Latest news with #AFSOC
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
We got an up-close look at the new Skyraider II special operations light attack plane that maker L3Harris says can land almost anywhere
L3Harris showed off its new light attack airplane that it says can land almost anywhere. The Sky Warden, or Skyraider II, was on display at SOF Week in Tampa, Florida. BI got up close with the Sky Warden and took photos of this new aircraft. US Air Force Special Operations Command got its first mission-ready Skyraider II attack plane last month, and this week, Business Insider got an up-close look at the new light attack plane at SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida. Air Tractor and L3Harris' AT-802U Sky Warden, designated the OA-1K Skyraider II by AFSOC in reference to the A-1 Skyraiders of the Korean and Vietnam wars, is an armed intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, close-air support, and strike aircraft that L3Harris says can land almost anywhere. The new light attack aircraft is a militarized variant of the Air Tractor AT-802 long used for civilian work like agriculture. Here's what it looks like: The Air Force describes the Skyraider II as a flexible aircraft that can be adjusted for different missions and fights, noting that it has a much more manageable maintenance demand and a lower cost per flight hour than other AFSOC aircraft. Like its legendary predecessor, the new Skyraider was built for armed overwatch and attack in permissive environments, though the battlespace is not what it once was, and there are questions about its role in a high-intensity fight in the Indo-Pacific. Jon Rambeau, the president of integrated mission systems at L3Harris, said the Sky Warden is a "versatile" platform and "costs a fraction of what you might pay for a fighter jet." Just how much the planes cost is a detail that isn't publicly available. Rambeau and Clint Logwood, L3Harris' director of flight tests and flight operations, said one of Skyraider II's most important attributes is its ability to operate in different environments. It can also land just about anywhere with a limited logistics footprint. "This thing could land anywhere," Logwood said, from rugged and remote airfields to highways. The Air Force has prioritized flexibility, specifically the ability to operate in austere environments and off of unconventional runways like roadways. Fixed airfields and bases are easy targets, especially in the Indo-Pacific where US forces have to contend with China's growing missile force, but an adversary can't target every piece of concrete in the region. Logwood, who has put many hours of testing the aircraft's capabilities, G-force, speed, temperature, and altitude, said: "We have landed this aircraft on some fields that would jar your teeth, and this aircraft just says, 'That's all you got?'" The Sky Warden has "plug and play technology," he said. It has a modular design, which means new systems can be quickly integrated into the aircraft. There are ten hardpoints capable of carrying a range of weapons and other technologies. While there are two seats in the Sky Warden, it's a single-pilot aircraft in which all of its systems are designed to be accessible by one person and easy to learn. And its cost-per-hour of flight, Rambeau said, is less than $1,000 per hour, one of the cheaper cost estimates of the Air Force's fleet. He added that L3Harris was in conversation with potential international customers across the world as well. Below the wings of the Sky Warden, Logwood noted, were its dummy AGM 114 Hellfire missiles, as well as ISR sensors and arrays. If another mission pod is needed, it can be bolted and connected to the plane. The Sky Warden can be dissembled in under six hours and fit inside a C-17 cargo aircraft. The program was originally contracted for 75 aircraft in a $3 billion deal; in 2023 and 2024, the Government Accountability Office issued reports urging the Pentagon to reconsider the number of aircraft needed, citing concerns the program wouldn't be as valuable as the US shifts from decades of counterterrorism operations featuring air superiority to near-peer adversary fights. Rambeau cited the aircraft's potential international sales as examples "to dispel the thought that this is only applicable for counterinsurgency," saying that those customers were looking at the aircraft for a variety of purposes. While Sky Warden is capable of taking off and landing almost anywhere, Rambeau and Logwood said it would need to be modified for carrier-based operations. The aircraft requires a distance of about 1,200 feet. For fighters and bombers, the required runway length tends to be thousands of feet. The original Skyraider earned its legendary reputation by protecting downed airmen in Vietnam. Unlike jets that couldn't stay in the area, the Skyraiders could loiter for long periods of time and bring massive firepower for continuous suppressing fire until helicopters could come in for rescue operations. Skyraider pilot Maj. Bernard Fisher famously landed his plane through withering enemy fire at a battle-scarred airstrip littered with debris and destroyed aircraft, rescued a downed airman, and flew back out after taking multiple hits to his aircraft during a 1966 fight at Ashau. Fisher received the Medal of Honor for his actions. The Air Force is hoping the new Skyraiders will provide the same kind of exceptional support for troops in future fights. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Electronic Warfare Lessons From Ukraine Informing Air Force Special Operations Future
