[Senate Hearing 115-612]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-612
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE READINESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
of the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 10, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-348 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, JACK REED, Rhode Island
Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi BILL NELSON, Florida
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
JONI ERNST, Iowa RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina JOE DONNELLY, Indiana
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
TED CRUZ, Texas ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
BEN SASSE, Nebraska ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
TIM SCOTT, South Carolina GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JON KYL, Arizona
John Bonsell, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff
Director
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chairman TIM KAINE, Virginia
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JONI ERNST, Iowa MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
October 10, 2018
Page
United States Air Force Readiness................................ 1
Wilson, Hon. Heather A., Secretary of the Air Force.............. 5
Goldfein, General David L., USAF, Chief of Staff of the Air Force 11
Pendleton, John H., Director, Defense Capabilities and 12
Management, United States Government Accountability Office.
Questions for the Record......................................... 61
(iii)
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE READINESS
----------
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Readiness
and Management Support,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m. in
Room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Dan
Sullivan (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Committee members present: Senators Sullivan, Inhofe,
Rounds, Ernst, Perdue, Kaine, and Shaheen.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN
Senator Sullivan. Good morning. This hearing on the
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management of our U.S. military
will come to order.
The subcommittee meets today for the first time since the
passage of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization
Act for the fiscal year of 2019 to receive the testimony on the
current readiness of the United States Air Force.
I do want to begin by noting an obvious significant loss to
the country, to the Senate. I am the new chairman of this
subcommittee. I was not a chairman before we lost Senator
McCain. I would much rather not be a chairman and have him
still be here. But we all know that that was a huge loss for
everybody around the table, everybody in the Senate. As a
matter of fact, Senator McCain once sat in this seat from 1995
to 1997, as well as Senator Inhofe, who is now the chairman of
the committee. So I think that is just something we should all
recognize and be cognizant of.
I am particularly pleased that we have my ranking member,
who is a good friend of mine, Senator Kaine, and a great panel
this morning in terms of the Secretary of the Air Force,
Secretary Heather Wilson; the Chief of Staff of the Air Force,
Chief of Staff Goldfein; and Mr. John Pendleton, the Director
of Defense Capabilities and Management for the Government
Accountability Office (GAO). I want to welcome our witnesses.
It has been almost 6 months since this committee received
testimony from the Air Force on its current posture in support
of the fiscal year 2019 budget. As I mentioned, prior to that
in those 6 months, a lot has happened. The NDAA [National
Defense Authorization Act] was passed with $716 billion in
authorized funding, and it did not get a lot of press, but 87
U.S. Senators voted for that bill. A very, very bipartisan
effort to rebuild our military. The same amount has also been
appropriated.
The Air Force has now released its ``The Air Force We
Need'' plan. I want to thank the Secretary--I have read that--
for laying that out with the need to ramp up from your
perspective, Madam Secretary, to 386 squadrons, as well as
conduct an internal operational safety and review.
The GAO has released a number of new reports citing the
need for instances of needed change inside the U.S. Air Force.
There is plenty to talk about today, and I want to thank
all of my colleagues for being here.
With the announcement earlier this year of a document that
I think most of us find very persuasive, Secretary Mattis'
National Defense Strategy (NDS), which laid out a new strategic
approach to addressing military challenges, this committee has
a new lens through which to ensure that the lines of effort in
this NDS are focused and supported by the Congress.
I certainly support Secretary Mattis' efforts in this
document, the National Defense Strategy, and appreciate that
the topics we discuss here are framed in how they support the
NDS, especially in how we address potential peer and near-peer
conflicts with China and Russia.
With Congress passing its first on-time authorization for
the first time in over 20 years and an appropriations bill for
the military for the first time since 2008, it sends a timely
message to both our adversaries and allies that a bipartisan
group of Senators and Members of the House are focused on
rebuilding our military in a way that does not do damage but
actually helps them. It also sends an important message to the
men and women in uniform that we are here to deliver bipartisan
support for them.
The Air Force of today looks in some respects very much
like the Air Force of yesterday, and that is not a compliment.
For instance, the average Air Force aircraft is 28 years old,
and since Desert Storm, we have 58 percent fewer combat-coded
fighter squadrons. While this is not a modernization hearing,
it is a readiness hearing, and unless we modernize our Air
Force for the future, we will put lives at risk both on the
ground and in the air in terms of readiness.
With modernization also comes a significant burden on
sustainment. So the Air Force must find balance between keeping
our existing aircraft battle-worthy and ramping up to new
squadron requirements that the Secretary laid out in her recent
speech.
In a recent GAO study, it was found that the B-22, C-17, E-
8C, F-16, and the F-22 all face unexpected replacement of parts
and repairs, delays in depot maintenance, and diminished
manufacturing sources.
Additionally, in October 2017, GAO found F-35 aircraft
availability is well below service expectations. GAO has
recommended that the Department of Defense revise F-35
sustainment plans to ensure that they include the key
requirements and decision points needed to fully implement the
F-35 sustainment strategy.
The GAO also released another report on the need for the
Air Force to improve its F-22 organization, which could lead to
improved aircraft availability and pilot training. The GAO
found in July 2018 that the Air Force's organization of its
small F-22 fleet has not maximized aircraft availability and
their utilization of F-22's reduces opportunities for pilots to
train for their key missions in high threat environments. Mr.
Pendleton, I appreciate you walking us through these findings
and recommendations, as Alaska is home to two very critical F-
22 squadrons.
As my colleagues know, I do like to talk about my State.
That will not diminish as the chair of this committee. I like
to mention that Alaska constitutes three pillars of America's
military might. We are the cornerstone of missile defense, the
radars and the missiles that protect the whole country. We are
a key platform for expeditionary forces because of our
strategic airlift and strategic location that can fight tonight
pretty much anywhere in the northern hemisphere, and we are the
hub of air combat power in the Arctic and the Asia-Pacific.
With F-35's coming to Alaska in the next couple years, we will
have over 100 fifth generation combat-coded fighters, which I
am pretty sure no place on earth will have that kind of fire
power and punch.
Secretary Wilson, I know you have been a proponent of our
small 60,000 square mile JPARC [Joint Pacific Alaska Range
Complex] facility. That is airspace that is larger than
Florida. So I look forward to getting your thoughts on the
JPARC 2025 plan and, more broadly, how we are going to make
sure we have range spaces all over the country and the world
for fifth gen fighter aircraft.
Again, I want to thank everybody for being here. I am very
much looking forward to being the chairman of this committee.
I would like to now turn it over to Senator Kaine for any
opening remarks. I am also honored to have the chairman of the
full Armed Services Committee here as well. Senator Kaine?
STATEMENT OF SENATOR TIM KAINE
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our
witnesses. I am looking forward to this hearing today.
I will echo what Senator Sullivan said about just the first
big committee meeting since the passage of Senator McCain. I
luckily inherited the office that Senator McCain had for about
20 years. When he decided to move around the corner into the
office that had been occupied by Senator Kerry when Senator
Kerry became Secretary of State, my seniority was so low that I
should not have been able to get John McCain's office. However,
he did not believe in painting an office, and he also was a
pack rat. So his office did not have a lot of curb appeal.
[Laughter.]
Senator Kaine. So I was able to get it despite low
seniority and paint it. I love being able to be in this office
that he had for so long. I sometimes feel like I am hearing the
ghost of him cursing me out, which he did on occasion.
[Laughter.]
Senator Sullivan. We all know what that is like.
Senator Kaine. Yes, we can all remember those words.
But I am glad, Dan, that you opened up with that. I look
forward to working with you. I had a great relationship with
our current chair when he was chair of the Readiness
Subcommittee. Senator Inhofe, I think you will attest that I
was generally reliable, and I look forward to working with you,
Senator Sullivan, as well. You get congratulations not just for
being chair, but I think you joined the committee and became
chair in one jump in the subcommittee. So that is pretty cool.
Senator Sullivan. Very cool.
[Laughter.]
Senator Kaine. I do not know that that has ever happened
that you join the subcommittee and become chair in one jump. So
congratulations for that.
A couple of issues that I would hope to hear about. I just
want to alert I am introducing a Virginia nominee for a
district court judgeship position at 10:00 in the Judiciary
Committee. So I will leave a couple minutes before 10:00 and
then come back and have questions for you.
But the two issues that I am most interested in are, first,
just readiness recovery. We have had testimony in the past
about shortage in pilots and maintainers. I think that what we
are going to hear is that you made some real headway in
addressing those shortages, and I am interested in that.
I think in particular in Virginia, as I am at Langley and
talking to our Air Force, I hear a lot more about the
maintainer side shortage in a way than the pilot side shortage,
and I think sometimes that does not get the same attention that
pilot shortages do. So I am interested in hearing how we are
trending there.
We have a low unemployment rate. We have a lot of civilian
aviation competitors who really want great maintainers and
great pilots. And so I know that as you are trying to fill
gaps, we are helping on the budget side. We are helping, giving
you some more certainty, but it is a competitive environment. I
am interested in that.
Second, the state of our installations, our infrastructure
is an important part of readiness. The Air Force is facing
about $300 million in military cost construction overruns or
other shortfalls. How does that affect what we need to do on
the installation side? I have found that steel tariffs have
increased military construction (MILCON) prices significantly
in some instances by about 30 percent in terms of the use of
steel on MILCON projects.
Look, we will continue to have robust debates about climate
change, but climate change is having an effect on
installations. The Air Force recently had to cancel a fiscal
year 2018 MILCON project related to the F-35 at Eielson Air
Force Base due to the thawing of permafrost. We see significant
effects at the Langley Base in Hampton dealing with sea level
rise that is affecting that base. It is also affecting other
bases in Virginia. How are we going to deal with that
challenge, as we are trying to make investments in MILCON, is
something that I am interested in as well.
But I look forward, Mr. Chairman, to working with you on
the committee. We got great witnesses here and we will have a
good hearing.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you very much.
Senator Inhofe, as the chairman, I would like to give the
floor to you.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JAMES M. INHOFE
Senator Inhofe. Mr. Chairman, I only want to make a
comment.
First of all, Senator Kaine, you were always attentive
during the times that we had that relationship, and I
appreciate all of your activity.
I was reminded just a few minutes ago--and that is why I
was a little bit late coming in here--by the Heritage
Foundation talking about some of the recommendations that they
are making. We are all very aware that what we went through
during the 8 years, the Obama years--he did not have a high
priority in our military. A lot of things that we thought were
being done or the public thought were being done were not being
done. And so we are in a catch-up mode. We are going to
continue to do it. I have had numerous conversations with our
witnesses about this, and I look forward to that.
However, I also will be chairing the 10 o'clock meeting
next door. So, Mr. Chairman, go after it.
Senator Sullivan. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Lastly, I do want to make just one note, and it is
something Senator Inhofe and I have discussed a lot. Of course,
our members are allowed to ask questions. But I just want to
make a comment on the Space Force.
I commend President Trump for thinking about space in a
more assertive and organized way, but I think the witnesses
will not be surprised. What I have been saying about this idea
is that, first--and it is appropriate for this committee--we
must focus on the readiness of the existing Military Services,
which I think everybody recognizes has plummeted over the last
several years, so that they are fully ready to do what the
President and the American people expect of them. While I
understand that the desire to talk about the Space Force today
might be pressing, I believe that the chairman of the full
committee intends to address this topic as kind of a full
committee issue as well at some point.
So, again, I want to thank the witnesses. Your prepared
statements will be entered into the record. We respectfully
request that you keep your opening remarks in the vicinity of 5
minutes. Secretary Wilson, we will begin with you.
STATEMENT OF HON. HEATHER A. WILSON, SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE
Secretary Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will just
summarize my opening remarks from my written statement.
America is building a more lethal and ready Air Force, and
the predictable and increased funding levels that came
from the United States Congress have helped tremendously in
helping move us in that direction. I wanted to personally thank
you for your leadership and your support of restoring the
funding for national security and giving us some certainty.
The National Defense Strategy recognizes that we are in a
more competitive and dangerous international security
environment than we have experienced in decades. So the
restoration of the force, the restoration of the readiness of
the force to win any fight any time has to be job one for all
of us.
So what does that mean and what has the Air Force been
doing?
Last spring, we gathered together 50 airmen from around the
world and seconded them away in a basement room in the Pentagon
for almost 6 weeks to drill into the readiness challenges that
we face, how do we measure readiness, how do we resource
readiness, how can we recover readiness more quickly, and give
us a plan to be able to implement.
The elements of readiness recovery are really fourfold.
The first is people. Our end strength is now up to 685,000
because of the resources that you have given us. In 2016, the
Air Force was 4,000 maintainers short. Today we are 400
maintainers short, and by December in the Active Duty service,
we will be back to having closed the gap and we will no longer
have a 4,000 maintainer shortage on Active Duty. Now, that
means we have to season our young airmen and get them to be
craftsmen at their work, but at least now we have enough people
there to do the maintenance that needs to be done.
Second, with respect to aircrew, we have a national
shortage of aircrew, and it affects the United States Air Force
because we are so good at training people how to fly and the
airlines know it. We are focused on retention and improving the
quality of service and quality of life, but we are also focused
on increasing pilot production.
In fiscal year 2017, the United States Air Force trained
1,160 pilots. In fiscal year 2019, we will train a little over
1,300, moving by fiscal year 2022 to about 1,500 pilots, and we
will stay at steady state at 1,500 thereafter. If we are able
to do that and achieve our objectives on retention, we will
recover the pilot shortage by 2023 where we will be 95 percent
manned. We are also trying to scrub all of our requirements for
aircrew so that we are not overproducing aircrew, and we have
what we really think we need.
Third is training. If we are preparing for the high-end
fight, we need to be able to provide time and places for our
airmen to train in realistic situations. That means ranges, but
it also means what we call virtual and constructive training.
Sometimes now you can do more in simulation than you can do
actually up in the air. That training has to be relevant and
realistic. Mr. Chairman, you are right. JPARC, as well as our
Nellis Test and Training Range, are two of the premier ranges
in the world for being able to train for the high-end fight.
The fourth thing we need to do is cost effective
maintenance and logistics. We have an old fleet with high
operating tempo for the service, and I think this is going to
take the most intense focus on recovery of readiness is how are
we going to make sure that our aircraft are ready to go and
ready to fight tonight.
The final thing I would mention on things that we are doing
and things that you funded that helped was the restoration of
munitions stockpiles where we were depleting our munitions
stockpiles in the fight against ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria] faster than we were replacing them. The funds that you
provided have allowed us to significantly recover from that
situation.
So we are doing things to recover readiness. We are
simultaneously trying to field tomorrow's Air Force faster and
smarter. We set a goal for ourselves 6 months ago. We have a
very good leadership team in acquisition. They got together and
said, you know, in the first 12 months together as a team, they
wanted to strip 100 years out of our acquisition programs. 100
years. So far they have stripped out 56 years out of our
acquisition programs. We are using prototyping. We are changing
the way we are doing software development, to do that faster
and better. We are committed to transparency and
accountability.
We have seen just over the last few weeks that competition
works. We have saved about $13 billion just on three major
acquisition programs that we have announced over the last few
weeks. The T-X, the replacement for the UH-1 helicopter, and
the GPS [Global Positioning System] satellite program have all,
because of competition, come in at lower than our cost
projections.
The Air Force is more ready for major combat operations
today than we were 2 years ago. More than 75 percent of our
pacing force is combat ready today in their lead force
packages. That said, we all know we have a long way to go and
we are after it.
Chief?
[The prepared statement of Secretary Wilson follows:]
Prepared Statement by Heather Wilson
introduction
Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Kaine, distinguished members of
this committee; I appreciate the opportunity to testify on Air Force
readiness. I am joined by our Vice Chief of Staff, General Wilson.
This is my second year as Secretary of the Air Force. On behalf of
the 670,000 Total Force Airmen, I want to thank you and your colleagues
in authorizations and appropriations. For the first time in a decade,
we are starting a new fiscal year with a signed defense budget. It's
hard to understate the important difference this makes for our airmen.
Your leadership and bipartisan collaboration has returned us to fiscal
order. It enables our airmen to continue building a more lethal and
ready force, as directed by the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
We are committed to using these funds responsibly to restore the
readiness and lethality of the Air Force.
threat environment
One month ago, Russia began the largest exercise on Russian soil in
four decades with more than 300,000 troops and 1,000 aircraft. On the
other side of the world, China's first aircraft carrier was declared
combat ready this year, and it promptly sailed into the Pacific to
conduct flight operations.
China has militarized disputed features in the South China Sea, and
now all of Southeast Asia is within reach of its long-range bombers.
President Xi's plan is for China to be a top-ranked military by 2050,
and President Xi is no longer bound by term limits on his Presidency.
The National Defense Strategy recognizes that we are in a more
competitive and dangerous international security environment than we
have seen in generations. It tells us how to prioritize for this
environment and where to take risk. It tells us that we need to be able
to defend the Homeland, provide a credible nuclear deterrent, win
against a major power while countering a rogue nation, all while
managing violent extremists with a lower level of effort.
Each of these missions requires a combination of U.S. Services, and
the Air Force is integral to every one of them. To implement the new
National Defense Strategy, the Air Force must build a more ready and
lethal force, while building and strengthening alliances and
partnerships.
readiness declined over decades
At the height of the Cold War, in 1987, we had about 1.1 million
[1,134,507] Total Force Airmen and 401 operational squadrons. Four
years later the Air Force deployed for Operation Desert Storm with
squadrons that had spent 20 years training for a high-end fight. The
initial battle would last just 43 days, and the Air Force was tasked to
continue flying combat sorties.
