Air Force Futures

Defense One takes an inside look at the Air Force’s future tech and policies.

JULY 2022
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 1 AIR FORCE TO TEST 3D-PRINTED
ROCKET MOTORS

5

NEW AIR FORCE SPACE BUYER EYES
FIXED-PRICE CONTRACTS

9
B-21’S FIRST FLIGHT SLIPS TO 2023,
BUT THAT’S STILL AHEAD OF SCHEDULE,
NORTHROP CEO SAYS

12 ANOTHER US HYPERSONIC MISSILE HITS

MACH 5 IN TEST, AIR FORCE SAYS

15 GOT FUEL? FIXING THE US MILITARY’S

AERIAL REFUELING ARCHITECTURE

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
20 A DRINK FOR JAKKO
 Chapter One

AIR FORCE TO TEST

3D-PRINTED
ROCKET MOTORS
The maker, startup X-Bow Systems, recently
accepted investment from Lockheed Martin.

BY MARCUS WEISGERBER

DEFENSE ONE | 1
T he U.S. Air Force will test a “rocket factory in a
box” made by a New Mexico startup in hopes of
being able to 3D-print missile energetics.
“This is a technology push forward to see what
the art of the possible is,” X-Bow Systems CEO Jason
Hundley said in an interview.

The technology could allow the military to get solid For years, the Pentagon has talked about the need to
rocket motors for less money, more quickly, and in diversify its space launch locations and get satellites
remote locations. into orbit in a matter of days.

X-BOW SYSTEMS

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 2

 “The Air Force Research Labs’ goal is to prove that a
technology like this could actually exist and be movable
and transportable,” Hundley said. “Part of our future
work with the Air Force will be evaluating, you know,
the effectiveness of that in different potential scenarios.”
X-Bow, pronounced “crossbow,” was founded in
2016, but operated in secrecy until March. In April, it
announced it had raised $27 million in a Series A funding
round. Lockheed Martin Ventures is among the startup’s
investors, which is of note since the Federal Trade
Commission blocked Lockheed from acquiring Aerojet
Rocketdyne, which also makes solid rocket motors.
Solid rocket fuel is most commonly used in
intercontinental ballistic missiles, anti-missile
interceptors, and other military missiles and rockets.
It is typically made by combining the raw materials in
giant mixers, then pouring the solution into a rocket
motor case. The casing is then put in a pit where it
cures for several weeks.
Setting up a brick-and-mortar rocket factory takes
years and costs hundreds of millions of dollars,
AIR FORCE FUTURES
“The Air Force Research Labs’ goal
is to prove that a technology like this
could actually exist and be movable
and transportable.”
– Jason Hundley, CEO, X-Bow Systems
Hundley said: “You’re talking stuff that weighs
multiple tons, and takes two to four years of lead time
to order one, [and] get it installed and checked out.”
By comparison, X-Bow’s mobile factory travels
inside four 20-foot shipping containers. Each box has a
purpose: one is a control room, another holds the raw
materials, another carries manufacturing equipment,
and the last has the power and air-handling
equipment to make it all work.
“Our process starts with raw chemicals and then
basically at the other end, you’re essentially… printing
the energetics,” Hundley said.
And the fuel cures in one day, he said.
DEFENSE ONE | 3
 “The company began work on the rocket factory-
in-a-box concept for the Air Force last year. It can
currently produce hundreds of pounds of inert solid
rocket fuel,” Hundley said.
“With our technology and our ability
to basically rapidly turn around the
design timeframe, we think that we’re
going to see competitive opportunities
for our business to grow very, very
quickly, in the next few years.”
– Jason Hundley, CEO, X-Bow Systems
“X-Bow plans to continue proving out its technology
in the coming years. It believes its rocket motors could
cost 80 to 90 percent cheaper than the factory-built
motors of today,” Hundley said. While the company
doesn’t have its eyes set on the Air Force ICBMs and
NASA rockets already in development, it believes its
tech could be valuable on new types of rockets.
“Collapsing that time variable and that cost variable
allows for entry of potentially new products,” he said.
AIR FORCE FUTURES
Hundley also said “X-Bow could help fill
unmet demand...”
“The industry is over capacity right now,” he said.
“They cannot meet the demand and they are turning
away smaller-end customers that we think will be
excited to have somebody hand them a product within
months, as opposed to five years down the line and
when the big guys could get to them.”
Hundley compared the solid rocket motor industry
to the orbital launch industry two decades ago. After
years of consolidation, the Air Force relied on a
single concern, the United Launch Alliance, to carry
large military satellites into orbit. Then SpaceX came
along and injected competition into the industry and
lowered launch costs for the government.
“With our technology and our ability to basically
rapidly turn around the design timeframe, we think
that we’re going to see competitive opportunities for
our business to grow very, very quickly, in the next
few years,” he said.
DEFENSE ONE | 4
 Chapter TWO

