Air Force Magazine
Daily Report for Sept. 25, 2020

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

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Here’s How a Three-Month CR—or Longer—Would Affect the Air Force
By Rachel S. Cohen

As Congress looks to delay passage of a new federal funding package until after
the November elections, the Air Force is warning that even a three-month gap
would harm national defense. “[Continuing resolutions] immediately disrupt
major exercises and training events, affect readiness and maintenance, curtail
hiring and recruitment actions, and adversely impact contracting
negotiations,” Air Force spokesman Capt. Jacob N. Bailey said in a Sept. 24
email. A stopgap spending bill would also slow the service’s adoption of
technology it wants to compete with other advanced militaries like those of
Russia and China.

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B-1B Fleet Finishes Integrated Battle Station Upgrade
By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force this month finished the biggest upgrade to the B-1B Lancer fleet
ever. The Integrated Battle Station program, which includes three separate
avionics and cockpit upgrades, began in 2012. Since then, 62 aircraft have
received the upgrade, almost all on a dedicated line at Tinker Air Force Base,
Okla. The program cost about $1.25 billion, and included 1,050,000 total hours
of work. “I think everybody’s heard of how complex this upgrade is, and how
complicated it’s been,” said Lt. Col. James Couch, commander of the 10th
Flight Test Squadron, which handled test flights in the program. “But through
teamwork, through maintenance and the (System Program Office), and through
engineering, ops, we all came together as a team and we did something that’s
never been done before in the B-1 enterprise.”

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DOD to Keep COVID-19 Restrictions, Mask Requirements Until Vaccine Broadly Available
By Brian W. Everstine

The military’s travel and other restrictions related to the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic are likely to stick around for a while, until a vaccine is broadly
available, which Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley said
he expects to be a matter of months. Milley, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper,
and Senior Enlisted Adviser to the Chairman Ramón Colón-López on Sept. 24
hosted a virtual town hall with service members, during which multiple questions
were focused on COVID-19 restrictions. In response to a question on how soon
restrictions would be lifted, Milley said changes are “conditions based” and
depend on where a service member is stationed. “We have to be mindful of our
No. 1 priority, which is the health of the force writ large,” Milley said.

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With an Eye on China, Reaper Drones Train for Maritime War
By Rachel S. Cohen

MQ-9 Reapers, the workhorse drone of America’s two-decade counterterrorism
fight in the Middle East and Africa, want to show they’re getting a second
wind. The MQ-9 schoolhouse at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., recently rewrote
its syllabus to prepare Reaper pilots and sensor operators for a more complex
fight, 29th Attack Squadron Commander Lt. Col. Brian Davis told Air Force
Magazine in a Sept. 21 interview. The Air Force approved the new coursework
shortly before the start of Exercise Agile Reaper, the first training event
focused on those tactics in the Pacific.

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Triple Nickel Hones Skills at Thracian Viper 20
By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

For Aviano Air Base’s 555th Fighter Squadron, Thracian Viper 20 is about more
than just training. The multilateral exercise, to which the squadron sent Airmen
and six F-16s, boosts “operational capacity and capability," as well as
interoperability with Bulgaria, Maj. Rohan Naldrett-Jays, the squadron’s chief
of standardizations and evaluation, told Air Force Magazine. But, it also helps
the Italy-based squadron fine-tune its ability to deploy aircraft and manpower
anywhere in the European theater with agility—a critical part of Chief of
Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.’s “accelerate change, or lose” directive
for the Total Force.

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Radar Sweep

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Snapshot: DOD and COVID-19

Here's a look at how the Defense Department is being impacted by and responding
to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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OPINION: How’s Military Aftermarket Sector Faring Amid COVID-19 Crisis?

“COVID-19 has not caused military aviation anything like the degree of
disruption it has for civil aviation,” writes Michael Tint, Aviation Week’s
head of defense analytics.

