Opening February 18th, the US Air Force Museum will host “Survival: The Exhibit” which promises to combine STEM concepts with hands-on challenges to empower you with the skills, know-how, and confidence to survive any scenario. But all from the safety of a museum.
Looks like a lot of fun. Take the kids!
The Air Force Museum is located on Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH, and has free entry.
Learn more here.
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) —
The 317th Airlift Wing supported Battalion Mass Tactical Week at Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina, Jan. 22-28.
BMTW is a week of training simulating a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command 24-hour response scenario. Three C-130J Super Hercules from the 317th AW alongside three C-17 Globemaster III from Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, trained with the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as an integrated force to provide strategic and tactical airpower.
“Events in the past, such as D-Day, have led to a demonstrated need for these events giving us now the ability to respond anywhere in the world, utilizing the strategic and tactical airpower of the C-130s and C-17s,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Miller, 317th Operations Group deputy commander and airlift mission commander.
Aircrews focused on meeting the Army’s scatter plan during BMTW by strategically spreading where the paratrooper, heavy equipment and container delivery systems containing supplies would land for ground personnel within the drop zone.
“Joint operations are always difficult and there is a clear need for us to continuously improve,” Miller said. “Being within this environment gets us out of our comfort zone. Moving to something a little more complicated makes us work together as an integrated force which ultimately improves ourselves.”
One of the challenges with BMTW was conducting dissimilar six-ship formations. There are risks associated with flying a dissimilar six-ship formation because of aircraft performance, such as differing slow-down speeds, power settings and altitudes.
“The timing of all of this matters,” Miller said. “When you combine all the different aspects of each aircraft in a high tempo environment, things can get missed. Deconfliction between the aircraft, ensuring the safety of our personnel by communicating and learning with the Army all matters for the mission’s success.”
Many risks were associated with executing BMTW properly, but through disciplined planning and execution, the aircrews and soldiers who participated have come out of BMTW having built a more strongly integrated team.
“The 317th AW participation in BMTW enables continued development of an experienced and capable joint force. While airdrop is one of our oldest core competencies, this exercise allowed us to use emerging technologies to deliver our joint partners with more precision into the battlespace. The time we gain for them improves survivability and makes them even more lethal upon arrival,” said Col. Thomas Lankford, 317th AW commander.
By Airman 1st Class Ryan Hayman, 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFNS) —
The 59th Test and Evaluation Squadron hit major milestones in the development and testing of their Multi-Utilization Secure Tactical and Network Ground Station, or MUSTANGS, through its recent participation in Pacific Edge 22.
During the exercise, MUSTANGS proved its ability to process, curate, and send F-35A Lightning II data over-the-horizon to a reprogramming laboratory, all in a matter of minutes.
Part of the Crowd-Sourced Flight Data program, MUSTANGS is a mobile vehicle that can download, process, and offload important data from Quick Reaction Instrumentation Package-equipped aircraft without the need for fixed, operational test infrastructure.
“Right now, MUSTANGS are for the test community, but it has massive operational implications,” said Lt. Col. Nathan Malafa, 59th TES commander. “Our intent is to reduce risk and show the CAF (Combat Air Forces) the value of obtaining and communicating data from the operational edge.”
Before MUSTANGS, edge-collected data had to be downloaded in a secure facility, transferred to a hard drive or disk, and hand-delivered to a data customer; an outdated process that is cumbersome and too slow for the rapidly changing operational environment.
With MUSTANGS, however, the 59th TES has proven that data processing is flexible, reliable, deployable, and most importantly: immediate.
“A modern, contested environment is constantly changing,” Malafa said. “The faster and more accurate data is made available to decision makers, the more likely the warfighter will succeed over the adversary.”
