High On CCAs, B-21, Space & More—The AFA Warfare Debrief

L3 Harris' Wolfpack delivers an unfair fight, Red Wolf strikes with precision, Green Wolf detects and Jam's threats. The only launched effect deployed from a Marine Corps, AH-1Z Viper, ready to hunt across domains today. Dear listeners, this podcast was recorded right after AFAA and before Operation Epic Fury began. Please stay tuned for our thoughts on that development later this week, unless something even bigger happens. Welcome to Check Six, where today we give you a debrief on all things AFAA winter. It's been a handful few days for the Air Force, for the Space Force, and of course your Aviation Week Force 2. Joining me from Aurora Colorado are Aviation Week Technology Editor Guy Norse, very much our Military Space Editor and Pentagon Editor Brian Everton. There was lots that happened, lots on collaborative combat aircraft, some news on ICBMs and the B21, and much more. But very let's pick up on something that you, Brian and Vivian, previewed in our pre-AFAA podcast that went live just as the event kicked off. You said moving target indication was going to be one of the things that would be on the agenda and discussed, and potentially much discussed. I'm not sure it was much, but it was definitely discussed. So why don't you kick us off Vivian? Tell us what came up, especially on the space side before Brian gives us the airborne side of the discussion. Sure, thanks Robert. So as you alluded to, we thought there might be a lot of conversation about moving target indication, given there were a couple of panels already scheduled with military officers as well as industry leaders talking about it. And while I will say that the military officials did not give too much real concrete details on what's moving forward with MTI beyond what we already knew. We did get some information from Secretary Troy Mank in his keynote speech that has to do with MTI, although it is much broader than just moving target indicator. So in his keynote speech, Secretary Mank announced that the Department of the Air Force, so the Air Force and the Space Force would together be launching a series of exercises that he called ringleader. And essentially the goal there is to take all of the sensors across primarily the air and space force, but also incorporating sister service sensors, sensors from the intelligence community and commercial sensors, getting all of that data, that they're getting so much more data from all of those different sensors, infusing it together and seeing how best they can really quickly turn that raw data into what the military calls actionable intelligence, so how the co-coms and joint forces can actually get the specific info they need to make decisions on ever quickening decision-making cycles. So again, it's not just to do with MTI, but it was notable that Secretary Mank introduced this exercise in the context of space-based targeting. And especially since we know that is a huge area of priority for the Department of the Air Force as they're migrating those kinds of sensors and capabilities from air-based platforms into space. So again, even though that wasn't just about MTI, they're looking at sensors from every single platform, uncrewed platforms like the Archie floor, Global Hawk or the MQ9 Reaper, again commercial platforms. This is really a way for the Department to put in the reps and sets as Secretary Mank and General Chance Sultzman put it of how do we actually take all the state again, fuse it and get it out to the warfighter in a quick manner much quicker than usual. Yeah, and I'm kind of fits with that theme of more and more exercise, space exercises really being about the operationalizing of space, the actual making space effective in a kind of war fighting sense. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the space element, you know, the Pentagon has been working on this concept called many different things, but I think at this point and Brian can jump into, I think right now it is combined, joint, all domain, command and control, Cjad, C2. So this exercise is really, you know, it builds into that whole concept across the Pentagon. You know, the Air Force told me that they're planning to use a platform called the Distributed Common Ground System, which they already use to get to filter through all of the data from uncrewed platforms. But so this exercise would be taking, you know, DCGS and just expanding it, using different platforms, but think of it in those kinds of terms, but using now that we have so much more data from space-based platforms that really just puts it to a whole other level. And the Air Force said, hey, we really need to practice how we actually do this and start using that data the way that we want to. Right. Yeah, well, Brian, from your perspective, coming out of this event now is E7, one of the sensors that will be feeding this C2 system. It depends on who you ask and how you ask them. Secretary Mink didn't necessarily bring it up himself, but I asked him directly about the status of E7 during our media press conference. And the question was, the Congress has added $1.1 billion for the program, directed the Air Force to not shut down any production that it has going on for these two prototypes. And the question is, what really what's going to happen with going forward? So I asked Secretary Mink about it. And he had kind