacific Command’s Adm. Samuel Paparo will finalize the agreement, which aims to strengthen information sharing and ensure that adversaries cannot exploit the geographic boundaries among the commands.

U.S. Northern Command’s long-standing motto, “We have the watch,” has taken on greater urgency in recent years as the potential means to attack the U.S. Arctic region have grown. Today, the command’s geographic focus stretches across Canada, Greenland, and south to Mexico and parts of the Caribbean, and the potential dangers have expanded to include a range of emerging threats, from intelligence-gathering balloons to ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.  

Guillot, in a September interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine, said the command has managed the growth well. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve received a few new missions with Greenland, the Southern Border, Golden Dome, and the counter-UAS mission, and we’ve been able to evolve and incorporate those into our daily homeland defense operations, I think, seamlessly,” said Guillot, whose responsibilities also include heading the binational U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as NORAD.

“The command is growing as the number of threats and the number of avenues of approach that they can use to threaten us increase,” he added of NORTHCOM.

The Arctic’s strategic importance has grown as melting polar ice has opened up the region for greater commercial traffic and resource exploitation.

Russia, which owns more than half the Arctic coastline, has long projected its military might in the region.

More recently, China has sought to assert itself as an Arctic nation, not because it controls territory there but because of its value as a transit venue, shortening the trade routes between China and Europe. China operates research vessels there, including submersibles.

“They’re seeking to move themselves forward militarily and become global power projectors, not regional power projectors, and part of that will involve holding us at risk through the Arctic and ensuring that policy in the Arctic reflects their interests,” retired Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, Guillot’s predecessor at NORTHCOM and NORAD, said in an interview.

A joint China-Russia bomber patrol in the region, which took off in 2024 from a Russian base, demonstrated closer ties between the two and raised concerns across North America and Europe about their growing cooperation.

Canadian CF-18 Hornets joined U.S. F-35A Lightning II and F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters, all from NORAD, to intercept Russian TU-95 and Chinese H-6 bombers in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, July 24, 2024. U.S. Department of Defense Photo

“When you see Russia and China cooperating militarily in the Arctic, with a greater capacity arguably than anywhere else on Earth, I think that should give some signals that we should be paying attention to what’s going on in the region,” said Iris Ferguson, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience from 2022-2025.

Ferguson sees closing the gaps between U.S. military commands that converge in the Arctic region as essential to enhanced security.

“There are multiple seams in the Arctic for the United States,” she said. “The one between NORTHCOM and EUCOM is a significant one and is one area that deserves more attention.”

NORTHCOM led the drive to formalize an agreement with its fellow combatant commands, working closely with EUCOM and its boss, Grynkewich, who is also NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, with critical ties to NATO’s Nordic allies. Through NATO, Grynkewich is responsible for defending what NATO dubs the High North, comprising Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and the U.S. The alliance held multiple large-scale Arctic exercises this past summer, some of which Air & Space Forces Magazine experienced firsthand. NATO’s Arctic Sentry “enhanced vigilance activity” operates in cooperation with NORAD and NORTHCOM, and alliance officials describe that cooperation as at a level not seen in decades.

Guillot said the potential threats aren’t limited to America’s largest potential adversaries.

“I see the threat to our continent changing not just from Russia and China, but from multiple adversaries,” Guillot said. “The biggest change is that it’s from all avenues of approach instead of just from the north, and it’s with systems that could affect us from further away. So therefore our defense capabilities need to be expanded further from our borders to make sure that we’re defending at the appropriate range.”

“What that necessitates is cooperation with EUCOM, PACOM, and SOUTHCOM, where we can exchange information, pictures, intelligence, and even resources to defend further away,” Guillot said.

VanHerck applauded efforts to strengthen Arctic security and stop threats before they reach North America.

“Homeland defense doesn’t start in the homeland,” VanHerck said. “It starts forward with allies and partners and fellow combat commanders forward. Ideally, you have a posture and a presence and enough domain awareness that you deter those activities before they ever start. And if they’re going to attack, you can defeat those adversaries or capabilities further forward.”

The Trump administration has made Arctic security a centerpiece of its foreign policy, pressing to win new concessions for American basing in Greenland, expanding beyond a single Space Force installation to establish two new bases. Demonstrating the critical nature of Greenland to North American security, the administration transferred responsibility for Greenland, a territory of Denmark, to U.S. Northern Command, removing it from U.S. European Command’s area of responsibility.

That transfer is far from symbolic. “A lot of exercises and operations that we would normally conduct either unilaterally, or perhaps with Canada through NORAD, we’re now doing with other countries to include Denmark,” Guillot said.

A recent exercise with the U.S. and allied nations marked the first time Danish F-35s landed in Greenland.

U.S., Canadian, and Danish forces conducted joint Operation Arctic Vanguard and NATO exercises in Greenland this month that drew F-35As from continental U.S. bases, U.S. F-16s from Alaska, Canadian CF-18s, and Danish F-35As. French air-to-air refueling aircraft and NATO-operated E-3 AWACS command-and-control jets also joined the operations as part of NATO’s Arctic Sentry.

Referencing the recent exercises, Guillot said allies were “fully integrated” and “operating in multiple lanes at the same time,” a shift from a few years ago when the U.S. may have conducted unilateral training instead. Operating as an integrated whole creates dilemmas for adversaries and acts as a force multiplier for the allies.

