Air Force Magazine
Daily Report for March 5, 2020

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Edited by Amy McCullough with Rachel S. Cohen, Brian W. Everstine, Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory and John A. Tirpak

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Goldfein Defends USAF Decision to Retire Legacy Aircraft
By Amy McCullough

Air Force leaders are urging members of Congress to sit down with them in a
classified setting so they can better understand the service’s thinking behind
its fiscal 2021 budget request, which once again attempts to retire a host of
legacy platforms to free up funding for new technology. “Not surprisingly, of
the services, the air and space forces have the largest classified portfolio of
investment. This makes the story harder to tell,” Chief of Staff Gen. David
Goldfein told House legislators on March 3. “... Most of what we’re retiring
is unclassified and visible, while many of our game-changing investments are
classified and therefore invisible. ... When you see what we’re trading for,
our budget submission will make perfect sense.”

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Congress May Intervene to Speed KC-46 Fixes
By Rachel S. Cohen

Lawmakers are beginning to weigh how the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill could
help solve the KC-46 tanker program’s woes and speed its introduction into
regular operations. Congress could dictate the terms of how Boeing should fix
the tanker’s faulty remote vision system and how long that should take, as
well as lay out possible repercussions like cutting the annual buy, withholding
funding, or calling for a new tanker competition, according to Rep. Rob Wittman
(R-Va.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services seapower and projection
forces subcommittee. He said the company should dispatch its full cadre of
scientists to come up with a hardware solution to the RVS issue, which shows a
refueling boom operator a picture that can be too blurry to connect the boom to
a receiving aircraft. Boeing should then test that fix using a “digital
twin,” or software that lets testers vet parts on computers without installing
them in real life, he said.

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Empowering Disaster Response and Recovery From Space
When a natural disaster or emergency occur, an immediate and seamless response is necessary to
save lives. Operational and situational awareness becomes increasingly important to responders.
If critical infrastructure is down in the disaster zone, then the systems and networks required for
powering the relief efforts are compromised. Ground operations must look to space to solve their
communication needs. Read the full story.
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Space Force Official Hints at New Defensive Capabilities
By Rachel S. Cohen

Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson told lawmakers March 4 the
service has started testing new tools built to defend American assets on orbit,
possibly hinting at classified counterspace capabilities. “We began
prototyping, and demonstrating, and preparing for what I’ll call abilities to
protect and defend our assets, and we did that extensively in the budget in
[fiscal 2020],” Thompson said at a House Appropriations defense subcommittee
hearing. “In [2021], we are now taking steps to extend that across the fleet,
as well as look at other capabilities to be able to continue to defend those
assets that we have and defend adversary use of space.” That could mean
anything from updates that shield satellites from signal jamming to something
more offensive to target the source of a potential threat.

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Coronavirus Starts to Impact DOD
By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The novel coronavirus epidemic is starting to affect the Department of Defense
on everything from recruitment to fighter production. Here’s a look at its
impact so far and how the Air Force is proactively working to counter the spread
of the virus within its ranks.

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F-35 Full-Rate Production May Slip Again
By John A. Tirpak

Declaring full-rate production may slip a little further as initial operational
test and evaluation and the integration of the F-35 into a virtual wargaming
environment play out, program executive officer Lt. Gen. Eric Fick said March 4.
Granting Lockheed Martin's pitch to get a Performance-Based Logistics contract
depends on its sharing of data, he added.

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U.S. Aircraft Strike Taliban Fighters Shortly After Peace Deal
By Brian W. Everstine

US aircraft targeted Taliban fighters who had attacked an Afghan military
checkpoint on March 4, just days after a peace deal to end the war in
Afghanistan was signed. The strike in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand province—the first
against the Taliban in 11 days—came one day after the group conducted 43
attacks on Afghan National Defense and Security Forces checkpoints in Helmand
alone, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan said in a statement.

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Radar Sweep

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State Department Clears Potential $2.4B KC-46 Sale to Israel

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the approved deal in a
statement March 3. The potential sale involves the eight Boeing-made aircraft,
as well as contractor support and parts including 18 Miniature Airborne GPS
Receivers manufactured by Raytheon, according to DSCA.

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Nearly All the F-35 Jet Engines Ordered Last Year Arrived Late

Nearly all the engines ordered for the next-generation F-35 jet were delivered
late last year as the Pratt & Whitney unit of United Technologies Corp.
struggled to solve nagging difficulties with parts and suppliers, according to
the Pentagon.

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Offutt Crew Examining E-4B 'Doomsday Plane' That Made Emergency Landing in Lincoln

The Air Force jet, using call sign GORDO14, took off from Offutt Air Force Base
shortly before 11 a.m. local time and was flying over southwest Iowa. Then it
broke off toward the west over Nebraska City and flew to Lincoln, Neb., where it
landed about 11:50 a.m. It was met by fire crews from the Nebraska Air National
Guard, which operates from the airfield.

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Pentagon Launches Hypersonic Industrial Base Study

The Defense Department has launched a deep dive study into the industrial base
for hypersonic weapons, in order to understand the weak spots in America’s
drive towards the high-speed offensive and defensive technology.

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The Pentagon Wants a Mix of Hypersonic Weapons. Here’s Why

Boost-glide hypersonic weapons have a longer range. Air-breathing cruise
missiles are smaller and configurable for a wider range of platforms, such as
bombers or fifth-generation fighters. The Defense Department is looking for a
complementary mix of both as it pursues new hypersonic technologies for its
arsenal, according to top officials.

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Military Families: Tenant Bill of Rights Missing 3 Things Needed to Level Playing Field in Military Housing

The document is supposed to protect military families, but key rights are not
being implemented yet, including the ability to withhold rent.

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General Officer Announcements

President Donald Trump announced the assignment of several key general officer
positions, including a new deputy commander of Pacific Air Forces, director of
staff, and head of Alaskan Command.

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Proposed Law Would Eliminate Benefits Deduction for Military Retirees with Combat-Related Injuries or Illnesses

The Major Richard Star Act, HR 5995, seeks to eliminate a legal provision that
prevents some retired veterans from simultaneously collecting two types of
federal monetary benefits, referred to as “concurrent receipt.” More than
200,000 medically retired veterans with disabilities currently “have their
military [retirement] pay offset or reduced dollar-for-dollar” by the amount
of their disability compensation, according to the Congressional Research
Service. This bill would affect one-fifth of these retirees.

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Defense Department Linguist Charged with Espionage

Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, formerly of Rochester, Minn., was charged March 4 in
Washington with transmitting highly sensitive classified national defense
information to a foreign national with apparent connections to Hezbollah.

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SEAC Colon-Lopez Releases Reading List for Service Members

The Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ramon
"CZ" Colon-Lopez has released a reading list of five books for 2020, and all of
them stress different aspects of leadership.

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Faster Acquisition

The Air Force is leveraging emerging technologies and new legislation to
accelerate acquisition decisions and streamline sustainment. Read more here.

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One More Thing...
The Quest to Recover One Vietnam-Era Air Force Pilot Lost in Lake Huron Crash

More than five decades after USAF Maj. William Vinopal from the 72st Fighter
Interceptor Squadron and his F-106A Delta Dart crashed over Lake Huron during a
training exercise, a group of veterans has set out to find the wreckage and
recover the lost Airman’s remains.

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