The 59th TES is looking to generate another MUSTANGS milestone during the upcoming exercise, Northern Edge 23. The team plans to use F-35s participating in the exercise to find a unique waveform in the operating environment, transfer that data to MUSTANGS, curate the data, and make it available to the U.S. Reprogramming Laboratory, which is managed by the 513th Electronic Warfare Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The 513th EWS is responsible for producing Mission Data Files for all U.S. F-35s, including those flown by the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, making them the most lethal and survivable combat aircraft.
Once the 513th EWS receives the data, they analyze and action it to reprogram and updated MDF, push it to the MUSTANG, and load it back on the F-35s prior to their next flight. This process normally takes days to weeks and has never been accomplished before in a matter of hours.
“Data evolutions like MUSTANGS turn edge data into information rapidly, which is exactly the kind of innovation we need to stay ahead in the modern age of warfare,” Malafa said. “There is no doubt that those who can transmit information at the speed of relevance will win.”
By 1st Lt Lindsey Heflin, 53rd Wing Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (AFNS) —
The Department of the Air Force will conduct its next “BRAVO” hackathon March 20 – 24, 2023, this time at Hurlburt Field, Florida.
Any American citizen may apply, regardless of whether they currently work for the Department of the Air Force. Applicants are required to apply online here. Applicants should apply by Feb. 15.
Attendees are not required to hold a security clearance. However, certain spaces, use cases, and datasets may require a U.S. secret security clearance or higher. Organizers may request additional information for clearances that applicants possess. Applicants may apply as an employee for the U.S. government, a U.S. government contractor, or a U.S. citizen either affiliated or unaffiliated with a company.
A hackathon is an innovation event commonly employed by technology companies in which teams develop prototypes working around the clock in response to enterprise challenges associated with data. Prior BRAVO projects have produced multiple prototypes and inventions influencing major Defense Department programs.
Federal government employees and federal contractors representing federal organizations are encouraged to share sponsoring use cases, data, or infrastructure relevant to the primary mission of the Department of Defense for use at this event by contacting SAF.CN.BRAVO@us.af.mil.
“Across the previous hackathons, we have honed methods to build and fight with classified and protected data of increasingly larger size and varied origin,” said Stuart Wagner, chief digital transformation officer for the U.S. Department of the Air Force and hackathon organizer. “Hurlburt Field will prototype joint use cases, data and software infrastructures from combatant commands and various military departments.”
In January 2022, the department ran BRAVO 0, its first department-wide classified innovation hackathon with Air Force weapons system data at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. BRAVO 1 Canary Release grew the effort when in July 2022, the department ran its second hackathon simultaneously at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia; Patrick Space Force Base, Florida; and Eglin AFB, Florida, with about 300 hackers.
BRAVO allows participants to rapidly commingle and run open-source software and data otherwise unapproved for production with classified or protected data.
“BRAVO moves from the traditional DoD development model operating at the unclassified level where we push code up to protected environments, to a permissive development model on protected data, which we refer to as ‘Dev High,’” Wagner said. “This enables developers to build weapons’ capabilities and calibrations directly with the data at lower cost compared to traditional prototyping pipelines and at a rate faster than an adversary is likely to build countering capability. This event will test how ‘Dev High’ scales to joint multi-domain use cases.”
Applicants looking to participate may do so in one of three roles. The “Hacker” role is open to all applicants and expects project builders with varying skill sets and experience, including software development, data science, machine learning, design and user interface/user design, data visualization, product management or warfighter subject matter expertise.
The “Subject Matter Expert” role is open only to government and government contractors and supports multiple teams with specific expertise or knowledge about a use case or dataset offered at the event. Any federal organization is eligible to supply a use case or dataset for consideration.
The “Supporter” role is open only to government and government contractors and provides administrative support to the event by running security, facilitating supplies delivery, organizing social events, and facilitating the delivery of science fair materials and attendee check-in.
Organizations providing infrastructure support include the “STITCHES” Warfighter Application Team, the Navy Project Overmatch program, Project Arc, Office of the Secretary of Defense Advana Edge and Air Force Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. All five U.S. military services and U.S. Special Operations Command provide use cases and data.
