The Air Force’s proposal to cut the F-22s is part of a broader plan to divest 150 aircraft in fiscal 2023 to free funds for higher priorities such as the B-21 bomber, hypersonic weapons programs and Next-Generation Air Dominance systems.

The House Armed Services Committee’s defense policy bill offered a sharp rebuke of the strategy and of the planned F-22 retirements in particular. Not only did lawmakers reject the plan to cut the aircraft, they called for the older-model jets, which are used primarily for training missions, to be upgraded to the newest F-22 configuration.

The White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to Congress last month it “strongly opposes” House efforts to block aircraft and ship retirements. Andrew Hunter, the Air Force’s top acquisition official, told reporters this week that preventing the service’s divestment plan would slow progress on the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which aims to field a fleet of unmanned aircraft to augment NGAD and other fighter aircraft during combat missions. The program is one of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s top priorities.

“The concern I would have would be on our ability to deliver on a Collaborative Combat Aircraft system to complement NGAD. That’s where I think we start to see impacts,” Hunter told reporters during an Aug. 11 briefing at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Industry Days conference in Dayton, Ohio. “It would limit our ability to dedicate people and resources to an aggressive effort to field that capability.”

The Air Force requested $51.5 million in fiscal 2023 to transition technologies matured through the Skyborg program — the service’s effort to demonstrate the utility of teaming fighters and unmanned aircraft — to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft effort.

Asked whether additional funding from Congress would allow the Air Force to keep the F-22s and stay on track with the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, Hunter said there are infrastructure and manpower constraints that can’t necessarily be addressed with more money.

Brig. Gen. Dale White, program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, told reporters during a separate Aug. 11 briefing the service is working with F-22 manufacturer Lockheed Martin to develop a cost estimate for modernizing the 33 older aircraft. A 2019 analysis projected it would cost about $50 million per jet, but White said a number of variables, including supply chain constraints, could change that estimate.

“We’re trying to put our arms around what has changed since the last time we did this,” he said.

The service plans to provide that data to Congress within the next month to inform budget deliberations, he added.

National Defense Department spokesman Arsenio Andolong said in a statement carried by the Philippines’ national news agency that the government is currently formalizing the termination of the contract with Russia’s Sovtechnoexport for 16 Mi-17 helicopters.

“We are also preparing to initiate a diplomatic dialogue with the Russian side regarding matters arising from the project’s cancellation,” Andolong said, adding cryptically that “changes in priorities necessitated by global political developments resulted in the cancellation of the project by the previous administration.”

He also said efforts are being made to retrieve the $48.2 million down payment for the helicopters made in January.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana previously told The Associated Press that the government was canceling the $322.3 million deal due to concerns over potential U.S. sanctions. He also said the decision was approved by then-President Rodrigo Duterte, whose administration had signed the contract for the helicopters in November 2021.

The Philippines insisted as recently as March 2022 that the procurement would go ahead despite the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began Feb. 24.

Those buying Russian arms could be hit with sanctions under the U.S. law Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. The law was passed in 2017 and is meant to discourage governments or entities from acquiring weapons as well as military hardware and parts from American adversaries like Iran, North Korea and Russia.

Without the Mi-17s, the Philippines would be left with an outstanding requirement for heavy transport helicopters. The Mi-17 was chosen because of its relatively spacious cabin as well as its rear ramp or clamshell doors (depending on the variant).

Transport helicopters are a vital component of the Philippine military; the country is an archipelagic nation made up of more than 7,000 islands and is beset with natural disasters and ongoing insurgencies. Its existing fleet of transport helicopters are often engaged in relief operations or transporting troops and equipment.

The Mi-17 has similar payload capabilities to several Western transport helicopter types, but its price was a draw for the Philippines, with the country seeking to modernize its aging and modest military in the face of a tight budget.

The Air Force selected the E-7 in April to replace a portion of its E-3 Airborne Warning and Control fleet, a command-and-control platform the service has been operating for more than 40 years. The service’s proposed 2023 budget calls for retiring 15 E-3s, or about half the fleet, and includes $227 million in research, development, test and evaluation funds for the replacement.

Steven Wert, the program executive officer for the service’s Digital Directorate, which oversees the Wedgetail acquisition, told reporters this week that if Congress fails to pass a fiscal 2023 defense budget on time, it would delay the Air Force’s current plan to award Boeing a contract by February of next year.

Lawmakers have until Sept. 30 to pass an appropriations bill, a fast-approaching deadline made more challenging by the August congressional recess. If Congress fails to approve a budget, it must approve a continuing resolution as a stopgap measure to keep the government funded until it does. Continuing resolutions freeze funding at prior-year levels and restrict agencies from awarding contracts to start new programs or increasing procurement quantities.

Agencies can request “anomalies” to shield priority programs from the impact of a CR, and Wert told reporters during an Aug. 10 briefing at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Management Industry Days event in Dayton, Ohio, the service plans to request protection for the E-7 acquisition.

At the same time, the service is also seeking congressional approval to shift, or reprogram, fiscal year 2022 funding from other accounts to speed up the E-7 award. If approved, the Air Force could award the deal to Boeing before February, Wert said.

“That new-start reprogramming would give us the flexibility to potentially speed it up somewhat,” he said. “It’s not going to be a dramatic speed-up, but we’re doing everything we can.”

The Air Force expects to have its first E-7 on hand by fiscal 2027. While the aircraft is an off-the-shelf solution, it will require some software upgrades as well as integration of new hardware.

The Royal Australian Air Force also flies the Wedgetail and Wert said the service is working closely with Australia to identify options to collaborate and accelerate test and evaluation. The U.K. also signed a deal with Boeing in 2018 to buy five E-7s and is considering expanding that procurement and Saudi Arabia has shown interest in the platform, Wert said.

“The potential is there for cooperative programs between the nations that are currently using the E-7,” he said. “We are hearing of a lot of interest from other nations to look to E-7 as well.”

With reporting by Stephen Losey

The cost of the contract is yet to be determined, but the government has allocated up to CA$5 billion (U.S. $4 billion) to purchase the planes.

Airbus was designated as the only supplier qualified to provide the tankers to the Royal Canadian Air Force. As a result, a formal request for its proposal for the planes was issued to the firm on May 13, 2022.

National Defence Department spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande said the government has not yet received the proposal.

“Once Airbus’ response is received, an assessment and negotiation will occur,” Lamirande said, noting that a contract is expected to be awarded by April 2023.

The Canadian Armed Forces found the Airbus A330 MRTT, a refueling and transport plane, is the only aircraft qualified for the job. The Air Force wants the first of the A330s operational by 2028.

The new aircraft are part of Canada’s Strategic Tanker Transport Capability project, meant to replace the existing CC-150 Polaris aircraft flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Those refueling and transport planes have been in operation since 1992.

Originally six new aircraft were to be purchased as part of the Strategic Tanker Transport Capability project. But on July 14, Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand announced the military would acquire two used Airbus A330s and eventually upgrade those to become part of the Air Force’s tanker and transport fleet.

Canada acquired those used aircraft, built in 2015, from International Airfinance Corp., a global aircraft leasing company, in a deal worth about $102 million.

Lamirande said the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the commercial aviation industry created favorable market conditions to procure the used A330-200 aircraft at the best value for Canada. The government is scheduled to receive the aircraft in December 2022 and April 2023, and then ferry them to the country shortly after, she added.

“There are a number of predelivery and acceptance activities that need to be completed before any used aircraft will arrive in Canada” Lamirande said. Those include scheduled preventive maintenance, limited retrofit to prepare for service within the Air Force, painting of the aircraft, final delivery inspection and acceptance checks.

The used aircraft are currently configured for long-haul commercial use. They will initially be used for an interim period to perform cargo and troop airlift operations, said Lamirande. The planes could also be used to transport civilian passengers during humanitarian relief operations, as well as fly VIPs, such as Canada’s prime minister.

These used aircraft will, after an interim period of operations, be turned over to Airbus for conversion to the MRTT configuration as the other four new aircraft expected to be purchased.

The Pentagon hasn’t found any defective ejection seat parts on its F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, or on other potentially affected combat and training aircraft, during widespread checks that began in July, a spokesperson for seat manufacturer Martin-Baker told Air Force Times on Sunday.

F-35s across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have started returning to flight after three weeks of an effort to ensure the safety of America’s premier fighter jet, but U.S. military officials aren’t divulging many details as inspections progress. Several other fleets may be carrying the faulty seat component as well.

At issue is the seat’s part called the cartridge, which contains magnesium powder that ignites to shoot an aviator out of the cockpit when they trigger an escape.

Martin-Baker spokesperson Steve Roberts confirmed that as of Aug. 5, only one faulty seat cartridge has turned up during inspections of the F-35 fleet — the one that first prompted concerns when it was discovered at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, in April. Martin-Baker discovered another pair of bad cartridges in its own inventory that same month, bringing the total found to three.

The company has data that suggests the cartridge problem may be limited to the F-35, Roberts said in July.

“Outside the F-35, not a single anomaly has been discovered worldwide as a result of the forensic investigation, which continues at pace,” he said.

A routine inspection at Hill turned up an F-35 cartridge that was loose and missing its explosive charge, Air Force Times previously reported. Maintainers checked a limited number of other aircraft to see whether the discovery was an isolated incident and decided the jets could return to flight.

Sometime in the months that followed, Martin-Baker conducted a quality-assurance check and found that its production line was turning out defective cartridges. It’s unclear when the company realized the problem, or when it alerted its military customers.

On July 19, the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office ordered workers to inspect all ejection seats within 90 days. That came three months after Hill found the first faulty cartridge, during which pilots could have run into the issue during an in-flight emergency.

Military and company officials note that the defect only affects aircraft with cartridges from certain production batches, but have declined to answer how many cartridges were built as part of those lots or the number of aircraft on which they were installed.

The situation picked up steam as it entered the public eye in the weeks that followed.

The Navy said it began shipping replacement parts to its own maintenance centers with planes that could be affected by the problem on July 24, two days before it went public with the situation in a July 26 press release.

The release disclosed that a cartridge problem affected some Navy fixed-wing aircraft — the F/A-18B/C/D Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets, E/A-18G Growler electronic attack plane, and T-45 Goshawk and F-5 Tiger II trainers.