NEW AIR FORCE

SPACE BUYER EYES
FIXED-PRICE CONTRACTS
Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary for Space Acquisition
and Integration, said it’s “not a bad approach for space things”
and could help keep acquisitions on time.

BY LAUREN C. WILLIAMS

DEFENSE ONE | 5
T he new head of military space acquisitions wants to
explore doing more fixed-price contracting in hopes
of keeping costs down and programs on schedule.
“Fixed-price contracting is not a bad approach for
space things,” said Frank Calvelli, the new assistant Air
Force secretary for Space Acquisition and Integration.
“The worst thing you want to be is a cost-plus program
inside a factory that has everything going through a
fixed price because you will end up paying the bills you
end up being late and you will end up behind schedule.”
It’s one of many approaches that Calvelli plans to
bring to military space acquisitions from the National

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 6

Reconnaissance Office, where he served as the principal
deputy director and deputy acquisition executive.
“They’ve gotten really good over the last few
years of really pushing for cost realism and schedule
realism in their competitive [requests for proposals].
And one of the biggest challenges we have today
is when we get an RFP that we award that’s not
executable, and that ends up causing re-baselining
and…slows things up,” Calvelli said during a virtual
Mitchell Institute event on June 24.
“So they’ve gotten really good at driving costs and
schedule realism and I’m gonna probably borrow
those techniques.”
A “culture of a program management
discipline” could help the Space Force
“to go a little bit faster.”
– F
rank Calvelli, assistant Air Force Secretary
for Space Acquisition and Integration
AIR FORCE FUTURES
Calvelli added that while additional or unexpected
costs weren’t totally avoidable, companies bidding
on space contracts should take factors such as supply
chain and inflation into account when bidding instead
of offering the lowest possible rate.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, told senators in
May that cost-plus contracts were a “plague” on the
agency’s major projects which have suffered from
cost overruns.
“We have been moving to the fixed price where we
can under procurement law,” Nelson told the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice
and Science and Related Agencies on May 3. “In those
that we can’t do cost-plus, we are moving to really
crack down on them.”
Calvelli made his intentions to improve space acquisitions
known during his Senate confirmation hearing, saying
a “culture of a program management discipline” could
help the Space Force “to go a little bit faster.”
DEFENSE ONE | 7
 Calvelli stressed that he was not against cost-
plus contracts but that fixed-price helped speed
acquisitions along.
“When you start using existing
technology capabilities and you want
to go fast, fixed price helps in that as
opposed to cost plus.”
– Frank Calvelli, assistant Air Force Secretary
for Space Acquisition and Integration
“We want to go fast, which means if we’re smart,
we use existing technology where we can, and take
a page out of [the Space Development Agency’s]
playbook, which is use what you can get and go off
and build on to your centers,” Calvelli said. “And so
when you start using existing technology capabilities
and you want to go fast, fixed price helps in that as
opposed to cost plus.”
Calvelli added that long development cycles
spanning five to seven years make it difficult to
refresh technology.
AIR FORCE FUTURES
“You get these things up there and they last a
long time, which is awesome. But, you know, the
technology’s changed so quickly on the ground if
you do more smaller systems with shorter design
lives, as well, because launch has become so much
more affordable...then you can take more advantage
of technology faster.”
Calvelli added that he was also eyeing NRO
techniques around system engineering, cloud
computing, mission frameworks, and mission
applications, while also noting that he wanted to
better sync space and ground systems.
“We seem to have a disconnect with space and
ground systems where we’ll launch something but
the ground is just not ready yet or user terminals
[are] just not ready yet,” he said, adding that the
priority is “to ensure that the space and ground
systems come together as an integrated system so
that when we launch the systems, we can take full
advantage of them.”
DEFENSE ONE | 8
 Chapter THREE

B-21’S FIRST FLIGHT SLIPS

TO 2023, BUT THAT’S STILL
AHEAD OF SCHEDULE,
NORTHROP CEO SAYS
The classified bomber was initially expected to fly last December.