The BRAVO hackathon series is named after “Project B,” a 1921 series of joint Army-Navy target exercises based on Army Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell’s then-controversial claim that bombers sink battleships. Also styled after Project B, BRAVO hackathons are designed to allow government, academia, industry and citizens to test and validate bold ideas using real DoD data, Wagner said.
Story by Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
Photo by TSgt Tabatha Arellano
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. —
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall visited Hurlburt Field, Jan. 17 to view the Air Force Special Operations Command mission firsthand and meet with Airmen and leadership of the command.
During the visit Kendall flew on AFSOC aircraft and attended demonstrations illustrating AFSOC’s capabilities and adaptability to the future operational environment.
“Our Airmen are our greatest resource,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, AFSOC Commander. “We demonstrated to Secretary Kendall Air Force Special Operations Command’s pathfinding mindset and our unique capabilities. We also highlighted to our distinguished visitors that, throughout our history, we have taken whatever equipment and aircraft we had access to and adapted it to provide specialized capabilities to great success.”
AFSOC prioritizes the ability to remain relevant and ready no matter the challenges faced, he said. The visit emphasized the expertise of the Airmen within the command and their ability to meet the challenges they face today and how they plan to face future challenges.
“We pride ourselves on developing problem solvers and working within the margins to create solutions,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Allison Black, 1st Special Operations Wing commander. “We are relevant anywhere and we are finding ways to do the things that only special operations can do, in those contested environments to bring value to the joint force.”
One of those capabilities, and a main focal point of the visit, is a Mission Sustainment Team. MSTs which are made up of multi-functional Airmen who can sustain operations at austere locations away from main operating bases.
“Our MSTs greatly enable the creation of dilemmas for our adversaries and add to AFSOC’s ability to provide Special Operations capabilities anywhere around the globe,” Bauernfeind said.
Kendall met with some of AFSOC’s outstanding performers during the visit, taking the opportunity to recognize and coin them. Black praised her Air Commando team.
“[Kendall] was able to witness some of our magic,” said Black. “These quiet professionals who received this honor were a perfect representation of the command as a whole and the teams who support them.”
By SSgt Caleb Pavao
Air Force Special Operations Command
KUNSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (AFNS) —
Pacific Air Forces recently deployed a joint team of representatives and subject matter experts to Kunsan Air Base, conducting the major command’s first test and validation of counter-chemical warfare tactics, techniques and procedures, or TTP.
These tests are part of the Next Generation Aircrew Protection program, designed to ensure aircrew have proper chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear, or CBRN, protective equipment and that CBRN measures are modernized to meet emerging threats while maintaining peak human performance.
“Current aircrew and pilot CBRN protective equipment are effective but restrictive and burdensome, thus hindering combat effectiveness,” said Chief Master Sgt. Charles Hall, PACAF aircrew flight equipment major command functional manager. “The Air Force realized this in late 2021 and early 2022 and set aside about $16 million to conduct research on aircraft, ground and air testing across various platforms to collect quantitative and qualitative data.”
Armed with the data, researchers refined existing TTPs to better equip aircrews, like Kunsan AB’s, with the tools necessary to continue the ‘Fight Tonight’ mission.
“Wing commanders have an associated risk attached to nearly every decision they make,” said Senior Master Sgt. Ryan Rios, PACAF AFE command manager. “With the integrated data and refined TTPs, wing commanders now have additional information to help them make those tough decisions and continue executing their mission should a CBRN event occur.”
The TTPs are the brainchild of Col. Daniel Roberts, who now serves as 97th Medical Group commander at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
“Risk is ever-present,” Roberts said. “Looking at combat operations in a chemical environment brings the question to mind; ‘How does one balance and right-size risk to improve combat effectiveness?’ Thinking this way allowed us to improve human performance and the ability of our ground crews to turn aircraft in an effective manner so our combat forces are ready when called upon.”