But the sea service didn’t mention the Marine Corps F-35B or the Navy F-35C variants, despite finishing F-35C inspections on July 26, the same day as it issued its press release.

The next day, Breaking Defense first reported that the Navy had grounded an undisclosed number of affected planes for inspections, not including F-35s.

Then, after news reports that the entire Joint Strike Fighter enterprise was under scrutiny, the Navy confirmed it was done checking C-models.

Rather than stretch inspections over a 90-day span, the Navy and Marine Corps checked each plane before their next flight. Possibly defective cartridges on the F-35Cs were replaced, Breaking Defense reported.

“All potentially affected F-35Cs have been returned to operational status,” Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Zachary Harrell told Air Force Times Friday.

Marine Corps spokesperson Maj. Jay Hernandez said in an emailed statement on Friday that the service had inspected all ejection seat cartridges “even earlier in the maintenance cycle than recommended” by Martin-Baker.

“Over 90 percent of the inspections on Marine Corps ejection seat cartridge actuating devices are now complete,” Hernandez said. That figure has stayed the same since at least July 29.

The Navy said no one has died or been injured as a result; the Air Force has stressed its groundings are a precaution to get ahead of any fatalities.

On Monday, Air Combat Command spokesperson Alexi Worley said maintainers were making “good progress” on F-35A inspections but declined to answer how many jets had been checked or returned to flight.

ACC oversees most of the Air Force’s more than 300 F-35s and grounded its fleet July 29 to speed up its seat checks. Each fighter can resume normal flying as it passes inspection.

“The stand-down of aircraft will continue through the weekend, and a determination to safely resume normal operations is expected to be made early next week, pending analysis of the inspection data,” Worley told Air Force Times on July 29.

She did not provide an update by press time Friday.

Air Education and Training Command, the Air Force organization that oversees F-35s used at pilot training squadrons in Arizona and Florida, also ordered the more than 100 Lightning IIs it owns to stand down on July 29 to expedite inspections.

“A portion of the AETC F-35 fleet has been inspected and cleared for flight, with inspections continuing on the remaining aircraft,” the command said Tuesday. “Our ability to execute the highest priority missions supporting national defense are not impacted.”

Other Air Force organizations that fly the F-35A overseas indicated their fleets are conducting missions but would not say whether the cartridge problem was discovered and resolved on any airframes.

All F-35As in Europe have resumed normal operations, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Force Africa said in a Monday email to Defense News. Pacific Air Forces confirmed to Air Force Times Thursday that it has continued to fly its aircraft after wrapping up inspections.

At least one international F-35 partner, Israel, has paused the jet’s operations to search for problems as well. Other nations that are currently part of or plan to join the F-35 program include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Lockheed Martin plans to build more than 3,000 F-35s for militaries around the globe. More than 800 planes have been delivered so far over the past 15 years, over half of which belong to the U.S. More than 1,700 pilots fly the F-35 from 26 bases and 10 ships globally.

In April, the Government Accountability Office reported it will cost more than $1.7 trillion for the Pentagon to buy, operate and maintain the American jets.

Neither Martin-Baker nor the F-35 Joint Program Office provided an update on how inspections are progressing by press time Friday.

Concerns about defective cartridges have also affected the Air Force’s training enterprise.

Air Force Times first reported that Air Education and Training Command halted flights of two potentially impacted trainer fleets, the T-6A Texan IIs and T-38C Talons, on July 27.

T-6 turboprop planes are used to teach basic flight skills, while the T-38 prepares pilots to fly fighter and bomber aircraft.

The next day, the service said it would keep nearly 300 airframes across the T-6 and T-38 fleets on the ground while it double-checked their cartridges. That comprised about 40% of the T-38 fleet and 15% of the T-6 fleet, including planes at each undergraduate pilot training base and Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.

The remaining airframes continued business as usual, and AETC said more trainers have since returned to the sky.

“Members of the flying training wings continue to produce sorties every day with operational tempo increasing as the affected aircraft progress through the ejection seat inspection process and are cleared for flying,” AETC told Defense News on Tuesday.

However, AETC would not say how many of its grounded trainers had cleared inspections and returned to the sky, nor how many remained to be inspected. Like their counterparts used in combat operations, it’s unclear if any faulty cartridges have been found on the trainers so far.

The issue may also affect European airframes like the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale and aircraft flown by Turkey and South Korea, which use the same seat.

The U.K. Royal Air Force stopped “non-essential” flights for its Red Arrows jets and Typhoon warplanes over safety concerns with its ejection seats, the Daily Mail reported. NATO has not responded to questions on how the ejection seat issue is affecting its aircraft.

The three-year contract accepted by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 had more generous retirement plan benefits than a previous contract proposal, the union said in a release.

Tom Boelling, president of IAM District 837, said in a release that union negotiators worked hard to get a better offer from Boeing.

“We have delivered an equitable contract that will secure the future for the members, their families and future generations,” Boelling said.

In an email to Defense News, Boeing said it was satisfied with the resolution of the contract.

“We’re pleased with the outcome of the vote and we look forward to our future here in the St. Louis area,” Boeing said.

IAW announced July 24 its members had voted to reject that previous offer, largely over what it viewed as an inadequate 401(k) benefit, and planned to go on strike Aug. 1 after a seven-day cooling off period.

At that time, Boeing said if a strike occurred, it would enact its contingency plans to keep its factories operating.

However, talks resumed last week. On July 30, the union announced overnight negotiations with Boeing had yielded results and that the union’s nearly 2,500 members would vote on the revised contract offer Wednesday. The start of the strike was postponed until after that vote.

The IAW said in a release the revised contract offer its members approved included an $8,000 lump sum payment that can be deferred to employees’ 401(k)s.

Under the new contract, Boeing will also continue making 4% automatic contributions to each employees’ 401(k), without any match from the employee, the union said. The union said the rejected contract offer would have dropped the 4% automatic contribution in 2023 in favor of 2% lump sums at the end of the year for employees on the payroll on the last days of 2023 and 2024, after which those lump sums would have gone away entirely.

The ratified contract will also maintain the current 75% match for the first 8% employees contribute from their own salaries. In the contract offer rejected in late July, Boeing proposed a 100% match of 10% of employee contributions.

While that would have been a more generous match, the union prioritized keeping the 4% automatic contribution.

The union said the contract will also include an average 14% general wage increase over the three-year period, plus cost-of-living adjustments; no changes to employees’ existing health insurance plans; improvements to sick, parental and funeral leave; and other changes to the wage and raise structure.

The contract, which takes effect Thursday, covers members at Boeing facilities in St. Louis and St. Charles, Missouri, and Mascoutah, Illinois. Aircraft such as the T-7A Red Hawk trainer, F-15 and F/A-18 fighters and the MQ-25 Stingray unmanned refueling aircraft are built in St. Louis, and St. Charles produces the precision-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, among other weapons.

The 30-country transatlantic alliance has long flown “air policing” missions that dispatch fighter jets to keep unfriendly aircraft at bay. Air shielding, however, began in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a neighbor it shares with NATO nations.

“NATO air shielding is an increased air and missile defense posture along the alliance’s eastern flank, implemented in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine. It is purely defensive,” a NATO military official told Air Force Times on Monday.

The policy brings together disparate allied air and missile defense units under NATO’s command, rather than relying on them in a more reactive, piecemeal fashion.

“It will provide a near-seamless shield from the Baltic to the Black Sea, ensuring NATO allies are better able to safeguard and protect alliance territory, populations and forces,” the alliance said.

Organization leaders say that Russia’s unprovoked assault on the former Soviet territory, now in its sixth month, has fundamentally altered European security. Stronger defenses will remain in place for the long run as a result, said Allied Air Command deputy commander Lt. Gen. Pascal Delerce in a July 21 press release.

As fighting continues, NATO is concerned about errant missiles straying into its territory and about the manned combat aircraft and drones flying near its borders.

“This increases the air and missile threat to NATO territory and populations, primarily due to potential miscalculation or loss of guidance or control,” the organization said July 28.

Under Article 5 of the group’s founding treaty, an attack on one ally is seen as an attack on all allies.

Tom Karako, a missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believes it indicates growing worries about an intentional Russian attack elsewhere in Europe, too.

Multiple American and European missile defense units have arrived in countries bordering Russia or Ukraine over the past few months. Air shielding deployments can last up to several months at air bases and other locations across Eastern Europe, the NATO official said.

The United States, Germany and the Netherlands have set up Patriot anti-missile systems in Slovakia and Poland; France brought its “Mamba” surface-to-air missile defense system to Romania; and Spain is operating its National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System in Latvia. The equipment can take out cruise and ballistic missiles as well as manned and unmanned aircraft.

“All of these systems have been added this year,” the military official confirmed.

Still, it’s far short of the allied defensive buildup during the Cold War, Karako said. The focus on advanced air and missile defenses has waned as the U.S. instead prioritized counterterrorism operations for decades.

“We’re now seeing just how disproportionate our air defense investments have been relative to the threat when it becomes palpable,” he said. “A small number of air defenses over the eastern flank is, in the face of a real threat, astonishingly limited.”

Additional fighter jets are bolstering eastern defenses as well. The U.S. recently sent its F-35A Lightning II jets from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, to Estonia, and F-22 Raptor fighters from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, to Poland as part of the expanding mission.

“The Raptor performs both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions,” the Air Force said in a June 27 release. “It cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft, making it a highly strategic platform to support NATO air shielding.”

American F/A-18 jets and Czech Gripen fighters are also currently deployed in support of air shielding, the NATO official said. German, Hungarian and Italian fighters are patrolling the skies over the Baltic states.

“This comes on top of other NATO deployments, including our standing air policing missions, and air and missile defense elements deployed to support our battlegroups,” the official said. “Our allied fighters are on alert 24/7 to respond to aircraft which may pose a threat in or near allied airspace or challenge the integrity of NATO airspace.”

At the beginning of March, more than 100 combat aircraft were assigned to air policing shifts — almost twice as many as there were in December.

NATO did not provide an update on how many aircraft are tasked with air policing or shielding, or how many interactions Russian and allied jets have recently had.

Air policing planes identify and address renegade aircraft, such as when allied pilots intercept Russian military jets that veer near their airspace or if a civilian plane is unresponsive or hijacked. They’re not allowed to fire unless fired upon when flying over a foreign country; most interdictions take place without incident and do not enter allied airspace.