As it looks to remain relevant in a future that could see conflict with a great power like China, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is seeking to apply key lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, a high-ranking U.S. Air Force official told The War Zone. The ability to operate in a dense electronic warfare environment and to adapt very quickly to new tactical challenges, in particular, are great areas of interest, spurring a review of how the command views training and new acquisitions, the official said. For the past two decades, AFSOC's arsenal of aircraft operated in largely benign electromagnetic combat environments, often guided by special tactics airmen on radios, in virtually uncontested airspace against insurgent groups possessing no electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. In Ukraine, both sides possess such robust EW abilities that each has resorted to fiber optic cables, impervious to jamming, for a significant portion of their FPV drone operations. Communications there are often highly degraded, and offensive and defensive measures are constantly being updated by the combatants in an endless game of whack-a-mole. Jammers exist on many individual vehicles, and GPS is also under constant electronic attack. Even U.S.-donated munitions like the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) have seen their effectiveness reported thwarted, at least in part, by EW. One of the major takeaways from Ukraine is figuring out how special operations forces (SOF) airpower can fight 'in environments that are heavily degraded, in terms of jamming, in terms of electronic warfare, electronic attack,' said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss planning issues. The command needs to 'increase our acumen and our skill set and our ability and capability and capacity' to ensure EW success, both offensively and defensively. In future 'GPS-denied environments, how do you have alternate [precision, navigation and timing] PNT? Resilient PNT? How do you fight and survive? Really, both of those sides of the coin in an environment like Ukraine have provided a wealth of information and lessons learned, and how you do that in an environment that is really unique to what we've seen over the last several decades?' The Russian 'Black Eye' EW system that jams FPV and Mavic video is now in mass production and is appearing across the whole is a serious development for Ukraine as one system can shut down radio drone operations across an area of 2-4 km when located high enough.1/ — Roy (@GrandpaRoy2) May 4, 2025 As a result of these takeaways, the official said AFSOC is considering changing the way it prepares for war. 'Our people are a decisive advantage, more important than hardware,' the official posited. 'So how do we train all the way from our ground forces, the Special Tactics units, how do we train them? How do we equip them to be relevant in the EW fight, but also then onto our platform? So we're looking at, how do you leverage aircrew back onto certain platforms? … What platforms might require some of our combat systems officers to be put back into the crew complement? Once you do that, how are you training them to be effective from day one, as they come to us out of their initial qualification training, what systems are those?' Beyond how it utilizes its airmen, AFSOC is also rethinking its acquisition process, with an eye on becoming far more nimble in this regard than in the past. 'This need to really be proactive and dynamic, to change the capabilities of either the platforms or just jump from platform to platform, in terms of capability to respond to the dynamic environment that you're experiencing. You've seen this probably plenty in your own reporting about how quickly both sides are adapting their capabilities to employ in combat, and the need to react to that rapidly. And so what that means to me, in the position that I'm in, you start to think about how do I apply this to – we talk in terms of programs of record, but maybe I need to be talking about programs of capability,' the official suggested. 