“That is possible due to the great relationship and partnering by the Danish forces,” Guillot said.

On the other side of North America, near Alaska, the U.S. and Canada recently conducted a joint exercise practicing striking maritime targets in the Bering Sea, using aircraft, surface vessels, and a submarine. The U.S. has also conducted joint naval operations with Canada that involve the U.S. Coast Guard alongside the U.S. military. Those exercises fall under Operation Tundra Merlin, which focuses on deterrence near Alaska, including the western Arctic and Northern Pacific. Pacific Air Forces aircraft stationed in Alaska also supported Arctic Vanguard on the other side of NORTHCOM’s region.

Alaska’s geographic size and placement at the nexus of the NORTHCOM and PACOM areas of responsibility places it in proximity to potential threats from China, Russia, and North Korea.

“I don’t think people appreciate the role that Alaska plays for our homeland defense mission, but also for our Indo-Pacific mission,” Ferguson said. “Alaska is critical as a place of power projection to be able to project power not only into the Indo-Pacific in the event of a contingency, but also into the European theater.”

The exercises underscore Guillot’s broader Nordic Bridge initiative, launched earlier this year to better integrate allied operations across the Arctic. It includes coordination among the various U.S. combatant commands that touch on the region, as well as Canada, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, all NATO allies. Working together, they aim to enhance domain awareness and interoperability.

“We’re working with other friendly Arctic nations to increase our presence,” Guillot said, “to increase and expand the deterrence, and make sure that every exercise we do up there is multinational and along multiple avenues of approach.” 

Air Force Certifies Anduril Barracuda Cruise Missile for Open System Updates

Air Force Certifies Anduril Barracuda Cruise Missile for Open System Updates

Sept. 25, 2026 | By Todd South

The Anduril-built Barracuda cruise missile recently received certification as the Air Force’s first large-scale production munition compliant with open systems architecture.

The certification clears the way for the new weapon, billed as a way for commanders to carry multiple tools in their belts, with options to swap payloads and other features once the missile is delivered to the Air Force.

“Barracuda’s open software architecture means that it can be equipped with a variety of different datalinks and communications modalities, unlocking integrations with a vast spectrum of different aircraft and other communications nodes,” an Anduril spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine Sept. 25.

Anduril is slated to deliver its first Barracuda missiles to the Pentagon in early 2027.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Munition Open Architecture Test and Evaluation Laboratory, or MOATEL, oversees the Weapon Open System Architecture certification process. The lab’s engineers spent four days at Anduril’s California headquarters verifying compliance with open system architecture, known as WOSA, on Anduril hardware, an Anduril spokesperson said.

“This is showing that open architecture can scale beyond prototypes,” Jonathan Shaver, program manager and creator of WOSA at AFRL’s Air Warfare Directorate, said in an Anduril release. “Without that independent path from S&T to MOATEL, the industrial base cannot deliver new technology to the warfighter at the speed the fight requires.”

The certified modularity option for the cruise missile could give commanders a plethora of features to work with in the planned-for stockpile boost.

The Pentagon announced multi-year framework agreements for its Family of Affordable Mass Missiles program in July. Anduril, CoAspire, and Zone 5 Technologies were selected. The agreements call for the three companies to produce 8,000 missiles annually once production ramps up. That timeline targets 5,300 missiles in 2028, rising to 8,000 by 2031.

The MOATEL verification tested 14 WOSA domains: Mission Autonomy, Seeker, Inertial Measurement Unit, GPS, Air-Data Sensor, Propulsion, Airframe Control, Target State Estimator, Altimeter Aiding Navigation, Clock, Autopilot, Guidance, Navigation, and Munitions Data Bus.

“It’s easy to talk about modularity and open architectures in the abstract. Proving it through an independent assessment is harder,” Pat Morris, vice president of advanced effects at Anduril, said in the release.

With the MOATEL assessment, those munitions can be updated and upgraded as users need new technology or as mission requirements change.

Modular Munitions Options

Anduril has integrated four different turbojet engines into the Barracuda 500, giving the company flexibility in providing engines as it seeks to churn out missiles in the coming years.

The MOATEL assessment’s certification of the open-architecture software also clears the way to use the Barracuda with current and future communication systems.

So far, the company has built three base model Barracudas: the Barracuda 100, with a roughly 35-pound payload and a range of more than 120 nautical miles; the Barracuda 250, also with a 35-pound payload and a range of more than 200 nautical miles; and the Barracuda 500, with a greater than 100-pound payload and more than 500 nautical miles of range. The company spokesperson said the WOSA verification applies across the Barracuda variants.

During AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference last week, Lockheed Martin announced its new AGM-158 FLEX. The munitions provide modularity, including swappable nose and launch options for the precision-guided Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, known as the JASSM, and its companion Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, or LRASM.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, posted a notice to industry seeking modular parts for its Extended Range Attack Munition in January 2025, signaling a push toward broader munitions options for the stockpile that the service and other branches are now building.

Air Force Injects $87M into IVEWS F-16 Electronic Warfare Upgrades

Air Force Injects $87M into IVEWS F-16 Electronic Warfare Upgrades

Sept. 25, 2026 | By Todd South and Chris Gordon

The Air Force has invested $87.4 million to upgrade the F-16 Fighting Falcon’s electronic warfare capabilities, bolstering the fighter’s self-protection against increasingly advanced threats.