One year after Operation Desert Storm, budget cuts forced the Air
Force into its largest reorganization in its history. Squadrons were
deactivated, bases were closed, and major commands were consolidated.
Hundreds of aircraft were retired. By 1996, Total Force end strength
was reduced to about 846,000 [845,681], but Air Force combat missions
continued.
While the size of the Air Force decreased, the service also adapted
to new missions. On 9/11 the Air Force had eight remotely piloted
aircraft--eight total. After 9/11, the demand for remotely piloted
aircraft and persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
grew dramatically. This year, 12,500 airmen helped fly 279 remotely
piloted aircraft on round-the-clock missions to meet warfighter needs.
A shrinking, Combat-Active Air Force taking on new missions with an
aging manned aircraft fleet was stretched thin when the sequestration
of 2013 hit. The impact was devastating. One-third of Air Force combat
flying squadrons stood down for 3 months, large-scale exercises were
cancelled, and the service lost over one million work-hours of depot
maintenance.
Then, in 2014, when reeling from the impact of sequester, ISIS, the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, declared its caliphate, and the Air
Force surged to the fight. By 2017, the Air Force was the smallest it
had ever been, conducting combat operations with the oldest equipment
it had ever used, and successfully employed nearly 30,000 weapons in
Syria and Iraq.
readiness recovery
It is clear to all of us that restoration of the readiness of the
force has to be a top priority. The 2018 National Defense Strategy
makes building a more ready and lethal force job one.
Last spring we gathered together fifty airmen from around the
service. They spent over six weeks together analyzing Air Force
readiness. They looked at how we measure and report readiness. They
identified the barriers to our readiness recovery. Armed with this
information, they developed and presented a recovery plan to Air Force
leaders.
A plan is nothing without the resources, end strength and budget
certainty to implement it. Actions by the Congress over the past two
years have been tremendously helpful.
To begin with, we decided to focus the additional resources you
have provided on our 204 operational squadrons that are most relevant
to a high-end fight so that we can recover readiness in these units
fastest. Our plan accelerates readiness recovery in these units by
aligning resources and manpower. Our goal is for 80 percent of these
units to have the right number of properly trained and equipped airmen
by the end of 2020--6 years faster than we projected before we
developed our recovery plan.
While we will drive the readiness recovery of these operational
squadrons first, the remainder of our 312 operational squadrons will be
close behind so that by 2023 we will meet the 80 percent mark for all
of our operational squadrons.
people
Readiness recovery is first and foremost about people.
As an important example, the end strength increases you have
authorized and funded in fiscal year 2018 allowed us to address the
serious shortage of maintainers. We were 4,000 maintainers short in
September of 2016. By December of this year, we will have closed that
gap to zero. Now, we must season these new airmen to get them the
experience needed to become craftsmen at their work.
aircrew
There is a national shortage of pilots and aircrew. A good economy
and strong hiring by airlines makes aircrew retention a priority and
directly affects our readiness.
We are addressing the aircrew shortage first by addressing the
quality of service and quality of life issues that may cause aircrew to
choose to leave the Air Force. We are trying to reduce the operating
tempo, to revitalize squadrons, and to restore support positions so
that aircrew can focus on their primary job. Funding flying hours is
part of this effort. While incentive pay and bonuses are part of the
solution, greater input on assignments and testing a ``fly only''
technical track for aviators who just want to fly are part of the
retention effort.
But retention efforts alone will not solve the aircrew shortage. We
have a national pilot shortage. We are increasing the number of
students we are training to fly from 1,160 a year in fiscal year 2017
to 1,311 in fiscal year 2019, building to 1,500 by fiscal year 2022 and
steady state, thereafter.
training
The second piece of readiness, after people, is relevant and
realistic training to maintain a qualitative advantage over
increasingly capable adversaries. The Air Force is meeting some of this
need by investing in operational training infrastructure--our ranges
and airspace--and simulation. We are improving secure infrastructure,
simulators, threat emulators, and training ranges to enhance realism
and enable our airmen to train locally for a high-end, multi-domain
fight.
Our airmen need ranges with enough airspace to train realistically.
The Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex is one of the Air Force's
premier training ranges. The U.S. Army owns the land, and the U.S. Air
Force manages the operations. The range has 66,000 square miles of land
and air maneuver space and 58,000 square miles of overwater airspace.
That is slightly larger than the size of New Mexico.
At the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, our airmen can train
against more than 40 surface-to-air threats, including foreign systems,
which is valuable for realistic training exercises like Red Flag-Alaska
and Northern Edge. Currently, the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex
can only emulate a fraction of the existing and emerging threats to a
level suitable for advanced sensors and cannot provide a fully
contested or degraded environment with the assets available.
The Air Force is planning to base 5th Generation fighters in
Alaska, and our pilots will need access to an adequate training
environment. Our intention is to have two ranges that would represent
what our crews would face against a peer adversary: the Joint Pacific
Alaska Range Complex and the Nevada Test and Training Range. These
ranges will provide the complex, dense combat environment crews will
likely encounter during operations.
The Air Force plans include requirements for threats, targets,
adversary air, multi-domain integration, airspace, and manpower. We
have identified other range improvements nationwide to improve the
quality of Air Force training and readiness.
cost-effective maintenance and logistics
The third element of restoring the readiness of the force is
weapons system sustainment--the parts, supply, and equipment--to make
sure our aircraft are ready to go when needed.
Maintaining an old fleet with a high operating tempo and
inexperienced maintainers in a global enterprise is probably the
hardest part of restoring the readiness of the force. It will take the
most intense focus and will require that we look at new methods to
achieve the results we need.
A team of airmen conducted a detailed sustainment review earlier
this year. They identified 45 recommendations to reach 80 percent
readiness levels, beginning with our 204 pacing units by 2020, followed
by our remaining operational units in 2022, and then carrying over to
all remaining units by 2024. Focus areas to achieve those results
include supply chain improvements, changes to the way we manage
engineering improvements, force structure and fleet management changes,
service life extensions, and technology such as sensors that improve
data collection to make our maintenance personnel more productive.
The sustainment review further highlighted the increased lethality
derived from conditions based maintenance. Increasingly used in
commercial industry, conditions based maintenance uses analytical tools
and monitoring sensors to predict parts failures. Those tests are
showing a reduction of approximately 30 percent of unscheduled
maintenance. We have tested these tools with our C-5 and E-3 aircraft.
We intend to move to conditions based maintenance for all aircraft as
rapidly as possible.
We have also found efficiencies in our depots. Today, we accomplish
KC-135 major repair and overhaul at our Oklahoma Depot in 155 days at a
cost of $9.9 million per aircraft. That is 40 percent faster and more
than 50 percent less expensive than contract proposals we received to
do the same work in 2018 from industry. More impressively, we have
increased depot production by 20 percent, now completing 75 aircraft
per year.
These measures do not replace the benefits of a modern and rested
fleet. In 2014, the Oklahoma Depot saw an average of three major
repairs per aircraft (usually corrosion or fatigue based) and a total
of 162 major structural repairs for all aircraft. Today, despite the
aforementioned advances in affordability and efficiency, there are 6.6
major repairs per aircraft, and we are on pace for nearly 500 major
structural repairs.
rapid sustainment
We need to significantly improve the logistics and sustainment
enterprise.
In July we established the Rapid Sustainment Office and committed
to fund it for 2 years. Its two primary objectives are to reduce cost
and improve readiness by using advanced manufacturing technologies.
The Rapid Sustainment Office is establishing criteria to track and
measure its impact. It will operate in a ``hub and spoke'' model by
building partnerships with universities and industry.
If the Rapid Sustainment Office is successful, it will pay for
itself by reducing the cost of maintaining our weapons systems, and we
will continue to support it.
fielding tomorrow's air force faster and smarter
The acquisition system we inherited from the Cold War era is too
slow for the digital age. We are changing the way we buy things to
field tomorrow's Air Force faster and smarter.
In the 2016 and 2017 National Defense Authorization Acts, Congress
restored primary responsibility for acquisition to the Services,
granting us new authorities to accelerate prototyping and fielding.
We set an aggressive goal of stripping 100 years of unnecessary
schedule from our program plans. In six months, we have saved 56 years.
Three contributing factors are making us faster. The first is
prototyping. For example, in hypersonics, we are leveraging Navy
technology to build, fly, and buy our nation's first operational boost-
glide weapon five years earlier than anticipated. In Next-Generation
Missile Warning, we are competitively prototyping the new sensor,
retiring this key risk nearly a year earlier, while also strengthening
the industrial base for future programs.
The second contributing factor to increase speed is the use of
tailored acquisition strategies. We have empowered our workforce to
structure decisions around the specific needs of their programs, vice
the generic milestones of the traditional acquisition process.
Recently, our F-15 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability Systems
split its Milestone C decision into two tailored reviews, accelerating
fielding by 18 months at no additional cost.
The third major effort to increase speed to the warfighter is agile
software development. The decades-old ``waterfall'' process for
developing software one step at a time is too slow, expensive, and
often doesn't work at all. We are making a wholesale shift to agile
development, putting acquirers and operators together to make rapid
incremental software improvements. We proved the concept with air
refueling at the Combined Air Operations Center, saving the Air Force
$13 million in fuel per month, and reducing the requirement by two
tankers and ten aircrews.
We established the Kessel Run Experimentation Laboratory to
continue applying agile development for the warfighter and stood up a
Program Executive Office Digital to develop and proliferate best
practices across the Air Force. So far, major programs like F-22,
Unified Platform, and Protected Tactical Enterprise System are reaping
the benefits of shifting to agile development, accelerating delivery to
the warfighter.
Using new authorities given to us by Congress is not just faster,
it's giving us better results.
We are committed to competition. Within the last month, we made
major announcements on three major programs: the Global Positioning
Satellite IIIF, the UH-1N helicopter replacement, and the T-X jet
trainer. Each of these programs gets the most out of competition
through stable requirements, a mature technology base, and transparency
with industry. In just these three programs alone, the Air Force saved
the taxpayer over $13 billion from the independent cost estimates we
used to plan the programs.
Digital engineering may revolutionize how we buy systems, and our
B-52 Commercial Engine Replace Program is leading a pathfinder on
digital twins. By conducting a ``digital twin fly-off'' early in the
program, we ensure we get maximum fuel efficiency, which saves taxpayer
dollars and extends the B-52's range for the warfighter. It accelerates
fielding by three and half years.
We are also seeking to become a leader in Federal Government
procurement with small businesses and start-ups by pairing a government
credit card swipe with a one-page Other Transactions Agreement. Pairing
these two mechanisms gives the Air Force a small-dollar contracting
mechanism that can ``pay in a day''. To prove it out, we are conducting
a small business and start up day at the end of this month to find
innovative solutions to some of our vexing problems. We will attempt to
award 50 contracts in 50 hours at the end of this month.
If successful, we will hold our first Air Force Start-up Days early
next year using these ``pay-in-a-day'' contracts. With so much
innovation happening in small businesses and start-ups, we need
creative ways to connect with them that can be mutually beneficial.
The authorities you have given the Air Force are making a
difference. These authorities do not sidestep key decisions, reporting,
or oversight. They streamline to those that matter. We will not
sacrifice quality or accountability for speed. Early prototyping and
development informs the Department of Defense and Congress about a
program's performance feasibility prior to making costly decisions to
procure, field, and sustain it.
We are mindful of the trust placed in us, and we are committed to
transparency on these programs. We will submit tri-yearly reports to
Congress, similar to the Selected Acquisition Reports, and be good
stewards of your trust and of taxpayer dollars.
impact
With the help of Congressional funding and acquisition authorities,
the Air Force is more ready for major combat operations today than we
were 2 years ago. More than 75 percent of our pacing force is combat
ready today with their lead force packages.
That said, we have a long way to go to restore the readiness of the
force to win any fight, any time. We remain focused on that objective.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Secretary Wilson.
General Goldfein?
STATEMENT OF GENERAL DAVID L. GOLDFEIN, USAF, CHIEF OF STAFF OF
THE AIR FORCE
General Goldfein. Thanks, Madam Secretary, and Chairman,
thank you for holding a real timely hearing.
What I would like to do very quickly is just share a story
that perhaps will offer us perspective on what we are here to
talk about today.
Of all the work and the obligations that we have--and I
would say this is a shared obligation between this committee
and the Secretary and I--the one that I believe is nothing
short of a moral obligation is to ensure that every airman,
soldier, sailor, and marine that we send into harm's way to do
the nation's business is properly organized, trained, equipped,
and led. When they get back, they can come back to their
families that we have taken care of while they are gone.
Everything else--we do the best we can.
So let me just share with you one quick story about what I
call confidence under fire, which is what we are here to talk
about. How do we produce the readiness of the force to
accomplish that moral obligation we have to those that we send
into harm's way?
I was a young captain when we went into Desert Storm. I
know that there are many here that have also--Senator Sullivan
yourself, Senator Ernst have had combat time. That warrior's
prayer has not changed over the years. Please, God, do not let
me let my buddies down and let me get the job done.
When we went into Desert Storm, I was in a squadron that
had--all but one, none of us had had combat time. The squadron
commander had had combat time in Vietnam. The rest of us had
never seen it. And so we went in uttering that prayer. We
crossed into enemy territory for the very first time, and I
remember his voice on the radio when he said, look, there is
triple A, right 2 o'clock, anti-aircraft artillery fire. We all
stared at it. Then he said there is a surface-to-air missile,
left 10 o'clock, and we all stared at this big surface-to-air
missile like a telephone pole coming up through the formation
and we watched it explode. Then we heard on the radio, splash,
MiG 29, and one of our F-15's sees it, shot down a MiG 29 and
we watched it hit the desert floor and explode.
I remember that moment in the cockpit as a young captain
because it came to me that nothing I was seeing or hearing was
new. I had been in an environment just like this before at
Nellis and at JPARC range and had been put in this situation.
Every radio call, every formation, everything I was seeing is
something that I had been trained for. In fact, I would share
with you that I remember thinking this is actually easier than
Red Flag because they threw everything at me, plus the kitchen
sink, when I was there. That moment in the cockpit produced
this level of confidence that I knew that I could succeed in
combat.
I think that is what we are here to talk about. How do we
ensure that the young captains, the young airmen, the NCOs [non
commissioned officer] of today and tomorrow have that same
confidence under fire that I had when I went into combat in
Desert Storm?
I look forward to the questions and the dialogue today
because this is a shared obligation to ensure that we all
remain committed to ensuring that these soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and marines go into harm's way with what they need to
get the job done and we take care of their families while they
are gone.
Thank you.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, General Goldfein.
Mr. Pendleton?
STATEMENT OF JOHN H. PENDLETON, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES
AND MANAGEMENT, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Pendleton. Chairman Sullivan, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to talk about our work
on Air Force readiness.
I think you are going to find that we are largely in
agreement with the Air Force on the challenges going forward.
Over the past quarter century, we have been tracking readiness,
and we have seen it gradually but steadily decline primarily
because the Air Force has gotten smaller, but the demand has
stayed high.
Back in 2016, we urged the Department of Defense [DOD],
including the Air Force, to develop a plan for readiness
rebuilding. At that point, the Air Force felt that rebuilding
the readiness of its force would take a decade or more and only
if they got increased budgets and a decreased pace of
operations. Budgets have increased but the pace has stayed
high.
Today the Secretary testified--or in her statement
actually--that the Air Force is aiming to have 80 percent of
its over 300 operational squadrons ready within about 5 years.
This is an aggressive goal. To meet it, the Air Force is going
to need to focus on the building blocks of readiness, as they
are saying they intend to do: people, training, equipment.
Let us talk about personnel briefly. The Air Force has
shortfalls of both maintainers and pilots. The gap for
maintainers I think is about to be closed, but it will take
time for them to grow experience. The pilot shortfall may take
a bit longer. The retention incentives to date have not worked
to meet goals, and I think it may take a little bit longer for
the Air Force to close.
Regarding equipment, we have found, not surprisingly, that
older equipment breaks down more. But it is not limited to the
older aircraft--the mission capability challenges. The F-22
mission capability rates are well below desired levels, as you
know. It is partly because its aircraft are so maintenance
intensive. They have this low-observable coating on them that
makes them difficult to work on. The F-35 is proving to be so
costly to operate and sustain that it actually jeopardizes the
program, as many of you know. DOD and the Air Force are working
to try to get those costs down, and I think that will be
critical.
Training, as the Secretary mentioned, is another challenge
area. The pace of Air Force operations has left little time for
aircrews to train. As the Air Force seeks to rebuild readiness,
I agree that training may be one of the more difficult things
to achieve, especially if demand is not dampened.
The full-spectrum mission of the F-22, for example, is so
complex that it takes most of the year to fully train for it.
But we found questions about the way the F-22 is utilized. It
is called away to participate in exercises that do not give it
much training value. It sits alert, gassed and ready, but not
training. They have to fly adversary air for each other because
they often do not have dedicated adversary air in the vicinity,
and that does not provide much training value for the red air.
We made several recommendations around organizing and
utilizing the F-22 better, which the Air Force agreed with and
I believe are beginning to take action.
These are just a few highlights. In all, we have made 14
readiness-related recommendations that I summarize in the back
of my statement, and I am happy to talk to you about any of
those as the hearing goes on.
