Brand-New F-15EX to Participate in Northern Edge Exercise, JADC2 Experiments

April 28, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Both of the Air Force’s new F-15EX Eagle II fighters will fly in the Northern Edge exercise in Alaska next week to participate in broader joint all-domain command and control experiments, 11^th Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. David A. Krumm said April 28. The jets will also employ their new electronic warfare suites in the wargame.

“We’re bringing up F-15EX … with its capabilities, including the EPAWSS,” or Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System electronic warfare suite, to participate in Northern Edge 2021, Krumm said from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, during an AFA “Air and Space Warfighters in Action” streaming event. The first of the two aircraft departed April 28 from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where they are in both developmental and operational testing. Both aircraft were delivered earlier this month from Boeing Co. They will operate out of JBER for the wargame.

The exercise will include “every aspect of JADC2,” Krumm said. Experimental systems include SpaceX Starlink satellites, new remote satellite terminals from the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office—which manages the Advanced Battle Management System—as well as “different technologies in the electromagnetic spectrum, jamming with radars, … [and] a whole array” of new experiments. The Navy’s USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier is in Alaskan waters for the exercise, he noted.

Krumm said he couldn’t be too specific about what will be tested because “a lot of what we want to do, we’re still working on.” He said Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach, head of Pacific Air Forces, will be “uber-focused on ‘how do I connect all these sensors and shooters together?’” The wargame should “advance JADC2,” Krumm said.

Asked what will happen to experimental systems that prove useful in the wargame, Krumm acknowledged, “There’s no doubt, we’ve seen these in the past, where we’ve said how great [an experimental system] was and then it disappeared. Our objective in this is to say, ‘What really contributes? What is really worth pursuing and getting into?’”

The participants are “coming up here with a lot of ideas. We’re going to see which ones work, which ones contribute to the battle space and help our Airmen and Guardians, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines get more lethal. And we’re going to push that,” Krumm said.

While he expects that “there will be leave-behind” ideas, “what I don’t want is a series of one-off experiments that are [their] own little island in the middle of our capabilities,” he said. Coming from a recent acquisition job, Krumm said he understands “we have to prioritize” which systems to pursue and that “we will work closely” with the acquisition directorates “in determining what things we need to go after” and whether they can be afforded within operations and maintenance budgets. “The possibilities are endless, … but we do need to be picky,” he said.

Krumm said there has been a “significant increase” in Russian aircraft entering the Alaska air defense identification zones, with more than 60 aircraft intercepted in the past year, noting even more than that were “monitored” by 11^th Air Force.

Many of the intercepts are run by F-22s out of Elmendorf, and the jet is “employed masterfully by our Airmen,” he said, but its special stealth and agility attributes aren’t essential to the mission. Krumm acknowledged that the F-22 is the “frontline fighter” of the Air Force and that “there is a strain” on Raptor units—as well as on KC-135s and E-3 AWACS—imposed by the intercept mission.

“We use the F-22s because we have them located here,” but “I can see in the future that there would be some other opportunities” for performing the mission with a different aircraft.

“Can we do that differently? We can, but I don’t know all the options we’re going to pursue, yet. I know that any Air Force unit I bring up here would be able to do those intercepts with the same professionalism and proficiency as we have.”

Krumm also said the F-35s that have been bedded down at Eielson Air Force Base, also in Alaska, are performing well. The first unit has 25 airplanes, and a second unit has its first aircraft, and they have been achieving excellent mission capable rates, he reported.

“Right now, the Airmen—the ‘Icemen’—of Eielson are absolutely kicking butt and taking names,” Krumm asserted. The F-35s are “working really, really well,” he reported, noting than in a recent generation exercise, the unit “generated every single F-35 that they had. Every one, all 25 … on the flight line, ready to go. Just an amazing effort.”

While “we certainly have been impacted in some ways by some of the [F-35’s] sustainment issues,” the Airmen at Eielson have adapted the aircraft to operating in extreme cold, sometimes 50 degrees below zero, Krumm said. “No one has put the F-35 in that environment” and operated routinely before, he said. Crews have also modified the aircraft’s survival kit to creatively pack and add more gear to help downed Airmen if they bail out in such conditions.

Northern Edge runs May 3-14.

Lt Gen Slife to Senate: AFSOC at an ‘Inflection Point’ Requiring Transformation in Personnel, Acquisition

April 28, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Air Force Special Operations Command has gone through two major changes throughout its history brought on by real-world incidents, and the command’s boss told lawmakers on April 28 that it is now undergoing its third.