Bringing the total program value to $1.92 billion, the move is expected to jump-start fielding by funding low-rate initial production of the AN/ALQ-257 Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite, or IVEWS, which is integrated into the fighter’s airframe.

This money is intended to produce an upgraded Viper for use in the Middle East, as part of an effort pushed by the U.S. military’s Central Command.

Work on the low-rate initial production batch at the company’s Illinois facility is expected to conclude by the end of 2029. The Air Force Lifecycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson, Ohio, oversees the contract.

The Need

The company says the new EW system is sorely needed for the F-16’s future fights.

“You cannot defeat what you cannot see,” said Shalini Gupta, vice president of electronic warfare and targeting at Northrop Grumman, in a statement to Air & Space Forces Magazine. “A modern EW suite is essential for operations in contested airspace. We are producing fully functional, flight-proven systems now. From day one, our customers gain the ability to geolocate threats with a single aircraft, and the confidence that comes with having a U.S. program of record system on board.”

The F-16 has seen a lot of action in Operation Epic Fury, and while its existing capabilities have handled Iranian air defenses and electronic warfare capabilities, peer adversaries such as the Chinese military have more sophisticated means to foil the jet fighter’s aims.

The Air Force issued an urgent operational need statement in 2025 that triggered a congressionally supplied $187 million in its fiscal 2026 reconciliation bill, which sped up system qualification and flight testing.

After CENTCOM’s operational need statement, Northrop and the Air Force made the effort a priority.

“This is one of many efforts to keep our fourth-gen platforms competitive as the adversary advances,” Lt. Gen. Derek France, then-commander of Air Forces Central, said in September 2025 about IVEWS. “That’s the bumper sticker, if you will.”

The recently announced additional $87.4 million LRIP modification fuels the initial production of the Viper suites. Full-rate production of the suites for the full 450-aircraft fleet is scheduled to follow this initial batch.

The initial production tranche for the Air Force was to outfit 72 Block 50 F-16s with IVEWS, with more likely to arrive as production ramps up, the company’s vice president of targeting and survivability Jim Conroy told Air & Space Forces Magazine in a 2025 interview.

Iran operates radar-guided and electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) air defense systems. Non-traditional Houthi air defense systems proved a particular challenge for U.S. aircraft, including F-16s, during last year’s Operation Rough Rider against the group in Yemen.

During Operation Epic Fury, the Air Force used its Block 50 F-16s in a suppression of enemy air defenses role and deployed most of its Wild Weasel SEAD F-16 units to support operations against Iran. Those units’ F-16s can carry AGM-88 anti-radiation missiles and are equipped with HARM Targeting System, or HTS, pods—a capability the Air Force’s other fourth-generation fighter, the F-15E Strike Eagle, lacks.

An airman assigned to the 96th Maintenance Group receives an F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron after it flew with the Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite (IVEWS) for the first time at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, last month. Air Force photo by 1st Lt. Rebecca Abordo

The System

IVEWS is an ultra-wideband, sophisticated EW system capable of radar warning, active jamming, and detecting, identifying, and locating threats, suited for fifth- and sixth-generation aircraft.

It can also conduct single-aircraft autonomous geolocation, meaning one aircraft can find an enemy radar and map a threat while actively using the aircraft’s jammer. Older systems required multiple aircraft to triangulate a radar location and required pilots to shut off jammers when mapping threats.

Under the USAF “Big Iron” software compliance standard, teams will be able to quickly update IVEWS system software files without hardware modifications or grounding the aircraft for days, weeks, or months.

IVEWS began flight tests in 2024 and has undergone more than 550 hours of effective testing across 300 sorties during operational assessments, Northrop Vice President for Mission Systems Mike Minahan said in a July call with reporters.

The system works in conjunction with the AN/AG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar. The radar uses an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) to enable faster target tracking.

As of mid-May, Northrop had delivered 1,000 SABR radars to its F-16 customers. The new radar uses digital tracking as opposed to the legacy AN/APG-66 and AN-APG-68 radars that it is replacing.

IVEWS, the SABR, and the upgraded LITENING LA pod, which gives the aircraft a 50 percent increase in the range of its targeting system, are crucial to keeping the aging F-16 combat-worthy. The pod is also used on the F-15E Strike Eagle, A-10 Thunderbolt II, B-52 Stratofortress, and the Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet.

IVEWS would likely be equipped on possible future Air Force new-build “F-16G” purchases the service will consider, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.

The LITENING LA, an upgrade from the current LITENING pod, entered flight testing in December, according to Northrop officials.

Air Force, Pentagon Work to Boost Military Spouse Employment

Air Force, Pentagon Work to Boost Military Spouse Employment

Sept. 25, 2026 | By Greg Hadley

New Air Force, Pentagon, and White House initiatives are taking a new swing at an issue that has long frustrated military families: barriers to spouse employment.

Unemployment and underemployment have plagued military spouses for years, with the unemployment rate among military spouses holding steady at around 20 percent—despite initiatives to promote spouse preferences for hiring on base, support for remote work, and advocacy for making professional licenses more portable across state borders.