Looking to the future, I understand the Air Force's desire
to get larger. Like the Navy, Air Force readiness has suffered
as demands have stayed high while the force has shrunk. Like
the Navy, the Air Force believes it needs to grow by about a
quarter to meet future demands and the strategy. But regardless
of future growth, the Air Force will have to keep much of its
existing force structure for decades to come. Therefore, I
agree the priority needs to be rebuilding the readiness of the
existing fleet certainly in the near term.
Mr. Chairman, I am encouraged by what I have heard from the
Air Force today. They have taken several steps in the right
direction. Now it is a matter of achieving results. Recovery
will not be easy or fast. It took a quarter century for the Air
Force to get here, so it may take a while to recover.
We at GAO stand ready to assist you in your oversight.
That concludes my remarks. I look forward to your
questions, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pendleton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you and thanks again for all
the good work that GAO has been doing in this area.
Let me begin by--Madam Secretary, this is a question for
you--the issue as it relates to the readiness of aircraft that
are available that come into the Air Force fleet, and in
particular, I am thinking about the F-35.
So I saw just a couple days ago that Secretary Mattis
ordered the Air Force and Navy to get mission capable rates up
to 80 percent. I did a little sniffing around. I think Delta
Airlines--their aircraft readiness in their fleet is about 86
percent. I believe it is something along those lines. Yet, for
the F-35--it is a new airplane, coming on line, coming out to
the fleet--I think it is in the--you can correct me if I am
wrong--but mid-60s.
So why is there, A, such a disparity between military
aircraft that are brand new and commercial aircraft? Can we get
to, within a year--I know that is what the Secretary put in his
memo. Can we get to a rate of 80 percent, and how can we do
that?
Secretary Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The readiness recovery plan that we put together in the
spring accelerates our readiness recovery by about 6 years and
says that by the end of fiscal year 2020, our pacing units, our
most important units for a peer competition, of which we have
204 operational squadrons--that 80 percent of those will be at
C1 or C2 readiness by the end of 2020.
The Secretary of Defense has asked us to accelerate further
our F-16's, F-22's, and F-35's to the end of fiscal year 2019
and come up with a plan to do that.
Now, what we are focused on here is not the entire fleet.
It is not the test and evaluation airplanes and those kind of
things. And so we have a situation where we actually are now
standing up. We are not even at full operating capability for
some of our squadrons, but we are focused on the operational
squadrons and making sure that they are at high levels of
mission capable readiness both for their pilots, their
equipment, and their training.
So you had asked what are the challenges with the F-35
fleet with respect to sustainment.
Senator Sullivan. Is that number like in the mid-60s? That
is correct. Is it not?
Secretary Wilson. It varies by squadron, significant
variation by squadron. I may ask the Chief to jump in here on
this.
But I would say that there are a couple of issues.
Obviously, one of them is that the spare parts lines did not
start up fast enough, and that is something that predates all
of us. But they were so focused on initial production, they did
not start up and really work the logistics system fast enough.
The second and most obvious difference between an F-35 and
an airliner is the low observable coating and the complexity of
maintaining that.
We are putting together a plan with, of course, the Joint
Program Office because this is a joint program--it is not an
Air Force program--to get the supply line right so that our
operational squadrons can meet the goals that the Secretary of
Defense has set out for us.
Chief?
General Goldfein. Chairman, I would just share with you a
couple weeks ago I had a conversation with Israeli Air Chief
Amikan Norkin. He shared with me. He said, Dave--he said I am
not integrating the F-35 into the Israeli Air Force. I am
integrating the Israeli Air Force into the F-35. It was a
telling statement on how this aircraft, this weapon system, is
looked at operationally as the quarterback of the joint and the
allied team because it is really an information fusion engine.
And so operationally we are seeing incredible capabilities
coming out of this platform.
Where we are focused--and I think Mr. Pendleton said as
well--is on that sustainment piece. As an international air
chief, speaking on behalf of my fellow F-35 international air
chiefs, we are working to drive the sustainment costs down so
that they are on par with a fourth generation F-16, F-18
because that is what all of the air chiefs have put into their
budgets. And so this is one that we are working with the
Department, with the Joint Program Office, and with Lockheed
Martin to ensure that we drive these sustainment costs down,
and we are not going to stop until we see them on par.
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Pendleton, do you have any views on
just the fleet readiness and why--I know it is a complex
aircraft. It only took almost 2 decades to procure and develop,
which that is a whole other topic for a whole other hearing.
But it does seem to me kind of ludicrous that we get new
aircraft off the production line and within a month, they are
at 65 percent readiness. I mean, what do you think is going on
there?
Mr. Pendleton. I think the Air Force is focused on
production and not enough on sustaining the aircraft, just to
be blunt about it. It is causing problems. The depots are
already several years behind. Parts are a problem. It is going
to be difficult to achieve those kind of mission capability
rates.
Now, I will say on mission capability rates that whenever I
hear a percentage--you know, I am auditor. That is a numerator
and a denominator. What exactly is in both of those I think
will become very important and we will be watching that, of
course.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Goldfein, with regard to the discussion about the
immediate capabilities or at least between the F-22 and the F-
35, we know as low observable aircraft both of them have some
challenges because it is a technology that is difficult to
maintain. Yet, we changed the styling on the technology, the
way that we handle low observability between the F-22 and the
F-35. There is a reason for it. Part of it is because we
learned by the F-22.
Would you like to share just briefly what we expect to get
out of the F-35 that we could not get out of the F-22 in terms
of low observability and making it easier to maintain the
capabilities of the F-35?
General Goldfein. Thanks, sir.
You know, we took all the learning from--and I flew the F-
117. So we could say first generation and was a wing commander
and responsible for low observable maintenance on the F-117. We
learned from that. We actually send F-117 maintainers and
pilots to the B-2 to learn. And so throughout the evolution of
low observable technology and maintenance, we have learned from
every one of the generations, if you will, going forward. So we
took everything we learned from the F-22 and we applied that to
the F-35 not only in production, but now in terms of
maintenance. How we do the coatings, how we achieve the low
observability we need is a generation beyond what we are doing
in both the F-22 and the B-2.
The big story, though, on the F-35 is the information
fusion. I would just share you this way. When I was flying the
F-16, I would go out for a mission, and then when I came back,
my debrief was primarily to determine what I had missed, what
did I not see, what information was out there that I did not
collect, and how could I improve my ability to manage my
systems to do that.
The F-35 pilots are having a completely different debrief
because it is all there. The question is how did they fuse it
and how did they act.
Just to give an example, when an F-35 pilot is taxiing out,
he or she is already getting information fed into the cockpit
on what is going on in the cyber world, in the space world.
They are already calling audibles. So going back to what the
Israeli air chief said, I am integrating my entire air force
into the F-35, and why we think about it as the quarterback,
because it is able to call audibles real time in a really
complex environment in ways that we have just not been able to
do before.
So it is this combination of low observability, allowing
you to penetrate and persist, and the information fusion, what
you can do once you are inside an enemy environment, that
allows the F-35 to do what it does.
Senator Rounds. If I could, what you are saying and what I
am hearing is that we are basically on the cutting edge
technology that is going to get a lot better, but we are
learning as we go along and this is a part of that learning
curve that we are in right now.
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. You cannot overestimate the
importance of the international aspect of the F-35 because I
have never been in a single fight where I have done it alone.
Every time I have gone into combat over the last 28 years, we
have been there side to side with our allies and partners. The
fact that they are in this weapon system with us is probably
one of the most important outcomes of coalition warfare going
forward.
Senator Rounds. I think sometimes we forget about that, and
I appreciate your bringing that up because those partnerships
are critical to us. It is something that our near-peer
adversaries do not have.
General Goldfein. Yes, sir.
Senator Rounds. Thank you.
Secretary Wilson, I am just curious. There is going to be a
discussion about whether we should be working on maintaining
our existing force and bringing it up to speed versus adding
new squadrons, more manpower, and so forth. But I think the two
are integratable and I think that they cannot be separated.
Would you care to share your thoughts about the need to not
only increase so that we have actually got aircraft to do the
mission that is necessary and then the reason why we are having
problems right now in terms of the amount of hours we are
expecting from the airframes that we have got and the pilots
that we have got on hand right now?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, job one is to restore the
readiness of the force that we have. This committee asked the
Chief and I last March what is the Air Force you need to
execute the National Defense Strategy. We have a formal report
that is due to the Congress in March.
So we have a group within the Air Force. There is also
Mitre Corporation and the CSBA [Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments] who are also doing independent looks at
what is required in order to execute the National Defense
Strategy. Certainly modernization and new concepts of
operations, integration with the joint force, dependence on
allies. But we have done quite a few war games and modeling and
simulation that do show that we are too small for what the
nation is asking of us under the National Defense Strategy when
we project forward to the 2025-2030 time frame in particular.
That is because we have returned to great power competition. We
have a rapidly innovating adversary that is putting a lot of
effort into the development of their military. I think we have
an obligation to you to be able to answer that question, what
is the Air Force we need when we look at the rapidly innovating
threat. And so that was the basis of our work in saying we
think it is about 386 squadrons in the 2025-2030 time frame.
That will engender a debate on how we get there, can we get
there, what are the resources required. We understand that. But
at a minimum, we should be able to tell you what is needed.
Senator Rounds. Mr. Chairman, I think one of the most
critical pieces in what the Secretary has said is that the
public is expecting that we will have the best Air Force and
that we can handle our near-peer competitors. Actually what she
is saying is that without the increases that we need in
manpower and in new squadrons, we are not able to meet that
near-peer competition.
Secretary Wilson. We are ready to fight tonight. There is
no question. But when we project forward into 2025-2030, with
the best intelligence estimates we have, that is where the
greatest issue is. And so we can see what the adversary is
doing and project forward as to what they plan to do, and we
have an obligation to maintain dominance and air superiority to
carry out the National Defense Strategy and provide options for
the commander in chief.
Senator Rounds. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Sullivan. Senator Shaheen?
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I had
to step out.
I am going to say this even though it is not directly
related, but I went out because there is an exhibit in the
Rotunda of young people who have overdosed, and these are
portraits that are very dramatic. This is an issue I think for
all of us across our society. And so I would urge everybody to
walk through the Rotunda on your way out. The portraits were
painted by a woman from New Hampshire, and that is how I am
connected to it.
I also wanted to just--I am sorry that Senator Inhofe has
left because I wanted to respond to his comment about the last
8 years of President Obama. Leadership and politics aside, one
of the biggest challenges of the last 8 years has been
sequestration. I raise it because if we do not make a change,
we are looking at that coming again. And so I think we cannot
just suggest that it has been about leadership. It has been
about our failure to provide the funding that our armed
services have needed, and we better face up to that now because
we are looking at it coming down the pike again. I would urge
us all to think about how we are going to address that because
these readiness challenges really got critical during the years
when sequestration was in effect.
With that preface, I want to begin, Secretary Wilson, by
again thanking you and the Air Force for your very positive
response to the contamination from PFAS [per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances] that has been at the former Pease
Air Force Base. You sent up John Henderson, who is the
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations,
Environment, and Energy. He was very effective in meeting with
residents of the community who had been affected and reassuring
about the effort to address this issue, which I know everyone
very much appreciated.
I want to ask you, though, because one of the questions
that came up was about the fire fighting foams that contributed
to the problem that we have at Pease and what is being done.
There has been some concern about whether there is going to be
a new fire fighting foam that is developed that can meet the
same requirements to fight fires. So can one of you talk about
what you are seeing and what the prospects are to develop
something that is just as effective?
Secretary Wilson. Yes, Senator, I think I can.
First of all, the Air Force, I think to its credit--it was
my predecessor who got us on this path--but went out
proactively and assessed all of our bases. This particular foam
was used in all kinds of fire fighting, but the Air Force was
only one of the entities that has used it. And so we did an
assessment.
We pretty much completed that assessment at all of the Air
Force locations, identified where we have problems, and we are
committed to fixing it and providing clean water immediately
when people are affected.
We have also replaced this foam already at Air Force
locations with another kind of fire retardant that does not
contain that chemical.
Senator Shaheen. Well, that is really good to hear because
there was a hearing in a subcommittee of the Environment and
Public Works Committee that raised questions about whether the
Air Force has in fact replaced that fire fighting foam. So I
hope that that message will get sent loud and clear to
everybody so that everybody understands that that has been
done.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, I will take that back and we
will confirm that for you in writing.
Senator Shaheen. That would be great. Thank you very much.
[The information referred to follows:]
The Air Force began replacing legacy Aqueous Film Forming Foam
(AFFF) with a new, more environmentally responsible firefighting foam
in August 2016. The replacement foam meets military specifications, is
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) free and contains only trace
amounts of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). All Air Force installations
have transitioned to the new AFFF in both stockpiles and fire trucks.
We delivered equipment that allows testing of fire trucks with zero
AFFF discharge to all of our bases. All hangar system replacement
projects were funded in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 with estimated
completions in 2020.
Also following up on that a little bit more, earlier this
year Senator Rounds and I introduced the PFAS Registry Act,
which would have set up a national registry for everyone
affected. There were pieces of that that are included in the
McCain authorization bill. I just wondered if you could talk
about whether efforts have begun, if you are aware of efforts
that have already begun within DOD to begin to set up this
registry and what we might need to do to support that.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, if I could take that one and go
back and also get that answer for you in writing.
Senator Shaheen. Sure. That would be great. Thank you.
[The information referred to follows:]
Regarding a registry for individuals exposed to PFAS, as specified
in the section 315(c)(4) of the National Defense Authorization Act of
Fiscal Year 2019, the Secretary of Defense will conduct an assessment
of the human health implications of PFAS exposure. The assessment will
include a description of the amount of funding that would be required
to administer a potential registry of individuals who may have been
exposed to PFAS while serving in the Armed Forces. The Department will
also assess scientific results and recommendations from ongoing PFAS
studies and analyses by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and other
organizations, to determine the feasibility of a registry.
I am almost out of time so I will save my question for the
next round.
Senator Sullivan. Okay.
Senator Ernst?
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Of course, to our witnesses, thank you very much for being
here today. We certainly appreciate your service and your
commitment to our great United States of America.
General Goldfein, I would like to start with you please,
sir. Thank you very much for acknowledging the fact that we
need to man, train, and equip our servicemembers. The training
is very important. Whether it is simulation or whether it is
actual exercises in the air, that muscle memory and those
rehearsals are very, very important--and you are right--when it
comes down to it, to be able respond immediately in a time of
crisis. Very important. So thanks for acknowledging that.
I know that many of us here on the committee have been
following the physiological episodes (PE) that have been
occurring in our flying communities, and I am confident in
saying that all of us are committed to ensuring the safety of
our pilots. And so I am happy to hear that the Air Force has
joined with the Navy now and we have a Joint Physiological
Episodes Action Team, or JPEAT, to share information and really
get after this problem. So congratulations on that.
I am aware that there has been some progress made with
regard to resolving these PE issues in the Air Force trainer
fleet. Can you share with the committee this progress and then
how it impacts resolving PE issues in other platforms as well?
General Goldfein. Yes, ma'am, thanks.
In the T-6, which is the aircraft that we have been most
recently having the physiological episodes.
As you mentioned, we put together a team with the Navy and
went and looked at it, and we were able to drive down to the
point with high confidence. What we have found is that it is
the concentration of oxygen levels at various parameters of
flight that was falling behind what was required. So in
different maneuvers and different flying in certain of the
aircraft, the concentration levels were off.
And so the way we are attacking this is for the near term
and long term. In the very near term, now that we have
identified what the root cause is, we have looked at all of the
maintenance practices because the Navy has T-6's. We have T-
6's. We compared the best practices of both services, and we
have changed significantly the way we are maintaining every
part of the system to ensure that we can mitigate and minimize
any implications of having the concentration values not be
optimum.
The second thing what we are doing is we are out there and
we are talking to the force. We learned with the F-22 when we
went through that, that when we were doing all of our analysis,
we stopped a dialogue with the operators and their families. So
they started wondering and questioning what we were doing. So
this has been an inclusive, transparent dialogue throughout. So
now we have sent a team out with a one-star general that has
briefed every one of our T-6 pilots and we have talked to
families in town halls to make sure they know exactly what is
going on.
The long-term solution to this is going to be a redesign of
the system to ensure that we have the concentration levels
right. We have a team right now that is doing the redesign, and
then as soon as they come to us with the solution, that is
going to be a priority for the section guy to move forward.
Senator Ernst. Very good.
So you mentioned that was the T-6 as well and the F-22, and
you are applying that to other platforms as well then.
General Goldfein. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Ernst. Well, I do appreciate that. It has been very
concerning, and we are glad to see the attention really being
paid by both the Air Force and the Navy to the PE. So I
appreciate that.
Thank you for mentioning the families because that is a
great lead-in to the question I have for Secretary Wilson.
Thank you, Secretary, for being here as well.
I chair the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee,
and I have had the opportunity to learn about SOCOM's [Special
Operations Command] success with Preservation of the Force and
Family (POTFF) program. We ask a lot of our airmen and their
families, and we all want to provide them with the absolute
best possible support we can. I understand it may not be
possible to apply POTFF all across the Department.
Is there a way that we could incorporate parts of that
program with folks in the Air Force? We know that it has been
very helpful to those that are in those special operations
community in AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command], and
we would like to see pieces or parts of that shared with the
greater Air Force as well. Are there ideas or things that could
be applied?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, we are trying that out at four
different bases. We call it Operation True North. The concept
is to embed the caregivers in the squadrons where people are
for both mental health, spiritual wellbeing, but also physical
health. One of the outcomes from SOCOM is if someone is in the
same unit and they are responsible for mental health, there are
conversations that go on that are easier to have than if you
have to make an appointment over at the clinic and walk through
that door.