BY MARCUS WEISGERBER

DEFENSE ONE | 9
NORTHRUP GRUMMAN
T he secret B-21 stealth bomber program remains
ahead of schedule even though its first flight will
slip from this year to 2023, according to the chief
executive of the company that is building the aircraft.
“There’s a bit of a misconception and it’s
understandable, but it needs reconciling,” Northrop
Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said at a Bernstein
investors conference in New York. “We are still ahead
AIR FORCE FUTURES
of the acquisition program baseline date for first flight
on the B-21.”
Warden said that plans to fly the highly classified
plane this year “were early projections” and “were
never official dates.” Air Force leaders originally
estimated the first flight in December 2021, then
mid-2022. In May, Aviation Week reported that the
date had slipped again, to 2023.
DEFENSE ONE | 10
 In June, Warden said that “we are still within the
timeline that they projected for the program.”
An Air Force official said the company is still within
its window for conducting the first flight and that it’s
not considered late.
Neither Air Force officials nor Warden offered an
explanation for the schedule change. Since the B-21
program is classified, it’s difficult to get an independent
assessment or analysis of its true progress.
There are six B-21 aircraft in various stages of
assembly at a Northrop Grumman factory in Palmdale,
California. The Pentagon’s most recent budget request
shows the Air Force plans to spend $19.1 billion on B-21
aircraft between fiscal 2023 and 2027. The Air Force did
not disclose how many aircraft that money will buy.
Warden said “Northrop expects ‘to be able to meet
those cost targets and profitably deliver the aircraft.’”
“The company and the Air Force have approached
development of the B-21 differently than earlier
generation military aircraft,” she said.
AIR FORCE FUTURES
“We have worked through a development cycle and
now into a test cycle that really is less about meeting
a first flight date, and meeting a level of maturity
for the aircraft, meaning we have wrung out the
software before it will ever fly,” Warden said. “We
have wrung out many elements of the design before
the aircraft gets airborne so that we’re less likely to
find those things.”
The company considers the first B-21 a “production-
representative aircraft,” Warden said. In the past,
companies have built prototypes and test aircraft that
could not be deployed without major improvements
and updates.
“Many aircraft before had worked toward just
getting a development aircraft in the air and then
figuring out how to make it more producible and meet
certain criteria like weight or even range as they went
from development into production,” she said. “We
have done that work as we have worked through the
development phase of the program and so it gives us a
much higher confidence and more mature aircraft as
we prepare for first flight.”
DEFENSE ONE | 11
 Chapter FOUR

ANOTHER US HYPERSONIC
MISSILE HITS MACH 5 IN
TEST, AIR FORCE SAYS
Three different U.S. weapons have now demonstrated
successful hypersonic flight.

BY MARCUS WEISGERBER

DEFENSE ONE | 12
A Lockheed Martin-made missile flew five times
the speed of sound, the U.S. Air Force said in
May, bringing to three the number of U.S. hypersonic
in its unpublicized test over the Pacific Ocean after
failing in three earlier test flights.

weapons that have achieved successful test flights. “This was a major accomplishment by the ARRW
team, for the weapons enterprise, and our Air
The AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Force,” said Brig. Gen. Heath Collins, Air Force
Weapon, or ARRW (pronounced: arrow) found success program executive officer for weapons, in an emailed

GIANCARLO CASEM/USAF

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 13

statement. “The team’s tenacity, expertise, and
commitment were key in overcoming the past year’s
challenges to get us to the recent success. We are
ready to build on what we’ve learned and continue
moving hypersonics forward.”
The successful test comes amid a U.S. military effort
to develop several types of hypersonic weapons to
match similar Chinese and Russian advancements.
Hypersonic weapons are maneuverable in flight,
making them difficult to intercept. Russia has
reportedly used hypersonic weapons during its
ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
During the test off the Southern California coast, the
missile separated from a B-52 bomber, its “booster
ignited and burned for expected duration, achieving
hypersonic speeds five times greater than the speed of
sound,” the Air Force said in the statement.
“Our highly-skilled team made history on this
first air-launched hypersonic weapon,” Lt. Col.
Michael Jungquist, commander of the 419th Flight
Test Squadron, said in a statement. “We’re doing
AIR FORCE FUTURES
everything we can to get this game-changing weapon
to the warfighter as soon as possible.”
In recent months, top Pentagon officials have been
pushing to speed up development of the fast-flying
weapons. Former government and industry officials
say old U.S. testing ranges and infrastructure are
slowing development.
Last month, the Pentagon said it successfully tested
a different Lockheed-made hypersonic weapon.
Another hypersonic weapon, made by Raytheon
Technologies and Northrop Grumman, successfully
flew last year.
“This is great news for the Air Force and for the
joint approach to hypersonic fires,” Thomas Karako,
director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, said of the
successful ARRW test. “It’s going to take a cooperative
effort from all the services, basing from all domains,
and a mix of hypersonic, supersonic, and garden-
variety subsonic strike capability of all sorts to present
China with more dilemmas than they can solve.”
DEFENSE ONE | 14
 Chapter Five