'There's certainly your major platforms… But in some of the lower-level kinds of things – offensive asymmetric capabilities – what do you do there? You see… a lot of systems every day in that theater being employed, but if we are trying to plan to gain a capability, how are we flexibly able to determine what might be viable today that may not be viable, maybe in a few weeks or six months, or a year from now? So you want to have flexible programs of capability so that you can now leap to the thing that works today, may not work a year from now. So I've got to be able to make that leap in a very dynamic, rapid way to be relevant on the battlefield.' Moving away from so-called 'exquisite' systems that are very complex, expensive, and time-consuming to build to more affordable and attritable ones is also a possibility for some mission sets and capability needs, according to the official. 'Oftentimes, we think in terms of major weapon systems. Well, some of these capabilities we may need to think more of in terms of consumables, more like ammunition. That we can employ them [in a way] if we lose them, that's not a concern the way that it would be with a major weapon system platform, so that we can then either divest and move to the next thing, or we've employed them and we've lost some, and that's okay, too.' As for programs of record, the official said that AFSOC's recent acceptance of the last of the AC-130J Ghostrider gunships and MC-130J Commando II transport/tankers it plans to purchase 'is something to be celebrated, and that's a great milestone. But that doesn't mean we're anywhere near being done with the work that we would want to put into them to keep them relevant in the scenarios that you're asking about, certainly with what we're learning.' The need to be able to rapidly update these platforms and other systems to keep them relevant is growing larger by the day. Addressing this, too, via systemic procurement and development changes is also important, according to the official: 'And then, in terms of the systems themselves, this is where we're working with, both the service and SOCOM, where you have autonomous systems. You get into radios that we want to be software defined, so that you aren't constantly chasing what I call the 'Box of the Month Club,' where by the time you have laid a great deal of resourcing into a system, it's got to be so dynamic that you aren't vendor locked. Thereby. You need open systems architecture, you need modularity and this notion of government reference architectures between SOCOM and the Air Force, so that you can then rapidly iterate to change, in some cases, the actual functionality of the system itself to be responsive to now what you're seeing on the battlefield.' 'How are we training our people? Do we have the right systems on the airplanes? How are we integrating those with the broader SOF and joint force to make them relevant? Those are all really key foundational considerations' that AFSOC is working on. Contact the author: howard@
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Yahoo
AFSOC command chief relieved amid investigation
Air Force Special Operations Command's top enlisted airman was removed from his post Monday amid an investigation. Chief Master Sgt. Anthony Green, AFSOC'S command chief, was relieved by AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Mike Conley, the command said in a statement. Conley told personnel in an email Tuesday that he relieved Green of his duties 'due to a loss of confidence in his ability to fulfill his duties.' The email was posted to the unofficial 'Air Force amn/nco/snco' Facebook page. AFSOC later confirmed the veracity of the email. 'I want to assure you that this decision was made only after careful consideration of the circumstances,' Conley said. 'As airmen, we are entrusted with incredible responsibility and held to the highest standards of conduct. Upholding these standards is non-negotiable, and maintaining good order and discipline is fundamental to who we are.' AFSOC spokesperson Lt. Col. Becky Heyse confirmed an investigation into Green is ongoing, but she could not comment on its nature or timing. She said Conley is 'committed to the welfare of all airmen in AFSOC.' AFSOC has about 21,000 airmen across 10 operational wings and two special operations groups. As AFSOC's command chief, Green served as its top enlisted leader and advised Conley on the readiness, training, education and resiliency of its enlisted airmen. Green, who enlisted in the Air Force in 1995, began serving as AFSOC command chief in May 2023. He has served as a maintenance technician on multiple aircraft, including the C-130, and as a flying crew chief — a specially trained maintainer that flies on an aircraft to troubleshoot and fix any problems that might arise during a mission. He previously served as the senior enlisted leader for force structure, requirements, resources and strategic assessments at U.S. Special Operations Command in Florida, as well as command chief for multiple units, including the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Top enlisted leader of Air Force Special Operations Command fired amid investigation