The second part on physical health. We have actually found
that by embedding--we are taking care of high performance
athletes. By embedding physical trainers with the units, it is
not about what you cannot do. It is about how you can do. The
number of injuries and the reluctance to go see a doc, because
if you go see the doc, they are going to take you offline
status and it is hard to get back on. And so there is a
reluctance to get help as opposed to--I was with a special
operator down at Hurlbert who said to me it has been the best
thing. I was out there working out and the physical trainer
just said--and then he said, yes, my back has been bothering
me. He said, well, let me watch you lift. He said this was
here. Let me show you how to do this. Let me show you how to
strengthen those muscles. He said I feel like a young man. I
have never felt this good because I am training properly now,
and I did not have to go to the doc.
So it is a different approach to maintaining the human
weapon system and resilience by incorporating that into how we
operate the squadrons.
Senator Ernst. I appreciate that. It is a very important
program, and if there are things that we can do to assist in
that effort, please let us know. I am a huge fan of the POTFF
programs.
Thank you all very much for being here today. I appreciate
it. Thank you.
Senator Sullivan. Senator Perdue?
Senator Perdue. Mr. Chairman, welcome to your new role. I
look forward to working with you.
I want to make one comment for the record for our guests
here today. You know, I think this is one of the most important
meetings we could have. The timing is perfect, as the Chief
said privately before we started.
I am chagrined, though, again that with an important
meeting, we are all double, triple-booked. And so the
attendance here is disrespectful to these witnesses. I want
that for the record. With your leadership, I know we can change
that.
Senator Sullivan. Well, thank you. You raise a good point.
There are several other hearings happening literally right now.
This is really important.
Senator Perdue. We are all double-booked. We are all
missing something else to be here, but I think this is
absolutely critical.
Chief, I am worried. As an old manufacturing guy, I am
worry about our supply chain. I am worried about our industrial
base. I look at the F-35, though, and the decisions that were
made that you guys have inherited where we have got that supply
chain spread all over the world for whatever reason, social,
economic. I do not know, but it certainly was not with national
defense in mind.
I want to know what can we do. Eric Schmidt said that
bringing technology into the force, both in current readiness
and in developing the recap that you guys are going to have to
face over the next 10 years--by the way, Secretary, I could not
agree more. I am not worried about where we are today. I have
full faith in you guys today. I am worried about what China has
said publicly about Made in China 2025. 2025 and beyond I am
really concerned about.
That leads to this question. Eric Schmidt, Obama's
appointee of the Defense Innovation Advisory Board--and he said
this. He said that bringing new technology in the force is the
biggest concern. If there was one variable to solve for, it
would be speed. In competing with these guys, they do not have
the same constraints that we do.
He also said--and I am going to paraphrase this, but the
requirement process we have in DOD is now the single greatest
barrier to rapid technological advancement. By advancement, he
means not development but deployment.
Sir, when we look at both recapping and improving our
readiness today, where are we in terms of working with the
industrial base and the supply chain that you guys have
inherited to sort of get at this? I would like maybe both of
you. I see your head nodding, Secretary. Both of you may have a
comment on this. But I think this is the number one threat that
we have right now.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, I am glad you bring this up
because it is something that we are both really focused on, and
taking advantage of the new authorities that you have given us
to move at speed. Let me give you a couple of examples.
One is with the F-35. The Defense Department and the Air
Force is terrible at buying software. So we changed the way we
are buying software. We set up a software factory called Kessel
Run outside of Boston to be able to do development operations
(DEVOPS), so rapid insertion of technology in an iterative way.
We just this last week went out to Nellis. There is a logistics
system that supports the F-35 called ALIS, A-L-I-S. It cannot
scale. It has got huge problems. It drives the maintainers
nuts. And so we put together a team of Lockheed Martin, Air
Force programmers, and maintainers on the flight line and said
let us to DEVOPS and figure out where the problems are and try
to rapidly get tools to the warfighter to fix ALIS. They named
themselves. The new program is called Mad Hatter, rather than
ALIS. It is always the young techies that come up with
something.
But it is not only that. Let me give you a couple examples
of where we are moving very quickly. Eric Schmidt is right. We
are actually partnering with DIUx [Defense Innovation Unit
Experimental] in some of our space enterprise kinds of things.
We started in January a space enterprise consortium. We have
got over 200 companies now involved. 150 of them are
nontraditional companies. We have done 32 prototypes with
greater than $100 million in total value of those 32
prototypes. The average time between solicitation to award is
90 days. We have given four awards just since January for rapid
launch of small satellites, partnering with DIUx, at $15
million to get small satellites up in the air and do it fast.
We just broke into four program executive offices in our Space
and Missile Systems Center rather than one all the way at the
top of the $6 billion enterprise. By doing that, we cut out
three layers of bureaucracy in getting capability to the
warfighter. We set out nine pacesetter projects to show how to
go fast to acquire space systems, and those nine pacesetters
cut 19 years out of their acquisition timelines, and they have
a number of other pacesetters in line saying, hey, we want to
do it this way too.
We are using the authorities for prototyping the
experimentation that you have given us. We are stripping out
layers of bureaucracy. We have pushed down authority to program
managers and given them the power to move quickly, to use
competition.
The final thing I would say is we are partnering with our
allies. We partnered with Norway on a satellite communications,
polar satellite communications, where we had a 2-year gap. We
closed the 2-year gap, saved $900 million by partnering with
Norway. We are doing the same on another project with Japan.
The Air Force is trying to take the authorities you have
given us and move forward to go faster and smarter on
acquisition.
General Goldfein. Sir, just to add quickly.
Senator Perdue. It sounds like she might have prepared for
that question, Chief.
[Laughter.]
General Goldfein. It is a big deal for us.
Senator Perdue. It is a big deal. I agree.
General Goldfein. So Secretary Wilson and I hosted our
four-star conference last week, and the guest speaker was Eric
Schmidt. We asked him to talk to us about how we bring the
future faster.
I am often asked the question, hey, Chief, 9 years of
continuing resolutions (CR)--what does that do to you? I tell
them it really wreaks havoc on our ability to plan for the
future.
But to your question, then I always follow up and say, but
let me tell you what it does to our industry partners. So I
have to go to a CEO [Chief Executive Officer] and tell them,
listen, I do not know what I am going to buy next year. I have
not gotten my money yet, but I am hoping I will get it in the
last half of this year. Then I am going to buy as many weapons
as I can.
Senator Perdue. But if I do not, we are going to interrupt
the current plan.
General Goldfein. That is right.
I cannot give you any projections of what the future looks
like. So you need to keep this very sophisticated workforce
occupied with this level of uncertainty. And so it goes
directly.
So what I would offer to you, in addition to the
Secretary's great points, is that the John McCain National
Defense Act that you passed sent such a powerful signal to
airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines that you are behind
them. It sent an equally powerful signal to industry that says
you can now plan your future and manage your workforce to get
us what we need.
Senator Perdue. I will give you one more to send to them.
This year, we did something we have not done in 22 years, and
we did not get 100 percent, but we got to 90 percent funding by
the end of August because we stayed here in August. You can
tell your service people that we are on the wall that month.
This is not something that is never going to be done again. We
funded the military this year without a CR, and we know now
what it is doing.
Speaking of that, I asked an F-22--I am sorry. I am past
time.
Senator Sullivan. No. Go ahead.
Senator Perdue. No. I will come back to that in the second
round.
Senator Sullivan. It is a good question.
Senator Perdue. No. I want to come back and brag on the
State of Alaska.
Senator Sullivan. If you promise to stay for the second
round.
Senator Perdue. Yes, I will. Thank you. I am sorry.
Senator Sullivan. Well, I do want to mention that Senator
Perdue and Senator Ernst have been leaders on this issue that
he was just talking about. They are both on the special
committee that is going to hopefully fix our budget problems.
We have made progress this year, and nobody benefits more than
the military.
We will start here with round two, which I think is great.
I do want to just do a small correction for the record.
General, I appreciated your opening statement. I will mention,
though, even if one deploys, gets combat fit, gets imminent
danger pay, there are combat vets--and I do not consider myself
one particularly in the category of somebody like you. So I am
just saying that for the record. I think it is important
actually because we know who the real folks are, and I always
want to keep that record straight.
Madam Secretary, I know you have been focused on the
acquisition issues. Can you a little bit more unpack what you
were talking about in your opening statement on this issue, 100
years to 56 years? I did not fully follow that. I know it is
important. I know you have been really focused on it. Senator
Perdue just asked a question. But what were you getting at
there?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, we have a great team that we put
together. Some of them are military, some civil servants, and
of course, Will Roper who is our Assistant Secretary for
Acquisition. They all got together 6 months ago now and they
said, all right, what should be our goals. What should be some
of the things we are trying to achieve to get things faster?
One of them was to say let us look at all of our programs and
try to strip 100 years out of our schedules by using the new
authorities that you have given us, by trying to tailor our
acquisition authorities so that we get things faster. Usually
when you get them faster, they also cost less. Time is money.
And so they are at 56 years so far and they have got another 6
months to go to keep stripping time out of schedules.
Senator Sullivan. When you went through that exercise, did
you see any additional authorities that you think you need from
us? Again, there is a lot of John McCain here in this hearing,
but as you know, he was very focused on this issue. In the last
few NDAAs, we did give significant authorities back to the
service secretaries and the chiefs to make things work. What
else do you need?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, we are now in the point of
execution, and I think we are trying to execute in a way that
is fast and smart. Also, the other part that we said was we
want to be even more transparent than we are with traditional
acquisition so that we are fully open about what we are doing
and what results we are getting.
I do think that there is tremendous promise in several of
these, particularly prototyping. The reason why is that in
traditional acquisition, you would come up with an analysis of
alternatives, and you would be 3 or 4 years into this and all
you really got are stacks of paper and studies. You really do
not know what is technically possible yet.
If you prototype, you develop a real engineering technical
understanding of what really is within the realm of the
possible. We are using it for next generation engines. We got a
competitive prototyping with two of the big engine
manufacturers to develop an adaptive engine that gets 10
percent more thrust, 25 percent more fuel efficiency. They may
not get quite there, but we have said build us something. See
what you can get, and then it will inform our requirements for
a whole next generation of Air Force engines. We are the
biggest buyer of fuel in the Defense Department. A 25 percent
increase in fuel efficiency and a 10 percent increase in
thrust--that is a game changer. And so we are just trying it.
Senator Sullivan. I want to go to the GAO study.
General Goldfein. Sir, I just wanted to reemphasize the
point, Senator Shaheen, you made. The other thing to your
question is sequestration is still the law of the land. Just to
make your point again, ma'am, we grounded the United States Air
Force in 2013. We created no fly zones across the United States
of America where we stopped flying. We still have not
recovered. If that comes back, it will undermine and devastate
all the good work that you did in the recent bill.
Senator Sullivan. I agree with Senator Shaheen on that
certainly.
Let me go to the GAO study as it relates to the F-22's. Mr.
Pendleton, there are a bunch of important aspects to that. That
still is an incredible aircraft. The President talks about it a
lot. It is a remarkable aircraft. Again, you cannot look back
and kind of wring your hands, but that was probably a pretty
significant mistake to curtail the production and deployment of
that aircraft.
Can you summarize quickly your recommendation? It is my
understanding that the Secretary and the Chief agree with those
or that you have concurred in those. How are you looking to
implement these recommendations that relate to the small fleet
that is not maximized, the organization with regard to the Air
Force, the mission, as you said? What can we do? This is still
a tremendous fifth gen aircraft. You know, your work is
important in this. Can you talk about that quickly? If there
are any comments from the service Secretary or the Chief, I
would welcome that too.
Mr. Pendleton. Yes, sir. Thank you.
We have two major findings. We found that the organization
of the small fleet could be suboptimal.
Senator Sullivan. Did you find that it is suboptimal?
Mr. Pendleton. Yes.
Senator Sullivan. Not that it could be but it currently is?
Mr. Pendleton. We think is suboptimal, yes.
Senator Sullivan. That is important.
Mr. Pendleton. Locations with fewer squadrons, people,
aircraft had lower mission capability rates than those with
more. Again, this was an unclassified version of a classified
report. So I am having to be a bit general about that.
We recommended that the Air Force take a look at the way
they had the F-22 force organized. You can go a couple of ways.
You can collocate more aircraft if you want to and get some
efficiencies we think from that. You can also look at the way
that you deploy packages from within the squadron. I mean, what
was happening is the Air Force was breaking out a portion of
the squadron and sending that forward, and it is basically
leaving what is left broken as well. So you could augment that.
We tried not to be too specific in the recommendation so the
Air Force would have some room to maneuver on that.
The second had to do with the way the Air Force is
utilizing the F-22. It is being used for a lot of missions that
we do not think contribute to its training for a high-end
fight, things like alert and appearing in exercises, as I
mentioned in my opening statement, that really do not give them
much value. We think that needs to be relooked as well and made
recommendations. The Air Force did concur with us, and I know
from speaking to Secretary Wilson, they are thinking about
this.
Senator Sullivan. So are you looking to implement these,
General Goldfein or Secretary Wilson?
General Goldfein. Yes, sir, we are. We are looking. It is
interesting that when you go back to 2010, we retired 10
squadrons, 252 aircraft in 2010 based on a demand signal that
shifted those resources into other areas, space, cyber, ISR
[intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], nuclear
enterprise. Those were strategic trades that we had to make at
the time if you remember what we were in in that time frame.
But we did not take down any flags or we did not take down any
squadrons. We just made all the squadrons smaller. We got to a
point where we were and are less efficient than we can be with
larger squadrons when it comes to achieving and meeting the
demands of the National Defense Strategy.
So we are absolutely looking at not only the F-22 but all
of our weapon systems to determine how can we get back up into
that optimum solution. But we also understand that that is a
discussion that we have to have with this committee and with
the Congress before we do anything.
Senator Sullivan. Does that not help the maintainer issue
as well if you consolidate some of the F-22's in terms of where
they are located?
General Goldfein. It does, and it is across the board. It
is maintenance. It is the back shop maintenance. It is all
those parts that you need to be able to project air power not
only for the F-22, but for all the weapon systems.
But for us, i.e., in the Active Duty and in the Air
National Guard and Reserves, what we found is that 24 assigned
aircraft is the optimum solution to be able to do the National
Defense Strategy business. Many of ours are now at the 18
number, and so we need to build those up to 24. We need to hit
an optimum solution in the Guard and Reserve as well. So that
is all part of our planning.
Senator Sullivan. Senator Shaheen?
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DOD's final report in 2018 on organization management
structure for the national security space components of the
Department of Defense--I had to read it because it is such a
long title. But it stated basically that space operations force
will include space personnel from all Military Services,
including Guard, Reserve, and civilians.
I wanted to ask you, Secretary Wilson, about the current
role of the Air National Guard in the space domain. If you
could elaborate on how you expect that role to evolve in the
future.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, we have about 1,000 guardsmen
and about 1,000 plus or minus reservists who are some part of a
space mission. I think we are at a point where the Defense
Department is looking at how do we organize this going forward.
The President has initiated the process to establish a U.S.
space force and put out there a bold vision with respect to it.
We all know that we can no longer use space as a function. It
is a warfighting mission. So those discussions are ongoing.
I believe that it is important for the Guard--sometimes I
think when we look at some of these issues, we forget the Guard
and Reserve, and they are an important component of the total
force and a particularly component of the United States Air
Force. We want to make sure that that is in the conversation.
Senator Shaheen. I appreciate that. Certainly there has
been some interest from our Air Guard in New Hampshire about
what is going to happen in this arena. I know that in your
September memo on the proposal to transition to a space force,
you discussed the potential to transition National Guard units
to a Reserve component. I assume there is more discussion going
on on this.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, there is a lot of discussion
going on. Our team may have misused the Reserve component to
being both the Guard and the Reserve. So the intention, though,
is to make sure that as we address the space force that we do
not ignore the fact, while it is small, we do have components
in the Guard and Reserve who are engaged in space.
Senator Shaheen. That is great. I appreciate that.
As I said, there has been a great deal of interest in New
Hampshire on what is going to happen there. I am sure that is
true of other States as well.
In terms of the number of squadrons, you have called for
growing the Air Force from its current size to 386 squadrons by
2030. Under that plan, tanker squadrons would see significant
growth. They would increase from 40 to 54 squadrons.
Can you talk about why you see this as being important?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, the analysis that we did was
based on the National Defense Strategy, which sets out for us
what do we need to do, what are the missions we need to
accomplish, and then what are the most important operational
problems.
But when you look at those missions, there are really five
things we have to do at the same time. We have to defend the
Homeland. We have to maintain a safe, secure, and effective
nuclear deterrent. We have to be able to defeat a peer while
also deterring a rogue state and then maintain pressure on
violent extremist organizations at the same time. So it is all
five of those things.
Currently, when we look at a peer threat, Russia is very
strong. China is modernizing very rapidly. When we project into
the 2025-2030 time frame, our pacing threat we believe is
China. So the challenge in the Pacific is the tyranny of
distance, and that means tanker squadrons are very important.
So that I believe is what in the numerous iterations of
modeling and simulation, the war games we did really drive the
need for tankers.
Senator Shaheen. Well, I appreciate that especially with
Pease being one of the bases that is going to get some of the
new tankers.
