The Boeing-built T-X advanced trainer has been officially named the T-7A “Red Hawk.” Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan announced the name at AFA's 2019 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, explaining that the name honors the Tuskegee Airmen—known as the “Red Tails”—as well as the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, which the unit flew in their early WWII deployment to Europe. Donovan was joined by several Tuskegee Airmen for the announcement. The T-7A completed its Critical Design Review last week, and the program is progressing well, company program manager Steve Parker told Air Force Magazine. Read the full story by John A. Tirpak.

Northrop Grumman, at the start of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference near Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, announced the principal members of its industry team in competing for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent contract, the project to replace the Air Force’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile force. The team includes Lockheed Martin, prime contractor on the Navy’s Trident D5 Sea-Launched Ballistic Missile, as well as many top-, second-, and third-tier contractors. Northrop Grumman said it continues to treat the GBSD as a competition, even though main rival Boeing professes it will not bid on the project estimated to cost at least $85 billion. Read the full story by John A. Tirpak. 

Raytheon is developing a new missile called the "Peregrine," meant to complement the company's Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and Sidewinder in air-to-air combat. The new missile offers greater range than its predecessors, features a multi-mode seeker, and employs a new propulsion system for faster speed. Peregrine is half the size of the other two munitions and will employ “off-the-shelf” components for speedier production. Raytheon is pursuing the project with its own funds but hopes to partner with the military services on the final design. Read the full story by John A. Tirpak.

The new head of Air Force Special Operations Command says the niche organization will get closer to other parts of the service so the Air Force can wage war from austere locations across the globe—a traditionally special-operations skill that the Pentagon wants to adopt more broadly. “We've had a number of exercises we've done at a series of things with [Air Combat Command, Pacific Air Forces, US Air Forces in Europe,] where we've used AFSOC C-130s and AFSOC airmen to refuel fighters in forward, unimproved landing strips to generate high sortie tempo for those fighter aircraft,” Lt. Gen. James C. Slife told reporters Sept. 16 at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. He argues that AFSOC is traditionally seen more as a US Special Operations Command component than a piece of the Air Force, but that will change. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

The B-21 remains on schedule, and its first flight is planned to hop from its production site at Palmdale, Calif., to Edwards AFB,Calif., where the Air Force will reactivate a historic squadron to test the bomber. Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan, speaking at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 16, said he was “happy” to report the progress the bomber is making. For its first flight, scheduled for December 2021, the bomber will move to Edwards AFB, Calif., where the service is reactivating the 420th Flight Test Flight Squadron to evaluate the bomber. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

If the B-1 can hold up structurally, it could go back to its roots as a high-speed attack bomber loaded with standoff weapons, helping the Air Force fulfill its requirements under the National Defense Strategy, Global Strike Command chief Gen. Timothy Ray said at AFA's 2019 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The B-1 has been ground down by excessive use as a loitering bomb truck in the Middle East, Ray said, leading to an unhealthy fleet, but could be a quick fix for what Ray characterized as an inadequate bomber force. Read the full story by John A. Tirpak.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson on Sept. 16 suggested that the ability to replace downed low-Earth orbit satellites in a day or less—a capability he told CNBC earlier this year that Virgin Orbit aspires to possess–could make them less desirable targets for enemy states and, thus, deter “the sort of cyber war in space that we all fear.” “Were there to be a conflict in the Middle East and somebody knocked out all the satellites in that area, by having a 747 … that can just take off at, you know, four or five hours notice, and have a rocket attached under the wing, drop it, and put a new satellite into space, hopefully it’ll be a deterrent to an enemy state to knock out satellites in the first place, if they know that America or Great Britain has the capability of replacing satellites within 24 hours,” he told AFA Chairman and former Air Force Secretary F. Whitten Peters during an onstage conversation at the Air Force Association’s 2019 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Branson said this speedy solution can also make networks more reliable by eliminating the need for network disruptions when LEO satellites, which “fall out of the sky every four or five years,” need to be replaced. —Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The training pipeline for special-operations airmen is steadily improving, leading to incrementally better manning levels, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command told reporters Sept. 16. The pipeline for combat controllers, pararescuemen, and other AFSOC specialties has long faced challenges because those training programs are so difficult, Lt. Gen. James C. Slife said at a media roundtable at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. But while the niche careers have room to grow, they aren’t currently hurting for people. “We're at a pretty sustainable level, and we're growing the force to fill out the units and our deployment packages that we have within the units,” Slife said. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

The Air Force is establishing a dedicated group to battle intellectual property theft as part of a Pentagon- and government-wide push to protect federal assets. “As we bring on new capabilities quickly, it’s important that we protect the intellectual property associated with these assets from countries that would like to steal our ideas,” Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan said in a Sept. 16 keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The Pentagon also plans to stand up its own IP cadre by October. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

Global Hawks to Take On Hypersonic Testing

The Air Force is buying three RQ-4 Global Hawks to aid in long-range hypersonic missile testing, according to the head of the Air Force Test Center. The move, which is already in progress, is one aspect of the service’s attempt to beef up its hypersonic test infrastructure as it pushes toward having operational flying prototypes within the next few years. “We have to be able to, over a long distance, ensure the safety of the fly arc, to monitor the footprint, [and] ensure that we have telemetry relays all the way back to the people on the ground that are collecting the data,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Azzano told Air Force Magazine in a Sept. 16 interview at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Read the full story by Rachel S. Cohen.

USAF Wants to Use its Buying Power to Boost US Economy—and Build Self-Flying Cars

The Air Force wants to use its buying power to help the nascent autonomous transportation business, as it’s already doing in the space launch and satellite communications industry, the service’s acquisition chief, Will Roper, said Sept. 16 at AFA's 2019 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Read the full story by Shaun Waterman.

Elbit Systems of America’s $350 million purchase of Roanoke,Va.-based Harris Night Vision will allow the company to offer enhanced capabilities for the F-35 Helmet Mounted Display System, executives said Monday. Harris, which was required to sell its night vision business as a condition of its merger with L3 Technologies, made some of the most advanced image amplification technology in the world. Read the full story by Shaun Waterman.

The 56th Rescue Squadron recently deployed for the first time from its new home base at Aviano AB, Italy, with the 57th Rescue Squadron right on its heels, after moving from RAF Lakenheath, England, last year. The Air Force moved the two squadrons, along with their HH-60G Pave Hawks and HC-130s, to Italy to free up space at the English base. Both rescue squadron deployments are to the US Central Command area of responsibility. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

The 76 F-15Es and F-15Cs from the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, England, are often the Air Force’s first call for combat aircraft to rapidly deploy to the Middle East, and their deployment earlier this year was the perfect example of that. Early this year, the Air Force gave the wing less than two weeks-notice to deploy F-15Cs from the 493rd Fighter Squadron to the Middle East to support Operation Inherent Resolve — the ongoing air war against ISIS. “One of the things about the neighborhood in which we live, we live in that constant state of readiness of go, be ready to fight tonight, to go be ready and assure our allies and adversaries in the region,” said Col. Will Marshall, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing at Lakenheath. Read the full story by Brian Everstine.

Air Force Recruiting Service Commander Maj. Gen. Jeannie Leavitt told reporters Sept. 16 that less than a quarter of American youth in the service’s “target market” actually qualify to serve in USAF, and that an even smaller fraction is actually interested in serving their country in uniform. But she said she believes educating young people about the Air Force can be key to changing that statistic. Read the full story by Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory.

One More Thing …