of an interesting dance around the topic answer saying that he wants to have this conversation with Congress, their following direction, as they always do to build these two prototypes. And they're going to submit a plan for the transition to EMD, but it's just a plan. Planning for it doesn't mean it's going to be budgeted. So we'll see if the EMD actually does get budgeted coming up in the future budget documents. The Air Force senior leadership is in a really tricky situation. Congress is really pushing for E7 to continue. The operational side of the Air Force needs it. They really, really want it. The Pentagon higher ups don't want to continue. They say that we need to make this transition to space. But Vivian correct me from Ron. I think General Salto and brought it up that space isn't quite ready to take on that role. So the Air Force wants to keep these E7s, at least the initial prototypes going to kind of cover down on that until space is ready. Yeah, I certainly see, I think both the services are happy to have a bit of duplicative platforms as they're figuring out again, like what which sensors will work best and how they're going to get this data from where, when, how. So I think having some E7 capability as they're fielding these new, you know, air-moving target indicators, satellites, GMTI for ground as well. We know that some of those satellites are starting to be fielded at this point. We don't know how many, we don't know who's building them necessarily. But again, I think it behooves them as they're trying to fuse all this data together to have a disparate amount of sensors from different platforms. All right, well enough C2 talk. Let's talk about some other stuff. Guy, you skipped our pre-brief for AFA or well, to be honest, I forgot to invite you, so apologies for that. But maybe in our category of what caught your interest, why don't you kick us off? What caught your interest out there? Yeah, well, thanks. And don't worry, I'm not upset by that. That's fine. At least you mentioned me, even if I wasn't there. But yeah, I thought, what always strikes me about this AFA, the air-war for meeting is that there's a huge amount of grassroots sort of companies there, particularly now this emerging wave of new engine producers. And if you just think about a couple of years ago, you know, CCAs, the acronym didn't even exist. So many of these engine makers didn't exist. I mean, it's just, if you look at it in the big picture, it's remarkable what's happening. So every time AFA, there's more to talk about in this area. This was no exception. In fact, you know, there was the large mockup, the CCAs from, you know, Andrew and General Atomics were there. But to, you know, they're all being, they're flying everything's happening. But what's now happening is this new follow-on wave of CCA activity in both the smaller and larger increments. And so at the show, you know, the Air Force confirmed that, you know, four engine makers had been awarded these conceptual designs for the second sort of increment of CCAs. So with GE Aerospace Creators, Honeywell actually were announcing things at the show and showing engines. But along with that, Beehive industries was there, you know, have their engines on display, Pratt and Whitney as well. So you had this sort of, this new wave coming and there was a lot to talk about. But what was interesting behind the scenes was that the next session of new engines is also being discussed. Honeywell was there with an F-124, which as you know, has been around for ages, but lo and behold, it's their potential for the next increment, increment one follow-on set of engines. Rolls Royce was there, beating a drum with the AE-3007 versions of that and in a variations on the theme. Pratt and Whitney had the PW300 model as well. It's like, you know, who's seen a business engine, business aircraft engine and Air Force event. So, you know, it just shows you that there's a lot more to discuss. So I think from a CCA engine perspective, it's really just getting going and it's kind of exciting. There's a lot of weird and wonderful stuff that's going to come out, I think. Yeah, and you mentioned rolls. It was interesting because over here Rolls Royce had earnings and the CEO actually mentioned among many other things, but he did mention CCAs as a really interesting growth area. And I thought he made a very interesting point. You know, Rolls has been in the business of powering uncrewed aircraft for a long time. You know, they're the engine obviously for global Hawk. They're also now on MQ25. But interesting was the tone. He's like, you know, we've been there, but it's not really been financially particularly lucrative. You know, it's been business, but it doesn't move the needle. But he really gave the sense that this is about to change. And not, you know, both in the US and in the UK, he really thinks that he didn't say it's an inflection point, but we are getting to the point where maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but in the not-too-distant future, this is going to be meaningful business. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, Rob, but when you look at the volumes involved in this, this is what's different this time. You know, you're only talking to Beehive, for example, they're talking about, you know, thousands of engines in a year or two of production. It's just astonishing numbers. I mean, yes, the volatile size of these things. They are tidally little engines in some cases. But when you're talking about increment one, follow on, that's a substantial number of large, you know, large propulsion systems. So I think in sheer volume terms, it's a game-changing, you know, that we're potentially looking at. And they're all saying that there's more than just one as well. You know, there's a lot of work for a lot of companies here. It's not just a winner-takes-all type of thing. And then I guess the other thing I should mention talking of roles is there was an update on the B-52J, the re-engineing program, which is worth mentioning. You know, as we know, there's a troubled program. There's been a lot of issues with it. It's over budget and it's significantly delayed. But now with the revisions that they've got, they've done a lot of wind tunnel testing with Boeing on this revised dual-pod inlet for the B-52. And they feel pretty sure now that it's on the track to basically to recover, to get back on schedule at some stage. They're doing two phases of testing coming up, one with just a bare aerodynamic shell, which is with the engines potted side by side at NASA Stanis on a crosswind test facility that they've got there. And it's got a revision of the little, there's a little splitter between the two inlets. So they've modified that and the profile of the inlet itself, the rim, if you like, round the inlets of the engine. And they've figured that between those two, they've got this problem solved. Remember, nobody does a potted inlet these days. Used to be deri-ger and you know, back way back when. But and Pratt went and he figured it out in the 50s, I guess. One engine would rob air from the other when they started it, you know, and that's the problem. So that's what they've solved. And the second phase, which will be later in the year, is with the full up Boeing Nassau, which is, again, you know, kind of replicates that. But that really will kick off their sort of final phase of program work that they've got to do. And then they'll have to get the engines into a real B52, which of course, Boeing announced just a few weeks ago that they've got $2 billion to get those two airframes. And they'll be going to San Antonio, Texas, where all that will be integrated. So they'll be kind of fun to follow. Yeah, for sure. I'm just glad that they didn't go to the fore and you can figure out because it would just not be right. Anyway, Brian, you had some observations yourself on the, what you heard out there on CCAs. Well, Guy, I want to go back to you. Well, you started out with the design contracts for increment two on CCA. Looking at what is really being put forward and looking at what these companies are working on. Is that to give you any hints or ideas of where the Air Force wants to go on capabilities of increment two? It's been a real big open discussion on kind of requirements. Are we going to do small, cheaper, are we going to go big bigger and more squizzid? It seems like it might be going toward the former rather than the latter. Yeah, no, that's a great question, Brian. I think what they've really sort of, from what I gathered, anyway, looking at the thrust ranges that we're talking about, just to give you an example, you know, we're sort of talking now narrowing down between the sort of 800 to just under 2000 planned thrust, quite a lot smaller than increment one, you can just immediately see from that. And interestingly, the vision seems to be a range within that of going from very small, kind of almost like cruise missile type turbo fans, small ones and turbo jets, too much more larger sort of turbo fans that are going to be capable of sustained operation. So it's really still covering the waterfront. And I think all of them are trying to figure out exactly what the air force still wants. So I don't think the other show has dropped either there or in even going back to increment one, you know, there's still so many unknowns. Like for example, on increment one, the next generation that they're looking for requests for, they still don't know whether they're talking about an engine that's going to last for thousands and thousands of hours or 500 hours. And you know, the difference there is critical to material selection and therefore cost. So, you know, it's still very much a work in progress, I'd say. And at the same time, we heard a lot of air force speakers really trying to hammer home progress that they're making on increment one, especially a lot of the autonomy side. Androle and shield AI announced at the show that they did a flight recently using both shield AI's mission autonomy and Androle's own lattice. They're switching back and forth between the two during flight. GA announced a couple of weeks ago that they did their flights with Collins GA has, I think, three now dark Merlins as they call them out flying. We're heading down to the down select to go forward in production within next several months, October, potentially earlier. So the air force really wants to hammer home that they are making progress on actually flying these things out there. And we certain it's going to be a down select or could it just be our production decision? It could be moving on with both of them. It could be moving on with one. It could be moving on with neither and going on with something else for increment