Can you also talk about the interests that we have in
making investments to protect that tanker force during a
conflict? Because I know there has been some concern about what
we need to do prospectively to make sure that we are doing
that, should we have an adversary that we need to protect those
tankers against.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, I would not want to go into too
much detail in an open session. But the intention is for new
tankers to be more defendable than their predecessors. I do not
know if the Chief can go any further than that.
General Goldfein. I would just say in the Joint Chiefs, you
know, I give Chairman Dunford a lot of credit for leading the
Joint Chiefs as we have been looking at global campaign plans.
It has allowed us to move off a platform discussion into more
of multi-domain operations that looks at a platform as part of
a family of systems that all connect together. So the
discussion then about how we would defend a tanker or any other
part of the family is an integrated joint and allied solution
going forward as opposed to the platform discussion which is I
think more 20th Century than where we are headed.
Senator Shaheen. So, Mr. Chairman, is there any plan to
have a classified follow-up hearing or briefing to this hearing
so that we can learn more about some of the issues that have
been raised?
Senator Sullivan. Absolutely. I think that is a great idea.
We will do it.
Senator Shaheen. Good. That is great. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Senator Shaheen. Senator Ernst?
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have spent a lot of time talking about maintenance this
morning, and I appreciate that very much. We all value our
maintainers very much, and I know it is very different having
maintainers in a transportation ground unit than having
maintainers in your squadrons. But just really understanding
how very important it is.
Secretary, in your written statement, you did reference
some of the challenges that you are facing in regard to
sustainment of weapon systems, of equipment, particularly with
regard to the maintenance and the logistics. I was pleased to
see that the Air Force does continue to look for ways to
improve efficiency and cost effectiveness.
So again going back to the Emerging Threats and
Capabilities, one of the things that we spend some time talking
about is artificial intelligence. We do continue to hear about
the potential benefits of AI [artificial intelligence] and
machine learning on issues such as predictive maintenance. Is
the Air Force currently utilizing these types of technologies,
or do you think these emerging technologies present maybe a
cost effective means of improving maintenance and logistics
within the Air Force?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, a very good question. We are
actually testing out what we call conditions-based maintenance
plus, which involves both predictive analytics and also sensing
on aircraft. We are trying them initially on the B-1 and the C-
5, and we are seeing a significant reduction in cost but also
about a 30 percent reduction in unscheduled maintenance. So
this is you are predicting when a part is likely to fail and
you change that part when it is in for its inspection rather
than waiting for it to fail out on the flight line. We are now
trying to develop the apps to move that and propagate it
throughout the rest of the fleet.
We are also doing some other things with respect to driving
down the costs. We set up an office--and we will give it a 2-
year run and then take a look as to how much it saved us--
called the Rapid Sustainment Office to try to use advanced
manufacturing technologies, 3-D printing of metals, but also
things like cold spray technology to repair parts rather than
replace them.
Just as one example, there was a recent article about some
of our airmen out in California who--we have a part that heats
water on the back of the KC-10. The handle keeps breaking. They
do not manufacture anymore because they only buy maybe five of
them a year. They are pretty expensive to go back and have
somebody tool it the old way. In fact, Defense Logistics Agency
was quoting some completely unreasonable cost. And so we 3-D
print them for 50 cents. So those kinds of things can drive
down the cost.
Senator Ernst. Since you brought that up, I was out at
Twentynine Palms earlier this year, and we had that discussion
about 3-D printing of parts to make it readily available for
our men and women that are out in the field. They are forward-
deployed. The supply chain is not as easy in those types of
environments.
Any thoughts then on patents? There is a lot of concern
from industry that we will be able to replicate various parts,
replacement parts, and not give full credit to the industries
that have originally manufactured and designed those parts. Any
thoughts on where we should be going in that space?
Secretary Wilson. Senator, we are trying to go to a place
where we get the intellectual property or negotiate for a
license to build things. Just in the first quarter of last
year, we had 10,000 requests for parts where there was not a
single bidder. You look at something like the C-5. It is not
being produced anymore. The parts are not being produced
anymore. So the door handle breaks on the back of a C-5 and you
do not have a parts supplier. So we are 3-D printing those in
metal.
We are also using technologies now--the Army, Navy, and Air
Force are working together on advanced manufacturing. But the
chafing on rivet holes on aircraft or on the hydraulics lines
to be able to repair those by low temperature but high speed
spraying of nanoparticles of metal to basically repair the
metal rather than replace the part. It is much less expensive
and keeps our mission capable rates higher.
The Rapid Sustainment Office is intended to use these
technologies, rapidly get them into the field onto our
aircraft, and reduce the costs and increase our mission capable
rates.
Senator Ernst. I love that. Incredible cost savings and
innovation and to be able to do it right on the spot too, very
good. Thank you very much.
Senator Sullivan. Senator Perdue?
Senator Perdue. Following up on that, I want to applaud
what you guys are doing in shared services. Back in the 1980s,
manufacturers in the commercial space did this where they can
have multiple divisions. You have a technical specialty. You
develop that specialty. Before, every one of the divisions
would have that. They would protect it. They were jealous of
it. We took it away, created shared services. When you are
doing C-130J maintenance at an Air Force base for the Navy, I
applaud that. I think that is a way for the future.
I want to move on. With 3-D printing, the Marines right now
are doing a great job, and their depots are doing the same sort
of thing. The supply chain is gone. Nobody is making the part.
3-D printing--they are really gearing that up. I would
encourage the Air Force to partner with your sister services to
make sure that we are at the cutting edge of that.
Chief, I have a question.
I would second Senator Shaheen's comment about a classified
briefing on the same topic.
Chief, you may want to take this off, but hypersonics and
directed energy. I know you guys are working on that. General
Hyten gave us an update earlier this year about what the Air
Force is now seeing that our near-peer competitors are doing.
Can you give us an update on that development on those two
areas?
General Goldfein. Yes, sir. Probably the most important
development has been a discussion that the three service
secretaries have had about how we partner together on areas
like hypersonics and directed energy. And so what I want to do
is maybe, ma'am, turn it over to you and then I will follow up
at the end if you like.
Secretary Wilson. Senator, the three service secretaries--
we get together. We actually like each other and get together
for breakfast every 2 weeks. It terrifies the staff.
One of our early meetings looked at where do we have
science and technology investments that are similar and can we
work together better. One of the first ones we identified was
hypersonics. We got our teams together. We rapidly developed a
memorandum of understanding where we will take best technology,
go fast, share results, and work together. As a result, on
hypersonics, the additional funding you allowed us to put in in
2017 and 2018 is about $107 million in additional funding, but
by using a Navy-developed warhead for the Army and putting it
on an Air Force system, we are actually going to prototype a
system 5 years faster and get it out there in 2021.
Senator Perdue. Is that a defensive----
Secretary Wilson. It is called Hacksaw. It is an offensive
weapon.
Senator Perdue. With regard to the F-22 that we talked
about earlier, I had a privilege to visit an advance squadron
up in Alaska. The colonel gave us an update about how CRs
directly impact them. They had training going on. They had to
interrupt it, bring them back, and they had it documented down
to the cents how much it cost them.
But we talked about the use of the F-22, and you mentioned
it in your opening comment that we are using F-22's, our fifth
gen, to chase Tu-95's around up there on the line of
demarcation. I know, Secretary, you guys are talking about a
light attack aircraft I believe that you are developing now to
take on some of these more mundane tasks and use the fifth gen
for mainly training to do what you mentioned in your opening
remarks. Can you update us on the light attack program?
General Goldfein. So we completed two experiments in the
light attack. The second line of effort in the National Defense
Strategy talks about strengthening our allies and partnerships
because when it comes to global competition and war, we have
allies and our adversaries generally do not, and it is a
strategic advantage. So we as a service, when we looked at from
the air component standpoint how can we leverage our ability
because what I hear very often from my international air
chiefs, especially those that are not into the fourth or fifth
generation--either they cannot afford it or not getting into
it. But yet, they have violence within their borders. The
strategy is to drive violence down the point where it can be
handled within the sovereign territory.
The light attack experiment was primarily about line of
effort two and allies and partners and how can we produce a
commercial off-the-shelf that is a low-end system that is very
affordable, that has low costs when it comes to sustainment,
and that can help our allies and partners. What we have learned
in the past is that if we do not buy some, they will not. And
so as we look at it internal to our Air Force--the Marines are
looking at this as well. This a joint effort going forward.
This is an opportunity for us to actually spread our coalition,
if you will, to be able to get at the strategy and line of
effort number two.
Within the Air Force, we are also looking at it to the
point--exactly what you described, which is can I now go after
those lower-end missions with a tailored commercial off-the-
shelf kind of product that will then free the high-end assets
to focus on the training and execution of the high-end work we
need to do.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
Senator Sullivan. We have Senator Kaine here, and I am glad
he made it back on time. It is an important hearing and I
appreciate you being here.
I am scheduled to go preside right at 11:00. So I am going
to have either one of my colleagues on the Republican side or
Senator Kaine take over the hearing.
I do want to thank the witnesses again for this very
important hearing. There will be QFRs [Questions for the
Record]. If we can get those back in a timely manner. I think
Senator Shaheen's idea, which we all support, on a classified
version of this hearing, respecting your time, Madam Secretary
and General Goldfein, I think that would be a good follow-up.
So I am going to pass the gavel to one of my colleagues
here. I will let them fight over it. But again, I want to thank
all of you. I would normally be here, but the presiding officer
duty is something I am not supposed to be late for and I think
I am already late. So thank you very much.
Senator Kaine [presiding]. I will just be very brief. I
apologize for missing. I was introducing a noncontroversial
nominee at a Judiciary Committee hearing. But just because my
nominee was not controversial, that did not mean that there
were not other controversies that I was unaware of when I
walked into the room. So that is why I am a little bit late,
and I do not want to belabor points that have been asked.
Let me just ask this. I indicated in my opening comment
that I am worried about how we are planning on the readiness
side with respect to infrastructure. I cited the Air Force
example. I could have cited other examples, the Navy base in
Richmond whose main road in and out to the center of naval
power in the world is increasingly under water just based on
normal tidal action, not even to extreme weather events.
Perhaps if you could each kind of talk about in the Air
Force portfolio--I used the example of permafrost melting at
the one base and how that changes MILCON--how you are dealing
with some of these weather-related effects, extreme weather
events, whatever the cause, as you are thinking about MILCON
projects going forward. If you would each address that, that
will be my only question.
Secretary Wilson. Well, Senator, with a hurricane headed
for Eglin and Tyndall today, we are dealing with those things.
Let me take the broader issue about infrastructure because
we did what I thought was a good piece of work, stewarded by
our Assistant Secretary for Installations and Environment, John
Henderson, but done by a group of captains initially that said
we now have data on all of the infrastructure in the Air Force,
every installation, every building on it down to when the roof
needs to be replaced. They did some modeling and simulation on
it, on how we can change the way we maintain our
infrastructure, and they made some recommendations.
One is we have been funding the worst infrastructure first.
So we wait until it gets really expensive to fix, and then we
fix it. That is the wrong strategy. So we need to fix it like
most commercial industry does, before it gets to be really
expensive.
The second is they recommended taking the 5 percent of our
worst infrastructure off the books. So the stuff that is
hanging around from the Korean War that we should not be
maintaining anymore. And so we actually are going to be putting
some money for destruction and disablement into our budget.
The third is we are going to have to tick up our
replacement value, our funding of our infrastructure a bit over
the long term. But if we do those things over the long term,
our infrastructure gets much better over time and we are able
to keep the infrastructure in much better shape.
So they have given us a strategy. We have the modeling and
simulation of our facilities which tells us.
The final thing that we also are doing is every facility
will have a master plan. Our commanders change too quickly to
have just what the commander wants now because those projects
are always in the future. So we have a master plan for every
facility, and we will continue to execute projects on that
master plan.
So there are a number of things that we are doing to
improve the management of our infrastructure and planning
associated with it.
Senator Kaine. Do other witnesses have comments to add on
this question? General?
General Goldfein. Sir, just one comment to add to the
Secretary's. We also, as a land-based force, project power, of
course, from our bases. So we need to be the best in the world
at defending those bases. And so the Secretary and I have a
really concerted effort over the course of this year looking at
integrated base defense in addition to the investment we are
making in MILCON projects because not only do we have to invest
in it and build it, we also have to defend it. That is central
to who we are.
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
Mr. Pendleton, I have one last question for you. You
testified before the SASC [Senate Armed Services Committee]
last year on the tragic Navy collisions and analyzing what was
at fault there and what we could do better.
Are there parallels in the work that you did on those
after-action analyses and things that we should be focused on
with respect to the Air Force, you know, aviation mishaps, gaps
in training? Are there things that you learned in that capacity
that we should apply to the Air Force as well?
Mr. Pendleton. There are parallels, but I think that what
happened with the Navy is the situation in Japan just got away
from them. We had warned a couple years before, as you recall
probably from my testimony, that they needed to take a look at
the risk they were taking out there, and they did not listen to
us. And so I am not seeing it with the Air Force.
But now having said that, there are parallels, shortfalls
of people, shortfalls of maintainers, running equipment hard,
having it take longer to fix when you bring it in, and too
little time to train. I mean, that was one of the big problems
with the Navy, as I am sure you recall. They were working so
hard, they did not have time to train on things as basic as
seamanship.
Like the Navy, also the Air Force has a demand problem,
sir. I mean, the demands on it have continued to remain high,
and like I said during the Navy hearing, I think it is going to
be difficult for them to rebuild unless some of the demands are
moderated.
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
Do my other colleagues have any additional questions?
Well, with that, we really appreciate your testimony. We
will keep the record open until 5 o'clock tomorrow, Thursday,
in case any colleagues have additional questions for you that
they can direct your way. We would appreciate your prompt
response.
But with that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:03 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Dan Sullivan
mission capable rates and the secretary of defense goals
1. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, how, if at all, are Air
Force mission capable rates unique to the Air Force and different from
how other services, such as the Navy, calculate it? How are Air Force
mission capable rates different from aircraft availability rates?
Secretary Wilson. The Office of the Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness coordinated with the Air Force, Navy and Marine
Corps to come up with a standardized method of calculating and
reporting mission capable rates to achieve the Secretary of Defense's
goals. This standardized method will ensure that all services are held
to the same standard and report comparable rates. The Air Force will
report progress towards achieving 80 percent mission capability to the
Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense on a monthly basis
beginning in November.
Mission Capable rate and Aircraft Availability rate differ with
respect to the sample size they measure. The Mission Capable rate
measures the number of Primary Mission Aircraft Inventory (commonly
referred to as ``combat coded'') aircraft that are mission capable and
physically possessed by a unit. Mission Capable rate excludes those
aircraft undergoing depot-level maintenance. The Aircraft Availability
rate measures the mission capability of the entire fleet, including
those assets designated towards training and test missions. As Aircraft
Availability is an enterprise view of the entire fleet, it includes
those aircraft undergoing depot-level maintenance in its calculation.
While these measures are important, mission capable rates for
aircraft are only one component of readiness. The Air Force is focused
on improving the readiness at our operational squadrons to 80 percent
C1 or C2.
2. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, the Secretary of Defense
directed the Air Force to achieve a minimum of 80 percent mission
capable rates for fiscal year 2019 for the F-35, F-22, and F-16, while
simultaneously reducing these platforms' operating and maintenance
costs every year starting in fiscal year 2019. What are the current
Mission Capable and Aircraft Availability rates for the Air Force
platforms identified by the Secretary of Defense?
Secretary Wilson. Current mission capable and aircraft availability
rates as of the end of fiscal year 2018 are as follows. Rates are for
period 1 October 2017 to 30 September 2018.
F-16 C/D: Mission Capability (Combat units only)--70%
F-16 C/D: Aircraft Availability--62%
F-22A: Mission Capability (Combat units only)--55%
F-22A: Aircraft Availability--46%
F-35A: Mission Capability (Combat units only)--72%
F-35A: Aircraft Availability--69%
3. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, how does the Air Force
interpret the Secretary's 80 percent mission capable rate goal--will
the Air Force be assessing Mission Capable rates or Aircraft
Availability rates against the Secretary's goals and will the Air Force
be assessing the entire squadron or just the lead force packages (lead
UTCs)?
Secretary Wilson. The Office of the Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness in coordination with the Air Force, Navy and
Marine Corps developed a standardized method of calculating and
reporting mission capable rates to achieve the Secretary of Defense's
goals. This standardized method will ensure that all services are held
to the same standard and report comparable rates. That rate, as
directed by the Secretary of Defense will be the mission capable rate.
The rate will be measured as it applies to the entirety of the
combat coded units, not only the lead force packages within those
units.
f-35
4. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, what specific actions is the
Air Force taking in coordination with the F-35 Joint Program Office to
achieve the Secretary's 80 percent mission capable goal for the F-35 by
fiscal year 2019 and beyond?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force is accelerating depot repair
capability, decreasing component repair backlog and increasing spares
availability. These actions contribute to a 7.7 percent gain in the F-
35 Mission Capability rate at no additional cost beyond what the Joint
Program Office has already programmed and received from the Services.
The Air Force is the lead service driving delegation of maintenance
authorities to the unit level to allow flightline maintainers to
quickly affect repairs and return aircraft to Mission Capable status.
5. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, is the goal achievable?
Secretary Wilson. The goal is achievable if the reprogramming of
funds in fiscal year 2019 is approved.
6. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, what actions is the Air
Force taking to prioritize readiness for operational F-35 units, as
Secretary Wilson stated at the hearing?