The first came in 1980 following the failed Operation Eagle Claw hostage rescue in Iran, a “national embarrassment” that prompted the command to overhaul how it approaches crisis response operations, AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. The second was Sept. 11, 2001, after which the command adopted for sustained counterterrorism operations.

Now, with the nation withdrawing from Afghanistan and less of a sustained focus on constant counter-violent extremism operations, AFSOC needs to go through another overhaul to be relevant in a potential conflict with a near-peer adversary, Slife said.

“The rise of belligerent peers and near-peers who threaten America’s interests at home and abroad and the reemergence of great power competition around the globe mean AFSOC must evolve once again,” Slife said in testimony. “We must transform ourselves from the AFSOC our nation has needed for the last 20 years into the AFSOC our nation will need in the future operating environment.”

To do this, AFSOC is focusing on developing its Airmen and training them for “full-spectrum operations.” The command wants to focus on diversity in its ranks to ensure it can recruit and retain a force that is representative of the nation.

AFSOC is “undergoing the most significant organization optimization in our 30-year history,” Slife said. This includes fielding four operational squadrons each for the air and ground missions, with the goal of a sustainable force generation and deployment process.

The command is also looking to modernize and sustain its fleet, through programs such as the proposed “armed overwatch” to replace its U-28 fleet. AFSOC and industry have improved the readiness of the CV-22 fleet through fixes to its structure and wiring, while also installing the Block 20 mission computer modification to improve the Osprey’s situational awareness. The command is updating its C-130 family of aircraft with new airborne mission networking on MC-130s and precision strike package upgrades on AC-130s.

Slife said the command’s relationship with allies and ongoing engagements with countries around the world is an asset the U.S. can rely on in possible future competition.

In 2020, AFSOC Airmen deployed to 62 nations for “engagements” with host militaries, while also flying through and/or landing in more than a dozen more. These agreements with “80-100” nations that U.S. special operations forces have can be “tremendous leverage” against the influence of countries such as Russia and China, Slife said.

“What I have found is that our Airmen aren’t motivated necessarily by killing and capturing terrorists. They’re motivated by relevance,” he said. “And so if the thing that makes them relevant to the nation is pursuing great power competition, you better believe they are all in on moving in that direction.”

Milley: Afghanistan’s Future After U.S. Withdrawal Difficult to Predict

April 28, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The military’s top uniformed officer said April 28 it’s difficult to predict what will play out in Afghanistan as Afghan forces prepare to take sole responsibility for the country’s security following the U.S. withdrawal.

“It’s not a foregone conclusion that there’ll be an automatic fall of Kabul, so to speak,” said Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a virtual McCain Institute event. “I think that we, the United States, are going to continue to support diplomatic efforts to come to a negotiated outcome between the insurgents and the regime, and that would be best for the people of Afghanistan and best for our region.

“So, there’s a wide range of possible outcomes, and at this point, I [would] hesitate to guess to which one it will be because we have to wait and see as the situation develops in the months ahead.”

President Joe Biden announced April 14 that the full withdrawal of U.S. forces will begin May 1 and be completed by Sept. 11. Milley said Pentagon leaders have presented a “variety of options,” including leaving a larger force in the country. However, he noted, Biden is “the decision maker, so we present advice, we present cost, and risk, and benefits, and potential outcomes, and options. We give recommendations, of course, and then the President decides. And that’s what we’ve done. The President’s made a decision, and we’re going to execute that decision in good order.”

Milley said some of the potential outcomes are either “quite bad” or “not quite as bad.”

The worst case would be a collapse of the Afghan government and of the military, leading to a civil war and all the “humanitarian catastrophe that goes with it,” he said. On the other hand, the Afghan Army and police forces number about 350,000, and there is a government in place and “they have been engaged in counterinsurgency operations for some time against the Taliban.”

There also is a possibility al-Qaida will reconstitute in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. military will monitor them “from positions where we can gain access,” Milley said. “I’m not going to go into the details of how we’re going to do that, … but we have a lot of capabilities, the United States does, in order to track and then target enemies of our country.”

Boeing Defense Revenue Up Despite Charge on New Air Force One Program

April 28, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

Boeing Co. reported its sixth straight loss in its first-quarter earnings report April 28, including a new charge on the Air Force One replacement program.

Overall, Boeing reported $15.217 billion in revenue, down from $16.908 billion in the first quarter of 2020. Company CEO David L. Calhoun said COVID-19 impacts are lingering but that now is “a key inflection point for our industry as vaccine distribution accelerates and we work together across government and industry to help enable a robust recovery.”