Improving spouses employment is not a “charitable initiative,” but a major retention and readiness incentive, argued Lyndsey Akers, a consultant with AFA’s United Forces & Families program.

“When military spouses have greater access to meaningful and sustainable careers, we strengthen the economic stability of military families,” Akers said at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference last week. “We support the conditions that enable continued service, and we connect employers with an experienced, adaptable, and often overlooked talent pool.”

Top-down interest from the White House’s new Military Spouse Commission is driving renewed interest in the topic.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy Stephen Simmons said at the conference that the nation “has admired” the problem for too long; but “we haven’t done enough about it, and to get an issue the attention it needs, usually, first off, you have to elevate.”

Cindy Wilsbach, wife of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach and a senior writer for presidential correspondence at the White House employee, said the new commission President Donald Trump’s interest.

“It was marching orders from the leader of the free world to say, ‘We see the military spouse family and we recognize there are some longstanding generational problems that we need to get after,’” Cindy Wilsbach said during a panel discussion.

Both Wilsbachs are members of the commission, as are all the service chiefs, their spouses, and their senior enlisted advisors, and their spouses, including:

  • Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas A. Schiess and his wife Debbie Schiess
  • Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe and his wife, Dr. Doniel Wolfe
  • Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna and his wife Cathy Bentivegna

“With the four spouses here going to be involved with the Military Spouse Commission, we’ve got an opportunity to make some real change to laws that prevent us from hiring people fast enough and putting people into jobs and places and moving positions around,” said CMSAF David Wolfe during a panel discussion.

Cindy Wilsbach said the commission won’t try to reinvent efforts already underway but instead “will add to the work that’s being done,” while raising the profile of the issue to give advocates access to the President and other high-level decision-makers.

Senior Air Force and Space Force leaders and their spouses speak Sept. 15 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference
Photo by Jud McCrehin, Air & Space Forces Association

Global Military Spouse Connection

One program that’s newly in place and starting to grow is the Air Force’s Global Military Spouse Connection, which started in June as a pilot program for just a few installations.

Officials say the program is meant to serve as a “bridge” between Active-Duty military spouses who have PCSed to a new location and local hiring managers.

“Using career field administrators, GMSC creates a structured, active pipeline to connect the military spouse talent pool with employment opportunities,” according to an Air Force release.

“We are assisting hiring managers in finding the best-qualified individual,” said career field administrator Wyteeshia McRoberts, in a statement. “We’re not contacting them to do favors. We are looking at resumes, seeing what they qualify for and making recommendations for the right jobs.”

CMSAF Wolfe highlighted the program in his Sept. 14 keynote address to the conference, noting how the program “went from idea to first action in only 60 days,” and promising rapid expansion. On Sept. 22, the Air Force announced the program was already available for spouses moving to the following locations:

  • Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.
  • Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas
  • Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas
  • Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho
  • Travis Air Force Base, Calif.
  • Patrick Space Force Base, Fla.
  • Ramstein Air Base, Germany
  • RAF Croughton, U.K.
  • RAF Mildenhall, U.K.
  • RAF Lakenheath, U.K.
  • RAF Feltwell, U.K.
  • Kadena Air Base, Japan

SpouseWorks

While the Department of the Air Force has launched the new connection program, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is focused on better publicizing the programs it already has, said Simmons.

Until recently, spouses looking for Pentagon help to land jobs, scholarships, or fellowships were on their own navigating a confusing sea of acronyms: SECO, MyCAA, MSEP.

SECO stood for Spouse Education and Career Opportunities, but wasn’t visible enough to leaders or community members, Simmons said. So his team rebranded to “SpouseWorks” and changed the organization. Before, the program “was buried in one of our directorships through no fault of their own,” Simmons said. “But in my mind, … it needed to report directly to me, so we turned it from a sub-office to a directorship.”

Other programs were folded in, so that now there are also SpouseWorks Fellowship and SpouseWorks Scholarship programs. “We’re trying to make it very simple and easy to use.”

SpouseWorks offers training, education, and professional development; career coaches; and a job board. Simmons said the goal is to be a one-stop shop for military spouses and a resource for employers seeking high-quality employees.

Early returns are promising. “We’re up well over 50 to 80 percent usage year over year,” he said. “And we’re only about halfway through the first year of the SpouseWorks rebrand.”

From left: Nicole Murray Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, American Corporate Partners; Stephen B. Simmons, Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Military Community and Family Policy; Sue Luangkhot Hoppin, President, National Military Spouse Network; Liz O’Brien, Senior Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation
Photo by Craig Hudson, for Air & Space Forces Association

Challenges Remain

Headwinds continue, however. “I wish we could say that we had a lot of consistency, but what happens is with every change of leadership, somebody has a bright idea and then a great program goes away,” said Sue Luangkhot Hoppin, president of the National Military Spouse Network. “We don’t dot the Is and cross the Ts and we don’t necessarily solidify the programs before we move on to the next one.”

Lack of consistency from base to base, due to different commanders’ priorities, is also a challenge, he said. Elevating the issue to department leaders can raise the profile and relieve operational commanders of an extra burden.

One policy change that had unintended consequences for families was the widespread rollback of remote work options for federal civilians. Because of frequent PCS moves, remote work is an ideal option for many military spouses. “Remote work is a lifeline for a lot of military spouses,” Luangkhot Hoppin said. “It allows them to work even if they have childcare issues. But if they have to go back to the office, all of a sudden they need to have access to affordable child care, and that’s become an issue.”