Russia’s war in Ukraine, plus its threats against other non-NATO countries, spurred Finland and Sweden to ask to join the alliance in May. Their membership will become official once each allied country individually approves the decision.

Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia also want to join.

The United Nations has recorded more than 12,500 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including over 5,000 deaths, since the war began Feb. 24. It believes the true toll is much higher.

U.S. intelligence estimates another 15,000 Russian troops have died, while the Ukrainian government said earlier this summer that up to 200 Ukrainian service members were being killed each day.

The AT-802U Sky Warden, made by L3Harris Technologies and aircraft manufacturer Air Tractor, is SOCOM’s pick for a rugged plane that can carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, close air support, and strike missions against terrorist groups in austere locations such as parts of Africa.

In an interview with Defense News on Tuesday, Luke Savoie, president of L3Harris Technologies’ ISR sector, said the company’s use of model-based engineering and modular open systems allowed it to design a low-cost aircraft tailored to deliver what special operators need in the field.

SOCOM wants Armed Overwatch planes so it can continue to pressure extremist groups, such as Somalia’s al-Shabab, in areas with largely uncontested airspace, while the Air Force shifts its primary focus and more elaborate fighters and bombers toward potential high-end threats in Europe and Asia.

Armed Overwatch planes could also take over at least some of the missions carried out by the U-28 Draco ISR aircraft, which is aging and expensive to maintain.

L3Harris’ indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract to deliver as many as 75 Sky Wardens will be worth up to $3 billion, with an initial contract award for $170 million.

The trust factor

L3Harris began work on what would eventually become the Sky Warden in March 2020, shortly after SOCOM released its Armed Overwatch solicitation. Savoie said the company started with “no preconceived notions.”

Rather than beginning with a list of must-haves for the airplane, as traditional requirements-based engineering might dictate, Savoie said L3Harris’s designers used model-based systems engineering to consider why a Sky Warden pilot might need certain capabilities and the best way to fill those needs.

L3Harris also sought to ensure the capabilities are tightly integrated to reduce the crew’s workload and take advantage of automation whenever possible, he said.

“In special ops, it comes down to that” trust, Savoie said. “The guy on the ground isn’t looking for dots on [a] map, on a tablet or something on his wrist. He’s looking for the confidence that someone talking in his ear knows what they’re talking about, and not having to second guess that.”

That led L3Harris to refine the kind of sensors and software this plane would need and how it would integrate the systems, he said. The company talked to those who have carried out this mission before to make the Sky Warden as user-friendly as possible.

“End users … constantly remind us, ‘I like to look through my gun sight, I don’t like to look at my arm, at a tablet,’” said Savoie, a former U-28 and AC-130 pilot.

Users also emphasized the importance of instant communication, with no latency, for an airplane carrying out an Armed Overwatch mission, Savoie said, as well as the need to streamline the information presented to the pilot.

To build the air frame that would become Sky Warden, L3Harris teamed up with Air Tractor, which typically builds agricultural and firefighting aircraft.

The company had worked with Air Tractor on previous programs, such as surveillance aircraft for Jordan in the mid-2010s and other projects involving sensor, weapons and software integration. But, Savoie said, with its added strike capabilities, Sky Warden was much more complicated than the Jordanian surveillance planes.

L3Harris created three prototype Sky Wardens. One was fully missionized, with all the modifications to do everything an operational Armed Overwatch plane would have to do. The company sent that prototype to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida last summer for SOCOM’s evaluation. Four other companies also demonstrated their prototypes to SOCOM in 2021 and early 2022.

A second prototype was built for L3Harris’s own flight tests and to qualify the plane’s autopilot. L3Harris also built a third Sky Warden prototype to test and certify the aircraft’s strengthened, high-load wing to ensure it could carry up to 6,000 pounds of external ordnance.

Savoie said Sky Warden can be easily prepared for deployment on a C-17 or C-5 mobility aircraft. The plane can be disassembled in about 7 hours, loaded on a cargo plane, and then reassembled in about the same amount of time once it’s reached its destination, he said. L3Harris brought a Sky Warden to May’s Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Florida, where it demonstrated how quickly the breakdown and reassembly process could take place.

“It’s a pretty compact form,” Savoie said.

The per-unit cost of a Sky Warden will vary depending on its configuration and capabilities, Savoie said, but declined to identify a figure.

L3Harris’ contract also includes providing training systems, mission planning systems, support equipment, spares and logistical support.

Air Tractor aircraft have carried weapons before, such as 50-caliber guns and 7.62 miniguns, Savoie said. The Sky Warden could be armed with six weapons stations, with the laser-guided 2.75-inch Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, or APKWS, rocket being its primary weapon.

Sky Warden could also carry GBU-12 Paveway laser-guided bombs, Savoie said, and L3Harris is close to having it capable of carrying the AGM-114 Hellfire missile. And Sky Warden has the infrastructure to handle as many as eight common launch tube-based weapons such as the AGM-176A Griffin, he said.

Construction of the Sky Wardens will begin at Air Tractor’s Olney, Texas facility. Once those airframes are built, they will be shipped to L3Harris’s modification center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where work to modify them for the Armed Overwatch mission will take place.

Savoie said L3Harris will manufacture parts for the modifications at its Greenville, Texas facility. L3Harris will also do software work for the plane at its Nashville, Tennessee facility, and sustainment activities will be done at Rockwall, Texas. Engineering work will be done at L3 locations in Waco, Greenville and Plano, Texas. Various other L3Harris sites will provide sensor, radio and weapons release capabilities, Savoie said.

The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract will be worth up to $3 billion, L3Harris said in a release Monday. The initial program contract award is for $170 million.

Air Tractor is an aircraft manufacturer from Olney, Texas, that typically makes firefighting aircraft and agricultural planes such as crop dusters.

Initial production of the Sky Warden will take place at Air Tractor’s facility in Olney. L3Harris will then modify those planes into the Armed Overwatch mission configuration at its Tulsa, Oklahoma modification center, beginning in 2023. L3Harris said work will also take place at its other sites in Greenville, Rockwall and Waco, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee.

Air Force Special Operations Command’s Armed Overwatch program aims to build a fleet of up to 75 flexible, fixed-wing aircraft suitable for deployment to austere locations, with little logistical tail needed to keep them operating.

SOCOM is planning for the single-engine Sky Warden, as AFSOC’s Armed Overwatch plane, to be able to provide close air support, precision strike and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for counterterrorism operations and irregular warfare.

AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Jim Slife said last year he hopes Armed Overwatch aircraft will be suited to pressure extremist groups in places like Africa, in which the airspace is essentially uncontested.

The Air Force moved to establish a series of Armed Overwatch planes as it shifted its primary focus — and some of its more complex and expensive-to-operate fighters and bombers — away from combating terrorist groups and violent extremist organizations in places like the Middle East.

“Armed Overwatch answers a critical need for U.S. Special Operations Command to conduct a wide range of operations globally in support of the National Defense Strategy,” SOCOM Commander Gen. Richard Clarke said in a release. “This rugged, sustainable platform will operate in permissive environments and austere conditions around the world to safeguard our special operations forces on the ground.”

SOCOM said the plane would be low cost, able to take off and land in austere fields, fly for long periods, and support a variety of modular payloads.

Last year, Slife suggested Armed Overwatch would allow AFSOC to take its aging and expensive U-28A Draco ISR aircraft — a rare aircraft that requires specialized equipment and training to maintain — out of the field.

But SOCOM said in a statement to Air Force Times on Monday that even after the Sky Warden is delivered, the U-28 will still be needed to provide ISR for operations like search and rescue and humanitarian relief.

Clarke told lawmakers last year he envisions four operational squadrons of 15 Armed Overwatch planes, with one deployed at any given time while the other three train, recover and are maintained at home. Clarke also said a fifth squadron of 10 to 15 planes would be for training.

L3Harris beat out four other competitors — Leidos, MAG Aerospace, Textron Aviation Defense and Sierra Nevada — for the Armed Overwatch contract. Those five firms produced prototype aircraft that were evaluated, mainly at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, in late 2021 and early 2022.

L3Harris said it will move fast to turn its prototype aircraft into the production configuration, and allow SOCOM to start testing later this year.

Six planes will be delivered in the first low-rate initial production lot.

Under the contract, L3Harris also would provide training systems, mission planning systems, support equipment, spares and logistical support.

The Sky Warden is expected to reach initial operating capability in fiscal 2026, and full operating capability in 2029, SOCOM said.

Rachel Cohen contributed to this report.

The U.S. military discovered a problem with the ejection seats used across its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet in April, but waited three months to ground those aircraft flown by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps to fully investigate the issue, multiple sources told Air Force Times Friday.

Officials initially saw the problem as a potentially isolated incident. But an ongoing investigation sourced the issue to the production line, prompting waves of temporary stand-downs this week.

“During a routine maintenance inspection at Hill [Air Force Base, Utah,] in April ‘22, an anomaly was discovered with one of the seat cartridge actuated devices in the F-35 seat,” Steve Roberts, a spokesperson for seat manufacturer Martin-Baker, said Friday. “This was quickly traced back to a gap in the manufacturing process, which was addressed and changed.”

Cartridges are the ejection seat component that explode to propel an aviator out of the cockpit and prompts their parachute to open. The defective part was loose and missing the magnesium powder used to ignite the propellant that shoots someone to safety, Roberts said.

A maintainer inspecting an F-35 found that an ejection cartridge felt suspiciously light, according to an unconfirmed summary of a briefing within the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command obtained by Air Force Times. After a closer look, the cartridge turned out to be missing its explosive charge that would lift someone to safety.

The military tested 2,700 F-35 ejection seat cartridges and discovered three failures as of Wednesday, the briefing summary said. Service officials declined to confirm or deny the summary’s narrative of events.

Roberts said the problem was unique to a particular cartridge number and to the F-35, but did not answer how many defective parts have turned up so far. The U.S.-led Joint Strike Fighter program conducted a “short inspection” and determined that the jets could return to flight, he said.

“Martin-Baker has been providing the [prime aircraft contractors like Lockheed Martin] and multiple [government] agencies with supporting data to prove that all other aircraft may be excluded,” Roberts said. “Outside the F-35, not a single anomaly has been discovered worldwide as a result of the forensic investigation which continues at pace.”