GOT FUEL? FIXING THE US

MILITARY’S AERIAL
REFUELING ARCHITECTURE
Start by creating more hardened ground fuel dumps in the Pacific.

BY TIMOTHY A. WALTON

DEFENSE ONE | 15
I t’s a military pilot’s nightmare: you arrive for your
airborne refueling but no one’s there—just empty
sky above the ocean that will soon swallow your fuel-
dry aircraft. That’s the situation U.S. pilots are likely
to face in a conflict against China unless the Pentagon
quickly makes some changes in its investment
priorities and operational concepts.
U.S. AIR FORCE / MASTER SGT. DAN HEATON
AIR FORCE FUTURES
Aerial refueling has long underpinned the U.S.
military’s ability to promptly deploy forces and
sustain operations at theater scales. But the Air
Force’s tanker force has shrunk from 701 to 473
tankers over the past few decades and faces major
readiness challenges, even as it continues to sustain
an extraordinary pace of “normal” operations. Worse
DEFENSE ONE | 16
still, the People’s Republic of China is increasingly
capable of attacking aircraft and airbases, which
could attrite aircraft and force planners to fight in
less effective and more predictable ways. DOD must
quickly improve its aerial refueling architecture.
Start on the ground. If a conflict with China broke
out tomorrow, U.S. air refueling operations would
be limited most severely not by the tanker fleet but
by the mere dozen or so Indo-Pacific airfields that
have sufficient runway, ramp space, fuel stores—and
whose governments can be expected to grant access.
This vulnerable archipelago of fuel would support
relatively few tankers to begin with, and fewer still
after Chinese strikes begin.
Negotiating for new and repairing and expanding
the capacity of existing airfields should therefore be
a top Air Force priority, even if it comes at the cost
of tanker procurement. We calculate that spending
$633 million per year over the next decade (and
$400 million thereafter) to Indo-Pacific posture and
maritime tankers that can deliver fuel to airfields
could boost employable tanker capacity in the theater
AIR FORCE FUTURES
by 63 percent within a decade and greatly improve
operational resilience.
Also needed are improvements in command and
control, communications, and fleet optimization
tools. During peacetime, these could improve tanker
availability and lower costs. During crises, they
would increase tanker survivability and allow
tankers to operate in a more distributed and agile
manner on the ground and in the air.
Finally, adding cost-effective defensive systems
to current and future tankers would allow them to
deliver fuel closer to threats, thus maximizing the
range and endurance of supported aircraft. The
technologies for C3 and self-defense improvements
are largely mature and could be adopted by the
tanker fleet during the next five years.
Air Force leaders will also need to accelerate
recapitalization of the aerial refueling fleet through
the near-term KC-Y and medium-term K-Z tanker
programs, given growing operational risks and
competing demands on funding.
DEFENSE ONE | 17
 The top candidates for KC-Y are the Boeing KC-46A
and the Lockheed Martin Next Generation Tanker
(LMXT), a modified version of the Airbus A330 Multi
Role Tanker Transport.

The LMXT can carry more fuel than the KC-

46A, which could allow it to support missions with
fewer aircraft, thus saving operating costs on some
missions during peacetime and reducing operational
complexity during crises or conflicts. And like the
KC-10 that is being retired, the LMXT excels at the
long-range, high-capacity offloads needed for large
operations from distant airfields, such as those found
throughout the Indo-Pacific.