The top enlisted leader for the 20,000-person Air Force Special Operations Command was relieved of duty for 'loss in confidence in his ability to fulfill his duties,' according to a statement released by AFSOC officials. An AFSOC spokesperson told Task & Purpose that Chief Master Sgt. Anthony Green was fired Monday as the command chief and reassigned outside of AFSOC headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida, pending the outcome of an investigation. Officials would not comment on the nature of the investigation. AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Mike Conley relieved Green, the official said. As the command chief master sergeant, Green was the senior advisor to Conley on policies and matters related to enlisted airmen's professional and personal lives in the command. A memo written by Conley and distributed AFSOC-wide said he had made the move 'after careful consideration of the circumstances.' An AFSOC official confirmed the memo's authenticity to Task & Purpose. The memo was first posted to the popular Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page. 'As airmen, we are entrusted with incredible responsibilities and held to the highest standards of conduct,' the memo said. 'Upholding these standards is non-negotiable, and maintaining good order and discipline is fundamental to who we are.' A command chief master sergeant in the Air Force is a duty assignment held by airmen with the rank of chief master sergeant. Command chiefs serve as senior advisors to commanders in the upper echelons of Air Force command structures. Green's role was one of the most senior in the Air Force as one of 11 chiefs at the top of each of the service's 11 major commands. Green entered the Air Force in 1995, according to his official biography. He spent his early years in the service as a maintenance technician on the C-130 and various other non-standard aircraft within AFSOC. He served as a flying crew chief — a specially selected mechanic who accompanies planes on long missions — as well as a combat aviation advisor, maintenance superintendent, and senior enlisted advisor. Green took over the position as AFSOC's command chief in May 2023 in a ceremony at Hurburt Field during which he spoke on the title of 'Air Commandos' used by AFSOC personnel. '[The meaning of Air Commando] is not the planes. It's not the cool kits,' said Green, according to an Air Force release on the ceremony. 'It's what we're called to do. It's the mission. It's the people. It's the team.' AFSOC oversees all of the Air Force's special operations personnel and equipment across five wings at Hurlburt, Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico and RAF Mildenhall in England, along with units at Kadena Air Base, Japan. The 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field and the 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, are composed of specialized aircraft to support special operations worldwide. Together, the wings operate AC-130J/W, MC-130H, CV-22 and U-28A, MQ-9 and C-146A aircraft. Navy fires commanding officer, command master chief of expeditionary security squadron The Marine Corps has settled the debate over the size of a rifle squad Leg day: Army cuts down on number of paid parachutists Navy commissions its newest submarine, the USS Iowa Why veterans are the real target audience for 'Helldivers 2'
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Yahoo
AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship Launches Black Arrow Small Cruise Missile In New Video
The Black Arrow, also known as the Small Cruise Missile, has completed a guided flight test from an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship, the weapon's manufacturer, Leidos, has confirmed. The Black Arrow, which is intended to carry a range of different payloads, and not just a kinetic warhead, arrives at a time when the Pentagon is looking at harnessing the potential of lower-cost weapons that can be readily produced at scale to meet the likely demands of future conflicts. Leidos only recently announced the flight test although it occurred last November. The company also published a video of the test, showing Black Arrow being launched from a pair of Ramp Launch Tubes (RLT) mounted on the rear ramp of the AC-130J. The Black Arrow is released tail-first from the RLT, after which its single-piece pop-out wing deploys. The motor can then be seen starting. The weapon's subsequent impact into the ground is not shown in the video. As well as using the RLT, Leidos says that Black Arrow can be launched from a palletized system or conventionally released from a stores pylon on a fixed-wing aircraft. 'The test demonstrated aircraft compatibility, system performance, waypoint uplinks, guidance accuracy as well as integration with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Battle Management System (BMS),' the company said in a media release. The test was conducted as part of a Collaborative Research and Development (CRADA) agreement between Leidos, the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). Weighing around 200 pounds, the Black Arrow is intended to be a low-cost 'mission-adaptable delivery platform,' rather than a traditional munition. This means it can be configured for both kinetic and non-kinetic missions. At the same time, it's designed to facilitate spiral upgrades. The CRADA program for the SCM, now known as Black Arrow, began in 2022, since when the interest in so-called affordable mass has only grown. Leidos says it has used model-based system engineering practices as well as open system architecture to ensure that Black Arrow is affordable and can be built rapidly at scale, if required. 