Secretary Wilson. Our operational fighter units already have the
highest priority in our inventory. We will continue to advocate to the
Joint Program Office for the following: 1) delegation of additional
maintenance authorities to unit level commanders, 2) reduction in depot
repair cycle time for components, 3) and improvement in supply chain
performance. We will strongly promote contract language that meets the
readiness needs of the Air Force. We will balance our operational tempo
across all platforms to ensure our operational units are leading the
fleet.
7. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, to what extent have the
challenges associated with the F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information
System (ALIS) affected Air Force fleet readiness?
Secretary Wilson. Work arounds, engineering response delays, supply
visibility, and data integrity continue to burden the men and women who
sustain the F-35 in the U.S. Air Force. ALIS data integrity issues
consistently rank in the top 10 of all Air Vehicle Availability
drivers. Our outstanding airmen continue to find manual ways to work
around system inefficiencies, with impacts on readiness levels.
The Air Force is also working closely with Lockheed-Martin and the
Joint Program Office on a project to accelerate software improvements
with the ALIS system.
8. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, what specific measures are
being taken to enhance ALIS' predictive maintenance capabilities?
Secretary Wilson. We are pursuing improvements to ALIS through an
agile software development process. The Air Force is particularly
interested in improvements on Prognostic Health Management (PHM) to
bring the full potential of this weapon system to the warfighter. The
Air Force is a voting member on the PHM Steering Board and will
continue to ensure that warfighter enhancements are prioritized.
9. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, have
you thought about using early-production F-35s--planes that will never
be combat-coded--for adversary air to provide the ``high-low'' mix (5th
Gen and 4th Gen) that our adversaries will soon have?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. Based on the Fiscal Year
2019 President's Budget (Current Program of Record) we have not made
plans to use early production F-35s for adversary air. As F-35
production continues and the Air Force F-35 fleet capacity grows, we
will continue to evaluate options to improve our training capabilities.
10. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, what
are the plans to bring some of those F-35s to JPARC and the 18th
Aggressors, and not just Nellis AFB?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. Currently, two combat-coded
F-35 squadrons will base at Eielson AFB and receive aircraft starting
in 2020 and completing in 2022. No F-35s are currently planned for the
18 AGRS. We will continue to evaluate a potential need for 5th Gen
aggressors at JPARC and the best method to meet that need.
f-22 training and organization
11. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, GAO's report on the F-22
noted that an Air Force analysis conducted in 2016 determined that,
based on current aircraft availability rates, pilots in an F-22
squadron with 21 primary mission aircraft need 270 days of home station
training each year to meet their minimum annual continuation training
requirements. However, F-22 pilots were on average falling far short of
this mark and had a larger training deficit than F-15E and F-16 pilots.
The Air Force concurred with GAO's F-22 recommendation to identify and
assess actions to increase F-22 pilot training opportunities for the
high-end air superiority missions, including looking at adversary air
support options and reducing tasking and non-core missions. During the
hearing, the Air Force stated it was taking actions to implement GAO's
recommendations. What actions has the Air Force taken to address GAO's
recommendation?
Secretary Wilson. Commander Air Combat Command (COMACC) is
proactively addressing the most advantageous use of F-22 for high-end
training/readiness opportunities and exercises that maximize: 5th
generation capabilities, opportunities to meet the Ready Aircrew
Program (RAP), and minimizes using the F-22 where it does not increase
readiness for pacing threats. Air Combat Command (ACC) and HQ USAF have
proposed adversary air support options in the Department of Defense
budget process starting in fiscal year 2019 and continuing across the
Future
Years Defense Plan (FYDP). Currently the F-22 pipeline production &
and absorption are healthy and meeting requirements.
Hurricane Michael will affect short term F-22 pilot qualifications,
with Units to be located at Eglin AFB, Florida, with reachback to
Tyndall AFB:
The 43rd and 2nd Fighter Squadrons' F-22 Fighter Training
and T-38 Adversary Training Units will relocate operations to Eglin
AFB. Academic and simulator facilities at Tyndall AFB will be used to
support training requirements, as well as Tyndall AFB's surviving low
observable maintenance facilities
The 372nd Training Squadron, Detachment 4, will relocate
with the F-22 Fighter Training Units to Eglin AFB.
Decisions in response to Hurricane Michael consider the
recommendations of the GAO 18-190 report, to optimize the F-22 fleet
across the total force.
12. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, understanding that the 270
days needed for annual training is based partially on aircraft
availability, please provide data on the training days required and
achieved for F-22 pilots in 2018 and projected for 2019. To what extent
are things getting better or worse and what are the contributing
factors?
Secretary Wilson. Overall the F-22 is trending positive. The F-22
is not unique in needing a wide variety of training, however 5th
generation aircraft do have specialized training requirements. In
context the original 270 required training days was the result of a
2016 Air Combat Command (ACC) study to identify F-22 training
shortfalls unique to that fiscal year; this study was cited in GAO 18-
190.
ACC closely looked at ways to improve F-22 training efficiency and
began implementing scheduling changes in fiscal year 2018. ACC
implemented several initiatives including an increased F-22 fleet wide
coordination to prioritize high-end training events, reexamination of
deploy-to-dwell ratio for F-22 to retain higher readiness, and
individual units prioritizing their training focus based on National
Defense Strategy (NDS) pacing threats and planned deployment
scheduling. These collectively increased scheduling efficiencies to
``buy back'' home station training days for increased operations and
maintenance sortie generation. The result has been an approximate 10
percent reduction in required F-22 training days for Ready Aircrew
Program (RAP) specifically. However, fiscal year 2018 analysis from ACC
is incomplete for specific impacts.
For fiscal year 2019 ACC estimates 250 training days required for
F-22 [using static assumptions and deploy-to-dwell timing] combat coded
squadron's RAP. However, ACC's implementation of Dynamic Force
Employment (DFE) concepts for the F-22 fleet includes factors such as:
continued refinement of scheduling efficiencies prioritized for high-
end 5th generation readiness including low observable maintenance, how
the F-22 forces are packaged and deployed, as well as flying hour
program adjustments and weapon system sustainment to improve readiness.
Combined, the expectation is that these efforts continue to decrease
required training days in and beyond fiscal year 2019, and increase
aircraft availability resulting in increased F-22 readiness across the
total force.
13. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, the Air Force concurred
with GAO's F-22 recommendation to identify and assess alternative
approaches to organizing F-22 squadrons, including looking at options
to consolidate the fleet and revising the design of deployable units.
During the hearing, the Air Force stated it was taking actions to
implement GAO's recommendations. What actions has the Air Force taken
to address GAO's recommendation?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force is assessing if changes to the F-22
home station organizational structure and/or deployment practices would
better meet global combatant commander requirements. The Air Force was
already assessing deployment practices to meet NDS implementation
guidance related to employing our forces more dynamically.
Additionally, as part of our effort to build the Air Force We Need to
meet the NDS challenges--we are assessing optimal force structure and
new force designs pertaining to squadron composition of not only our
fifth-generation fleet, but all operational squadrons.
jparc
14. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, what
specific plans do you have to start executing elements of the JPARC
2025 to help modernize the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. JPARC will be one of two
level 4 ranges in the Air Force. This includes adding advanced threat
systems in the near term. Longer term spending includes the procurement
and fielding of electronic warfare capabilities and a Live Mission
Operations Capability (LMOC).
15. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, what
elements are included in this year's upcoming budget and FYDP?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. The Air Force is proposing
to buy the Advanced Radar Threat System family of systems and
infrastructure upgrades to create the fidelity and density necessary to
better train our airmen, to include 5th Generation platforms. To
replicate tasks associated with the Range of Military Operations
requires a holistic plan combining live, synthetic, and blended
capabilities. The specific details associated with key investments will
be available after the President's Fiscal Year 2020 budget submission.
16. Senator Sullivan. General Goldfein, how do you see ranges such
as the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex (JPARC) contributing to the
Air Force's current and future readiness?
General Goldfein. JPARC contributes to improving the Air Force's
current and future readiness through its large airspace, relevant
training environment, and the ability to bring joint forces together to
train in some of the most advanced threat training environments
available.
adversary air
17. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, while
the Air Force has chosen to invest hundreds of millions today and even
billions in ``contract'' adversary air--which really only replicate a
3rd Generation threat--what is the USAF doing to ensure that the two
USAF Aggressor squadrons of F-16s have necessary upgrades to remain at
the level of our near-peer adversaries?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. The Adversary Air training
services contract requirement includes 5th Generation performance
across three performance categories. Additionally, the F-16 Aggressor
aircraft are currently undergoing core avionics improvements; including
software upgrades, addition of secure voice and data capability, and
SATCOM functionality. These improvements provide a foundation that
would allow possible follow-on capability for Active Electronically
Scanned Array (AESA) Radars and Hybrid Optically based Inertial Tracker
(HObIT)--all designed to increase F-16 Aggressor pilot situational
awareness and targeting capabilities to remain at the level of our
adversaries.
kc-46
18. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, can
you provide an update on the OCONUS basing of the KC-46A? When can we
expect the next strategic basing process to begin and what locations
will be considered?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. The Air Force initiates
strategic basing decisions five years in advance of the first aircraft
delivery. The first aircraft deliveries for the fifth KC-46A main
operating base are scheduled for fiscal year 2024. Therefore, we expect
to start the strategic basing process in fiscal year 2019.
training ranges and infrastructure
19. Senator Sullivan. General Goldfein, specifically, given the
large-scale air and land exercises recently conducted by our
adversaries, do we have the range and air space available to conduct
similar exercises within the U.S. Armed Forces?
General Goldfein. We have ranges available to train in a focused
way to improve and exercise joint interoperability employment
objectives and do not focus on ``Show of Force'' exercises that our
adversaries typically conduct. However, we are limited in our ability
to expand due to urban sprawl, endangered species habitats, renewable
energy development and competition with industry for airspace and
spectrum.
20. Senator Sullivan. General Goldfein, is there current range and
air space infrastructure sufficient to meet the training needs and
required readiness of the Air Force?
General Goldfein. The capabilities of our newer weapon systems have
outgrown our legacy range and airspace structure. We are addressing
this shortfall through improving the JPARC and targeted expansion of
the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR). Regarding expansion of the
NTTR, the Final Legislative Environmental Impact Statement for renewal
of its withdrawal from the public domain (released to the public on 26
October 2018) identified as part of the preferred alternative three
proposed expansions of the range totaling approximately 300,000 acres--
alternatives 3A-1 (15,314 acres), 3B (56,501 acres), and 3C (227,027
acres)--to increase or enhance both major combat operations and
irregular warfare test and training as well as increase the operational
security and safety of the range. The Air Force's preferred alternative
also includes the proposal to make the renewal and expansion (300,000
acres) withdrawals from the public domain indefinite (Alternative 4C),
meaning the withdrawal would not expire for the foreseeable future. We
also realize that we must build a robust synthetic environment that
will facilitate high-end training.
21. Senator Sullivan. General Goldfein, what, if any, concerns do
you have about infringement on existing ranges or the ability to expand
ranges, if necessary in the future?
General Goldfein. The ability to expand ranges and airspace is part
of our plan, but is a multi-year process and presents the most concern
to meet training objectives for 5th generation aircraft. Although
encroachment is a continual challenge, we work with our interagency
partners at FAA, Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management,
Dept. of Fish and Wildlife as well as state and local officials in
order to limit or mitigate the effects.
acquisition reform
22. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, over the past year you and
Gen. Goldfein have talked a great deal about speeding up the
acquisition process and delivering improved capabilities to the
warfighter faster. Would you please give us some specific examples of
how you have used the acquisition authorities provided in the fiscal
year 2017 NDAA to deliver more capability faster?
Secretary Wilson. Section 847 of the fiscal year 2017 NDAA,
Revisions to Definition of Major Defense Acquisition Program, removes
the statutory definition of MDAP for ``an acquisition program or
project that is carried out using the rapid fielding or rapid
prototyping acquisition pathway under section 804 of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (Public Law 114-92; 10
U.S.C. 2302 note).''
The Air Force uses this authority to develop and execute
acquisition strategies that speed acquisition timelines, providing
capability to our warfighters more quickly. Recent programs that have
been approved to execute using section 804 of the fiscal year 2016 NDAA
and section 847 of the 2017 NDAA are:
Protected Tactical Enterprise Service, which will reach Initial
Operating Capability 18 months quicker than under a traditional
acquisition program. Unified Platform, which will reach Initial
Operating Capability 3\1/2\ years sooner than it would
executing under a traditional approach. Additionally, the F-22
Agile Prototype Program will achieve the Initial Fleet Release
milestone 2 years sooner than it had planned by tailoring the
Department of Defense Instruction under the 5000.02 process.
23. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, where do you still see
challenges?
Secretary Wilson. We are continuing to push decision-making to the
lowest levels and reduce bureaucracy in order to speed capability to
the warfighter. OSD recently issued interim guidance for rapid
prototyping and rapid fielding under fiscal year 2016 NDAA section 804
Middle Tier of Acquisition (MTA). As the Air Force discusses the
interim governance implementation with OSD, we will continue with
innovative execution utilizing the appropriate MTA authorities. Among
other things, the guidance would establish OSD veto authority over
Service transparency into section 804 programs. As the Air Force
discusses the interim governance implementation with OSD, we will
continue with innovative execution utilizing the appropriate MTA
authorities.
24. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Wilson, what additional authorities
do you need?
Secretary Wilson. We appreciate your continued support of our
legislative requests. We have developed two space acquisition
legislative proposals that are currently under consideration for
submission as part of the Department of Defense fiscal year 2020
legislative program. With respect to general acquisition authorities,
at this time we believe we have all the Congressional authorities we
need to address faster and smarter acquisitions and are looking forward
to the implementation and results from authorities like sections 804
and 847. As we gain experience with implementation of section 804, we
will keep you informed of any additional legislation needed.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Deb Fischer
mission capable rates
25. Senator Fischer. General Goldfein, recently, Secretary Mattis
issued memo guidance to increase mission capable rates for tactical
aircraft throughout the Air Force and Navy. Other large aerial
platforms which serve a non-combat role, such as ISR and airborne early
warning platforms, are just as critical. Unfortunately, many of these
platforms are several decades old and as such suffer variable mission
capable rates. What plans are in place to increase mission capable
rates for the Air Force's other airframes, and what efforts at
improvement are being made currently?
General Goldfein. The Air Force is working multiple efforts to
improve mission capability of our aging legacy platforms. We are nearly
complete with the annual update of our aircraft availability
improvement programs. These integrated plans, approved by stakeholders,
present senior leaders with options to best align resources to achieve
readiness goals and targets. Future plans include increased sustaining
engineering, as well as aggressively pursuing emerging technologies and
commercial best practices such as condition based maintenance, theory
of constraints, additive manufacturing and more.
maintenance investment
26. Senator Fischer. General Goldfein, recently, the GAO examined
the operating costs inherent with aging Air Force Aircraft, finding a
relationship between investment in maintenance and sustainment and the
rate at which airframes and components break down. What efforts are
being made to address the unique maintenance issues linked with the Air
Force's older platforms?
General Goldfein. The Air Force is taking a variety of actions to
address the unique maintenance issues associated with our aging
aircraft. The particular efforts are tailored to the specific
challenges posed by the weapon systems, but in general our efforts
include:
Incorporating cutting edge technologies into our organic
depot facilities to improve performance and reduce maintenance times.
Optimizing programmed maintenance and planned
modifications to ensure the impact on availability is minimized.
Incorporating enhanced corrosion inspection and repairs
into heavy maintenance activities.
Implementing service life extension programs that enable
the maintenance and reengineering of parts that had not been planned
for repair.
Leveraging direct hire authority to hire skilled
employees for critical maintenance positions.
growth in isr
27. Senator Fischer. Secretary Wilson, the Air Force's plan to grow
its squadrons to 386 is an ambitious one and showcases the changing
geopolitical climate we must operate and succeed in. ISR was singled
out for particular growth under this plan--according to this vision for
Air Force expansion, what will be done with older but still critical
large manned ISR platforms such as the C-135 family of aircraft (to
include planes like the RC-135)? Will these be replaced, will their
numbers be expanded, or is there some other strategy in place for
growing Air Force ISR?
Secretary Wilson. The RC-135 family of aircraft will continue to
operate through at least 2040-2050 with a possible expectation of an
analysis of alternatives sometime in the late 2020's or early 2030's.
industrial base support
28. Senator Fischer. Secretary Wilson, to what degree do you assess
the current industrial base capacity can support the effort to reach
386 squadrons? What are some areas of manufacturing shortfall or supply
chain problems that could prevent such a goal from being achieved, and
how might these be overcome?
Secretary Wilson. On July 21, 2017, President Donald J. Trump
issued Executive Order (EO) 13806 on Assessing and Strengthening the
Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency
of the United States. EO 13806 directed the Secretary of Defense to
perform a whole-of-government assessment of the manufacturing and
defense industrial base and assess risk, identify impacts, and propose
mitigations. We participated in the assessment and identified multiple
industrial base challenges, including dependency on foreign sources,
single and/or sole sources of supply, suppliers' financial fragility,
capacity limitations, and others.