Boeing Defense, however, reported $7.185 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2021, up from $6.042 in the same period last year. The increased revenue in its military and space sector was spurred largely by KC-46 contract awards, including Lots 6 and 7 contracts for 27 KC-46s, along with P-8 and V-22 contracts, the company said. However, the company reported a $318 million pre-tax charge for the Air Force One VC-25B program “largely due to COVID-19 impacts and performance issues at a key supplier.”

The supplier, GDC Technics LLC, recently filed for bankruptcy after Boeing canceled its contracts because of schedule delays, causing missed deadlines, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Unlike several recent earnings reports, Boeing did not disclose another charge on the KC-46 program. The company, in its fourth quarter of 2020 earnings report, surpassed more than $5 billion in overruns on that program.

Biden Picks Shyu for Top Pentagon Research and Engineering Job

April 27, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

President Biden nominated Heidi Shyu, formerly the Army’s acquisition executive in the Obama administration, as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. In that role, if confirmed, she would oversee and manage the Pentagon’s technology development enterprise.

Shyu, 67, worked at Raytheon for many years, managing the company’s electromagnetic systems lab, and was director for integrated radar/electronic warfare sensors on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. She also oversaw the company’s unmanned aircraft efforts and served as corporate vice president for technology and research and vice president of technology strategy for Raytheon’s space and airborne systems unit.

Previously, she served on the Air Force’s Scientific Advisory Board, serving as co-chair from 2003 to 2005 and chair from 2005 to 2008.

Since 2016, she has served on the board of trustees at The Aerospace Corp.

Mark J. Lewis, who was the acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and served as director of defense research and engineering in the Trump administration until February, called Shyu “a marvelous choice” for the job.

“She is an extraordinary engineer, one of our nation’s leading experts in electronic warfare and radar systems. Heidi knows the Air Force extremely well, having served eight years on the Scientific Advisory Board, including three as the board chair,” said Lewis, now the director of the National Defense Industrial Association’s nonpartisan Emerging Technologies Institute.

She will be “a champion for science and engineering” and leverage her “extensive leadership experience from her many years in industry” as well as from her Army acquisition position, Lewis said.

Shyu holds master’s degrees in mathematics and system science/electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and University of California, Los Angeles, respectively. She has a bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of New Brunswick, Canada. She also graduated from UCLA’s executive management course and a University of Chicago business leadership program.

Shyu was born in Taipei, Taiwan.

Diplomatic Departure Begins in Afghanistan as Military Withdrawal Planning Continues

April 27, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The State Department on April 27 ordered some of its diplomatic staff to leave the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as the drawdown in Afghanistan begins and the U.S. continues planning for what future force protection in the country will look like.

In a new travel advisory, the State Department said it ordered staff “whose functions can be performed elsewhere” to leave the embassy in Kabul. The order comes as more military personnel and equipment are headed to Afghanistan to enable the withdrawal from the country, set to begin May 1 and wrap up before Sept. 11.

“We’re in constant iteration inside the department and with the interagency about how everybody’s going to fit into this plan, but we’ve actually got a very good backbone of a plan that will go into operation formally on the first of May,” U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said April 27 during a virtual American Enterprise Institute event. He would not go into specifics but added, “I think we have a plan that will allow for us to get out in a protected manner, that will bring our partners out, … [and] will also bring out elements of the Department of State.”

That plan calls for maintaining the Embassy in Kabul, with a “very minimal” military presence for protection. It is the job of the host nation to protect the embassy, “so we would expect the governor of Afghanistan would live up to that responsibility as we go forward,” McKenzie said.

He reiterated the plan to remove all U.S. contractors, including those who help the Afghan Air Force maintain its aircraft. The military is still working to continue support from outside the country.

“The one thing I can tell you for sure is: We’re not going to be on the ground doing it. I’m confident of that,” McKenzie said. “So, that’s just something that is not a course of action that we are exploring. When the President says zero, he means zero, so we’re going to zero.”

In the meantime, more U.S. assets are flowing into the country to help with force protection, while B-52 bombers have deployed to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. CENTCOM on April 27 posted photographs of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems moving from Kuwait to Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops as they withdraw.

Department of the Air Force to Study Barriers for LGBTQ, Native American Personnel

April 27, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Department of Air Force has created two new teams to identify and address issues impacting diversity and inclusion, one specifically looking at issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning service members and another looking at issues facing Native American service members.