Liz O’Brien, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, argued that remote work is only a piece of the equation, noting that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when remote work options surged, spouse unemployment stayed stubbornly high. Childcare is one of the biggest barriers to better spouse employment, O’Brien, Luangkhot Hoppin, and Simmons agreed. Simmons sees an “intrinsic relationship” between the two; without ready and available childcare, many spouses can’t work. If they have to wait months for childcare openings to materialize, their window for employment can begin to close down.

Simmons said the Pentagon is working multiple fronts to reduce the wait times for childcare, both through expanded capacity at its Child Development Centers as well as through partnerships with the Armed Forces YMCA, private industry, and support for informal childcare support.

“Year over year … our childcare wait lists are down 25 percent, which is phenomenal,” Simmons said. And the tie to spouse employment is clear. “As a result, you see that wait list drop, you also see the spouse employment drop.”

Newest AIM-9X Missiles Not Meeting Operational Availability Goal

Newest AIM-9X Missiles Not Meeting Operational Availability Goal

Sept. 24, 2026 | By Todd South

One of the Air Force and Navy’s most common air-to-air missiles is falling short of a key readiness metric, and the services are ramping up stocks of a vital air-to-ground missile, according to recent Pentagon reports.

The Modernized Selected Acquisition Reports on the AIM-9 and the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, cleared for publication in July, lay out progress and shortfalls and provide a snapshot for the health of these key munitions.

According to the reports, the AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II is facing operational availability shortages. The Warfighting Acquisition University defines operational availability as “the degree … to which one can expect a piece of equipment or weapon system to work properly when it is required.” The Air Force is at 58 percent operational availability for the latest version of the Sidewinder, and the Navy is at 78 percent—the requirement is 86 percent, the report says.

That shortage is forcing squadrons to face lower training asset availability, preventing fighter pilots from having the requisite number of Captive Air Training Missiles. Those CATMs have live seekers and guidance units that pilots use on regular training sorties to practice locking onto targets, tracking high off-boresight angles, and simulating missile shots.

When enough training pods are nonoperational, aircrews don’t have enough rounds to fly daily air-to-air tactical training with realistic seekers.

The Air Force and Navy plan to buy more than 11,000 AIM-9X Block II missiles, which are infrared-guided, short-range, supersonic air-to-air weapons.

Airman First Class Tiffany Shelton, tightens a component on the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. (Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. John Raven)

But reliability problems with integrating a new circuit processor into the latest configuration, the AIM-9X-4, have “impacted missile reliability and halted testing.”

As a result, a software update called Operational Flight Software 10.4, meant to integrate the advanced guidance control unit and inertial measurement unit hardware upgrades, will not be fielded.

Report authors note that the follow-on software that will fix the problem won’t be ready until September 2027.

AIM-9X maker RTX declined to comment on the report.

JASSM and LRASM Work

As the two services work out the air-to-air missile problem, both are seeking to expand their plans for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles and its cousin, the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile.

Another shared munition between USAF and the Navy, the JASSM is a linchpin munition with multiple variants fielded and in production.

The AGM-158A JASSM is a 14-foot-long missile that strikes beyond 200 miles and has been a staple of U.S. aircraft use since 2001. The B-1B Lancer, B-2A Spirit, B-52H Stratofortress, F-15 variants, F-16 variants, and C-130 Hercules can carry it and its variants, and the F-35A Lightning II and B-21 Raider are planned to integrate it.

Airmen from the 2nd Munitions Squadron lay out AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range munitions for inspection. (Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jacob B. Wrightsman)

The AGM-158B JASSM-Extended Range can hit targets at more than twice the distance, with public reports showing ranges of more than 500 miles.

The AGM-158C LRASM has a range closer to the baseline JASSM but is equipped with radio-frequency seekers designed to strike large, moving targets such as ships.

According to the recent selected acquisition report, the joint program office between the two services had delivered 5,348 JASSM variants to the Pentagon as of April, according to the report.

Current production capacity sits at about 600 JASSMs annually, with near-term plans to reach 860 missiles a year.

More mid-term plans call for ramping up that production to 1,280 missiles annually by fiscal year 2030 and 1,880 by fiscal 2032, according to the report.

A March $52 million contract modification to LRASM will raise the missile’s production from 240 per year to 320 per year beginning in fiscal 2029, according to the report.

Lockheed announced a new JAASM option at AFA’s Air, Space, & Cyber conference earlier this month, the AGM-158 FLEX.

The company sees FLEX, a modular, designed munition which has swappable nose and launch options, as another way to offer a variety of strike options in the JASSM form factor.

Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Missile modular FLEX variant. (Lockheed Martin)

“The AGM-158 FLEX airframe concept was driven by a strategic need to keep pace with rapidly evolving threats, insert emerging technologies quickly, manage obsolescence, and provide, at scale, a cost-effective missile family that can be repurposed for a wide range of missions while delivering timely, relevant capability to the warfighter,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine via email.

The stockpile plus-up, however, will use current factory space via expansion efforts, the Eglin spokesperson wrote, and “will not require a new facility construction.”

Lockheed’s investment strategy includes $8 to $9 million through 2030 to meet heightened munitions demand.