A majority of the Air Force’s F-35A Lightning II fleet on Friday became the latest to stand down amid concerns about Martin-Baker ejections seats on a wide range of military aircraft at home and abroad.

Air Combat Command spokesperson Alexi Worley confirmed that the first faulty cartridge was found during a routine inspection in April. The military immediately inspected additional aircraft, she said, and halted its investigation when Martin-Baker discovered a quality-assurance failure on its production line.

The F-35 Joint Program Office then issued a “routine” directive, known as a time compliance technical order, that mandated inspection of all ejection seat cartridges within 90 days starting July 19. Ten days later, Air Combat Command grounded its F-35s to speed up those checks, Worley said.

ACC aims to finish looking at the seats within 90 days, or by mid-October, Worley said in a statement first reported by Breaking Defense on Friday. Each plane can return to regular flights once it passes inspection.

“The stand-down of aircraft will continue through the weekend, and a determination to safely resume normal operations is expected to be made early next week, pending analysis of the inspection data,” Worley told Air Force Times.

Though ACC owns most of the Air Force’s more than 300 F-35As, some are managed by other major commands like U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Pacific Air Forces. Command spokespeople did not respond to emailed queries Friday.

Air Education and Training Command also paused its F-35 operations on Friday “to allow our logistics team to further analyze the issue and expedite the inspection process,” spokesperson Capt. Lauren Woods told Breaking Defense. AETC oversees F-35 training units at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, and Eglin AFB, Florida.

“Based on the results of these inspections and in conjunction with ACC, the lead command for F-35, AETC will make a decision regarding continued operations,” Woods said.

The Navy and Marine Corps have also stopped flying F-35B and F-35C jets while investigations are ongoing. Each aircraft will be inspected before its next flight rather than in batches over three months.

“All inspections are being conducted in an expedited manner with a high priority,” F-35 Joint Program Office spokesperson Chief Petty Officer Matthew Olay said Friday.

Naval Air Systems Command has declined to say how many aircraft are affected, citing operational security concerns. It began shipping replacement parts to its own maintenance centers with planes affected by the problem on July 24.

The issue “only affects aircraft equipped with [cartridge actuated devices] within a limited range of lot numbers,” the service said in a statement.

Military and company officials declined to say how many cartridges were produced as part of the defective lots. The Navy said no one has died or been injured because of the defect; the Air Force has stressed its groundings are a precaution to get ahead of any fatalities.

On Wednesday, the Air Force temporarily stood down its T-38 Talon and T-6 Texan II training aircraft due to the same ejection seat worries. Most were slated to returned to service on Friday, but nearly 300 aircraft that may be affected by faulty cartridges will remain on the ground. That comprises about 40% of the T-38 fleet and 15% of the T-6 fleet, including planes at each undergraduate pilot training base and Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.

The T-38 is a supersonic jet used to prepare pilots to fly fighter and bomber aircraft, and the T-6 is the service’s turboprop plane used to teach basic flight skills. Each aircraft contains multiple explosive cartridges so pilots have backup options if one charge fails.

It’s unclear how taking a significant portion of Air Force trainers out of commission will affect the service’s ability to graduate new pilots amid an enduring shortage of about 1,600 airmen, particularly in the fighter community. The Air Force produces about 1,300 new pilots a year.

“Our primary concern is the safety of our airmen and it is imperative that they have confidence in our equipment,” Nineteenth Air Force boss Maj. Gen. Craig Wills, who runs an organization responsible for the service’s training enterprise, told Air Force Times in an emailed statement. “Our actions … were taken out of an abundance of caution in order to ensure the safety of our pilots and aircrew.”

Several aircraft fleets across the Defense Department that use Martin-Baker ejection seats — from the T-38s and T-6s to the Navy’s F/A-18B/C/D Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets, E/A-18G Growler electronic attack plane, and T-45 Goshawk and F-5 Tiger II trainers — are on hold while the military digs into the problem. The issue may also affect European airframes like the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale and aircraft flown by Turkey and South Korea.

The U.K. Royal Air Force also stopped “non-essential” flights for its Red Arrows jets and Typhoon warplanes over safety concerns with its ejection seats, the Daily Mail reported. NATO’s Allied Air Command did not respond to queries emailed Friday about the potential impact on the international fighter enterprise.

F-35 Joint Strike Fighters are the Pentagon’s premier fighter jet flown by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, plus more than a dozen foreign countries that have ordered or received them. In April, the Government Accountability Office reported it will cost more than $1.7 trillion for the Pentagon to buy, operate and maintain the jets in the U.S.

Lockheed Martin plans to build more than 3,000 F-35s for militaries around the globe. More than 800 planes have been delivered so far over the past 15 years, over half of which belong to the U.S.

Joint Strike Fighters were last publicly grounded in South Korea in January after one of the country’s jets malfunctioned and landed on its belly. Before that, the U.S. grounded all of its F-35s worldwide over fuel tube problems, among a slew of other software and hardware hurdles to the fleet’s rollout.

The same day as the military began probing its ejection seats in earnest, Bloomberg reported some F-35s could be grounded for a separate problem: an enduring shortage of working engines.

Nine percent of F-35s weren’t operational in mid-2020, GAO said in a July 19 report.

“DOD’s strategy allows 6% of F-35s to be unavailable for missions at any given time due to engine issues,” the federal watchdog wrote. “But the number of F-35s that this leaves available for operations isn’t what the military services consider to be sufficient … in part because its strategy doesn’t ensure enough spare engine parts are available.”

The State Department on Thursday announced the foreign military sales (FMS) approval for up to 35 F-35A aircraft, along with munitions and related equipment, for a total estimated cost of $8.4 billion.

These fighter jets, built by Lockheed Martin, will take over by 2030 the nuclear weapons mission from the German Air Force’s aging fleet of PA-200 Tornado aircraft, based at Tactical Air Wing 33 in Büchel, Germany.

German Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz and Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced in March the decision to procure the joint strike fighter, in a major reversal from previous plans to buy Boeing-made F-18 aircraft. In that statement, the two military leaders justified the decision by pointing to “a need for unity within NATO, and a credible deterrent” to Russia.

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown met with Gerhartz earlier this month in Rostock, Germany, ahead of the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference and the Farnborough Airshow in London.

The joint strike fighter was a major point of conversation between the two air force leaders, with Gerhartz telling Defense News “we are shaping our future” with the F-35.

Joining the joint strike fighter program is “an important milestone that will further intensify our ties,” Gerhartz said in an emailed statement to Defense News after the meeting in Rostock. “Shared weapons systems are the best basis for even closer cooperation.”

A source close to the F-35 program told Defense News that should the sale to Germany be approved, the aircraft would likely be built at the Lockheed Martin facilities in Fort Worth, Texas.

Alongside Lockheed Martin, the principal contractors involved with this F-35 sale include Pratt & Whitney, providing 37 F135 engines, as well as Boeing and Raytheon Technologies. Proposed munitions packages include the AIM120C-8 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM); GBU-53 small diameter bombs; AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles-Extended Range (JASSM-ER); Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits; and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles.

Germany is but one of several European nations that has opted for the U.S.-made F-35 to replenish its fighter jet fleets. Most recently, Greece has sent an official letter of request to procure 20 F-35As by 2028, while the Czech Republic wants the aircraft to replace its aging fleet of Saab JAS 39 Gripens.

Meanwhile, Finland plans to spend $10 billion to buy 64 F-35 aircraft to replace its F-18 Hornets, with initial deliveries to start in 2026. Switzerland also selected the joint strike fighter in 2021, committing to 36 aircraft that will replace its own Hornet fleet.

Poland will receive 32 F-35A aircraft beginning in 2024, after a letter of agreement was signed between Warsaw and Washington in January 2020. Belgium also selected the F-35 in 2018, and will receive 34 aircraft, per Lockheed Martin.

“Every service has their own interpretation of JADC2,” Wanda Jones-Heath said July 26 at an event hosted by the Potomac Officers Club, adding that they are “all different.”

“I’ve looked at all of the documentation associated with all three,” she said. “We are not aligned with what we need to be to be interoperable.”

Jones-Heath advises the Air Force secretary on all cyber programs. She also oversees cyberspace recruitment and the training of cyber mission forces, as well as assessing their readiness. She previously served as a chief information security officer.

To make JADC2 a reality, the Army, Air Force and Navy have taken their own tack.

The Army has Project Convergence, a crucible at which cutting-edge technologies are put to the test. This year’s event, PC 22, will include international players, both participating and observing.

The Air Force has the Advanced Battle Management System, a next-generation command-and-control approach from which the service’s secretary, Frank Kendall, has sought more tangible results after expressing doubts in 2021.

The Navy has Project Overmatch, arguably the most clandestine of the bunch, as officials rarely disclose information about it.

A formal strategy, an implementation plan and a cross-functional team are also meant to help bring the concept to fruition. A public version of the strategy was published in March. The implementation plan was approved by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks that same month.

Jones-Heath’s comments are the among the latest doubts raised about JADC2 feasibility and execution — how, exactly, three multibillion-dollar endeavors, each with their own idiosyncrasies, will coalesce to create seamless streams of information flow across land, air, sea, space and cyberspace.

Lawmakers in versions of the annual defense bill this year sought a review of JADC2 price and progress; a digest of timelines, goals and potential shortfalls; as well as related investment in the Indo-Pacific region, where a joint headquarters alongside a combatant command could soon rise.

House staff have said audits will help gauge the state of play and will inform where and when resources are applied.

The assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, Doug Bush, on July 11 floated the idea of a dedicated office that could organize JADC2 efforts. He likened it to the Army’s counter-drone office, which he said “actually helps prioritize our investments from a joint perspective” and ensures requirements align.

Jones-Heath on Tuesday similarly said a unifying force is necessary.

“Someone needs to just push us where we need to go,” she said, “because we are way out here.”

Boeing Defense, Space and Security reported revenues of $6.2 billion in its most recent quarter, down 10% from the nearly $6.9 billion it reported in the same three-month period last year.

Boeing’s defense unit also reported $71 million in profit for the quarter, which represented a margin of 1.1% and a significant decline from the $958 million in earnings is reported in the second quarter of 2021.