But the smaller KC-46A requires less ramp space,
which means that an all-Pegasus fleet might actually
be able to deliver more fuel from a given base, albeit
using more tankers and ground and air personnel.
The KC-46A also likely costs less to procure and
operate than the LMXT, and the U.S. Air Force could
avoid incurring some costs by selecting the KC-46A
and increasing tanker fleet commonality.
Throughout the 2020s, the U.S. Air Force
can methodically fund technology maturation,
design, and prototyping efforts to increase tanker
survivability and launch a follow-on tanker
program. The future tanker, termed K-Z(M), should
likely occupy a medium-sized space on the airfield,
be fuel-efficient, and be able to refuel at least six
fighters or one transport aircraft at range. Because
it would remain outside highly contested areas and

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 18


could defend itself against some missiles through
protection systems and a balanced approach to
signature management, the K-Z(M) would not
require a highly stealthy and expensive design.The
possibility of making the K-Z(M) a highly automated
AIR FORCE FUTURES
unmanned aircraft should be examined for its
operational and lifecycle cost benefits. Conversely,
the U.S. Air Force should avoid small or very small
designs that would carry insufficient fuel and depend
on “shuttling” back and forth from a larger tanker,
and very-low-observable tankers that would be
expensive to develop and procure.
In 2022, the U.S. aerial refueling enterprise is
losing altitude. The Air Force must act quickly to
improve and replace its aging tanker fleet before its
increasing operating and maintenance costs consume
modernization funds—leaving a smaller, weaker
aerial refueling force and in turn Joint Force.
Timothy A. Walton is a senior fellow at the Hudson
Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.
He recently published a report with Bryan Clark titled
“Resilient Aerial Refueling: Safeguarding the U.S.
Military’s Global Reach.”
DEFENSE ONE | 19
 Chapter Six

A DRINK FOR JAKKO

Combat forges a special bond between an
air controller and his airborne teammates.

BY MAJ. KYLE MCCRACKEN

DEFENSE ONE | 20
 Useful Fiction is a new approach to sharing
research and analysis through using the oldest
communications technology of all: story. Sometimes
called FICINT or Fictional Intelligence, it fuses real
data and insight with narrative scenarios. The goal
is not to replace the white paper or journal article,
but to provide a new means to share insights, in
AIR FORCE FUTURES
a form that audiences are more likely to read, but
also more likely to act upon. If science fiction and
technothrillers are like a milkshake, and strategy
papers and trend reports are like vitamins or kale,
think of useful fiction as the equivalent to a breakfast
smoothie for policymakers that blends education
and entertainment with a purpose. This essay was
U.S. AIR FORCE / STAFF SGT. NICHOLAS CRISP
DEFENSE ONE | 21
produced through an initiative undertaken with the
U.S. Air Force’s “Blue Horizons” futures team.—P.W.
Singer and August Cole

•••

“The whole world is goin’ effin’ crazy!” Doug

exclaimed. “Damned if I ever thought I would be the
one up here with a birds-eye view and…hey, Jakko,
wasn’t that an Air Force unit slogan or something like
that back in the day? ‘Eyes of the Eagle’ or ‘Eagle Eyes’
or something like that?”
A1C JACKSON N HADDON

“Eyes of the Eagle was a common Air Force Office of

Spec…” Jakko’s deep voice had a fighter pilot’s crispness.
“I knew it!” Doug interrupted. “I keep winning
these trivia contests and you are gonna owe me more
than a case of Jeremiah Weed. Now stop distracting
me, Jakko; we have work to do.” He chuckled, trying to
break the tension. “Look and report, Airman. Don’cha
know the job of an ABM is never done!”
“Live video inbound to your scope.”
The red light above Doug’s station cast a weird hue
on his screen. The remains of a B-52 burned furiously
at the end of an Anderson Air Force Base runway.
Then came a tremendous flash, and translucent rings
that seemed to bend the whole world.
“…caught the effin’ blast wave,” Doug muttered.
“Buff is blocking the runway, fighters still on the
ground. That damn DF-17 did its work. Guam is a
sittin’ duck. Effin’ China.”

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 22

 Louder, now: “What are you doin’ over there, Jakko? “I swear I saw a blip, but the damn thing hit before
Return to wingman position. Nothing more we can do I could even key my mic.”
for them except keep our eyes west and callin’ targets.”
Doug looked at seven returns headed east.
“Affirmative.”
“Raptor 6-ship and the gas truck pulling
Doug watched the return shift to an intercept them…600 nautical miles out, but they’re not going
course. He stared at his scope, pondering, shifting to be able to resupply at Guam. Where the hell are
uncomfortably in his sliding aluminum chair. His they gonna go, Jakko?”
back ached, the air felt thick, and the smell of JP-8
coated his nostrils. Dual turbofan engines whined
through his headset like a mosquito just out of reach.