“We are expanding production and building and modernizing more than 20 facilities in Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas,” Lockheed spokesman Scott Swofford told Air & Space Forces Magazine in an email. “This includes upgrading existing facilities and incorporating advanced manufacturing techniques, production lines, tooling, and plant layouts to meet urgent production demand.”

Software, Paint, and Engines

Like the AIM-9X, the JASSM also faced software integration problems, specifically with its 54.0.02 flight software update. But an Eglin spokesperson said the software had received fielding approval since data for the selected acquisition report was gathered in April, and that “there are no impacts to combat readiness.”

The Air Force is also pressing to accelerate the integration of the Universal Armament Interface, a software architecture to standardize aircraft mission systems-weapons interface, but this has introduced “added software risk,” according to the report.

But the Eglin spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the UAI program has “made no changes to the delivery schedule” of the JASSMs.

“Integration activities remain on track to deliver planned capabilities as scheduled. Software risk is being actively managed through early software-in-the-loop integration, resource prioritization, and agile contract actions,” the spokesperson said.

Separately, the report noted that in an inspection of 1,356 JASSMs, inspectors flagged 49 missiles for depot-level maintenance and overhaul, mostly due to stealth coating defects. The report says that issue won’t be resolved until 2029.

Lockheed switched from the flat gray paint scheme to a semi-gloss black coating to reduce radar and visual signatures. The new coating can absorb and deflect electromagnetic energy more easily during longer flight times used by the new, extended-range variants.

The shift began in 2021 with the Lot 19 contract award for the AGM-158B-2 variant.

Airmen transport a live AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile toward a B-1B Lancer. (Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Caleb Schellenberg)

The Eglin spokesperson said that both the program office and Lockheed Martin are “exploring contracting actions to increase repair capacity and return serviceable missiles to the field more efficiently.”

Beyond software updates, the Air Force also spent $200 million in fiscal 2025 to procure and mature a second-source engine for the LRASM and JASSM-ERs.

“Investing in a second engine source for the AGM-158 is essential to securing our supply chain and ramping up production of critical long-range strike weapons,” the Eglin spokesperson said. “By establishing a second production line, we eliminate manufacturing bottlenecks, drive competition, and secure deliveries of JASSM and LRASM to the warfighter.”

Last Warthog Departs Nellis as Base’s A-10 Era Comes to a Close

Last Warthog Departs Nellis as Base’s A-10 Era Comes to a Close

Sept. 24, 2026 | By Stephen Losey

Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.—a longtime hub for A-10 Thunderbolt II tactical training, operational testing and maintenance—ended nearly a half-century of flying the venerable Warthog on Sept. 22.

The Air Force said in a Sept. 23 statement that nearly 70 Airmen lined up on the flightline at Nellis for a final salute as the last Warthog there took off.

Nellis has flown A-10s since 1977. The base has been the Air Force’s primary proving ground for A-10 tactical employment, and units have worked to refine its software, avionics and precision weapons, the Air Force said.

The 66th Weapons Squadron at Nellis’ U.S. Air Force Weapons School has also trained more than 300 A-10 weapons officers in 100 classes, the Air Force said. 

With its heavy armor and withering GAU-8 30mm cannon, the A-10 was originally built to be a Soviet tank killer and played a central role in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s army. But in the Global War on Terror, the A-10 became best known as a reliable close air support platform to defend U.S. and partner nations’ ground troops when they were besieged by insurgents.

The A-10 also carries out a close air support mission dubbed Sandy during combat search and rescue operations, most recently in April during the successful rescue of two F-15E air crew who were shot down in Iran.

For years, though, the Air Force has tried to retire its A-10 fleet amid concerns that it would not be survivable against an advanced enemy. Congressional opposition has thwarted those plans before, but that has softened in recent years.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Kyle S. Adkinson, a weapons and tactics officer assigned to the Nevada Air National Guard’s 232nd Combat Training Squadron, taxis an A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Sept. 22, 2026. The flight marked the final departure of Nellis’ last A-10 Thunderbolt II. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Annika Schermerhorn

The service had pressed to retire all 162 of its remaining A-10s by the end of fiscal 2026, but after the Iran war began and the rescue of the F-15E crew, the Pentagon announced it would delay at least some Warthogs’ retirement until at least 2030.

Still, the fleet and its accompanying enterprise are slowly winding down. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, another longtime A-10 hub, graduated its last class of new Warthog pilots in April and held its farewell flights for its last aircraft in July. The maintenance depot for the A-10, at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, also closed this year.

The Air Force stressed that while the A-10 is retiring, the service will not let its close air support capability fade. 

“Foundational tactical expertise, operational roles and personnel are transitioning to multirole and advanced fighter platforms across the service,” the Air Force said in its statement.

The F-35, for example, is taking on CAS and combat search-and-rescue roles, the service said, taking advantage of its fifth-generation stealth capabilities, advanced sensor suites, and secure data-sharing networks to carry out precision ground support missions in contested environments.

U.S. Airmen assigned to Nellis Air Force Base salute an A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft at Nellis AFB, Nevada, Sept. 22, 2026. The flight marked the final departure of Nellis’ last A-10 and honored nearly half a century of close air support service and the maintainers, pilots, and support personnel who kept the fleet mission-ready. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Annika Schermerhorn)

The 66th is working to teach pilots of other fighters how to take on the Warthog’s traditional missions, squadron commander Lt. Col. Ridge Flick said. The unit will also keep training combat rescue officers, pararescue Airmen, special tactics officers, and combat controllers, he said.

