Cutting needed capabilities to pay for modernizing the force is a management tactic that has failed every time the Air Force has tried it, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. Authors Mark Gunzinger and Carl Rehberg said the Air Force, which already has shrunk by strategy reviews over the last 25 years, can’t bear to be any smaller as it has become “indispensable” to the US defense enterprise. They propose an end to the “pass-through” accounts unique to the Air Force that make the service’s budgets look artificially larger than they really are, and cross-service cost trades informed by USAF’s disproportionate contribution to US military capability.
Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett on Dec. 3 told senators the service is ready to roll out a new “bill of rights” for airmen living in privatized military housing as soon as Congress passes a fiscal 2020 defense policy bill, now two months overdue. “We’re ready to go—could have issued it earlier but don’t want to issue something today that then lies in contrast with what the [National Defense Authorization Act] might come out with,” she told Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on substandard housing. Rather than issue the tenant bill of rights now and reconcile the differences with the law later, Barrett said the Air Force would rather wait and be consistent. The bill of rights would offer tenants a range of protections as service members battle rodents, mold, structural defects, and other problems in homes managed by private companies.
The runway at Kunsan AB, South Korea, reopened “for all civilian and military flying operations” around 3:00 p.m. local time on Dec. 3, a day after an F-16 pilot was forced to eject during a routine landing at the installation, according to an 8th Fighter Wing release. “A safety board is continuing to investigate the incident,” the wing wrote. The release neither identified the pilot, whom the base said was brought to a medical center for treatment on Dec. 2 after having sustained “minor injuries,” nor did it provide an update on the pilot’s condition or the status of the aircraft.
The Defense Department looks to build and run a full-scale, fifth-generation wireless network at Hill AFB, Utah, to learn more about how it would interact with radars. In October, DOD announced it would launch experimentation and prototyping programs at four bases exploring how the next leap in connectivity could affect training and logistics. A recent project notice says the Pentagon and the Air Force need to develop hardware and software that allow airborne radars and 5G cellular systems to share bands on the radio spectrum, particularly focused on the 3,100-3,450 MHz band.
The Air Force on Dec. 2 awarded Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control a $988.8 million modification to a contract for critical design review of the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW. The hypersonic AGM-183 ARRW has been undergoing initial tests at Edwards AFB, Calif. The service plans the first operational flight test of the weapon by the end of 2020 with initial operational capability by 2022.
The “Hurricane Hunters” of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron wrapped up the 2019 hurricane season at the end of November, having flown more hours this year than the previous year. The WC-130s, of the Keesler AFB, Miss.-based unit flew more than 684 hours, totaling 80 missions into nine storms. While the hurricane season is over, the squadron will stay busy flying into winter storms, among other missions.
