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Learn more by visiting collinsaerospace.com/b-52 © 2020 Collins Aerospace CA_8528_B-52_Aero_PowerofaLegend_AirForceMagazine.indd 1 9/18/20 4:31 PM Client: Collins Aerospace - Military Ad Title: B52 Power of a Legend Filepath: /Volumes/GoogleDrive/Shared drives/Collins Aerospace 2020/_Collins Aerospace Ads/_Military/B-52_Power of a Legend /4c Ads/CA_8528_B-52_Aero_AirForceMagazine.indd Publication: Air Force Magazine - October Trim: 8.125” x 10.875” • Bleed: 8.375” x 11.125” • Live: 7.375” x 10.125” STAFF Publisher Bruce A. Wright Editor in Chief Tobias Naegele March 2021 Vol. 104, No. 3 Managing Editor Juliette Kelsey Joby Aviation Chagnon DEPARTMENTS FEATURES Joby Aviation Editorial Director 2 Editorial: Go All In eVTOL aircraft John A. Tirpak 16 Q&A: Humans in the Loop has six rotors By Tobias Naegele News Editor and seats five, John A. Tirpak talks one-on-one with USAF Chief Scien- Amy McCullough 6 Letters including the tist Richard Joseph about the future of S&T, emerging pilot. It can take Assistant Managing Editor 7 Index to game-changing technologies, and how humans will figure in o vertically, like Advertisers future aerospace ventures. a helicopter, and Chequita Wood then shift into Senior Designer 8 Airframes forward flight Dashton Parham 34 Cracking the Code using tilt-rotors. Pentagon Editor 18 Strategy & Policy: See “Prime In- by Amy McCullough vestments,” p. 41. Brian W. Everstine The Austin Era USAF looks to push more Survival, Evasion, Resistance Digital Platforms Editor 20 Verbatim instructors through the pipeline as focus shifts to great Jennifer-Leigh power competition. 22 World: New Space Oprihory Force ranks; USAF Senior Editor Chief of Sta Gen. 37 The Raider Comes Out of the Black Rachel S. Cohen Charles Q. Brown Jr. Production by John A. Tirpak on the electromag- Manager netic spectrum; The Air Force is progressing to roll out and first flight, as the Eric Chang Lee KC-46 fixes; and Air Force wrestles with how many to buy. Photo Editor much more Mike Tsukamoto 31 Faces of the Force 41 Prime Investments 62 AFA in Action by Rachel S. Cohen Contributors Mitchell The Air Force is betting on emerging technologies, hoping Doug Birkey, John T. Correll, Institute Aerospace that commercial potential translates into military usefulness. Advantage podcasts David A. Deptula, Jennifer Hlad 63 Heroes and 45 Know Thy Enemy Leaders: Jimmy Doolittle by Amy McCullough ON THE COVER USAF wants Airmen to develop a deeper understanding of China and other adversaries. ADVERTISING: 48 Swiss Air Force Knives Kirk Brown by Brian W. Everstine Director, Media Multiple-capable Airmen are the key to Agile Combat Solutions 703.247.5829 Employment. Here’s how the Air Force is trying to make the KellySenior Airman Willett/ANG [email protected] force less specialized. Alaska ANG Tech. Sgt. Matthew O’Brien during SUBSCRIBE 51 Air, Space, and the Biden Administration SERE training. & SAVE See “Cracking the Subscribe to by David A. Deptula and Doug Birkey Code,” p. 34. Air Force Magazine Priorities for the Pentagon’s new leadership must begin with and save big o air and space power. the cover price, plus get a free membership 56 Lone Eagle to the Air Force by John T. Correll Association. Over the open ocean, Lindbergh struggled to stay alert. He 1-800-727-3337 had not slept for more than two days. Air Force Magazine (ISSN 0730-6784) March 2021 (Vol. 104, No. 3) is published monthly, except for two double issues in January/February and June/July, by the Air Force Asso- ciation, 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. POST- MASTER: 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 2021 by Air Force Association. MARCH AIRFORCEMAG.COM EDITORIAL By Tobias Naegele Go All In ecisions have consequences. Planning inevitably means to the group’s strategy,” it accepts without question that “strategic making choices, and while some choices can be revisited air strikes against Islamic State group’s oil business and its cash Dlater, the cost is almost always greater after the fact. reserves … were a small part of the overall air operations.” Case in point: The F-35 Lightning II. All who fly this exceptional There’s the rub: If strikes had been designed for strategic stealth jet extol its virtues. But critics rage over its sustainment effects, this war would not have dragged on for five years. cost. The engines run so hot the special coatings on their turbine To learn this lesson, we must ask the right questions. We won blades are burning off, creating a sudden and severe shortage World War II because, despite political divisions, we were fully of F-35 engines. committed to victory and our leaders demanded unconditional The F-35 was originally supposed to have an alternative to surrender—no matter the cost. We stalled in Korea and later gave the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine, but the Pentagon canceled it, up in Vietnam because leaders lacked that commitment to win. even though it had cleared all its technical hurdles. Now, if we Today, as we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we must could rewind the clock, we’d choose differently. ask ourselves if we haven’t experienced the same thing over Similarly, then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates chose two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike Vietnam, the to cut short the purchase of F-22s because he deemed the jets public doesn’t blame our troops for the failed military strategy. too “exquisite” for dropping bombs on insurgents. This, too, was But like that war, presidents from both major political parties shortsighted. Within a decade, the National Defense Strategy have taken turns as commander in chief without changing the would identify China and Russia as the chief threats to U.S. central strategy or outcome. interests around the globe, and stealth platforms like the F-22 What if we had taken a different tack? as critical to countering that threat. By then, however, it was too RAND acknowledges that constraints on air power and the late to buy more F-22s. Now, we face a yawning gap between lack of air power expertise at the top of the command chain were the force we have and the force we need. issues, but the authors decline to speculate how that might have We didn’t build enough B-1Bs or B-2s, either, which is why played out differently. Instead, they assert that a lack of targeting we’re still flying B-52s from the dawn of the jet age. We didn’t intelligence kept commanders from making better use of air build enough C-17s and even though they’re power early in the war because so little was the most flexible of transports, there’s no way It should not have taken known about Islamic State group. to build more. The Air Force waited too long Here, Operation Desert Storm offers a to develop and buy a new tanker and though longer to defeat ISIS in worthwhile comparison. In those days before the KC-46 issues will eventually shakeout, the the desert than Germany ISR drones, timely overhead intelligence was lack of alternatives makes the wait even more and Japan in World War II. nonexistent. Yet our strategic air campaign galling. delivered victory in just 43 days. If only RAND There are tactical and strategic implications had compared these two conflicts. Then we for these past decisions. One problem is that war games are might have learned something. fungible. Maintenance problems can be imagined away. Those Against Islamic State group, the United States waged war on assumptions come back to haunt you when breakdowns leave the cheap. The air campaign flew less than one third as many commanders short of airplanes in combat. sorties in the opening weeks against Islamic State group as it War strategies, too, must be examined with hindsight. A new did in the 1995 air campaign against the Serbs in Bosnia. We report from the RAND Corp. examines the role of air power in the lacked effort. From August 2014 to July 2016, we averaged just campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria, or Islamic State six U.S. strike sorties per day. Finally, our fear of civilian casual- group.