In its announcement, the company attributed its profit decline to charges on fixed-price development programs. Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said during the company’s earnings call that lower volume and operational performance also contributed. The availability of labor remains a challenge, he said.

West said Boeing recorded about $400 million in charges, including a $147 million charge on the Navy’s MQ-25 Navy refueling drone program stemming from higher costs to meet technical requirements.

Boeing reported a $93 million charge on the commercial crew space capsules it’s making for NASA due to launch manifest updates.

West said the T-7A Red Hawk trainer, VC-25B Air Force One and KC-46 tanker programs also recorded charges, mostly as a result of supply chain and inflation problems.

In its Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Boeing said it took a $51 million charge on the T-7 related to production options and another $36 million charge on the T-7′s engineering and manufacturing development. Boeing also said its KC-46 program faced a $44 million charge, while the VC-25B suffered a $26 million charge.

Boeing already reported a charge of $660 million charge on the VC-25B last quarter; the company’s filings attributed the issue to higher supplier costs, higher costs to finish some technical requirements and schedule delays.

The contractor warned in its SEC filings that there could be more losses ahead for its Air Force One and KC-46 programs.

“While this performance was disappointing, we’re making progress narrowing our development risk profile and remain confident over the long term,” West said.

He noted the company sees support for increased military spending in both the U.S. Congress and among NATO allies.

Boeing received a boost in the quarter from Germany’s selection of the CH-47F Chinook Block II as its military’s next heavy-lift helicopter. Germany will buy 60 Chinooks in a deal worth more than $4 billion, the nation’s defense ministry announced in June.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he is increasingly “bullish” on opportunities for international sales of defense equipment, such as the KC-46 and MQ-25. But he said it will take a few years for emerging global threats, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and aggressive stance toward the West, to translate into actual orders and commitments.

An exception, Calhoun said, was Germany’s selection of the Chinook, which he said “came faster than maybe we would imagine.”

But supply chains continue to present Boeing with “real constraints,” West noted. He pointed to steps the company is taking to try to ease the crunch and stabilize production, particularly in crucial areas such as engines, raw materials and semiconductors.

West said Boeing is keeping more of its people on-site with suppliers, and has put together teams of experts to figure out how to solve supply shortages affecting the entire industry. Boeing is also fabricating some parts in-house to allow it to weather supply chain issues, and maintaining safety stocks of key components, or keeping extra parts on hand in case of a supply chain crunch.

HAL plans to offer the HTT-40, which comes in at about $7 million per unit, to the Indian Air Force and other overseas customers. A senior HAL executive told Defense News that the company is hoping to secure a $490 million deal in October with the Air Force for 70 of the basic trainers.

HAL originally developed the HTT-40 to address the basic training requirements of the Indian Air Force, for which a potential contract “is under advanced stage of approval,” company Chairman Ramakrishnan Madhavan said in a statement.

But while the HTT-40 basic trainer meets the Air Force’s basic flying requirements, it is more expensive than Swiss PC-12 MKII basic trainers currently in service, according to a senior Air Force official, speaking on the condition of anonymity as the individual was not authorized to discuss this with the media.

The senior HAL executive, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, noted the company is exploring HTT-40 export opportunities with Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates.

HAL is working closely with Honeywell on potential export deals, a company statement said.

The Indian business has spent $85 million on the design and development of the aircraft project, and it developed two prototypes and performed 550 test flights.

HAL will host two manufacturing lines — one each at Bangalore and Nasik — for the HTT-40. Aircraft deliveries could be complete in three years.

The HTT-40 can be used for basic flight training, aerobatics and close-formation flights.

The Indian government blacklisted Pilatus Aircraft Limited in July 2019 over an allegation that it paid bribes to secure a $390 million contract for 75 PC-12 MKII basic trainers. Currently, the Air Force operates 260 trainer aircraft — both basic and advanced trainers — against the projected demand of 388 trainers total.

Those changes have rolled through the Corps over the past three years. But the heart of the service’s ­success, many current and past leaders say, is its ­Marine air-ground task force concept.

The “air” part has remained in a holding pattern as top aviators rethought how the air side will fit into the new Force Design 2030 plan.

In early May, the Corps’ top aviators released the service’s aviation plan, its first in nearly three years after what had been an annual report.

Some of the work remains the same — support the MAGTF with aviation for sensing, strike and hauling Marines and their gear around the battlespace.

But, as Commandant Gen. David Berger signaled in his 2019 planning guidance, significant changes are afoot.

Marine Corps Times researched key themes in the aviation plan with responses from Marine Corps headquarters and interviews with retired Marine ­experts and a former top aviator, three-star general and prior commander of Combat Development and Integration.

The target year, 2030, is fast approaching as the Corps looks to push aviation into the next fight.

Highlights include exquisite sensor-laden platforms such as the F-35 jet, heavy hauling capabilities in the CH-53K helicopter, long-range fires, sensor and transport support in the KC-130J tanker and a long-overdue step into unmanned platforms that hold great promise for those future operations.

But questions loom on how the Corps will manage the transition from current aging aircraft such as the F/A-18 and AV-8 Harrier to newer but fewer replacements, and if the toe-in-the-water approach to drones is enough to get the service where it wants to go.

“Change is not easy, even if the outcome is of superior quality and abilities,” Maj. Jorge Hernandez, spokesman for the Deputy Commandant of Aviation Lt. Gen. Mark Wise, wrote in an email response. “To ensure a successful transition of this scale will require an all-hands effort for Marine Corps aviation.”

A Force Design focus

Wise laid out a plan, in a May 2 roundtable with reporters, which his team built to guide the direction of Marine aviation in the coming years. The work ­involved war games, experimentation and hard thinking.

In each phase of modern warfare, new aviation technology has pushed fliers and flying capabilities into new areas.

Berger said so himself in his 2019 planning guidance. He specifically cited experimentation with “lethal long-range unmanned systems capable of traveling 200 nautical miles.”

The top Marine envisions small teams on tiny islands. They’ll sneak around, gather crucial data, pop up to launch an anti-ship missile — then disappear only to reemerge at another location, gathering and harassing.

The aviation role here is under construction as the force experiments.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Washington think tank Center for ­Strategic and International Studies, sees a reduced aviation footprint in the current plan. Though that coincides with a reduction in the number of infantry battalions that aviation supports, he sees it as disproportionate.

“Everything is getting smaller as the number of infantry battalions go down,” Cancian said.

Another retired Marine, Lt. Gen. Bruce Knutson, who spent more than four decades serving the Corps both as an active-duty officer then as an official senior adviser post-retirement, said tinkering with aviation can have an outsized impact.

Most people, even Marines, don’t understand the role of Marine aviation, he said. It is not a small air force. It is the mobility and striking power of the MAGTF.

The air power enables that task force operation, which is how Leathernecks do business.

“You start taking things away from Marine Corps aviation, it’s a lot more significant, a lot more serious than if you start downsizing a battalion,” Knutson said.

The retired three-star commanded a then-young Capt. David Berger when the senior Marine headed 1st Marine Aircraft Wing in the early 1990s. He also knows and respects Wise, he said. But he ­fundamentally disagrees with the current approach to force design and the warfighting concept it supports.

The core of the Corps’ fight is to do long-range reconnaissance and strike with small, disparate units.

“The Marine Corps, I don’t think ought to be in that business,” Knutson said.

The transition

One notable transition that aviation plan authors note themselves is the strain that transitioning from old platforms to new platforms creates.

Both the technology and the personnel will face such challenges. Wise pointed out in his talk with reporters that the F/A-18 community provides more than half of all tactical air requirements that the ­Marine Corps delivers both for the service and joint commitments.

Its replacement is coming, but that takes time. The service is about a third through fielding F-35B fighter jets.

“Starting to capitalize on this aircraft as more than just a fighter,” Wise said. “It has a sensor suite that is extraordinary, it’s like nothing we’ve ever had before.”

The hope is that the advanced capabilities will give far more to units that have the F-35 at their back as compared to the decades-old F/A-18.

Wise said that F-35B squadrons have been reduced from 16 to 10 aircraft. That shift provides 10 airplanes in the deployment cycle, with two in a backup role and leaves room for maintenance and attrition.

“That is the model that we believe is the right ­direction to go for the (Marine Expeditionary Unit),” Wise said. “That way you’re deploying a whole squadron as well. You’re not leaving pieces behind.”

That’s a reference to breaking up squadrons, which can strain support and basing, to meet various area tactical needs.

But all platforms, especially fighter jets and heavy lift helicopters, Cancian sees problems.

These aircraft need sophisticated support crews and equipment to remain airborne. Not all of that can be done at sea.

“The point I get stuck on is, how are you going to base them?” Cancian said.

The goal is for 18 active and two reserve F-35 squadrons, or a total of 420 advanced fighters. The juggling act will come with moving F/A-18 and Harrier pilots to the F-35 cockpits and ensuring a steady flow of new F-35 pilots coming into the force.

Current F-35s pilot manning sits at about 40%, which parallels with Wise’s one-third fielding ­comment. Current training schedules project

500 F-35 pilots on the job (they’ve got 197 pilots now) for a target of 420 aircraft.

Knutson knows how transitions work.

The former aviator entered the Corps in 1969 and retired in 2001. During that time, he started out flying the F-4 Phantom and transitioned to the F/A-18 in 1991.

He agrees that the F-35 “is a whole new game,” for aviation. But there are other considerations.

“You could have the 100 best airplanes in the world but have requirements to be in 200 ­different places, then they don’t have enough airplanes,” Knutson said.

Those transitions, all admit, create strain.

“You continue to tax and use the community a lot and cut back on funding…you have the potential for both stress and danger,” Cancian said.

Vertical lift & long-range support

In the close fight, Marines long have relied on helicopters or other vertical lift forms like the MV-22 Osprey.

The aviation plan calls for a cut to the Osprey fleet. Instead of 14 squadrons of a dozen aircraft each, their new plan calls for 16 squadrons of 10 aircraft each. The shift removes eight Ospreys from the total aircraft fleet.

Knutson said the Osprey provided ­previously ­unheard-of operational depth to MAGTF ­commanders, multiplying the distance from about 30 miles to more than 200 miles.

“We cut the MV-22, we’re cutting at the heart of maneuverability,” Knutson said.

The decrease of 24 to 21 infantry battalions is a drop of about 13%, Cancian said. The light ­helicopter attack squadron reduction, as one example, nearly double at nearly 23%.