The move comes amid a major push by the Department of the Air Force to address barriers to service felt by those in minority groups in the services. The Air Force also announced April 27 it was extending the deadline to respond to its survey as part of its second independent disparity review because of a significant response.

“To fully capture the voice of Airmen and Guardians, the Department of the Air Force Inspector General will keep the ongoing gender, racial, and ethnic disparity review survey open for an extra week, Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said said in a release. “Feedback so far has been very high, so we’re keeping the survey open for an extra week to give everyone a chance to contribute to this very important effort. We highly encourage all our Airmen and Guardians to share their stories, views, and concerns. To the tens of thousands that already have, thank you!”

The new teams—the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning Initiative Team and the Indigenous Nations Equality Team—are part of the Air Force’s Barrier Analysis Working Group, which aims to “identify and address the issues impacting diversity and inclusion for Airmen and Guardians,” the department said in a release.

The BAWG dates back to 2008, when it was created to look at data, trends, and barriers to service for civilians. It has since expanded to those in uniform. As of March 2021, the Air Force has created the following subgroups:

Black/African American Employment Strategy Team
Disability Action Team
Hispanic Empowerment and Action Team
Indigenous Nations Equality Team
LGBTQ Initiative Team
Pacific Islander/Asian American Community Team
Women’s Initiatives Team.

The creation of the LGBTQ team comes 10 years after the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The INET group will review and analyze barriers to employment, advancement, and retention of American Indian/Native American and Alaska native employees and troops, according to the release.

UK Planning Big Steps in Future Fighter Development, Wants to Work With USAF’s NGAD

April 27, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The United Kingdom Royal Air Force is looking to make concrete progress over the next four years on its Future Combat Air System next-generation fighter jet and is reaching out for opportunities to test and compare its progress with the U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance program.

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense in March released its “Defence in a competitive age” document outlining its strategy for modernization and future competition, including a $2.4 billion investment over the next four years on FCAS. Royal Air Force boss Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, speaking April 27 during a virtual Hudson Institute event, said this funding will go toward developing a demonstrator, with the “big decision” on design to follow.

The RAF’s goal is to have FCAS lined up in the late 2030s to be able to phase out the Eurofighter Typhoon fleet for air defense alert, with the RAF’s F-35s flying much of the rest of the mission set. FCAS will be both piloted and unpiloted, with “swarms” of drones to assist.

Because of this timeline, Wigston said he looks forward to working with USAF on comparing progress with the NGAD system, which already has a demonstrator that flew last year. Additionally, the RAF wants to work alongside and compete with the French and German next-generation fighter jet initiative.

“There’s an opportunity to feed off each other, to test each other,” Wigston said.

The Eurofighter Typhoon is the “backbone” of the United Kingdom’s air defenses, and with the fleet expected to fly through 2040, the schedule is starting to get tight. “Right now, I need to get going, working through what will replace the Typhoon in our quick reaction alert sheds,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”

The RAF is also working on its own version of USAF’s Advanced Battle Management System, which Wigston referred to as a “combat cloud” to fuse air and maritime sensors. The program has been in development in recent years, but Wigston said he has “grown tired of looking at PowerPoint slides with lightning bolt symbols joining up bits of kit” without any real-world progress.

“I want to see this fielded operationally in my time,” he said.

The RAF is planning a demonstration in 2022 in the North Atlantic using this new system in a scenario focused on tracking and targeting a submarine.

“That’s bringing to life the ability to move information, move data, and fuse information so that any operator, any platform in the battlespace, can pull on the information it needs, fuse it, … and be able to make better decisions than an adversary,” Wigston said.

For More with RAF Chief Wigston, listen to his conversation with retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, on the Aerospace Advantage podcast.

Frank Kendall III Nominated as 26th Secretary of the Air Force

April 27, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

Frank Kendall III is the Biden administration’s nominee to be Secretary of the Air Force, succeeding Barbara M. Barrett in the role if confirmed, administration officials said. Gina Ortiz Jones, a former Air Force officer who recently held a position in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, was nominated as undersecretary.

Kendall, 71, a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, served as the No. 3 official in the Pentagon for four years in the Obama administration, responsible for all matters pertaining to research and engineering, sustainment, testing, contract administration, and logistics. Immediately following his tenure as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, the expansive job was legislatively split into two parts: acquisition and sustainment, and research and technology. He was an advisor to the Biden campaign on national security and defense issues.