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AIA Unveils “Roadmap to Recovery” to Guide A&D Industry’s Comeback

“This crisis is not only devastating our aviation sector, its shockwaves are
reverberating across the defense sector because of our shared supply chain,”
said Aerospace Industries Association President and CEO Eric Fanning. “While
companies and government leaders have taken initial steps to support jobs and
help businesses survive, the severity of this crisis requires additional action.
AIA’s ‘Roadmap to Recovery’ provides a strategic blueprint to help ensure
a strong comeback, one that ensures the health of our workers, the resilience of
our industry, and renewed strength in America’s national and economic
security.”

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Air Force Tests New Anti-Drone Technology with MEDUSA Network

The Air Force has tested the ability of new sensor and missile technology to
thwart a fleet of small unmanned aerial systems while integrated with an
emerging command-and-control network at the large-scale Apollyon exercise last
month, the service revealed Sept. 23. The 96th Test Wing evaluated over 20
anti-drone systems—including a successful live fire of an air defense
missile—during the event, which was held at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.,
between Aug. 10 and Aug. 24, according to a notice published on the service's
website.

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OPINION: Are the Days of Manned Fighters REALLY Numbered?

“The Observe and Orient steps of the OODA Loop are the heart and soul of
dogfighting—the two most critical elements in the OODA sequence,” writes
John Venable, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for
National Defense.. “No system in the world can touch a human’s ability to
capture and process those tasks.”

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Roper: Space Force Could Save Money, Time with Digitally Designed Satellites

The goal would be to produce Toyota-like satellites, said Air Force acquisition
boss Will Roper, "easy to build but reliable and hard working."

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A Creative Approach to Improving Software for the Air Force

This week on Federal Tech Talk, host John Gilroy speaks with Nicolas M.
Chaillan, chief software officer of the Air Force. The two focal points of the
interview are PlatformOne and CloudOne.

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Air Force Adds 15 Companies to $950M Joint All Domain C2 Support IDIQ

The U.S. Air Force has selected 15 additional companies as awardees on a
potential $950M contract to build and operate systems across land, air, sea,
space, electromagnetic spectrum, and cyber domains as part of the joint
all-domain command and control program.

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Full Coverage of AFA's Virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference

The conference has passed, but our coverage continues. For a comprehensive look
at everything that happened, check out our vASC landing page.

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Flooding the Zone: Future Aviation Capability Tightens Kill Chain at Project Convergence

Partnering helicopters and unmanned aircraft just a few years ago meant that a
pilot could control a drone to fly ahead to conduct reconnaissance. Maybe it
meant a pilot could control payloads or even the weapon systems on that drone.
But at Project Convergence at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., this month,
manned-unmanned teaming took on a far more advanced meaning.

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’Who Is Our Enemy?‘ Neutral Switzerland Votes on Fighter Jets

Switzerland, which last fought a foreign war more than 200 years ago and has no
discernable enemies, wants to spend billions on new fighter jets. Many oppose
the idea, saying the neutral country neither can afford nor needs cutting-edge
warplanes to defend Alpine territory, which a supersonic jet can cross in 10
minutes.

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Risk of Thunderstorms Prevented Dutch F-35s from Escorting US B-52 during Allied Sky Mission

The Royal Netherlands Air Force had announced the participation of the F-35s in
the one-day exercise. But the risk of thunderstorm forced the Koninklijke
Luchtmacht to cancel the participation of its Lightning II jets.

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Behold a British Carrier Carrying the Most Stealth Fighters of Any Warship to Date

The U.K. Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has embarked the
largest number of aircraft on its deck ever, as F-35B stealth fighters from
British and American squadrons have gone aboard for the next phase of maneuvers.
The Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and U.S. Marine Corps have been working up to
this for weeks now.

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One More Thing...
The Air Force Now Has Its Own Tattoo Shop

Getting a tattoo is as a much of a rite of passage for military personnel as the
ritualized—and oftentimes scalp-gouging—buzz cut at boot camp. And while
barber shops have been a mainstay on bases around the globe, Soldiers, Sailors,
Airmen, and Marines have never had the convenience of on-base ink—until now.

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