“I think that short-range helicopters just don’t fit this new version of the Marine Corps,” Cancian said.

That’s because of the range. Distances in the Pacific, especially puncturing the weapons reach of China, are farther than those aircraft can fly.

When asked about potential gaps in rotary wing capacities, Hernandez responded that the Corps would continue upgrades to existing platforms and others to fill the needs that these platforms provide.

“This is a multi-prong approach in leveraging the myriad capabilities Marine Corps aviation provides the MAGTF,” he wrote.

Unmanned Future

To cover the tactical support, sensor, strike assault and hauling, the Corps leans hard on unmanned assets. But there’s a problem.

“Right now, the Marine Corps planes for ­unmanned is incomplete and quite inadequate,” he said. “I keep beating up the Marine Corps about the small size of its UAV fleet.”

The leap-ahead answer was the MAGTF ­unmanned aerial system expeditionary, or MUX. This high-level, ship-based, do-it-all drone would have run nearly the whole battle space, serving as a node to link all fires to the fingertips of a single Marine on the ground.

It would have given advanced sensor, electronic warfare and a host of other options, too.

But Congress balked at the project. Instead, the Marines did what Marines do — found a cheaper entry point.

That meant acquiring the MQ-9 Reaper drone: a big advance for Marines but old news for the rest of the services. The platform has been running since 2001. As of April, Jarheads had two MQ-9s in the fleet. The goal is to field 18 MQ-9s by 2025.

That’s more than two. But, as Cancian’s analysis in published reports shows the Army has 201 Group 5 drones while the Air Force sports 351.

“They are way behind and have no plan to catch up,” Cancian said. “This is a minimalist approach.”

Berger’s plan calls for as much as 40% of all Marine aviation to be unmanned in the coming decade, Cancian said.

These moves won’t get the Corps where it wants to go fast enough, both Cancian and Knutson said.

“If they want to continue down this road, they ought to do an appraisal, full court press, we need a crash course, we need to get into UAVs and we need to do it in a hurry,” said Knutson.

But aviation leaders are cool to this.

Wise and his staff explained that the MQ-9 is far from the end state. In fact, they’re developing capabilities, such as electronic warfare, on the ­platform but independently. That way, the advancements can fit onto whatever flies them in the future.

Hernandez’ response to Marine Corps Times noted that MQ-9 experimentation begins in fiscal year 2023. Areas include using the platform as a “network gateway” to pass information, airborne early warning, autonomous takeoff, landing and hazard avoidance as well as cyber-secure C2 data links.

In other words, they’re still pursuing MUX, just not with a nice, new platform … yet.

Opening photo by Lance Cpl. Becky Cleveland/Marine Corps.

The following are frequently asked questions about the KC-46A.

What is the KC-46A Pegasus?

The KC-46A Pegasus is the latest Boeing-designed tanker used for mid-air refueling of aircraft. In development for more than a decade, the KC-46A takes on operations previously handled by the KC-135 Stratotanker and KC-10 Extender. It features boom and hose-and-drogue systems that are able to refuel all U.S., allied and coalition military aircraft compatible with international refueling procedures.

Who makes it?

The Air Force first contracted with Boeing in 2011 to manufacture 179 KC-46A′s to begin modernizing and replacing the Air Force’s more than 60-year-old KC-135 fleet. Manufactured at Boeing’s factory in Everett, Washington, the KC-46A is a variation of the Boeing 767 commercial passenger aircraft, and will come off the line as a “767-2C Provisioned Freighter that will eventually become a military-configured KC-46 tanker,” according to the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Is the KC-46A in service?

The KC-46A had flown more than 9,000 sorties and offloaded more than 78 million pounds of fuel, according to information provided by Boeing. It’s capable of holding more than 210,000 pounds of fuel at take-off.

Have there been problems with the KC-46A tanker?

Unlike the KC-135 and KC-10 it is designed to replace, the KC-46A refuels aircraft with its operators using a Remote Vision System of cameras and sensors to guide the boom into the aircraft being refueled.

The aircraft has been riddled with technical issues due to problems with the RVS, costing Boeing billions to fix and delaying its fuller integration into the Air Force.

The cameras and sensors often could be distorted or difficult to view under certain light conditions, so tankers ran the risk of scraping the boom along aircraft mid-flight. The Air Force designated the problem as a category I deficiency, one of the most serious issues with an aircraft.

In January, Boeing recorded a 14 percent drop in its defense business sales, partially due to the poor performance and technical issues of the KC-46A.

What is being done to address the RVS issue?

This past April, Boeing agreed to a plan with the U.S. Air Force that would replace the RVS with a new system ― the Remote Vision System 2.0. Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Samantha Morrison told Defense News in a statement that Boeing would cover the costs of the new RVS 2.0 updates needed for the KC-46A.

Are the fixes working?

With its initial flight in December 2014, the KC-46 only got its first interim capability release mission ― a test of what aircraft can be refueled by the plane ― on July 9 of last year after technical RVS issues. By May of this year, a KC-46 at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas completed 24.2 hours of flight time, a program record.

Today, the KC-46A now has capability to support 97% of joint force air refueling demands, according to a June 1 statement from U.S. Air Mobility Command.

“Credible and reliable KC-46A tanker capability is now available to our joint and international partners,” Gen. Mike Minihan, commander of Air Mobility Command, said in a statement. “In May 2021, the KC-46A was not cleared to operationally support any [U.S. Transportation Command] missions. With a team of incredible professionals across the enterprise analyzing the data and making risk-informed decisions, we’ve deliberately and aggressively accelerated the Pegasus’ operational use.”

How many KC-46A tankers does the Air Force want?

The Air Force has asked Congress to lower the minimum number of tankers needed in the Air Force’s tanker fleet. Congress set the minimum number of tankers needed in case a war broke out at 479 in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which was based on a U.S. Transportation Command study in 2018.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, at a Heritage foundation event, said that he believes 455 tankers would be adequate to counter adversaries.

How much has the KC-46A program cost?

The tanker has officially cost Boeing more to fix than the total price of the contract it signed with the Air Force. Since that first flight in 2014, Boeing has regularly had to pay charges to fix issues with tanker, such as the RVS system. While Boeing first signed a $4.9 billion deal with the Air Force to build the tanker, the company has accumulated more than $5 billion worth of charges to due the technical issues.

Editor’s note: This story was updated July 27 to more accurately reflect the age of the KC-135.

Now, Leonardo DRS Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William Lynn says, the company is working on ways to advance capabilities such as sensor integration and using directed energy and electronic warfare to take out drone swarms. Leonardo DRS is the U.S subsidiary of the Italian defense firm Leonardo SpA.

Speaking July 18 at the Farnborough Air Show in England, Lynn said the RADA merger will directly help it with two of its four primary markets: force protection, which includes its Mobile Low, Slow Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Integrated Defense System, or MLIDS, counter-drone system used by the U.S. Army, and advanced sensing. Leonardo DRS also concentrates on network computing to create battle management systems, and electric propulsion systems for Navy vessels like Columbia-class submarines.

When it comes to advanced sensing, Lynn said, bringing RADA’s radars into Leonardo DRS’ portfolio “provide[s] the one sensor we don’t have.” This will be crucial as sensor integration becomes increasingly important in Army vehicles like tanks, Strykers and Bradley fighting vehicles, he said.

“Think Tesla,” Lynn said. “You have a backup camera and you have the side mirrors with collision detection. What Tesla’s done now is integrate all that into a single picture — so good, in fact that it can drive the car.”

That’s where the Army is headed with integrated sensing and battlefield management, he added.

“You get a comprehensive picture of the battlefield [with integrated sensing], you’re able to take all that data [collected by various sights and sensors] and make it actionable and decision-quality data,” Lynn said. “We want to be a part of that, and having a radar is critical. We think what’s going to happen is the sensors and the computing are going to fuse.”

This interview was edited for clarity and space.

What are some of the biggest challenges in trying to weave together these various sensor systems and getting them to talk to each other reliably and accurately?

That’s where the network computing, the battle management system that’s already in the computer, can take all of these feeds and give you a single picture. It’s technology that’s within our grasp. It’s more a matter of, how do you take the existing systems and bring them all together? If you use the existing network computing, you actually don’t need to replace them all. Instead of having each individual in the vehicle have a separate screen, you give the same picture to all of them with all of the inputs.

It’s the infrared sensors, the weapons sights, it’s the driver vision and enhancement system. And on the ones that have the active protection systems, each has radar that supports that, so you can use that as an additional input as well.

This is something we’re working on. The sensors are already in the field, and the network computing is already in the field, but the fusion of all of it together is not yet there.

How long do you think it’s going to be before that becomes a reality?

I think it could be done in three or four years. But it takes putting together a program of record and moving forward on it. The Army is definitely talking about it, but they haven’t gotten to the point of setting up the program.

What benefit does knitting all those sights, infrared and other signals together provide?

You get far better data by using all of the sensors together so that you’re able to pull in a better quality of information, and you’re able to use that information to set the options for the commander. For example, identifying a target, giving the coordinates where that target is, ensuring that target is indeed an adversary, not a friend, and giving them a firing solution could all be done in a single integrated picture.

Counter UAS is a big area of focus for DRS. Where do your efforts stand there, and what capabilities do you feel have promise in the next couple of years?

We’re producing the current system that’s in the field now, the MLIDS system. That’s the current generation, that’s a two-vehicle solution. [One vehicle carries the sensors to detect the drone, and the second has the weapons used to take it out.] We’re investing in a single vehicle solution with some of our other industry partners. That would be more compact, more mobile, less vulnerable. We’re in the testing phase right now [for a one-vehicle MLIDS], hoping to complete that within a year.

And ultimately, [Leonardo DRS wants] to focus on the next-generation threat, which will be swarming drones. With single drones, you can deal with them kinetically [and] shoot them down one at a time. With swarming drones, you could have too many to really do that. And so you’re going to want to look at solutions that are not kinetic, like electronic warfare, jamming, directed energy. There’s some of that right now in the current generation, but you’re going to want to expand those capabilities to deal with a swarming drone threat. We’re looking at what kind of upgrades you can do with MLIDS [to handle swarming drones].

When might these capabilities be ready for the field? Are we talking five years or so?

