US AIR FORCE 2030 MILITARY
However, looking to the private sector to
help enable the networked airpower of 2030
comes up against industry’s preference for
selling proprietary systems and solutions
to assure them a stream of income into the
future. While good for the balance sheet,
such a goal is hard to reconcile with the
war ghter’s need for connectivity.
Speaking at the Association of the
United States Army’s seminar on networks
in Washington DC on July 20, Lieutenant
General Paul Ostrowski, military deputy to
the service’s acquisition executive, said: “If
you’re going to bring proprietary solutions to
the table, don’t come. Besides being intuitive
- smartphones do not come with bulky
instruction manuals – and expeditionary,
these networks must be secure and must
be able to be integrated with each of the
services, as well as with coalition partners.”
Aligning his vision with General Goldfein’s
multinational networked and multidomain
future for US airpower.
Directed energy
Like the other services, the Air Force of
2030 will likely be making extensive used of
directed energy weapons (DEW). According
to General Holmes, there will be a directed
energy summit attended by the service vice
chiefs of staff at Kirtland Air Force Base, New
Mexico, during the summer.
Holmes, though, sees his priority for
DEW not as deploying offensive weapons
on ghter or special operations aircraft, but
rather for airbase defence against increasing
missile threats: “I desperately need help
protecting my air elds.”
Gen Holmes sees DEW as an answer to
two increasingly vital questions: “How do we
support the bases required to sustain forward
deployed airpower, and what can I do to
defend my bases at a lower cost per shot?”
However, DEWs are coming to US Air
Force aircraft. Holmes said: “The challenge
is getting the size, weight, cooling and
power needed on an airborne platform, but
we are making progress. Clouds blocking
the wavelength of DEW weapons are also a
challenge. We have to gure out how to do it
through the atmosphere.”
Colonel Coglitore reminded his audience at
the July 10 forum that the bottom line is the
required capability rather than the technology
that produces it: “There is no requirement
for directed energy. There are requirements
for survivability and lethality. We need to
see if directed energy can t into one of
those lanes. We are examining that. We are
comparing it with other alternatives, costs,
logistics and integration.”
The Air Force already has some DEW
programmes in progress. Air Force Special
Operations Command (AFSOC) still has an
AC-130J ready to receive a directed energy
weapon in place of one of its side-mounted
30mm cannons. This is the rst airborne
directed energy weapon that can operate
in both offensive and defensive roles – a
low-kilowatt (kW) design intended for proof of
concept – and should start testing before the
end of 2018.
Elsewhere, the Self-protect High-energy
Laser Demonstrator (SHIELD) programme
seeks to integrate a laser pod on a ghter
aircraft in the post-2020 timeframe. Air
Mobility Command and AFSOC, are
interested in potential application of DEW to
defend their aircraft against missile threats. In
a bid to bring together its DEW efforts, the Air
Force has prepared a directed energy plan.
Other services are also integrating DEW
with aircraft; indeed, at the request of
Congress earlier this year, the Department ofDefense is in the process of preparing a DEW
road map study to avoid duplication of effort
to coordinate developments. On June 26, the
US Army, teamed with Raytheon as prime
contractor, announced some details of ight
tests involving a high-energy laser system, on
an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter at White
Sands Missile Range New Mexico, which
included engaging and ring against a target.
While most lasers previously tested for US
Army weapon applications require power in
the 5-10kW range, terrestrial weapons in the
50-100kW range are already scheduled for
testing in the next few years. Still short of the
300kW considered necessary for destroying
targets such as cruise missiles, this selection
of weapons already has the potential to
produce non-lethal effects.Hypersonic weapons
Lasers are not the only revolutionary weapons
that will require investment now to be ready
to ght in 2030. Secretary of the Air Force,
Heather Wilson said the Air Force is looking
at a lot of technologies to make sure it can
win the high-end ght in the long term. She
said: “A number of long-term technologies
are being funded, including hypersonic
weapons.”
Joint Air Force – Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
hypersonic weapon programmes currently set
for ight demonstration include the Lockheed
Martin-Raytheon Hypersonic Air-breathing
Weapon Concept and the Lockheed Martin
Tactical Boost Glide, which are both expected
to result in ight demonstrations by 2020.
On July 21, the Air Force announced
that in 2018 it would award a contract for a
hypersonic air-to-surface weapon capable of
attacking both xed and mobile targets and
carried by current bombers and ghters. TheA crew chief, marshals an F-35A Lightning II on the Nellis fl ight line. The
fi fth-generation fi ghter will still be in production in 2030 when it will be the
backbone of the US Air Force fi ghter force. SSgt Peter Thompson/US Air Force