one. With using this relatively unique approach that they have. All right, sounds good. Well, if you seem to revisit CCAs almost every podcast, defense podcast, I'm sure we'll be back before too long to that one. Vivian, how about on your end? What was your, that was kind of interesting. Yeah, you know, I think one of the main news pieces we got from this conference is I've spoken a lot on this podcast about maneuverable satellites, on orbit mobility, rendezvous proximity operations. And the three-star Space Force general in charge of combat forces command shared with us about this new prototype satellite that launched recently on the USS 87 mission. So we knew already that that mission launched two G-SAP satellites, so Space Situation Awareness satellites in two geo. And then we also knew that there was some, until now, unknown prototype satellite onboard as well. So the commander shared with us that this is a new maneuverable satellite that his orbital warfare Delta, which is, you know, the Space Force version of a wing essentially will be using. And the way he put it is we will be driving that spacecraft in a way that we couldn't drive spacecraft in the past. And he likened it to, you know, typically satellites are like a 737 versus this satellite is like a military grade aircraft. So it was very interesting to get a little peek behind the curtain. And, you know, that Delta is one that does not really reveal a lot of what they do, orbital warfare, you know, whole thing for the Space Force is new to even say those words. It's still very, very new for them to do that. But this is the Delta that also operates the X37B Space Plan, for example. So they do a lot of interesting stuff. And so we were heartened to get that little peek behind the curtain. He wouldn't share with us, you know, who the vendor is or really too many more details about what this spacecraft will do. But suffice it to say we should be seeing, well, we might not be seeing some interesting stuff, but maybe down the line. We'll stay tuned Brian, have I done your end? Well, maybe not the most like interesting thing that I caught my eye, but I think one thing that we have to talk about is two big updates we had on nuclear modernization programs, both Northrop Grumman, first the B21 and also Sentinel. The secretary kicked off the event this week by announcing a long awaited deal to increase capacity of B21 production. The Air Force is spending 4.5 billion that was added by Congress for the program to increase capacity. And it's very important to keep saying the word capacity not rate. So we're seeing them throw this money at increasing infrastructure, increasing materials, but we're having seen a decision yet on and how much that will increase the rate. We understand it to be about eight per year as the right other looking at it. So this could bring it up to 10 bombers per year. So we'll hopefully see that play out in budget this later this spring. And then also we got about an hour and a half or so of Sentinel updates from the Air Force and Northrop Grumman, which the goal that I took away from that was they're just really trying to explain that they understand the complexity of the issue now. Back when the award happened, there was the idea that they're going to reuse silos. It took them years and years and years to get to the point like, oh, we can't reuse a silo. The missiles a lot bigger. The silos are crumbling. We need to start all over again. So we got a big discussion on how they're going to do that, how they're going to lay down fiber optics from other facilities to silos to really try to explain that they understand really the breadth of this massive, massive program. The review is still going on. We'll have that by the end of the year, but there's a lot more confidence in the air in the air force on where they stand on Sentinel, which is really long a weighted for them to kind of lay that out. So from your perspective, does the B21 decision basically signal they will go up, you know, the size of the program I've records, so to speak? I mean, my guess is yes. I think that's been pretty much inevitable for the past few years. We've heard Stratcom, for example, saying they want at least 150, I mean, if you talk to Mitchell Institute folks, they want far more than that. I think it's inevitable that we'll see how that goes on in the out years. I am curious how to see how the rate will jump, how quickly they can actually do that because this, I mean, this is a lot of money. It's this 4.5 billion from the air force. Northrop has said that there's investing two to three billion on their own. So there's a lot of money coming to this program right now. Guy. Well, just one thing I was going to mention was the, remember last year at AFA that it was all about who was going to get end at in our next generation, our dominance. And maybe I'm being naive perhaps, but there was such a distinct lack of anything to do with the F-47 discussed at the show and any level that I could see. And of course, being sort of propulsion oriented, I was really hoping that might something might emerge in some clue as to what was going to go on behind the scenes with the engine for that. But it was kind of surprising how I must be being naive perhaps, but I was sort of really hoping that there was something else going to come out on there. Yeah, I thought it was actually pretty