CSAF Goldfein’s Top COVID-19 Supply Chain Worry: F-35

Goldfein said up to now no major programs have shown any signs of being "in a critical state ... at risk of cancellation" due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

By THERESA HITCHENS

WASHINGTON: Gen. Jay Raymond, as head of Space Command, will lead efforts to determine how to combat expected interference with GPS receivers from the future Ligado 5G wireless mobile communication network, says Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein.

“We are both very concerned about this,” Goldfein told the Defense Writers Group this morning. “The best way I've heard it described ... is, if you're in a room trying to have a quiet conversation, and in the next room you've got a 500-watt speaker blaring music. Chief Raymond and I are looking at different mitigation steps,” he added. “It's a huge challenge.”

Goldfein explained that, as the SPACECOM commander, Raymond is the combatant commander charged with spectrum management so any mitigation plan would be primarily his responsibility — with Goldfein serving a support function as the service chief. However, he noted that, since Raymond is dual-hatted as chief of Space Force, the two peers “will work together closely with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide options” to DoD Secretary Mark Esper.

Much of Goldfein's conversation with reporters this morning centered on the affects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the service and its programs, as well as his service's responses. A few weeks ago the service went through what he called a “reset to the new normal” as senior officials worked out methodologies to ensure its highest priority missions could be maintained “despite a 15 to 20 percent infection rate.”<

Those key mission sets, he said, are “the nuclear mission, the space mission and certain elements of the cyber mission,” as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Finally, he said, “Air mobility is critical — they're becoming, with our medical professionals, the MVPs of the COVID response.”

Goldfein said no major programs have shown signs of being “in a critical state ... at risk of cancellation,” but that he is hearing from subordinates that “we're going to experience some delays going forward.” The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the program he's watching most closely, followed by the KC-46 tanker, the B-21 bomber (which he said is going very well), and the T-7A trainer jet program to replace the venerable T-38. And the CSAF is working with Raymond to keep an eye on major space programs.

Goldfein said he has been in running conversations with his overseas counterparts about how to ensure that the supply chain, especially for the F-35 program, can be maintained during the pandemic. Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson told investors yesterday that F-35 production is expected to slow down due to supply chain difficulties; and Ellen Lord, DoD head of acquisition, told reporters on Monday the Pentagon is seeing an average three-month slowdown in major programs across the board.

“We've started a robust discussion with the international air chiefs,” he said. “I was on the phone yesterday with the chief of staff of the Italian Air Force and the chief of staff of the Canadian Air Force. Tomorrow, I've actually got a series of phone calls with industry leaders.”

The key question, he said, is: “How do we collaborate and ensure that the tier-two and tier-three suppliers remain healthy through this COVID period, so that we have a healthy industrial base at the back end of it?”

There are seven foreign partners in the Joint Strike Fighter program: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Turkey's participation as a partner has been suspended due to its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system. There are also three Foreign Military Sale (FMS) customers: Israel, Japan and South Korea.

As for the KC-46, Goldfein said that the Air Force is still evaluating Boeing's offer to pay for and install software fixes to the faulty Remote Visual System boom camera on the 33 aircraft already delivered. As Breaking D readers know, service acquisition head Will Roper early this month announced a deal with Boeing to develop and install a replacement for the RVS system, called “RVS 2.0,” based on new hardware and software. At that time, Boeing KC-46 program manager Jamie Burgess told reporters that the company expected its software enhancements to be fielded by the second half of 2021.

Goldfein said the software fixes “are an interim solution” that “may — and I emphasize may — allow us to start some limited tanking operations. We are going to flesh that out,” he said, calling Boeing's proposed upgrade the RVS 1.5.

“I'm 100 percent confident it won't solve all the challenges,” he added. “The only thing that will solve that is 2.0, and we cannot let our foot off the gas for any other interim solution because 2.0 is a fix that we have got to get to.”

Goldfein stressed, however, that the service is also using the pandemic as an opportunity. For example, he noted that the steep learning curve the Air Force has been on with regard to teleworking and remote connectivity will be something that helps service operations in the future, as well as “a lot of the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) technology we've been able to advance.”

Indeed, Roper told reporters last week that the service has rushed the so-called “deviceONE” system that allows classified information to be securely accessed via remote tablets and phones into the hands of senior service members.

DeviceONE is one of the subsystems making up the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), being developed to help implement JADC2. Based on what is known in the industry as a “zero trust” security protocol that prevents classified information from being stored on the user's device but allows secure access to that information where it is stored in the cloud, Roper said, deviceONE now has been certified by the National Security Agency (NSA) for DoD use.

“We've ordered 50, and have plans to order 400, and we would like to order 4,000, he said, noting that the expansion into the thousands requires new funding.

In response to my question about the new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) blasting the ABMS program for lacking a clear acquisition plan, Goldfein stressed that he personally is working with GAO. “I'm eager to sit down with them and get them up to speed,” he said.

Goldfein noted that the report had “a bit of latency” inherent between its completion and release; for example, the GAO team wasn't able to include results from the first “OnRamp” test of ABMS tech in December.

In addition, he said, much of the ABMS effort is classified, which meant that the GAO team didn't have access to all the information that could have helped explain what the service is doing and planning. The rapid pace of the program, with upgrades to technologies every four months presents a challenge for GAO and Congress to keep up with the program.

But, he stressed, some ABMS technologies already are being used — including by Northern Command's Gen. Terrence O'Shaugnessy — to respond to COVID-19.

UPDATE BEGINS. In a statement to Breaking D today (April 23), the GAO pushed back on Goldfein's characterization of the ABMS report — saying that GAO received information, both classified and unclassified, through March.

“Although we did not attend the December demo, we did request and received information related to that demo that was incorporated into our unclassified report,” said Marie Mak, GAO Director in the email statement. She added:

“I believe GAO has a full understanding of the past and ongoing ABMS efforts. Actually even before that December exercise, we coordinated quite often with the Air Force on the classified side and my staff and I participated in numerous classified discussions. Those discussions did not change our finding that the Air Force still does not have an overall plan for ABMS, a point which they openly acknowledged and in fact concurred with our recommendation. Ultimately the fact that some ABMS work is classified did not impact our review of overall ABMS planning efforts. The Air Force still needs to develop an overall plan, to include preliminary costs and schedule. Without some type of overall plan in place, it will be difficult for the Air Force to prioritize this program among the acquisition efforts within the Air Force.

We will continue to maintain oversight of the ABMS efforts (both classified and unclassified) as it progresses.” UPDATE ENDS.

The next challenge, Goldfein said, is for the Air Force — and indeed all of DoD — to figure out how to face what he calls “the new abnormal” with the specter of a new round of the pandemic emerging next fall.

“What we are looking at now, though, is a new reset — a 1 June reset — to what I call not the new normal but the new abnormal,” Goldfein said. He defined this as “living and operating with a cyclical virus until we get a vaccine,” something that he said isn't likely for “upwards of a year.” He said that just yesterday he had a two-hour video conference with the MAJCOM commanders and the service's senior general officer leadership to discuss “how we posture ourselves” for that new future.

“And, you know, there are some things that, quite frankly, I hope we never go back to,” he said, “in terms of how we're now delivering content [and] upping our game,” he said.

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/csaf-goldfeins-top-covid-19-supply-chain-worry-f-35