“We are maintaining the culture of the A-10 by involving as many other fighter communities involved in the close air support mission,” Flick said in the statement. “We are also training F-15 Eagle, F-35 Lightning II and F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots to take on some roles we have had in combat search and rescue.”

Airmen who used to repair and sustain A-10s at Nellos as part of the 757th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s Thunder Aircraft Maintenance Unit are being reassigned to other squadrons and airframes like the F-35 and F-16, the statement said.

“The discipline that A-10 maintainers developed over 50 years of managing airframe fatigue, wing replacements and depot-level overhauls is being integrated into those newer flight line programs,” the Air Force said.

Air Force Bombers and Fighters Fly Over Chinese Leader’s DC Visit

Air Force Bombers and Fighters Fly Over Chinese Leader’s DC Visit

Sept. 24, 2026 | By Stephen Losey

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington D.C. has been filled with signs of American airpower: U.S. Air Force B-1 and B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters have all performed flyovers Sept. 23-24.

Xi arrived at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Sept. 23, and was greeted planeside by President Donald Trump—an unusual occurrence—and a military honor guard. The Presidential Salute Battery of the Army’s Old Guard, formally known as the 3rd Infantry Regiment, conducted a 21-gun salute as part of the arrival ceremony, and two B-1B Lancers roared overhead as the national anthem played.

A day later, a single B-2 Spirit, flanked by four F-22 Raptors, soared over the White House to cap a morning of military pomp and ceremony for Xi and his wife, Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan.

This is Xi’s first state visit to the U.S. since 2015.

First Lady Melania Trump’s office released a statement Sept. 21 saying the welcoming event would feature 479 military personnel from all branches of the U.S. military.

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers assigned to the 7th Bomber Wing, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, fly over Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, Sept. 23, 2026. The flyover occurred during President of the People’s Republic of China, His Excellency Xi Jinping’s, state visit. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Gabriel Jones)

As they arrived, Xi and his wife were met with a full military honor cordon along the White House’s South Drive, which led to a display of the flags of the U.S. and China. U.S. Army Herald Trumpets presented a fanfare for the Xis, and the Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon, and the United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps—known as “The Commandant’s Own”—performed military demonstrations, before the B-2 and F-22 flyover.

Military flyovers are not unusual for state visits. A few months ago, four F-35s flew over the White House in honor of King Charles III’s state visit. But the presence of bombers is less routine and somewhat reminiscent of an August 2025 flyover of Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, that featured a B-2 Spirit and four F-35s.

So Long, Pave Hawk: Air Force’s HH-60G Combat Rescue Helicopter Completes Final Flight

So Long, Pave Hawk: Air Force’s HH-60G Combat Rescue Helicopter Completes Final Flight

Sept. 24, 2026 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force’s HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter made its final flight earlier this month.

The 129th Rescue Wing retired its last HH-60G with a final flight and ceremony on Sept. 10 at Moffett Air National Guard Base, Calif. The Pave Hawk is being replaced by an updated model, HH-60W Jolly Green II.

Tail number 27045 is the last operational HH-60G in the entire Air Force, a service spokesperson said, noting that a few remaining G-models are still in the inventory for now and will be processed out by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Often called the “Golf,” the HH-60G entered service in 1982, was the Air Force’s combat search and rescue helicopter for more than 40 years until the updated “Whiskey” models began to supplant it in 2022. Both are UH-60 Black Hawk variants.

In addition to CSAR, the Air Force used the Pave Hawk for disaster relief, humanitarian missions, and casualty and medical evacuations. Capable of carrying eight-plus passengers, it could fly at speeds of 180 miles per hour with a range of 580 miles and be aerially refueled. It was equipped with two guns, a cargo hook that could lift up to 8,000 pounds, and folding rotor blades allowing it to be transported in cargo aircraft like the C-5M Galaxy.

The Pave Hawk played a key role in events like the military’s humanitarian response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, operations during the Global War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the noncombatant evacuation out of Afghanistan in 2021. Airmen were decorated with Distinguished Flying Crosses and Presidential Unit Citations for their actions in the Afghanistan evacuation, where they faced small arms fire from the ground as they evacuated scores of people ahead of the Taliban’s advance.

“When you’re flying the [Pave Hawk], you kind of become one with that machine,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Buchta, HH-60 pilot and commander of the 129th Rescue Squadron, said in a statement. “The Golf feels like home when I sit in it.”

At its peak, there were more than 100 HH-60Gs in the Air Force inventory, split among Active, Guard, and Reserve units. By 2024, units across the globe were saying their final farewells to the Golf—Kadena Air Base in Japan retired its last Golf in August 2024, Gabreski Air National Guard Base, N.Y., followed in October 2024, and Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and Aviano Air Base, Italy, both completed the switch in December 2024. The Air Force Reserve’s last HH-60Gs left Patrick Space Force Base, Fla., in September 2025.

The Air Force’s fiscal 2026 budget funded the final 11 Pave Hawk divestments. The Alaska Air National Guard retired its last HH-60G in July 2026, setting the stage for the California Air Guard to follow in September, just ahead of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

In tributes to the HH-60G, rescue units across the Air Force credited the Golf with helping them save thousands of lives over the years.