interesting too that there was so little. And Brian, you can fill us in here because I don't think it was entirely off the radar, so to speak. But I agree, it was striking. It was the first AFA winter really since Boeing won the program. And the award came soon after last year. So, Brian, maybe fill us in on what tidbits might were there. Yeah, I mean, there are a couple photos, the same thing that we've always seen since the initial award, but other than that, Boeing had no media engagements there, not really keen to talk much about the program. There was one brief question, lob to the Air Force on it, and basically the response is it's going well, progressing on schedule for the flight in I think it was 2028. So just everything's beachy on the program. And that's really the only discussion we had on it. I do have some theories on the engine, but I guess we're going to have to wait another time to talk about that. Why? Well, I mean, it's interesting that nobody, there's been no specifics on the propulsion site, but it was interesting to me that the only big engine on display from the classic engine providers in a Pratt Whitney GE was really a model of the F110. And so I'm kind of leaning in the direction of an F110 based propulsion derivative, you know, for the F47. I'm kind of interested to know more about that. We'll see. You see F110 on the initial prototypes until and gap is really ready for prime time? Definitely. Yeah, I think that's the way it would roll out. Obviously, if you look at, you know, logically, when you look at the sequence of engine selections and what's available, you kind of boil down to the F110 as the only really logical solution right now. And while, you know, the last thing they want to do is a brand new airframe with a brand new propulsion concept, be adaptive. So maybe it is a wise decision, even though the thing's been run through all sorts of test and evaluation, it still hasn't from from what we know anyway, still hasn't flown, actually, unless you go all the way back to Y of 23 and Y of 22 with the Y of 120 adaptive engine, but that was that was different. That was then I wonder if to some extent this is a lesson though for the Air Force. I mean, you go, you know, the Air Force with prior programs try to do everything at once. The Navy then kind of after a 12 learned the lesson, let's not do that. And kind of if you take the super horned admittedly, not a brand new design, but you know, in a evolution, they did it very incrementally. The EW system, I deck him was its own program. Once that was ready, it got fused into put into the super horned. So they kind of did it seemed to work better. It didn't mean there were no problems, but it meant the pro problems were more manageable because specific people were managing specific programs. And I wonder if that's just a lesson from the Air Force that might be a smoother way to getting something into the field. Yeah, lessons learned. All right, well, with that, the studying silence, I think we'll probably wrap it up here. Before we go, I think where there was one more observation we wanted to get in for our audience. And Vivian, why don't you fill us in on this potentially earth shattering development? Yeah, so the nice thing about these conferences is you get an opportunity to ask questions to Air and Space Force leaders about current events, both maybe esoteric or programmatic. So last week, President Donald Trump said that he was directing the government to release any and all files related to UFOs, UAPs, extraterrestrials or aliens. So in our roundtable with US base command, commander General Stephen Whiteing, who was in charge of everything above the Carmen line, I asked him how his command might be supporting that the release of the files. I figured if there's something out there, his command would know about it. And what he told me is that in his three decades plus as a space operator and he's looked through a whole lot of trackers, seen a lot out there in space that he has never seen anything that is not manmade out there. But he did note that as an American, he is very interested to see what comes out of those files. So still looking to see who might be the Space Force entity who will be supporting this release, but we got the insight from General Whiteing at least. So is he saying it's not the moon? It's not a moon. It's a space station. He did not say those words verbatim, but I don't know, you can read between the lines perhaps. The truth is out there. I want to believe. I do want to believe. We do want to believe. All right. Well, since Guy is our resident, UAP expert, so once we get the details, I'm sure he will unpack it all with you guys on a future check six. Let's leave it there. Brian, Guy Vivian, thanks so much for all the writing you guys did for our audience. You can find it all on aviationweek.com. It's great stuff. It's been super fun reading the copy coming in. Thanks again. Also, thanks to our podcast producer, Guy Ferno, for putting this together. And as always, thanks to our audience for your time and attention. And please do check back soon for another episode of Check Six. L3 Harris's Wolfpack delivers an unfair fight. Red wolf strikes with precision. Green wolf detects and jam's threats. The only launched effect deployed from a Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper. Ready to hunt across domains today.