An Air Force For the Future [INCLUDES F-35As]

[spazsinbad]

An Air Force For the Future [LOTS MORE AT THE JUMP}
April 2016 John A. Tirpak

"USAF will embrace leap-ahead “Third Offset” technologies to sustain its position of dominance. To maintain the Air Force’s technology edge, service leaders at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium said they’ve closely aligned their Fiscal 2017 budget request with the Defense Department’s “Third Offset” strategy, intended to develop leap-ahead capabilities. Technology-driven since its origins, USAF plans to lead the Third Offset charge.

Speaking in Orlando, Fla., Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III said they’ve substantially boosted USAF’s latest funding requests for research and development, structuring new programs to evolve and adapt rapidly as competitors acquire the very capabilities that have given USAF decades of air and space dominance.

Over the last 25 years, James said, “the world has been watching us,” and having seen the benefits of precision, stealth, and space-enabled capabilities, among many others, adversary militaries are “developing technologies and strategies to counter this advantage.”

In her keynote address, James said, “No one knows exactly what that next Third Offset will entail,” but she promised that USAF and airmen “will lead the way by turning theory into reality.”...

...Along with USAF’s other fifth generation platforms, the F-22 and F-35, the B-21 “will give our country a networked sensor-shooter capability enabling us to hold targets at risk in a way the world—and our adversaries—have never, ever seen,” James said....

...Work has outlined five “building blocks” for the Third Offset, James explained. They are: “autonomous learning systems,” which are machines that can learn and adapt over time; “human-machine collaborations,” wherein machines help humans process vast amounts of information, as the F-35’s helmet does; “assisted human operations,” translated by James as “wearable technology,” such as lightweight sensors and communications gear for battlefield airmen; “human-machine combat teaming,” where a manned system, such as an aircraft, would partner with an unmanned platform that would provide sensor information, communications, or extra munitions; and “network-enabled semi-autonomous technology.” James said this fifth building block would allow weapons to communicate with each other to find targets if the communications or sensor links to the launching aircraft are lost....

...Carlisle said numbers have become almost as important as high technology in air combat, and arsenal planes might help restore some of USAF’s lost numerical capacity. He also said ACC is working with technologists on miniature munitions with the same or greater “range and kill capacity” as today’s munitions, so that more could be carried internally on stealth fighters. Because of improvements in adversary aircraft, the probability of a kill with today’s AMRAAM requires that pilots take two shots to be sure of destroying an enemy, “so that, by definition, cuts your payload in half,” Carlisle noted....

...The Air Force has struggled for years with how to pay for new F-35s while simultaneously upgrading existing fourth generation fighters. Carlisle said 1,763 stealthy F-35s remains “the right number,” but F-16s “are going to be around a long time” and will need an upgrade. The F-16 was to get an omnibus improvement called the Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite (CAPES), but only pieces of it are still in the budget. Some 52 aircraft will get an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar to meet an “urgent operation need” from US Northern Command to meet air defense requirements, but “there are more things that I’d like to do” to the venerable Falcon, he said.

Meanwhile, Carlisle said he will “continue to push” to build 80 F-35s a year.

Lockheed Martin F-35 program manager Jeff A. Babione told reporters in Orlando the company expects to provide USAF with everything it needs to declare initial operational capability with the strike fighter in time for its target of August-December. Seven of the 12 minimum aircraft required are already at Hill AFB, Utah, and Lockheed Martin should deliver “five or six more” by August. Declaring the aircraft ready for combat operations will rest with Carlisle. USAF still needs “a few things from us” before IOC, Babione said. Those include a more mature Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) and the Generation III helmet.

The Air Force must still go through a process of defining tightly just what electronic warfare/electronic attack is, and who has responsibility for it. Former Chief of Staff retired Gen. Larry D. Welch chided the service, saying, “We don’t know who owns it, where it fits. It’s not cyber.” He doesn’t believe USAF should necessarily create a new warfighting “domain” for EW/EA, “but I do know the Air Force has been particularly remiss in not doing enough electronic warfare.” USAF’s shortcomings are particularly evident given the gains in EW/EA by Russia, China, and the US Navy, Welch said.

Though he did not respond directly to his predecessor’s remarks, Welsh suggested that the F-35 has strong electronic attack capability and said it has EA equipment “built into” it, while the Navy EA-18G Growler has had to have external equipment purpose-built for the mission.

Welsh also noted that there has been a defensewide look at EW/EA for over a year, but that a clear definition still eludes USAF. “A single broad term … actually confuses things,” he asserted in a press conference. “So we’re trying to clearly define the mission area, the requirements within it, and who should have the lead for each of those things.”..."

Photo Caption: "SSgt. William Raydon receives mild electronic brain stimulation as part of a study performed by AFRL, while Andy McKinley monitors the progress of the experiment. Stimulating targeted areas of the brain can
improve visual targeting and attention span, lessen the effects of fatigue, and improve energy levels and mood."

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