The new HH-60Ws have fully digital glass cockpits, improved hot weather/high-altitude performance, on-board self-defenses capable of defeating higher-end threats, larger cabins, and double the internal fuel capacity of the Gs. The Air Force asked for more than $200 million in the 2027 budget request for Whiskey upgrades, including for self-protection against shoulder-fired rockets and conversions to transport VIPs around Washington D.C., which will be a new mission for the HH-60.

All told, the service plans to field 102 Whiskeys, including 11 test and developmental aircraft, with the final delivery due in January 2030, according to budget documents.

Air Force to Cut Civilian Jobs from China-Focused Research Center

Air Force to Cut Civilian Jobs from China-Focused Research Center

Sept. 23, 2026 | By Chris Gordon

The Air Force is slashing all civilian positions at its premier research institute for Chinese military aviation, prompting concern among experts who say it will dilute the service’s focus on the Pentagon’s most significant long-term adversary.

“We are disappointed to have to announce that Air University has decided to close the China Aerospace Studies Institute,” Brendan Mulvaney, the institute’s director, wrote in a message released Sept. 22.

The China Aerospace Studies Institute has been staffed primarily by civilian scholars and analysts who work for Air University, which is part of Air Education and Training Command.  For years, they have been preparing reports on the Chinese military, translating Chinese military doctrine, and contributing to what is widely considered to be the largest open-source repository of information on the People’s Liberation Army’s military aviation, space, cyber, and missile forces. 

An Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the institute “is not closing” and said its mission of analyzing developments in Chinese airpower will continue—but acknowledged that its eight civilian positions have been targeted for downsizing and did not explain in detail how the institute would continue once the staff in those positions find new jobs. Four military personnel currently work for CASI, including two military fellows, and one uninformed position remains unfilled.

“Air University continues to evaluate the alignment of the CASI mission to best support DAF priorities,” the spokesperson said. “The mission will continue using assigned military personnel and civilian personnel to execute priorities outlined in their charter.”

Mulvaney, in his update, said that as of Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, all civilian positions at the research center will be considered “unfunded,” though the positions still exist—for now. “CASI has commitments that it has made and will honor, to the best of our ability, through at least March of 2027,” he wrote.

“Unless we find a new home within the Department for the whole CASI team, I expect people to find other jobs and move on,” Mulvaney added. “Once all of the civilians eventually depart, CASI will close.”

The Air Force spokesperson did not detail how CASI could be restructured or how its expertise and workflow would be preserved. 

The announcement came a day before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington D.C., to meet with President Donald Trump, though Air & Space Forces Magazine understands CASI’s status has been on shaky ground for months.

No changes have been announced to similar institutions run by the Navy and Army. The U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute and the U.S. Army War College’s China Landpower Studies Center will continue their work.

Experts say the open-source nature of CASI’s work enabled Congress and much of the public to get a better understanding of the Air Force’s primary long-term challenger.

China’s military advances have driven much of the Air Force’s thinking on its future force design and justification for new platforms such as the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, and Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Service leaders said the decision to field those programs was influenced by the need to counter China in the Pacific.

But despite the service’s stated focus on China, the future of the center was impacted by the Department of the Air Force’s push to cut civilian jobs. Air University is prioritizing funding for more traditional civilian teaching positions for professional military education, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

One China expert said this move could hurt the Air Force’s ability to explain its funding needs on Capitol Hill. 

“I think the Air Force probably undervalues open-source intelligence and underappreciates this type of scholarly research on the People’s Liberation Army,” said J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow for aerospace and China studies at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “Leaders seem to think classified information is somehow more valid than something gleaned from open-source. But the focus on the classified record undermines the Air Force’s ability to tell its story, especially on Capitol Hill and to the American people.”

“Having unclassified, open-source intelligence about the Air Force’s pacing challenge helps tell that story,” Dahm added. “Getting rid of CASI would be a self-inflicted wound that exacerbates a long-standing Air Force problem.”

Dahm, a former intelligence community professional who served as the Senior Naval Intelligence Officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence and the assistant U.S. Naval Attaché in Beijing, said institutions such as CASI have filled a gap in U.S. research into the opposing militaries. 

“You can make the argument that collecting and analyzing Chinese-language open-source information should be a mission for the U.S. intelligence community. But the IC is consumed with analyzing and processing a torrent of classified information,” Dahm said. “The researchers at CASI are a force multiplier that provide the intelligence community with valuable context, often pointing them toward issues they might otherwise miss.”

China has put a “much greater emphasis on open-source intelligence than we do in the U.S.,” he noted.


“China’s military has closed many of its gaps with the West by digesting and analyzing the volumes of open-source information we put out there,” Dahm said. “They institutionalized open-source scientific and technical research in the 1950s, and they have continued to harvest the volumes of scientific journal articles, trade brochures, operator manuals, and anything else they can lay their hands on to develop countermeasures against our technology and fuel their own military development. They are also downloading and translating U.S. military doctrine, safety manuals, incident reports, and lessons learned to inform their tactics and procedures.

“Eliminating CASI would be divesting the Air Force of its only institutional counterweights to China’s open-source intelligence machine.”