It’s more how fast the Pentagon wants to move, how urgent they see the need. It could be much faster than five years if you want to accelerate.

There’s always going to be a balance between kinetic and non-kinetic, but you’re going to want to shift it more in favor of non-kinetic to deal with that [swarming] threat. [Capabilities such as electronic warfare and directed energy to take out drone swarms] are all programs in R&D that are underway now. It’s a question of how fast do you want to accelerate that development and move it into production.

The Pentagon is moving forward on directed energy [and] a single vehicle solution. We’ve got to do some more testing to show which technologies are going to prove out the best, and then you need to put those into production.

What’s the trickiest part of trying to adapt capabilities like directed energy and electronic warfare to deal with a swarm of targets that may be coming from multiple directions?

The single hardest piece is the power requirements for directed energy, and how do you make that power mobile. It takes a lot of power, and so you need to develop more efficient ways of producing that power such that you can do it in a package that you can put on a vehicle, rather than use it just in a fixed site.

Where do things go next for the RADA merger?

Both boards have approved the deal. The next step is an [Securities and Exchange Commission] filing, which will be in the next couple of weeks. Once the SEC has reviewed that [data submitted by Leonardo DRS], there’s a vote of the RADA shareholders. We’re looking at sometime mid-fall as the closing date. I don’t think we’re going to see regulatory challenges.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 said in a release issued Sunday talks broke down over what it saw as an inadequate 401(k) plan.

“We cannot accept a contract that is not fair and equitable, as this company continues to make billions of dollars each year off the backs of our hardworking members,” the union said in the release. “Boeing previously took away a pension from our members, and now the company is unwilling to adequately compensate our members’ 401(k) plans.”

In an email to Defense News, Boeing said it planned to keep its factories operating if the strike takes place next week.

“We are disappointed with Sunday’s vote to reject a strong, highly competitive offer,” the company said in an email. “We are activating our contingency plan to support continuity of operations in the event of a strike.”

The union and Boeing have a pre-existing agreement to allow a seven-day cooling off period before the strike officially begins, during which negotiations could continue, union spokesman DeLane Adams told Defense News.

Jody Bennett, chief of staff for the union’s aerospace department, told Defense News the union is not satisfied with Boeing’s proposal to phase out its automatic contributions to machinists’ 401(k)s, which take place without employees needing to contribute.

Bennett said the 401(k) that replaced the defined benefit pension in 2014 first had the company making its own automatic contributions of 9% of a worker’s salary, which was then gradually reduced over the next few years until reaching its current level of 4%.

Boeing offered to increase the matching contribution — which is now 75% for the first 8% employees contribute from their own salaries — to a 100% match of a 10% contribution, Bennett said. But while that makes the matching contribution more generous, he said, Boeing’s proposal would drop the 4% automatic contribution in 2023 in favor of 2% lump sums at the end of the year for employees on the payroll on the last days of 2023 and 2024. After that, Bennett said, those lump sums go away entirely.

Bennett said the union wants Boeing to keep the 4% automatic contribution, as well larger increases to employees’ salaries along the pay scale. He said the union and Boeing are currently not talking.

The strike would cover Boeing’s locations in St. Louis and St. Charles, Missouri, and Mascoutah, Illinois. The St. Louis facility is where aircraft such as the T-7A Red Hawk trainer, F-15 and F/A-18 fighters and the MQ-25 Stingray unmanned refueling aircraft are built, and the St. Charles facility produces weapons such as precision-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition kits.

AFC’s Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing/Space Cross-Functional Team launched the aircraft on June 15 and it remains deployed some 70,000 feet over Arizona. The pilotless aircraft previously set the longevity record at about 26 days in 2018.

The first stratospheric UAS of its kind, Zephyr can fly continuously for months at a time, far above weather and conventional air traffic. It has a wingspan of just over 82 feet — longer than 2 school buses placed end-to-end, but weighs less than 166 pounds.

The test aims to assess the aircraft’s durability and energy storage capacity. Powered by solar energy, the Zephyr is considered a performance heavyweight in ultra-light aircraft. It can be used for surveillance and intelligence gathering, with a wide visual payload coverage of 20 by 30 kilometers (12.4-18.6 miles). The drone can also be equipped with radar, lidar and infrared technologies to expand its capabilities.

Michael Monteleone, the director of the APNT/Space CFT, said there has been significant progress in the development high-altitude platforms such as Zephyr in recent years.

“This experimentation allows us to build on that knowledge by demonstrating multiple payload types, fully exploring the military utility of stratospheric operations, and modernizing areas of deep sensing, long-range targeting and resilient communications,” he said in a statement. “Ultra-long endurance unmanned platforms have the potential to provide significant military capabilities and enhanced confidence as part of the Army’s diversified multi-layered architecture.”

As part of the test, the Zephyr completed its first venture into “international airspace” and over water, the statement said. It also marked the aircraft’s longest continuous flight using satellite communication controls.

A second Zephyr flight will launch in the coming weeks and travel over the Pacific Ocean. It will study the Zephyr’s ability to carry a payload designed by AFC over multiple combatant commands.

U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has made it a top priority for the service to increasingly use autonomous aircraft — that is, an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, that uses technology like artificial intelligence to manage its missions.

And at the back-to-back Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough Airshow, time and again the topic of autonomy came up in conversations, interviews and briefings, as company executives sought to show how they could make it a reality.

Industry leaders see autonomous aircraft and teaming capabilities as a key market set to rapidly grow — as well as an avenue to accelerate research and development into cutting-edge new technology and build partnerships with other organizations.

“This is a really exciting time to be in aeronautics,” Tom Jones, president of Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, said in an interview with Defense News at RIAT July 16. “There’s a lot of things changing, and the threat is pushing us to look at technologies that we haven’t before.”

A prime example of these new technologies is using unmanned aircraft to augment fighters on combat missions. The Air Force is starting to refer to these as collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, and wants them to accompany F-35s and the secretive sixth-generation Next Generation Air Dominance platform now in the works.

With Air Force officials increasingly worried about the potential for a war to erupt with China — whose modernized military and air defenses could pose a major threat to allied aircraft — Kendall wants the service to augment its fighters with autonomous drones that could serve as decoys or scouts or even jam enemy signals or conduct their own strikes.

Kendall earlier this year numbered this concept among his seven “operational imperatives” for the department to pursue.

And at Farnborough and RIAT, the conversation focused on the finer points of how such a manned-unmanned teaming concept would become reality — and how to avoid potential pitfalls.

Firms hone their pitches

In a briefing for reporters at Farnborough, Steve Nordlund, vice president and general manager of Phantom Works for Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said manned-unmanned teaming doesn’t have to be a “swarm” of UAVs around one piloted fighter — although he said Boeing could produce swarming technology if needed.

Instead, Nordlund said that Phantom Works — Boeing’s research and development organization — envisions these autonomous drone wingmen possibly being “untethered” from a platform and able to go where they are most needed.

If a fighter pilot flying a mission has a need for a particular capability — for example, if he comes across a pocket of enemy air defenses that need to be shut down — he could call upon one of an array of autonomous drones lurking nearby to electronically jam or otherwise neutralize those air defenses. And the other fighters flying the mission could turn to the same reserve of nearby drones if they need help.

This would differ slightly from the concept Kendall has described, in which an F-35 or Next Generation Air Dominance fighter would be “calling plays” for its own unique formation of as many as five unmanned aircraft dedicated to that fighter.

“If there’s an aircraft in a different vicinity that has a need, the unmanned system could respond to that,” Nordlund said. “So the interoperability piece becomes really important, the level of autonomy becomes important. How that handoff happens is really important. So those are a lot of the things that we’re working on, both procedurally as well as the technology to enable it.”

Nordlund said Boeing could also produce autonomous wingmen that operate “tethered” to a single aircraft if necessary, adding that the company wants to be flexible enough to provide both options.

Northrop’s Jones warned that to quickly field a system that can team autonomous drones with piloted aircraft, the Air Force and industry must simplify the missions they want them to do — in other words, walk before they can run.

“We can’t make everything too complex out of the gate,” Jones said. “Let’s not make an unmanned F-35 the first step. If you try … it’s going to be a long time to get there.”

Jones said that means identifying whether the Air Force wants a fighter’s autonomous teammate to be a “missile truck” to augment its firepower, for example, or to carry a separate system of radars or sensors to provide a better picture of the battlefield. And it could mean having multiple unmanned systems that could each do its own unique job, he said.

Defense firms — from smaller companies to some of the largest contractors — are hoping to take advantage of momentum in this field.

Before RIAT and Farnborough began, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works said in a briefing with reporters it was working on a mix of expendable drone wingmen — which it said could be fielded in as soon as three years — and more advanced autonomous systems for the Air Force.

Autonomy goes mainstream

And at Farnborough, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions touted recent test flights of two of its autonomous XQ-58A Valkyrie drones as part of the Skyborg artificial intelligence wingman program — and said the success could lead to mainstreaming such autonomous technology.

Kratos executive Jeffrey Herro even predicted Skyborg could be wound down within the next year or so, and the capabilities it has demonstrated incorporated into new systems.

“This is getting to the end of the Skyborg program, is where we are,” Herro said in a July 18 interview with Defense News. “And then it will morph into other programs.”

Boeing Defense officials pointed to work they’ve already done in manned-unmanned teaming on already-established platforms such as the MQ-28 Ghost Bat — also known as ATS, or Airpower Teaming System, or more popularly, the Loyal Wingman program demonstrated by the Royal Australian Air Force. Boeing also makes the MQ-25 Stingray, the Navy’s autonomous refueling drone.

Ted Colbert, the chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said company officials spent days at RIAT talking to customers about autonomous, uncrewed teaming. There is tremendous interest around this market, he said, and it will be important in coming years.

“We’re leaning really hard into the future with autonomy [and] ATS,” Colbert said in a roundtable with reporters in London July 17. Those programs “offer the opportunity to leverage all the lessons on … moving [traditional] physical platforms forward, but also integrating great technology from a connectivity, analytics, artificial intelligence perspective, and those supporting the needs of our missions around the world, as they evolve.”

Colbert said Boeing is also energized by the fact the uncrewed teaming concept is “brand agnostic” and not just a Boeing-specific program.

Boeing has a its own engineering, research and development and autonomous technology expertise, Colbert said, but the company will partner with other organizations when it can.