Kendall’s signature effort at AT&L was the “Better Buying Power” initiative, intended to streamline the Pentagon’s acquisition system, which led to significant improvements in defense programs’ cost and schedule. Noteworthy among these efforts was greater flexibility for program managers to use contracting vehicles that make the most sense for the program or services being acquired, rather than to follow a cookie-cutter approach to management. He conducted a major re-write of the acquisition system’s “5,000-series” rules, which were further simplified and reduced under his successor, Ellen M. Lord.

Previously, Kendall served as the principal deputy to the AT&L position and acting undersecretary. An attorney, Kendall was vice president of engineering for the then-Raytheon Co., where he managed engineering functions and internal research and development. Before joining the Pentagon leadership, he was a managing partner at Renaissance Strategic Advisors, an aerospace and defense consulting firm.

In other Pentagon jobs, Kendall was director of tactical warfare programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and was assistant deputy undersecretary for Strategic Defense Systems. He served 10 years on Active duty with the Army, during which he taught engineering at West Point.

Kendall holds a master’s in aerospace engineering from CalTech and an MBA from C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, as well as a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. He has done extensive pro-bono work on human rights law.

Former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Kendall is an “excellent choice” for the job because he has a mastery of “all things technical, in manufacturing and R&D.” In addition, “For those of us who know him well, even though he’s not known for people issues, I think he’ll be great in this regard as well because he’s very committed to diversity and inclusion, families, and developing people.”

F. Whitten Peters, former Secretary of the Air Force under the Clinton administration and former Air Force Association Chairman of the Board, called Kendall “a very accomplished executive, both in DOD and industry, and I think he’ll be a real help to the Air Force, particularly as it aims to move procurement forward, faster, and in the rapid assimilation of new technology. He’s … very familiar with the Air Force’s issues, as he got the F-35 up and running” after program setbacks forced a restructure of the program. Kendall has “the right experience” for the job, Peters said.

If confirmed, Kendall “would be facing a familiar challenge of declining defense budgets at a critical time for the Department of the Air Force and its fledgling U.S. Space Force,” said former service Undersecretary Matthew P. Donovan, who is now director of AFA’s Mitchell Institute Spacepower Advantage Research Center.

“He would need to strongly support all Airmen and Guardians, staunchly advocate for the crucial importance of air and space power in support of the joint warfighter and great power competition, and set clear visions for the future” of both the Air Force and Space Force, Donovan said.

AFA president retired Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright said, “Frank is very experienced and understands the important role of our Airmen and Guardians in the defense of our nation.” He will be a strong advocate in helping the Department of the Air Force “deter, and be ready to defeat, rapidly growing peer threats.”

Kendall is “a very logical choice” for the Air Force Secretary job, according to Mark J. Lewis, who last served in government as the Pentagon’s director of defense research and engineering under the Trump administration, and is now the head of the National Defense Industrial Association’s nonpartisan Emerging Technologies Institute. The Air Force “has fully embraced the need for modernization, including the adoption of critical emerging technologies in a timely manner,” Lewis said, and Kendall’s background, “not only as a technologist but also as an acquisition expert, is ideally matched to the service’s most pressing needs.”

Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners, in an April 27 bulletin to investors, said Kendall may not support the pending acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne by Lockheed Martin, as he has previously warned against excessive consolidation in the defense industry. As an expert on tactical aviation, Kendall will also shape the ongoing joint-service “TacAir” review and will likely get involved with the interservice fracas regarding the Army’s attempt to claim some of the deep strike mission from the Air Force, via hypersonic missiles, Callan said. While Kendall will likely support continuation of the strategic triad, Callan wrote, he may “weigh in on another Minuteman III upgrade” that would defer funding of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program.

Jones, 40, was the 2018 Democratic candidate for Texas’s 23rd district House seat, which she narrowly lost to incumbent William Hurd. In a second run for the seat in 2019, she did not win the Democratic primary.

In keeping with the Biden administration’s effort to appoint leaders who “look like America,” Jones would be the first openly gay person of color to hold the undersecretary position. She is of Filipino descent.

A native of San Antonio, Texas, Jones received an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship to attend Boston University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies and a master’s in mathematics. She served in the Air Force three years as an intelligence officer, deploying to Iraq and reaching the rank of captain. Jones received a master’s from the Army Command and General Staff College. As a student and on Active duty, she was required to conceal her sexual identity under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

She later worked as a civilian for U.S. Africa Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she specialized in Latin American affairs.

In late 2016, Jones joined the office of the U.S. Trade Representative and stayed on into the Trump administration. She left in 2017 to seek the seat in Congress.