The program’s tests and validations affected several base agencies to include the 35th and 80th Fighter Squadrons, 8th Operations Support Squadron AFE, 8th Civil Engineer Squadron emergency management, 8th Maintenance Group and the 8th Medical Group bioenvironmental engineering flight.
Participating Airmen tested the updated CBRN TTPs safely and efficiently by stepping, launching and recovering a flying mission in a simulated chemical filled environment.
The PACAF team is scheduled to validate every installation within the MAJCOM and ultimately will establish standardized PACAF-wide counter-chemical warfare aircrew protection measures. Efforts like this help ensure Kunsan AB maintains maximum combat readiness capabilities to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.
By SSgt Isaiah J. Soliz, 8th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
Air Force Special Tactics Airmen with the 24SOW, Detachment 1, aka “D-Cell”, provided security while an Alaska Army National Guard HH-60M Black Hawk landed at Camp Mad Bull during CASEVAC training.
The Airmen of the 24th Special Operations Wing, Detachment 1, also known as Deployment Cell or “D-Cell,” have been doing just this for over 60 years.
The unit, based out of MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, consists of 54 members across 15 career fields, forming four agile teams. These teams of multi-capable Airmen are trained in 49 cross-functional tasks including Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape training, advanced shooting, and advanced combat casualty care.
The primary role of D-Cell is to “bare base,” which is to rapidly turn undeveloped locations into fully functional bases.
“The unique thing about us is that we have small teams that can go anywhere,” said Master Sgt. Nathan Johnson, a logistics superintendent and D-Cell Bravo Flight lead. “And because we can do other jobs, we can set up a bare base extremely fast, extremely efficiently.”
Due to working in such light and agile teams, being multi-capable Airmen is essential for mission success.
“Most of our Airmen are at – and I can say this comfortably – at probably a three-level in each other’s career fields, and some even a five-level,” said Master Sgt. Sammy Bridges, security forces superintendent and D-Cell Delta Flight lead.
“If I fall out, the next guy on my team, even though he might be a power [production] guy working on a generator, or he might be a services guy, guess what? He can still upload an aircraft,” added Staff Sgt. Jonathan Webb, an air transportation craftsman. “That [multi-capable Airman] concept is more than what you think it is.”
With their visibilities shifting towards future areas of operation, the unit visited Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), Alaska, Jan. 6 through 10, 2023, to test their operating capabilities in extreme-cold weather environments.
“We’re out here to see if we can validate the Arctic side of what we have to do,” explained Johnson. “We’ve been in a certain part of the world for a long time, and mindsets are changing over where we could go. This is so we can test what we’ve been doing since the ’60s in a cold environment.”
The team spent their time in Alaska operating out of Camp Mad Bull, a training area on JBER designed to provide realistic austere operating conditions to test unit capabilities.
“You’re used to building and being at different locations for the past 20 years, where the whole [Department of Defense] has been, right?” said Johnson. “So now you come up here in a different environment, and you have to test yourself in that sense it’s zero degrees here versus where you’re used to building in 90 degrees [weather].”
Over the week, D-Cell worked on troop movement in extreme cold and deep snow, tent construction, and night operations, all of which culminated into a simulated combat scenario.
The Airmen also spent two days working with the Alaska National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 211th Aviation Regiment. One day was spent in a classroom with the regiment’s medevac unit, where they learned cold-weather specific tactical combat casualty care. The aviators also supported the training’s final combat scenario, providing medevacs to the simulated combat’s casualties.
“We’ve done medical training, [tactical combat casualty care] and things of that nature… now we’re getting knowledge from the Soldiers up here, who do things in the mountains and Arctic environment,” said Webb. “Pulling that knowledge of how you treat hypothermia, how you treat frostbite …. versus what we dealt with the past 20 years in a different [area of responsibility].”
