Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told Senate legislators March 3 the service will not use the new KC-46 tanker unless absolutely necessary to fight a powerful adversary. The wide-ranging Senate Armed Services Committee hearing—the first of multiple chances the Air Force has this week to argue for its $169 billion budget request—continually circled back to the Pegasus tanker’s most pressing issue: its subpar remote vision system, built by Rockwell Collins. Boeing’s new Chief Executive Officer David Calhoun “committed to me that the KC-46 was his top military priority and he was going to do what was required to fix it,” Goldfein said. “I have seen a change in the behavior of that company since he took over. That’s why we’re more confident sitting here today that we have a serious fix on the table.”
The Air Force needs 2,100 more pilots to reach its goal of 21,000 aviators, indicating that efforts to stem the pilot shortage have not yet been successful. “Increasing production of new aviators remains the most significant lever we have to arrest aircrew shortages,” service officials said in written testimony submitted to the House Armed Services readiness subcommittee for a March 3 hearing. While the service is pushing to grow its pilot production pipeline to turn out 1,480 aviators a year by fiscal 2024, it has fallen short of its gradually increasing production goals for five straight years.
In an interview with Air Force Magazine at AFA's Air Warfare Symposium, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright outlined his top four priorities for the last six months of his tenure as the service’s top enlisted leader. They are: Fixing the Enlisted Performance Reporting system, eliminating Weighted Airman Promotion System tests, changing the bereavement leave policy, and create a culture of fitness in the Air Force.
The Air Force is using its first information warfare cell to support cyber operations, part of a new approach to digital, “gray zone” combat. The IW cell brings together experts in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; electronic warfare; cyber; information operations; and public affairs, according to 16th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh. It is helping tackle overarching problems in the cyber realm including U.S. election security, protecting air defenses, and rooting out malign influence on networks. The cell will be a pivotal player in 16th AF’s evolving structure. Haugh said the organization’s multiple operations centers will merge into a singular hub under one commander on March 16.
An AC-130U Spooky crew provided more than nine hours of air support to special operations forces, enabling the rescue of 15 patients during a mass casualty evacuation in an April 2019 mission in Afghanistan. In a March 2 ceremony at Hurlburt Field, Fla., the aircrew from the 4th Special Operations Squadron received 14 medals for their role in the mission: two Distinguished Flying Crosses with the “C” device, and 12 Single Event Air Medals with the “C” device.
Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson indicated the military will add new locations to the list of bases under consideration for U.S. Space Command headquarters, saying some unexpected places could become home to parts of the new Space Force as well. “We’re now going to take a holistic look at all of the potential options, all the potential locations,” Thompson said at a March 3 House Armed Services readiness subcommittee hearing. “We’ve been directed to go back, open up the aperture and look at all of them. That includes bases, it includes perhaps some non-traditional locations.”
Details of how the Air Force Reserve will support the U.S. Space Force “haven’t been fully fleshed out,” but for now, any backup it provides will remain under the purview of Air Force Reserve Command, Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Richard Scobee told Air Force Magazine in a Feb. 27 interview. Scobee said “a couple different” options exist, but the current plan is to "delay slightly" while that is figured out. However, he said, Congress may make the ultimate call.
The Air Force recently sent an unexpected aircraft over the village of Kismayo, a rural town on the Somali coast that has been a hotbed of extremist activity by groups such as al-Shabab. A nuclear-capable B-52, forward deployed to U.S. Central Command, flew an unmistakable show of force over the region last month. USAF leaders said the Feb. 15 flight was a direct message, not necessarily to the violent extremist groups armed with AK-47s and pickup trucks, but to global powers working to exert their influence on a continent that is becoming increasingly important to the global power structure. “There’s a message opportunity here, not just to al-Shabab and [violent extremist organizations] on the ground, but more broadly to Russia and China that: 'Hey, we’re competing with you down here,'" US Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa boss Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian said.