'SCM is a key capability, rapidly advancing AFSOC's ability to close long-range kill chains,' Col. Justin Bronder, SOCOM PEO Fixed Wing, said at the Special Air Warfare Symposium held at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, last month. Previously, we had gotten our first glimpse of what was then only known as the Small Cruise Missile when SOCOM included a picture of it in a briefing at the annual SOF Week conference in May of last year. At the time, SOCOM said the SCM was one of its top priorities and could be launched from the MC-130J Commando II special operations tanker/transport aircraft, as well as the AC-130J, and potentially other platforms. Adding standoff strike capabilities to aircraft like these is seen as a critical way to ensure their continued relevance, especially in future high-end conflicts, including a potential one in the Pacific against China. For the AC-130J, in particular, being able to address targets relatively quickly far from the current station it is on would allow it to support strikes across a much larger geographical area. Right now the aircraft can drop Small Diameter Bombs, at a range of dozens of miles. That would be enhanced massively with a small cruise missile. A missile with a 200 mile range would allow the AC-130 to strike targets anywhere within a 125,664 square mile circle around it. An SDB, with say a range of say 30 miles when dropped from the AC-130's launch altitude and speed, allows the aircraft to strike anywhere within a 2,827 square mile circle. So we are talking about a massive difference here in capability Then there is using the aircraft as a standoff weapons delivery platform in a high-end fight where it's direct fire capabilities will be of less value due to the range of modern enemy air defenses. You can learn all about the future of AC-130 in our video below: Before that, in 2021, SOCOM issued a contracting notice regarding a Stand-Off Precision Guided Weapon Program Cruise Missile outlining interest in a weapon of this type. The specifications included a range of between 200 and 400 nautical miles (around 230 and 460 miles) while the weapon was required to fit inside a standardized cylindrical Common Launch Tube (CLT). The size and weight of the SCM/Black Arrow rules out its carriage in a CLT, which can accommodate payloads up to 42 inches in length and 5.95 inches in diameter, and has a 100-pound weight limit, according to SOCOM. The Stand-Off Precision Guided Weapon Program Cruise Missile notice also outlined a requirement for an electro-optical/infrared seeker, with plans to incorporate a multi-mode seeker package 'able to acquire and/or reacquire targets in flight.' Other key attributes specified in the notice were a long-range, datalink connection to Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL) (threshold) and SADL/Link-16 (objective), resilient GPS/INS to work in a denied GPS environment, 'a sensor capable of identifying targets once over the target area, and a payload to effect the target,' the notice added. Leidos says it's under contract with SOCOM to continue Black Arrow test and evaluation activities throughout 2025. At this stage, however, it's unclear what additional platforms it might be tested on, or what kinds of payloads might be involved. The size and weight of Black Arrow would render it suitable for carriage by a wide range of platforms, including drones. Black Arrow also arrives at a time when the U.S. military, more generally, is looking at low-cost air vehicles that could be turned into cruise missiles, as well as electronic attackers. Central to these concerns is the ability to expand the available industrial base to help stock up on more affordable weapons ahead of a future high-end conflict, such as one against China, and sustaining those inventories in a protracted fight. The Air Force is now running the Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV) program, with a view to addressing some of these supply chain issues, and particularly as a stepping stone to a new lower-cost cruise missile. Leidos subsidiary Dynetics — alongside Anduril Industries, Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc., and Zone 5 Technologies — was selected in July of last year to design, build, and flight test an ETV concept. Interestingly, the Dynetics offering for the Air Force's ETV program looks to be very similar to the SCM/Black Arrow. With testing of the SCM/Black Arrow continuing under SOCOM contract, and with the same design apparently also being offered for the Air Force's ETV initiative, it will certainly be interesting to see what's next in store for the Leidos product. Contact the author: thomas@