“It wasn’t even necessarily the Arctic cold weather training, but it was the questions, the back-and-forth of it,” he continued. “You can read a book on it all day long, but if you’re talking to the author, you’ll get those little details. It’s good to have that insight.”
After the training wrapped up, the team prepared to leave the sub-zero temperatures of Alaska and return to the warm beaches of Florida – bringing back a new set of skills and validated capabilities.
“As leads, not only were we thinking about the actual build and the project,” said Johnson. “From my perspective, it’s about the personalities and the camaraderie. When you put people in an austere location in a stressful situation, whether it be from external weather or threats, how can those people come together and work as a team and react? It’s been an awesome experience together.”
By Senior Airman Patrick Sullivan, 673d ABW/PA
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFNS) —
U.S. and international combat air forces senior leaders participated in the Weapons and Tactics Conference and C2 Summit at Nellis Air Force Base, Jan. 2-13.
WEPTAC is Air Combat Command’s annual pinnacle of tactics and warfare with a charge to accelerate the modernization and development of solutions for the joint employment of forces across the range of Air Force core warfighting functions.
“There is a common saying of ‘As goes Nellis, so goes the Air Force,” said Maj. Gen. David Lyons, ACC director of operations, in a speech to an audience of nearly 1,400 U.S. and allied service members. “The primary focus of WEPTAC is the National Defense Strategy and therefore the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. We are here at the nexus of airpower to advise and shape our nation’s warfighting prowess.”
Gen. Ken Wilsbach, Pacific Air Forces commander, gave the keynote address to this year’s summit and WEPTAC attendees, emphasizing a need for constant forward motion with innovation as a requirement for mission success.
“Innovation will be the key to ultimately winning the next fight,” Wilsbach said. “Improvements in innovation talked about at previous years’ WEPTACs can be seen in PACAF today.”
Lyons added that while focus on emerging technologies and processes like the Advanced Battle Management System are critical to the Air Force maintaining competitive advantage in the Indo-Pacific, effective employment of warfighting constants like mobility and logistics capabilities also remain vital to success in conflict in the region.
“Do not wish away logistics. There is no room for error when we look at the tyranny of distance in the Pacific,” Lyons said. “You cannot overlook tanker plans, logistics and sustainment, weapons, communications and mission-type orders. Think about and talk about these things, including swap-out plans, rejoin plans from disparate locations, and comm-out mission planning – there is nothing we can’t tackle when we put our minds to it.”
Along with the tyranny of distance in the Pacific, fiscal and political constraints limit the establishment of new enduring air bases. To address these challenges, the Air Force introduced Agile Combat Employment, or ACE: a proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver executed within threat timelines to increase survivability while generating air-combat power.
“ACE will expand the envelope in the next fight; it will be a highly contested environment,” Wilsbach said. “ACE needs to be exercised in every squadron, every day.”
The National Defense Strategy states that to enable our military advantage in the air domain for the long term. We must shift away from legacy platforms and weapons systems that are decreasing in relevance today and will be irrelevant in the future.
Addressing the Air and Space Force senior leaders in the audience, Lyons highlighted the multi-disciplinary specialists conducting WEPTAC’s various working groups.
“We have provided you experts of multiple disciplines to inform your solutions and outputs across multiple programs and resources to provide tangible, feasible decisions to support our conclusions,” he noted.
WEPTAC’s scope and purpose brings the future faster and accelerates change in the United States Air Force. In its 23rd year, WEPTAC continues to provide feedback from warfighters directly to general officers and decision-makers that lead to substantive enhancements and improvements across the Joint Force, both from tactics development and science and technology advancement recommendations.
Wilsbach concluded his speech with a straightforward charge, “It’s not going to be easy, but we must put in the work. No shortcuts.”
Story by Michael J. Hasenauer, Nellis Air Force Base Public Affairs
Photo by Airman 1st Class Josey Blades