The Department created a classified action plan that includes
recommendations designed to mitigate the most critical industrial base
impacts identified during the assessment. The AF, in conjunction with
the DOD Office of Industrial Policy and other government stakeholders,
is currently working on the implementation of the action plan,
including updates on identified risks and appropriate mitigations. We
are also identifying the right programs and tools available to mitigate
risks. Programs like the Defense Production Act Title III,
Manufacturing Technology, and Industrial Base Analysis & Sustainment
will help us address critical manufacturing bottlenecks, support
fragile suppliers, reduce foreign dependency, and mitigate single
points-of-failure.
conditions based maintenance
29. Senator Fischer. General Goldfein, how is the new Conditions
Based Maintenance construct being applied to legacy airframes with
higher end service hours, such as iterations of the C-135 platform, and
what changes (if any) has this produced in mission capable rates?
General Goldfein. The Conditions Based Maintenance construct,
Reliability Centered Maintenance, and predictive analytics form a
culture that seeks to perform maintenance based on evidence of need
provided through aircraft sensor data analysis, system mode-failure
analysis and other enabling processes and technologies. This allows us
to know when a part is going to fail beforehand, which then provides us
the opportunity to change the part at a time and place of our choosing
while optimizing the supply system to be prepared for that maintenance
action. As such, it has the potential for huge gains in both readiness
and cost-effectiveness.
As many of our legacy aircraft lack the onboard sensors required to
accomplish real time fault reporting, we must prioritize which aircraft
we equip with sensor capability to utilize Condition Based Maintenance
to its fullest extent. Those without sensor capability utilize
Reliability Centered Maintenance or other predictive analysis models to
reduce maintenance downtime. We have test programs ongoing for the B-1
and C-5 and expect to see initial results by the end of fiscal year
2019. We also plan initial fielding for the KC-135 in March 2019.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator David Perdue
jstars sustainment strategies
30. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, a GAO report published last
month concluded that the JSTARS platform faces maintenance issues
because of poor depot maintenance. Currently, the contractor utilizes a
commercial-based maintenance plan, which does not focus on long-term
structural issues that require inspection and maintenance, instead of a
military-based plan. Maintenance costs also almost doubled between
fiscal year 2011 and fiscal year 2016 due to increases in contractor
logistics support. The 2019 NDAA requires a report to be submitted that
conducts a cost benefit analysis for conducting organic depot
maintenance at Robins Air Force Base versus conducting contracted, non-
organic depot maintenance. Even though there has been just one test
aircraft, can you speak to the benefits realized thus far with organic
depot on the JSTARS aircraft?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force expects to achieve cost and
schedule efficiencies during the ongoing organic depot level
maintenance pilot program at Robins AFB, GA. The Air Force anticipates
reducing time spent in programmed depot maintenance (PDM) from an
average of 439 days (based on the last 5 PDM deliveries) to 300 days.
The final cost and schedule efficiency achieved will be available for
release 90 days after completion of the organic depot level maintenance
pilot. The Air Force will provide an update briefing to the
Congressional Defense Committees on the progress of organic depot
maintenance.
31. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what cost savings have you
found with organic depot maintenance on the JSTARS test aircraft?
Secretary Wilson. Based on the on-going organic depot maintenance
pilot, the Air Force anticipates substantial cost savings over
contractor depot maintenance. The final cost savings achieved will be
available for release 90 days after completion of the organic depot
level maintenance pilot. The Air Force will provide an update briefing
to the Congressional Defense Committees on the progress of organic
depot.
32. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, has the Air force begun the
cost benefit analysis required in the NDAA to compare organic with
contracted maintenance?
Secretary Wilson. Yes, the Air Force began the cost benefit
analysis to compare organic and contracted maintenance for the JSTARS
fleet. We are currently collecting actual cost and schedule data from
the first aircraft inducted into the organic depot maintenance pilot
(aircraft inducted on 16 July 2018) in order to inform this analysis.
33. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, when will the aforementioned
study be published?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force anticipates the full cost benefit
analysis from the organic depot maintenance pilot will be available by
January 2020. We will provide an update briefing to the Congressional
Defense Committees as information is available.
34. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, while the Air Force has done
well with ensuring their Life Cycle Management Plans for all of their
platforms are updated every 5 years, various changes to the estimated
service life of the JSTARS platform and the prohibition on retirement
of any aircraft require special attention be given to the aircraft.
What is the progress of reviewing new and different sustainment
strategies for the JSTARS aircraft?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force is still assessing what updates are
required for JSTARS sustainment strategy. Information obtained from the
organic depot maintenance pilot will be paramount in informing this
decision.
35. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what decisions have been made
by the Air Force to update the sustainment strategy for the JSTARS?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force is still assessing what updates are
required for JSTARS sustainment strategy. Information obtained from the
organic depot maintenance pilot will be paramount in informing this
decision. The Air Force will provide an update to the Congressional
Defense Committees on the status of the ongoing organic depot
maintenance pilot as needed.
36. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, when can we expect a new Life
Cycle Management Plan to be published by the Air Force?
Secretary Wilson. The JSTARS life cycle management plan (LCMP) is
being updated to reflect actions being taken to accomplish safety of
flight modifications and to increase aircraft availability. A number of
factors have the potential to significantly impact the completion date
of a new LCMP and preclude the Air Force from providing an estimated
publication date at this time. Factors impacting an LCMP update
include: the results of the ongoing organic depot maintenance pilot and
associated cost benefit analysis, fiscal year 2019 NDAA E-8C
availability requirements, and the end of the current sustainment
contract in CY22.
depot readiness
37. Senator Perdue. Mr. Pendleton, last week a report on the state
of the U.S. industrial base issued by the White House states that ``all
facets of manufacturing and defense industrial base are currently under
threat.'' What are the major challenges facing the Air Force's
sustainment of legacy equipment through the industrial base?
Mr. Pendleton. GAO's prior work has found that the Air Force and
the Department of Defense (DOD) face numerous industrial base
challenges in the sustainment of its weapon systems. These challenges--
(1) diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages, (2)
single source of supply, (3) shortage of depot maintenance personnel at
military depots, and (4) the cybersecurity of weapon systems--align
with many of those identified in the report provided to the President.
\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense
Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,
September 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, in September 2018 GAO reported that diminishing
manufacturing sources for spare parts were negatively affecting the
availability of each of the five Air Force aircraft--B-52, C-17, E-8C,
F-16, and F-22--we reviewed. \2\ For example, the E-8C Joint
Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) has experienced this
problem with parts affecting the aircraft's secure data capabilities.
Specifically, the vendor that made a part allowing for secure
connectivity for the aircraft while airborne went out of business. GAO
reported the Air Force has ongoing and planned actions to maintain the
availability of spare parts, such as identifying alternative vendors,
reverse-engineering parts, and cannibalizing parts from other aircraft.
\3\ For example, the F-22 program office maintains a comprehensive
Diminishing Manufacturing Sources program to minimize material
shortages. DOD is also in the process of developing department-wide
guidance, in response to a GAO recommendation, to enhance its
Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS)
program. In September 2017 GAO reported that DOD's implementation of
the DMSMS program to proactively manage the loss of suppliers and
shortages varied at selected program offices. \4\ GAO found that DOD
lacked department-wide DMSMS policy, such as an instruction, that
clearly defines requirements of DMSMS management and details
responsibilities and procedures to be followed by program offices to
implement the policy. DOD concurred with this recommendation and is in
the process of taking steps to implement it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ GAO, Weapon System Sustainment: Selected Air Force and Navy
Aircraft Generally Have Not Met Availability Goals, and DOD and Navy
Guidance Need to Be Clarified, GAO-18-678 (Washington, DC: Sept. 10,
2018). Diminishing manufacturing sources is a loss or impending loss of
manufacturers or suppliers of items.
\3\ Cannibalizing is the taking of a part from one end item (e.g.,
aircraft) and using it on another end item. This involves taking parts
from condemned end items schedule for disposal, using parts from end
items that are ``further back in line'' at the depot, or re-
prioritizing parts from one use to another.
\4\ GAO, Defense Supply Chain: DOD Needs Complete Information on
Single Sources of Supply to Proactively Manage the Risks, GAO-17-768
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, in September 2017 GAO reported that a congressionally-
mandated 2016 DOD report on risks associated with single sources of
supply did not include implementation plans and timelines for risk
mitigation actions or information about the effects of the loss of
suppliers. In addition, DOD did not provide complete information about
DOD organic facilities that are considered critical assets (i.e., its
loss would have a serious, debilitating effect on the ability to
execute a capability or mission-essential task) in its report. GAO
recommended that DOD provide complete information to decision makers on
risk mitigation plans and timeframes, potential effects from losses,
and all critical facilities, commercial and organic, regarding risks
from single sources of supply.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ GAO-17-768.
\5\ GAO-18-678.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furthermore, weapon system program offices do not have complete
information to fully identify and manage single source of supply risks.
First, program officials GAO spoke with for our September 2017 report
did not have information about parts from single-source suppliers that
are considered to be most critical, which could provide important focus
for managing these risks. Second, program offices often rely on the
prime contractor to identify single source of supply risks, among other
types of risks, and GAO found in September 2017 that program offices in
some instances had limited information to manage those risks because
DOD does not have a mechanism to ensure program offices obtain complete
information from contractors. GAO recommended that DOD take steps to
share information on risks identified with relevant program managers or
other designated service or program officials and develop mechanism to
ensure that program offices obtain information from contractors on
single source of supply risks. DOD concurred with these recommendations
and is in the process of taking steps to implement them.
Third, GAO's September 2018 report identified instances in which
the Air Force Air Logistics Complexes did not have sufficient personnel
to conduct needed depot maintenance on its aircraft. \6\ Specifically,
the Air Force reported a shortage of depot maintenance personnel at
Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex for its work on the C-17 aircraft.
This occurred due to attrition, inability to retain skilled workers,
and hiring freezes. F-22 program officials at Ogden Air Logistics
Complex also reported a shortage of maintenance personnel for similar
reasons. GAO also has work underway examining depot skill gaps across
the Military Services and plans to report on this issue prior to the
end of 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ GAO-18-678.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth, in October 2018 GAO reported that DOD faces mounting
challenges in protecting its weapon systems from increasingly
sophisticated cyber threats. \7\ Although GAO and others have warned of
cyber risks for decades, until recently, DOD had not prioritized weapon
systems cybersecurity. In operational testing, DOD routinely found
mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities in systems that were under
development, yet program officials GAO met with believed their systems
were secure and discounted some test results as unrealistic. Using
relatively simple tools and techniques, DOD testers were able to take
control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part to basic
issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications.
In addition, vulnerabilities that DOD is aware of likely represent a
fraction of total vulnerabilities due to testing limitations. For
example, not all programs have been tested and tests do not reflect the
full range of threats.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ GAO, Weapon Systems Cybersecurity: DOD Just Beginning to
Grapple with Scale of Vulnerabilities, GAO-19-128 (Washington, DC: Oct.
9, 2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As we reported in October 2018, DOD has recently taken several
steps to improve weapon systems cybersecurity, including issuing and
revising policies and guidance to better incorporate cybersecurity
considerations. DOD, as directed by Congress, has also begun
initiatives to better understand and address cyber vulnerabilities.
However, DOD faces barriers that could limit the effectiveness of these
steps, such as cybersecurity workforce challenges and difficulties
sharing information and lessons about vulnerabilities. To address these
challenges and improve the state of weapon systems cybersecurity, it is
essential that DOD sustain its momentum in developing and implementing
key initiatives. GAO did not make any recommendations in the October
2018 report and plans to continue evaluating key aspects of DOD's
weapon systems cybersecurity efforts.
38. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what are your priorities for
modernizing the organic depots?
Secretary Wilson. In order to satisfy the requirements of S.Rept
115-262 (page 237), the Air Force is developing a Master Plan for
organic industrial base infrastructure which will include an assessment
of current depot infrastructure, as well as a detailed prioritization
of modernization projects by location. The report will list priorities
starting with the most immediate concern and incorporating new
technologies to modernize the processes at the organic depots. The
report was completed on February 1, 2019.
39. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what do you need from
Congress to meet the challenges faced by the defense industrial base?
Secretary Wilson. Congress can help us by supporting DOD's efforts
to implement the classified action plan provided in response to
Executive Order 13806. This includes new legislation to address
industrial base risks and increased funding to programs like Defense
Production Act Title III, Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment, and
Manufacturing Technology so the Department can support the needs of
21st Century manufacturing companies.
40. Senator Perdue. General Goldfein, do we currently have the
facilities and workforce necessary to sustain both our legacy systems
and new weapons systems?
General Goldfein. The Air Force currently has the facilities needed
to support our legacy systems and the new weapon systems that will be
fielded in the near term. The Air Force has successfully utilized the
required 6 percent investment in the organic depots to maintain the
current equipment and facilities. In addition, Congress has provided
MILCON funds for the KC-46 and F-35 at Tinker and Ogden to ensure we
can support the new systems when they are fielded. In order to ensure
we have the facilities we need to continue sustaining our weapon
systems in the future, the Air Force is developing a Master Plan for
organic industrial base infrastructure. This plan will include a
detailed prioritization of modernization projects by location that will
ensure we have the sustainment capabilities we need to satisfy future
requirements.
While our workforce is currently sufficient to sustain both our
legacy and new weapon systems, attracting and retaining talent remains
challenging. The size of the sustainment labor pool is not expected to
increase, and this issue is exacerbated by an aging workforce that is
eligible for retirement in increasing numbers. The direct hire
authority provided by Congress has helped tremendously with staffing,
and the Air Force continues to explore ways to become the employer of
choice for new talent.
depot modernization
41. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, the Senate Report
accompanying the 2019 NDAA includes a provision for all depots to
develop depot optimization plans. What is the current condition of the
depot facilities and equipment at the Air Logistics Complexes?
Secretary Wilson. In order to satisfy the requirements of S.Rept
115-262 (page 237), the Air Force is developing a Master Plan for
organic industrial base infrastructure which will include an assessment
of current depot infrastructure, as well as a detailed prioritization
of modernization projects by location. The report will list priorities
starting with the most immediate concern and incorporating new
technologies to modernize the processes at the organic depots. The
report delivered on February 1, 2019.
42. Senator Perdue. General Goldfein, what is the operational
impact on Air Force flying units of inefficient maintenance processes
and maintenance overruns?
General Goldfein. The impact of reduced aircraft availability is a
degraded ability to accomplish aircrew training to meet readiness
requirements. This situation primarily affects our in garrison forces,
as priority for aircraft sourcing is given to down range missions to
support the warfighter.
43. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, has the Air Force identified
the cost of needed improvements and the savings and readiness benefits
that can result from optimizing its depot facilities?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force's Master Plan of organic industrial
base infrastructure, required by S.Rept 115-262 (page 237), will
include the costs for needed improvements, the projected savings, and
the impacts on readiness. The report was completed on February 1, 2019.
direct hire authority
44. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, there is plenty of room for
improvement in the hiring process, and the 2019 NDAA further expands
the direct hire authority to all necessary workers within the defense
industrial base. The authorities for direct hire, however, will sunset
in the future. The Air Force and rest of the government must reform the
hiring process in the meantime to maintain the skilled work force
necessary for a modern force. Can you provide an update on how the
direct hire authority is improving hiring processes?
Secretary Wilson. Direct Hiring Authority provides the capability
to offer on-the-spot tentative job offers needed to expedite
recruitment for critical vacancies like cyber specialists and
engineers. Recent hiring events resulted in 378 job offers with an
average time to hire of less than 30 days. This demonstrates the
success of these authorities. The Air Force is maximizing usage of all
Congressional authorities provided under National Defense Authorization
Acts (NDAA) 2016, 2017 and 2018, resulting in over 6500 hires to date.
These authorities will enhance the Air Force's ability to hire for
critical maintenance positions outside of depots.
45. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what other actions are being
taken by the Air Force to maintain a highly technical and skilled
workforce?
Secretary Wilson. The demand for talent and competition with
private industry is growing. In addition to hiring authorities, the Air
Force continues to leverage multiple social media tools, recruiting
platforms, and partnerships with universities to search for
professionals and young talent to fill critical Air Force vacancies. In
addition to the recruiting efforts, the Air Force is committed to
continual development of our existing technical workforce. Civilian
employees have opportunities to participate in developmental programs
such as Education with Industry, Fellowship Programs at the Air Force
National Laboratories or participate in Air Force Institute of
Technology Degree programs.
We also offer employees access to civilian tuition assistance, a
program that has grown significantly in the past two years, which
affords employees an opportunity to pursue degrees with subsidized
tuition up to and including doctoral programs. Lastly, through our
civilian developmental teams we focus on meeting the developmental
needs of individual employees, whether in their current series or by
affording them opportunities for career broadening, as a retention tool
to keep our world-class talent within the Department of the Air Force.
46. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what help does the Air Force
need from Congress to improve our ability to recruit, hire, and retain
a skilled workforce?
Secretary Wilson. Due to the inefficiencies of title 5, vital
direct/expedited hiring flexibilities have been provided to the
Department of Defense; however, the specific hiring authorities are
associated with narrow populations in the Air Force and have different
provisions requiring multiple implementation processes and regulations.
The Air Force needs a broader Department-wide direct hiring authority
as well as pay setting compensation flexibilities for critical hiring
needs or shortages essential to mission accomplishment. The Air Force
and Department of Defense have developed several legislative proposals
addressing these issues that are currently under consideration for
submission as part of the Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2020
legislative program.
47. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what other factors, for
example the prohibition on retiring and immediately taking a civilian
job, limit your ability to recruit talent?
Secretary Wilson. The 180-day waiver process to hire retired
servicemembers can be a limiting factor for hiring and recruitment,
specifically impacting occupations whose primary talent pool is retired
military members.
