USAF AI Transformation 32 | A Better Bomber Vector 50 | Reaper Rewards 38 Q&A With SECAF Heather Wilson 10 POWERBlock 4 adds brains and brawn to the UP F-35.26 March 2019 $8 Published by the Air Force Association Join us at the AFA Air Warfare Symposium, booth 815. THOSE BORN TO FLY LIVE TO WALK AWAY ACES 5®: Protects aircrew of all sizes Protecting aircrew of all sizes is a mission that drives us relentlessly forward. It’s why our ACES 5® ejection seat meets the exacting standards of MIL-HDBK-516C. It’s why we’ve equipped it with advanced restraint systems, innovative technologies to stabilize the seat and better protect the head and neck, and an improved recovery parachute for safer descents. Learn more about the most advanced protection for your aircrew. collinsaerospace.com/aces5 ©2019 Collins Aerospace, a United Technologies company. All rights reserved. UTC Aerospace Systems and Rockwell Collins are now Collins Aerospace. Collins_ACES 5_AD__AirForceMag.indd 1 2/1/19 9:01 AM STAFF Publisher Larry O. Spencer March 2019. Vol. 102, No. 2 Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele Managing Editor Juliette Kelsey Chagnon Editorial Director John A. Tirpak News Editor Amy McCullough Photo: SSgt. Mosier Photo: Jeremy Assistant DEPARTMENTS FEATURES An MQ-9 in Managing Editor Southwest Asia. Chequita Wood 2 Editorial: 10 Q&A With the Secretary See p. 38. Delayed Senior Designer An exclusive interview with Secretary of the Air Force Dashton Parham Gratification Heather Wilson. By Tobias Pentagon Editor Naegele Brian W. Everstine Does the 26 Keeping the F-35 Ahead of the Bad Guys Digital Platforms argument for By John A. Tirpak Editor F-15X stand up Operational testing is still underway, but the F-35 is Jennifer-Leigh to reality? already beginning its first major upgrade. Oprihory 4 Letters Senior Editor 4 Index to 32 USAF’s AI Transformation Takes O Rachel S. Cohen Advertisers By Amy McCullough Production 6 Airframes AI cracks the code on better maintenance and Manager faster training. Better and faster decision-making is Eric Chang Lee 12 Aperture next. Photo Editor What to expect Mike Tsukamoto from Shanahan; Nuclear force 38 For MQ-9 Crews, 2019 is Time to Reap Just Rewards bill skyrockets; By Brian Everstine Contributors DOD and Fully manned crews and a focus on training means Douglas A. Birkey, climate the RPA force is expected to reach new milestones John T. Correll, change .... in the coming year. David A. Deptula, 16 Verbatim Robert S. Dudney, Jennifer Hlad, 18 World: INF 44 Halt, Who Goes There? Shawn Waterman treaty out; By Shawn Waterman Joe Jackson, Today’s Common Access Card won’t disappear MOH recipient; anytime soon—but the search for a better way to ADVERTISING: Afghanistan, Kirk Brown China, and prove your digital identity is underway. 703.247.5829 more .... [email protected] 24 Faces of the 50 A Change in Vector SUBSCRIBE Force By Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula and Douglas A. Birkey & SAVE 62 AFA Field The Mitchell Institute on building America’s future Subscribe to Contacts bomber force. Air Force Magazine and save big o 63 Airman For ON THE COVER the cover price, Life: AFA 55 Peacekeeper by Fits and Starts plus get a free C h a p t e r N e w s By John T. Correll membership 64 Namesakes: The Air Force explored more than 30 deployment to the Air Force Bolling options for MX, including air launch, a shell game in Association. the desert, Dense Pack, and rail garrison. 1-800-727-3337 60 The Air Force Chief of Sta Reading List Photo: J.M. Eddins Jr./USAF Eddins J.M. Photo: An F-35 Lightning II on the ramp. See “Keeping the F-35 Ahead of the Bad Guys,” p. 26 Air Force Magazine (ISSN 0730-6784) March2019 (Vol. 102, No. 2) is published monthly, except for two double issues in January/February and July/August, by the Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209-1198. Phone (703) 247-5800. Periodical postage paid at Arlington, Va., and additional mailing o ices. Membership Rate: $50 per year; $35 e-Membership; $125 for three-year membership. Subscription Rate: $50 per year; $29 per year additional for postage to foreign addresses (except Canada and Mexico, which are $10 per year additional). Regular issues $8 each. USAF Almanac issue $18 each. Change of address requires four weeks’ notice. Please include mailing label. POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209-1198. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Trademark registered by Air Force Association. Copyright 2019 by Air Force Association. MARCH AIRFORCEMAG.COM EDITORIAL By Tobias Naegele Delayed Gratification “The Air Force We Need,” which Air Force Secretary Heather Secretary of Wilson outlined last fall, will continue to come into finer and finer the Air Force focus this spring, as a series of follow-on studies near completion Heather Wilson and the Air Force budget and modernization strategy is debated is strapped on Capitol Hill. into an F-15D— Encompassing 386 operational squadrons rather than today’s the two-seat 312, the objective force was never intended to withstand a budget version of an debate. Rather, it was designed free of budgetary constraints so F-15C—before a leaders could understand the full extent of the mismatch between familiarization the 2018 National Defense Strategy and the force we have today. That flight in 2018. force is too small, having been whittled and whacked over the past 15 years. The coming studies will provide alternative assessments regarding the service’s capacity demands and will consider force design alternatives that could potentially field greater combat power SSgt.Photo: Riley Johnson/ANG by means of new operational concepts and strategies. buy any more 4th generation airplanes. It’s out of a robust desire Let’s hope so. The real world imposes budget constraints. to maintain air dominance and win. Were the US to find itself at When the Trump administration unveils its budget the topline will war with Russia, China, or other allies of air defense customers, be greater than 2019’s $716 billion, a goodly sum that could approach only stealth aircraft can expect to penetrate their modern air $750 billion. But with a cooling economy, rising interest rates, and a defenses. Until and unless those systems can be defeated, 4th president indicating he’s had enough of “endless war,” another down gen aircraft will either get shot down or stay home. Ensuring the cycle can’t be far o. Future defense budgets may not be able to US has a full stable of stealth aircraft is the best way to ensure no keep up with inflation, let alone aord increases. such conflict ever arises. The Air Force, meanwhile, is behind the power curve. After fail- ■ Costly. At $1.2 billion for 12 airplanes, even assuming a share for ing for years to replace aging aircraft, it now must juggle multiple spares, these airplanes are at best comparably priced to new F-35As, major acquisitions concurrently. Developing and acquiring the F-35 and tens of millions more than the cost of a service-life extension fighter, KC-46 tanker, B-21 bomber, T-X trainer, and UH-1 helicopter for existing F-15Cs. It also adds another small fleet to the service, replacement at virtually the same time is already a perfect storm in and all the added sustainment costs that go with that. To go back budgetary terms. Every one of these programs is behind where it to our family budget example, why buy a new, bigger car just a year should be. And still, these are hardly the only priorities. The cost of or two before the kids fly the coop? Maybe it makes more sense to modernizing nuclear forces is projected to rise 60 percent over the fix that transmission after all. next decade (see Aperture, p. 12). Other priorities, from developing ■ Overkill. While the F-15X may not be well-suited to the high-end a more robust next-generation Global Positioning System and fight attacking deep into a peer competitor’s territory, it is being pitched upgrading other space and cyber capabilities also add to the bill. instead as an answer to base and homeland defense missions. That’s It’s like a family trying to buy two new cars, manage a whole- fair. But existing F-15s, F-16s, and even B-1s modified to carry missiles house renovation, take on a second home, and send the twins o could do the same job for less. And for attack missions where the to college—then repeating the feat every year for a decade. That’s a Air Force has already achieved air dominance, it’s simply more jet lot of risk to manage—no matter how much one scrimps and saves, than you need. There, a lower-cost armed variant of the T-X, or even such a load will put most families just one fiscal emergency from ruin. propeller aircraft like the Super Tucano, Wolverine, or a remotely And now comes a plan, in the midst of all this, to divert billions piloted aircraft could provide suicient utility at a fraction of the cost. to buy a whole new fighter jet. ■ Deleterious. The Air Force has a stated requirement for 1,763 Air Force oicials acknowledge the 2020 budget will include F-35s. To date, it’s purchased fewer than 200, and current plans call some $1.2 billion for 12 new Boeing F-15X fighters. This new, more for acquiring just 48 per year.