Air Force Magazine
Daily Report for March 9, 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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Dyess or Ellsworth to Get First B-21s
By John A. Tirpak

Either Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, or Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., will be
the first base to host the B-21 Raider bomber. The service announced the start
of environmental impact analyses in both locations to see which will be first to
operate the Raider. Only after the first base is selected will USAF choose a
second and third main operating base for the bomber.

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Mobility’s Role in the JADC2 Movement
By Brian W. Everstine

Air Mobility Command's gray tail airlifters and tankers will participate in a
series of Joint All-Domain Command and Control experiments this year. The
efforts, part of the series of Advanced Battle Management System experiments and
other exercises, aim to show how aircraft such as C-17s and KC-135s can serve an
integral role in the modern world of command and control, from space to the
ground, when using new technology and data links, AMC boss Gen. Maryanne Miller
said in an interview with Air Force Magazine.

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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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USAFE, European F-35 Partners Planning Range, Training Infrastructure
By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. Air Forces in Europe leadership is meeting regularly with NATO Air Chiefs
and the F-35 users' group to plan out new range infrastructure and training
opportunities as American F-35s prepare to deploy to the continent. The
planning, led by USAFE’s Warrior Preparation Center, is looking to combine the
lessons learned by current F-35 operators, such as the United Kingdom, Norway,
the Netherlands, and Italy, with the U.S. expertise on the airframe to lay out
the best way to train with the new aircraft in a continent with limited range
access. “The intent is to approach it from an operational training
infrastructure perspective, and work with our partners,” USAFE boss Gen.
Jeffrey Harrigian told Air Force Magazine in an interview.

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National Guard Bureau to Use Machine Learning to Foster Healthier Troops
By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The National Guard Bureau is preparing to roll out SPRINGboard, a digital tool
that'll give leaders insight into the health risk factors impacting the
communities their troops call home so they can tailor prevention efforts
accordingly. During a March 5 media roundtable at the Pentagon, Capt. Matthew
Kleiman, who serves as NGB’s director of psychological health and directs the
Warrior Resilience & Fitness Division, described SPRINGboard as “a predictive
model” powered by "machine learning and advanced analytics.” He said the
dashboard will synthesize population-level health-risk-factor data and internal
data from the bureau to understand geographic-specific risk factors, eventually
down to the county level.

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Tyndall Making Slow, Steady Progress
By Rachel S. Cohen

Things are starting to look up at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. It’s been 17
months since Category 5 Hurricane Michael flattened the Florida Panhandle
installation that is home to F-22s and about 4,000 people. Restoring the base to
a new-and-improved condition over the next several years is slated to cost up to
$4.9 billion, all of which Congress has already appropriated for the Air Force
to use. Meanwhile, Tyndall Airmen are accomplishing 90 percent of the missions
they were doing before the storm, with 80 percent of the people and 50 percent
of the facilities that were originally there. That reality will persist for the
next three to five years as the base is gradually rebuilt and reorganized to
begin hosting 72 F-35s by the fall of 2023. MQ-9s could follow around the same
time.

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Radar Sweep

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Space Force Officials Defend Plan to Consider Alternatives to a Space National Guard

U.S. Space Force leaders were asked by lawmakers this week to explain why they
have taken no action to establish a Space National Guard as a reserve component
of the newest branch of the armed forces. Their answer, in so many words, is
that they’re just following the law.

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Army to Provide Counter-UAS Rapid-Response Concept to Esper

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has tasked the Army with developing a
rapid-response capability concept for counter unmanned aerial systems, a service
official said March 5. The service will deliver the concept in April after it
completes an assessment of several fielded c-UAS systems. The Army in January
was named the new lead for the effort.

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New Special Operations Network Will Serve as Security Backbone in Afghanistan Ahead of U.S. Withdrawal

A new network of Special Operations forces will serve as the backbone of a
smaller U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, hunting Islamic State group
fighters as the United States withdraws and providing firepower against the
Taliban if a peace agreement with the group crumbles, military officials said.

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AFSOC Targets All Domain Ops in New Strategy Document

Air Force Special Operations Command must better integrate cyber, space, and
information operations as the U.S. military pivots to All Domain Operations from
a focus on combatting terrorism, according to a new AFSOC strategy document.
“It will induce short-term institutional turbulence, require us to question
long-held assumptions, and compel us to make the difficult choices necessary to
our transformation,” Lt. Gen. Jim Slife said in a memo to all of AFSOC.

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U.S., U.K. Agree to ‘Further’ Restrict Huawei, Defense Secretary Says

The United States and the United Kingdom have agreed to “further” reduce
Huawei’s presence in telecom infrastructure, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper
said at a March 5 Pentagon press conference. Esper described a lunch
conversation with U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace on the subject
as “candid,” without elaborating on what form the “further’ reduction
would take. He highlighted the importance of the intelligence-sharing agreement
between the U.S., the U.K., and other Five Eyes partners.

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Defense Department Needs to Clean Up Last of Longstanding Business IT Issues, Watchdog Says

The Defense Department has made significant progress improving management of the
information technology used for its business processes but work on key areas
remains, according to the latest roundup report from the Government
Accountability Office.

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South Korean Worker at Camp Humphreys Infected with Coronavirus, Raising USFK Total to 7

A South Korean woman who works at Camp Humphreys has tested positive for
COVID-19, officials said March 6, in the first confirmed case linked to the U.S.
military outside the hard-hit area of Daegu. The announcement raised to seven
the number of people affiliated with U.S. Forces Korea who have been infected,
including a soldier and his wife.

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This $15 3D-Printed Tool Will Save the Air Force Millions

The U.S. Air Force will save millions of dollars and Airmen spared the dirty
work of crawling inside fuel tanks, all by using a simple tool invented by a
serving Airman. The pressurized leak detection cup will cut the the number of
hours needed to detect fuel tank leaks by up to 75 percent, saving the service
more than a million dollars a year. To top it off, the new tool is 3D printed
and costs just $15 to produce.

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One More Thing...
F-15E Strike Eagles Return to RAF Lakenheath from Middle East Deployment with Wrestlers Nose Arts

The first 16 F-15E Strike Eagle jets belonging to the 494th Fighter Squadron
returned to RAF Lakenheath on Mar. 1-2, from a deployment to U.S. Central
Command. Interestingly, 14 out of 16 F-15Es returned to the U.K. sporting some
interesting nose arts inspired by famous wrestlers (the two aircraft that were
not sporting the nose art belong to the 492nd FS and were washed out according
to our sources).

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