“I come from the technology world, and the way you win in the technology world is through partnerships,” Colbert said. “You find other folks that can complement the great capabilities that you have, you combine them and you move forward.”

Autonomy also emerged as a possible selling point as two key companies jockeyed for position in a potential Air Force aerial refueling tanker program.

Airbus on July 19 announced its A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport — the basis for the Lockheed Martin LMXT aerial refueling tanker it hopes can compete for the service’s KC-Y bridge tanker — had been certified to conduct automatic air-to-air refueling boom operations in daylight, and is the first ever tanker to receive this certification.

Airbus also said it had launched a demonstrator it hoped would produce technologies that could lead the way to autonomous refueling and formation flights.

Boeing, which makes the KC-46A Pegasus tanker the Air Force is now bringing into service, later that day issued a statement to reporters saying the Pegasus had carried out autonomous boom aerial capabilities during flight tests. The Air Force is considering forgoing a competition for the bridge tanker and going straight to buying more KC-46s, though Lockheed hopes it has a chance to compete.

And it wasn’t just aviation firms eyeing the autonomous market. Companies that make technologies that feed into autonomous systems also sought to demonstrate their work.

In a July 18 interview with Defense News at Farnborough, William Lynn, who leads Leonardo DRS, said integrated sensing capabilities, which his company makes, are at the core of autonomy, although his company is primarily working with the Army on the technology. If sensors bring in a jumble of data and signals that can’t be combined in a cohesive, integrated way, he said, the unmanned vehicle won’t be able to operate reliably.

“To be able to have autonomy, you need to have that whole 360 degree view of the world and the ability to process that in an integrated way ... to let tanks [or] any kind of land vehicle operate autonomously,” Lynn said. “It’s going to have to be able to see its world, understand the terrain, understand where friendly forces are, where adversary forces are. You can’t drive the tank if it’s all coming in in a fragmented way.”

Leonardo DRS is a mid-tier defense electronics firm that primarily serves the U.S. military, and is the U.S. subsidiary of the Italian defense firm Leonardo SpA.

And the autonomy concept has moved so far along that discussions have increasingly shifted to operational questions — for instance, how pilots would manage their drone wingmen in a combat situation.

Air Commodore Jim Beck, an F-35 pilot for the U.K.’s Royal Air Force, said at a panel discussion at Farnborough July 19 that adding UAV wingmen likely won’t tax pilots’ attentions while flying in combat, since the fighter already automatically processes mammoth amounts of information without the pilot’s input.

“There is no reason why [a drone wingman] should be any less autonomous than what the F-35 is doing right now,” Beck said. “We can design the architecture such that ... we don’t saturate the human [with] decisions. ... We’re there pretty much already with the F-35.”

In comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Wednesday, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said Ukraine will need to shift its air force away from legacy Russian MiG and Sukhoi fighters and toward more modern Western-made aircraft.

With the supply of Russian spare parts for MiGs cut off, Brown said, Ukraine will have to eventually move to other fighters.

It remains to be seen which platforms make sense, he said, but there are many possibilities — not just U.S.-made fighters such as the F-15 and F-16, but the Eurofighter, Swedish Gripen and French Rafale could also be options for Ukraine’s air force.

“Part of this is understanding where Ukraine wants to go, and how we meet them where they are,” Brown said. “All of our allies and partners have an interest in ensuring Ukraine can provide for its own security.”

Later at Aspen, asked why the U.S. doesn’t give Ukraine some of its aging A-10 Warthogs — which the Air Force has long sought to retire — Kendall said it’s “largely up to Ukraine” to decide the aircraft it wants.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said his nation needs more advanced fighters such as F-15s and F-16s.

Although Ukraine is busy dealing with its “right now problem,” Kendall said, alluding to its largely ground-based fight in the Donbas region, it will eventually have to figure out how its future force should look.

“We’ll be open to discussions with them about what their requirements are and how we might be able to satisfy them,” Kendall said.

In March, Kendall shot down suggestions the U.S. could provide A-10s to Ukraine. But at Aspen, he didn’t close the door entirely to providing older aircraft.

“There are a number of international opportunities that are possible there,” Kendall said. “Older U.S. systems are a possibility.”

When Ukraine’s air force has new fighters, Brown said, the U.S. has a responsibility to help train their pilots on how to fly the different air frames.

In an interview with Reuters on the way to Aspen, Brown said the U.S. and allies are weighing options for training Ukrainian pilots in a long-term program to modernize its air force.

During his discussion at Aspen, Brown said his comments in the Reuters interview were meant to highlight steps the U.S. and allies are already taking to train Ukrainian pilots.

He said the Ukrainians’ success fighting Russia over the last several months is in part a sign of the benefits of the last quarter-century of cooperation between the U.S. and Ukrainian militaries.

Their comments came a week after the House passed its version of a National Defense Authorization Act that would provide $100 million to train Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S. aircraft.

The nation’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration’s promotion committee, led by Defense Minister Jong-sup Lee, on July 15 formally decided to buy 20 additional F-35As for 3.9 trillion Korean won (nearly $3 billion). South Korea plans to acquire them by 2028.

The Air Force will then have a total of 60 F-35As, as the military already operates 40 F-35A Block-Is.

The South Korean government and military plan to complete a feasibility test this year and establish a concrete acquisition plan early next year.

DAPA expects the airpower gap created by retiring outdated fighter jets of the ROK Air Force to be supplemented by the new F-35As, which are also meant to strengthen the country’s deterrence.

The plan to acquire additional F-35As already went through feasibility tests and demand verification process in 2018 and 2019, but the previous government preferred a light aircraft carrier and F-35Bs. When the new government took office this year, more serious concerns about the ROKAF’s outdated fighter jets and increasingly advanced North Korean nuclear weapons prompted Seoul to switch its defense acquisition priorities.

“Fighters are an important business to the Boeing Company,” Ted Colbert, chief executive officer of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, told reporters during a roundtable discussion in London July 17. “We haven’t given up the fight in that space. We are continuing to invest in it.”

The only new fighters Boeing is now producing for the Air Force are the F-15EX, an upgraded and modernized version of the fourth-generation F-15E. The first models of F-15s began flying in the mid-1970s.

Boeing is also working on the Air Force’s new trainer, the T-7A Red Hawk, and us delivering KC-46A Pegasus tankers to the Air Force. It also makes the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter, among other aircraft.

The Air Force’s most recent fighter, the F-35, is primarily built by Lockheed Martin. Northrop Grumman is building the Air Force’s next bomber, the B-21 Raider.

The Air Force is working on a new highly-classified, sixth-generation system called Next Generation Air Dominance, about which few details — including which companies could build it — are publicly known. Kendall said in June NGAD has entered its engineering and manufacturing development phase.

Colbert would not comment on whether Boeing is active in any classified fighter-related programs.

He said Boeing’s Phantom Works organization is working on the future of fighters, including investing in facilities, people, technology and techniques such as model-based engineering.

Breaking Defense reported on July 15 that Steve Parker, vice president and general manager of bombers and fighters for Boeing’s defense unit, said at the Royal International Air Tattoo in England the contract for the next two lots of F-15EXs would likely meet, or even come in below, the expected $80 million price, despite ongoing problems with supply chains and inflation that have recently driven up prices in the defense industry.

Asked whether prices could similarly stay steady for other Boeing programs, Colbert said wage escalation, supply chain issues and other challenges are pressuring companies across the defense industry. And, he said, Boeing needs to keep lines of communication open with the military so it knows how the company is being affected by these issues.

“My intent right now is to work with our government customers, have a discussion around the realities of the environment we’re in,” Colbert said. “And when that changes, it changes and we go through a process to do that. And we’ve got to set ourselves up for the ability to get the work done and invest in the future.”

The country has already begun to integrate the network-enabled munition on its F-35 fleet, and the head of Norway’s F-35 project office said in a July 18 statement the weapon will play an important role in helping the country begin initial operations for its Joint Strike Fighter fleet.

“The weapon will bring significant capability against stationary and moving targets at stand-off ranges, further enhancing the Norwegian Air Force’s ability to maintain national and regional security alongside our allies,” Brig. Gen. Sigurd Fongen said.

Paul Ferraro, president of air power at Raytheon, told C4ISRNET in a July 19 interview at the Farnborough Airshow the company doesn’t know how many Stormbreakers Norway will buy. He said Raytheon is on contract to produce about 1,100 rounds of the weapon a year for domestic and international customers and has the capacity to make more.

Stormbreaker is certified and fielded on the F-15E, and Raytheon expects to complete that process for the Navy’s F/A-18 later this year. The company is making progress integrating the weapon on all three variants of the F-35, and Ferraro said that work should be finished for the A and B models in early 2023 and the C model later that year.

He said the company has completed multiple tests of Stormbreaker on the F-35, and they’re “going very well.”

Stormbreaker was designed specifically to be “space-efficient” for the F-35′s bomb bay. The jet can carry four of the weapons in each of its bays with room for other munitions. The weapon can autonomously detect and define targets in low-visibility conditions, including adverse weather, smoke or dust.

The recent progress comes after delays that stalled the program for about a year. A technical issue in 2019 with one of Stormbreaker’s key components paused production; after a redesign and retrofit of about 600 already-delivered bombs, the Air Force restarted fielding in September 2020.

The aircraft are to replace the 14 Saab JAS 39 Gripens currently operated by the Czech military, making the country the second Eastern European ally after Poland to order Lockheed Martin’s fighters.

“I was authorised to form an inter-ministerial negotiating team and commence negotiations with the United States government to procure 24 units of the F-35 Lightning II multirole fighters to equip two squadrons,” Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová said in a statement.

Prague will continue to lease the Gripen C/D jets until the end of 2027 when the contract expires.

“Our decision to select this option is based on the analysis by the Czech Armed Forces, which clearly articulates that only the most advanced 5th-generation fighters will be able to meet mission requirements in future battlefields,” Černochová said.

The value of the potential deal was not disclosed by the Czech ministry.

In January 2020, Polish National Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak signed a contract worth some $4.6 billion under which Poland’s Air Force will acquire 32 F-35A Lightning II jets along with a training and logistics package. Warsaw aims to replace its outdated Soviet-designed Sukhoi Su-22 and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters with the fifth-generation jets. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2024.