Another recurring issue the Air Force faces in recruiting talent
concerns the Office of Personnel Management classification and
qualification standards. These standards cover the large percentage of
the Air Force Title 5 civilian workforce and many are severely
outdated. For example, the qualification standards for occupational
series 2181 (civilian pilots and simulator instructors) was published
in 1988, and they do not reflect current aircraft mission requirements,
flying hour programs, or the Air Force's investment in high fidelity
simulators. These outdated standards significantly impede the hiring
and retention of civilian aircraft operators resulting in recurring
talent losses to the airline industry or private sector.
audit
48. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what is the status of the Air
Force's fiscal year 2018 audit?
Secretary Wilson. Our first year of Full Financial Statement audit
is complete. The first audit included significant findings. We have
developed corrective action plans for audit findings.
49. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, what actions have you taken
to ensure the Air Force can achieve a clean opinion?
Secretary Wilson. Audits identify problems which can then be fixed.
They are used to improve management over time. We have directed that a
corrective action plan be developed for every finding. We will monitor
the closure of corrective actions.
50. Senator Perdue. Secretary Wilson, do you believe the audit will
help you find readiness efficiencies?
Secretary Wilson. Possibly identify management gaps that can be
improved. Some may have readiness implications.
kc-135 readiness
51. Senator Perdue. General Goldfein, what is the Air Force doing
to ensure that the fleet of KC-135 aircraft are receiving the necessary
attention regarding corrosion and chronic fuel leaks to continue flying
for their full service life?
General Goldfein. Each KC-135 aircraft undergoes Programmed Depot
Maintenance (PDM) every five years to remedy all fuel systems issues
including restoration of integral fuel tanks and refurbishing fuel
bladders back to baseline serviceable condition. All fuel leak issues
identified by the field and PDM maintainers are corrected and tested
before returning an aircraft to home station. KC-135 has established a
Corrosion Prevention and Control Program plan to define the process for
identifying specific actions to delay and reduce the onset of corrosion
on the KC-135 aircraft.
52. Senator Perdue. General Goldfein, have new technologies been
tested to provide improved performance, reduced corrosion, and reduced
leakage for the aging KC-135 fleet?
General Goldfein. The Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense
Authorization Act directed the Air Force to conduct a KC-135 study
regarding the value of using polyurethane sealant (newer technology) to
correct chronic leak issues. The KC-135 study researched 15 years of
data from the Air Force Research Laboratory and interviewed 4 other
platforms that have experience with polyurethane sealants. In addition,
one KC-135 aircraft was selected as a test aircraft for ``deseal'' of
the current polysulfide sealant and ``reseal'' of newer polyurethane
sealant.
Cost and schedule data from test aircraft showed that polyurethane
sealant is not advantageous for the KC-135 fleet. Due to the cost and
schedule required, completely ``desealing and resealing'' KC-135
aircraft with any sealant, polysulfide or polyurethane, should only be
considered on aircraft that are deemed as problematic/chronic leakers.
KC-135 has also invested in helium leak detectors to help maintainers
troubleshoot small, nuisance leaks. In 2019, the Air Force Research
Laboratory is planning a flight demo of a fuel leak sensor system to
determine leak locations from outside the aircraft which may reduce
inspection and maintenance time.
53. Senator Perdue. General Goldfein, what specifically has been
done to address the issue of chronic leaks with the KC-135?
General Goldfein. We directed the replacement of several aircraft
structural end items that contribute to chronic KC-135 fuel leaks
including aft spar terminals, structural fittings, and improved fuel
bladders. Additionally, the Air Force Research Laboratory developed and
tested a drop-in replacement for fuel leak detection tape on two KC-
135s. This solution will add a change fuel path indication and a
residue-free removal allowing maintainers to efficiently determine
isolated fuel leak sources.
54. Senator Perdue. Mr. Pendleton, would it be appropriate or
necessary for GAO to look into the issue of chronic leaks for the KC-
135 and review technologies or sustainment methods that the Air Force
is considering to maintain the current fleet of tanker aircraft?
Mr. Pendleton. GAO has ongoing work examining sustainment outcomes,
such as mission capable rates, and associated supply and maintenance
challenges for combat-related fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft across
the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Army. GAO plans to report on
this issue by early summer 2019. This work includes the KC-135 and KC-
10 Air Force tankers. GAO personnel are available to discuss any
specific interests and issues regarding the sustainment of the Air
Force's tanker fleet, as well as ways we can help support Congressional
oversight of these systems.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Jeanne Shaheen
pfas
55. Senator Shaheen. Secretary Wilson, as you know the Department
of Defense (DOD) is researching and developing Aqueous Film Forming
Foam (AFFF) alternatives that do not contain perfluorooctanesulfonic
acid (PFOS) or perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) through the Strategic
Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and
Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP). Is the
Department of the Air Force conducting its own Research and Development
(R&D) regarding AFFF alternatives that do not contain PFOS or PFOA and,
if so, what is the extent of that research?
Secretary Wilson. The Department of the Air Force is not conducting
independent Research and Development regarding AFFF alternatives. The
Department of the Navy is lead agency for the AFFF Military
Specifications.
56. Senator Shaheen. Secretary Wilson, it is my understanding that
the Navy Research Lab (NRL) is conducting R&D related to AFFF
alternatives that do not contain PFOS or PFOA. If the Air Force is
conducting its own R&D regarding AFFF alternatives, is the Air Force
coordinating and de-conflicting its efforts with the Navy?
Secretary Wilson. The Department of the Air Force is not conducting
independent Research and Development regarding AFFF alternatives. The
Department of the Navy is lead agency for the AFFF Military
Specifications.
57. Senator Shaheen. Secretary Wilson, it is my understanding that
some North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies of the United
States have already transitioned to using per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS)-free foams. What would prevent the U.S. Air Force
from transitioning to using PFAS-free foams?
Secretary Wilson. It is imperative the Air Force maintains
effective fire protection for people, critical assets, and
infrastructure and as such is required to utilize a Military
Specifications approved fire-fighting agent. The Navy, as lead agency
for the AFFF Military Specifications, amended the specification in 2017
to target development of, and transition to, a non-fluorinated agent
and encourage AFFF manufacturers to minimize the PFOA and PFOS levels
in their products in the interim. When a fluorine-free foam is
developed that meets military performance specifications, then the Air
Force could transition to a Military Specifications compliant, PFAS-
free foam.
58. Senator Shaheen. Secretary Wilson, earlier this year, Senator
Rounds and I introduced the PFAS Registry Act, which would create a
national database for servicemembers and veterans experiencing health
problems potentially due to PFAS exposure. Portions of this bill were
included in the fiscal year 2019 NDAA, which was signed into law in
August. During last month's PFAS hearing before the Senate Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Deputy Assistant Secretary
Maureen Sullivan testified that the DOD has begun implementing these
provisions. Could you please elaborate on the DOD's efforts to
establish a PFAS registry for military personnel and veterans?
Secretary Wilson. Regarding a registry for individuals exposed to
PFAS, as specified in the section 315(c) (4) of the National Defense
Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2019, the Secretary of Defense will
assess the human health implications of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl
Substances (PFAS) exposure. The assessment will also include an
estimate of the cost required to administer a potential registry of
individuals who may have been exposed to PFAS while serving in the
Armed Forces. The Department will also assess scientific results and
recommendations from ongoing PFAS studies and analyses by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry, and other organizations, to determine the feasibility
of a registry. The Air Force will engage and support the Office of the
Secretary of Defense as the Department of Defense continues to assess
the health effects of PFAS exposure.
59. Senator Shaheen. Secretary Wilson, what is your department
doing to ensure that servicemembers and veterans receive updates on
recent scientific developments on the effects of PFAS exposure and
information on what resources may be available to address their health
concerns?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force uses the Center for Disease Control
and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the latest scientific
developments, as they are the federal agencies with the expertise to
vet new studies and findings. When we learn of new Per- and
Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) health effects information from these
agencies, we pass it to our subordinate commands to ensure the
information is disseminated and actions are implemented. We also engage
with ATSDR as they begin work on the health study and exposure
assessment, which will ultimately serve to provide additional
scientific information regarding health effects of PFAS exposure.
When the Air Force holds public meetings regarding perfluorooctane
sulfonate (PFOS) / perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) environmental
contamination, we invite the public health officials with jurisdiction
to explain PFAS health effects and scientific information to attendees.
The Air Force also hosts a public website https://www. afcec.af.mil/
WhatWeDo/Environment/Perfluorinated-Compounds/ detailing the latest Air
Force actions in response to PFOA/PFOS contamination.
The Department of Veterans Affairs also disseminates PFAS
information via its public website (https://www.publichealth.va.gov/
exposures/pfas.asp), and veterans may contact a local VA Environmental
Health Coordinator for concerns and questions.
The Air Force is committed to being transparent in its handling of
PFOS/PFOA-related issues and related information and maintaining an
open dialogue with communities, regulators, and other stakeholders.
60. Senator Shaheen. Secretary Wilson, it is my understanding that
the Military Specification (MILSPEC) that require the use of AFFF that
contains PFAS was developed in the 1960s. When was the last time the
MILSPEC requiring the use of AFFF that contains PFAS was evaluated?
Secretary Wilson. The Navy amended the AFFF Military Specification
in 2017, targeting development of, and transition to, a non-fluorinated
agent and encouraging AFFF manufacturers to minimize the PFOA and PFOS
levels in their products in the interim. The amended Military
Specification sets a maximum acceptable limit of PFOS and PFOA at the
current lowest limit of quantitation of 800 ppb.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Mazie Hirono
adversary air capability training
61. Senator Hirono. General Goldfein, I want to first thank you for
the detailed responses to my questions for the record as a result of
the Air Force posture hearing this year related to adversary air
capabilities for the Hawaii Air National Guard at Joint Base Pearl
Harbor Hickam (JBPHH). In that response, you stated that ADAIR jets and
pilots will be permanently placed in Hawaii to allow more realistic
training for F-22 crews. Can you describe the Air Force's strategy for
this new ADAIR capability for the Hawaii Air National Guard, to include
the type of new aircraft and training the Guard should expect? Is the
February 2019 timeframe, which you provided in your response, the
expectation for deployment of the ADAIR capability to the 199th Fighter
Squadron?
General Goldfein. The Air Force strategy is to use Adversary Air to
reduce the required organic USAF generated resources across the fighter
force structure for pilot production, absorption, and training for
pacing threats. Currently contract Adversary Air is located at Nellis
AFB to support the USAF Warfare Center, Red Flag exercises, and USAF
Weapons School training demands. Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam is on
the Air Force list of proposed Adversary Air locations and has been
submitted to the Department of Defense budget process across the Future
Years Defense Plan.
The new Adversary Air acquisition is currently managed by the
Acquisition Management Integration Center who requested proposals from
commercial vendors to meet the requirements. Pending the President's
approved budget, Congressional authorization in the fiscal year 2020
NDAA, and outcome of expected contract award in first quarter fiscal
year 2020, the Adversary Air aircraft type--at Joint Base Pearl Harbor
Hickam or any other location--is yet to be determined.
62. Senator Hirono. General Goldfein, this past August, the Air
Force also issued a request for proposals to execute its commercial
adversary air capability strategy. Can you confirm that this will the
mechanism the AF will use to deploy the commercial ADAIR capability to
the 199th Fighter Squadron, and the expected award date for the
contract?
General Goldfein. Yes, this is the USAF proposed mechanism to
deploy contracted Adversary Air, pending Congressional authorization in
the fiscal year 2020 NDAA. The current fiscal year 2019 USAF priorities
for Adversary Air are Nellis AFB, Formal Training Units (improves
readiness and fighter pilot shortage), and finally 4 Combat Air Forces
locations (high end training); however, these priorities are subject to
change. Air Combat Command and HQ USAF proposed adversary air support
options in the Department of Defense budget process starting in fiscal
year 2019 and continuing across the Future Years Defense Plan. If
contracted Adversary Air is fully funded, the 199th Fighter Squadron is
included in the deployment.
63. Senator Hirono. General Goldfein, can you describe the
contracting strategy which the Air Force has taken, to include the
performance measures that will be included in the contracts to ensure
the provided ADAIR capability aligns to the AF's mission requirements?
General Goldfein. The Air Force chose the Combat Air Forces
Adversary Air multiple-award contract methodology to allow today's
widely variant competitors, who must meet specified minimum
requirements, the opportunity to enter the Combat Air Forces Adversary
Air contract community and begin to compete for specific mission task
orders at each operating location. The Air Force ensures compliance
with mission requirements through daily on-site assessments and an
annual requirement review for Combat Air Forces. The Adversary Air
contract allows for on and off ramp provisions to adjust for any
changing requirements.
gao recommendation to assess f-22 squadron consolidation
64. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, in GAO's
July 2018 report on F-22 organization and utilization, there is a
recommendation for the AF to assess the F-22 organizational structure
for alternative approaches to organize your squadrons. One of the two
alternative approaches includes an assessment for a potential
consolidation of F-22 squadrons, and the other includes revising the
design of deployable units. What are your thoughts on the
recommendation, and do you anticipate any impacts to the F-22 units in
Hawaii?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. The Air Force has proposed
to consolidate F-22s stationed at Tyndall Air Force base to three other
F-22 locations including Hawaii. We have proposed to make Tyndall an F-
35 base. Making this change will require supplemental appropriations to
recover Tyndall.
65. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, will you
work with me to ensure that any F-22 organizational structure changes,
specifically those that could impact F-22 units in Hawaii, are
coordinated with my office, the governor, and the Air National Guard
leadership in Hawaii?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. The Air Force will
coordinate any potential force structure changes with F-22 units in
Hawaii through all applicable agencies during the Air Force Strategic
Basing Process.
infrastructure resilience and readiness
66. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, extreme
weather events and the effects of climate change can have direct
impacts on the readiness of our forces. In 2018 alone, Hawaii was
victim of Hurricanes Hector, Lane and Olivia--causing extreme flooding
and high winds, which led to emergency response efforts by our critical
Guard units. As I have mentioned many times, the AF Guard unit in
Hawaii not only conducts its critical F-22 mission, but they also
support the community during emergency response and disaster relief
efforts. I am sure this same issue is also front-and-center as you deal
with Hurricane Michael at Tyndall AFB, which, coincidently, also has a
critical F-22 mission on the base.
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, how does the AF plan for
these extreme weather events in order to maintain the readiness of its
forces? What policies are in place today?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. Current Air Force policy
authorizes the local installation commander to manage their emergency
response plan to respond to physical threats resulting from major
accidents, natural disasters, conventional attacks, terrorist attacks,
and Chemical, Biological, Radiation, Nuclear attacks. This risk
management framework ensures the Air Force can maintain and mitigate
the threats in order to achieve the highest levels of readiness.
67. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, were
there any resource gaps or lessons learned that resulted from these
2018 hurricane events for the Guard units in Hawaii? What are some
examples?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. In response to recent severe
weather events, we have asked Air Combat Command to conduct a full-
spectrum assessment of how the Air Force is postured. This assessment
will span lessons learned, best practices, and identify resource gaps
to mitigate hurricane events impacting Hawaii and other locations
throughout the world.
68. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein, how does
the AF ensure that these lessons learned are promulgated from base-to-
base to ensure a mission ready force?
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein. In response to recent severe
weather events, we have asked Air Combat Command to conduct a full-
spectrum assessment of how the Air Force is postured. This assessment
will span lessons learned, best practices, and identify resource gaps
to mitigate hurricane events impacting Hawaii and other locations
throughout the world.
space control squadron siting
69. Senator Hirono. General Goldfein, as you know, the AF decided
to create four new Air National Guard Space Control Squadrons in order
to meet combatant commander requirements. I understand there is a
pending decision on the fourth of the four squadrons. I have been a
supporter of locating this unit in Hawaii when engaging with military
and community leaders. Further, in my conversations with senior AF
leaders and combatant commanders, they have also shown support for this
unit coming to Hawaii. While I understand there is a pending decision
on the fourth squadron location, what status can you provide about the
progress being made for a site selection?
General Goldfein. Pacific Air Forces received authorization to
conduct site surveys of the candidate locations. Once the surveys are
complete, the information will be presented to the Secretary of the Air
Force for a preferred and reasonable alternative decision. We
anticipate this will occur in early 2019.
space force and readiness priorities
70. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson, it has been reported that an
independent Space Force could cost an estimated $13 billion over five
years to implement. A multi-billion dollar proposal which could
threaten to take money away from a wide array of modernization
priorities, or from funding to expand the size and improve the
readiness of our forces. This proposal could ultimately dip into
military construction, operation and maintenance, and personnel
accounts that are consistently under budgetary pressure. As you know,
the congress passed both defense authorization and appropriation bills
through a collaborative effort with the service secretaries to ensure
we closed readiness shortfalls where the services expressed concerns.
In your opinion, could the establishment of a Space Force cause the AF
to reprioritize its readiness activities and to take risk in these
readiness accounts?
Secretary Wilson. The Air Force is working closely with the other
Services and Department of Defense components to develop a proposal to
implement the President's vision for a Department of the Space Force,
including associated manpower requirements and costs.
71. Senator Hirono. Secretary Wilson, could there be unintended
consequences with the establishment of a Space Force and what might
those consequences be in regards to readiness?
Secretary Wilson. Our national security space capabilities are the
best in the world. Our adversaries recognize this and are fielding
counterspace forces to erode our military advantage, threaten the
global economic system, and interfere with the peaceful uses of space.
This changing environment affects all capabilities and Military
Services.