He pulled at the undershirt sticking to his sweating

and mildly overweight frame and stole a glance at
the photo taped beside his monitor. A small girl in
pigtails offered a gap-toothed smile, and he smiled
back, remembering how he had mistakenly slid a $10
bill under Elizabeth’s pillow last time he played tooth
fairy. “I love you, little girl,” he mouthed silently.

Pulling his thoughts back to his scope, he tried to

U.S. AIR FORCE / AIRMAN 1ST CLASS ERIN BAXTER
recall spotting the hypersonic return.

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 23

 “…”
“Maybe we can get another tanker inbound to get
those boys closer to the fight. I’d like to ram one of
those AIM-120s right up President Zhang’s ass!” Doug
chortled. “Get it? Because an AIM-120 is an AMRAAM?
Ah, you never laugh at my jokes.”
“…”
Doug squeezed his eyes shut, blinking to summon
some moisture and give them a second’s rest. Looking
down the length of the aircraft, he could see the nine
other crew consoles, each with an Air Battle Manager
like himself tracking airborne and maritime targets.
Well, all but one.
“Skip’s in the lav again,” he mused. “Someone
should have warned him about that Mexican place.”
The other ABMs were glued to their scopes, wearing
expressions that ranged from grave to enraged.
Given the opportunity, Doug was sure that each one
of them would have taken out China’s new president
AIR FORCE FUTURES
themselves for the surprise attack that had killed so
many of their brothers and sisters at arms.
Zhang had been in power just a few months,
having taken over after Xi Jinping died of a previously
undisclosed illness. Doug pondered if the sudden power
change in China was more than just coincidence.
“At least Xi understood that there was value in
strategic competition. This mother-effer is just as
crazy as that North Korean pecker-head that got
himself whacked. Jakko, what was his name?
Rocket Man?”
“Rocket Man was a nickname for Kim Jong Un
given by former Pres…”
“Trump!” Doug interrupted, “I remember my
history. Come on! One more bottle of Jerimiah Weed,
my friend! Now, are you getting paid to answer trivia
or fly? How long till you get back?”
“ETA in approximately eight mike.”
DEFENSE ONE | 24
 Leaning to one side of his monitor, Doug passed the
coordinates of the Raptor 6-ship.
“Those guys are gonna need another gas truck.
They’re not landing at Andersen tonight.”
Doug stole another glance at Elizabeth’s toothless
grin, then slid his eyes back to the scope. There was a
new return he hadn’t seen a moment before.
AIR FORCE FUTURES
“Jakko, what is at our 11 o’clock? If that is one of
our boys, it isn’t on the blue force tracker.”
Doug watched Jakko’s return change trajectory. As
he waited for a reply, the radar return disappeared,
then reappeared, smaller than before.
“This mother-effer is moving and looks like it’s
trying to be stealthy!”
U.S. AIR FORCE / STAFF SGT. ERIC T. SHELER
DEFENSE ONE | 25
 The unknown return grew as Jakko added his
radar data to the common picture. Then the deep
voice sounded in Doug’s headset. “Aircraft is a
Chinese J-20. It is on an intercept course with Whisky
Tango 917. Request authority to engage.”
“Wedgetail 917 is us!” Doug gulped. “Jakko,
authorized to engage! Get that effin’ Dragon!”
“Affirmative. Altering intercept course to engage.
Deploying ISR Agile-Launch Tactically Integrated
Unmanned System.”
“Roger, Altius 1200 in the air,” Doug recited. In a
moment, his scope lit up with new intelligence from
the drone’s sensors. “Signals confirm J…”
“J-20 radar in missile guidance! Missile inbound.
Returning fire!” Jakko’s clear voice cut into the missile, coordinating their approach and showering
ABM headset.
Doug stared at the scope, watching the pips of two
AMRAAM missiles speeding toward the J-20. Then he
AIR FORCE FUTURES
saw another return: the J-20 had launched a missile
of its own.
Time slowed down. The J-20 was maneuvering in an
effort to shake the AMRAAMs. Jakko was still closing
the gap to keep the Chinese pilot from breaking contact.
“J-20 missile trajectory indicates targeting of
Whisky Tango 917,” came the deep voice.
His E-7 carried no defenses against air-to-air
missiles. Doug looked to his daughter’s face, shining
red under the battle lights.
Jakko’s voice seemed fainter as Doug paused on
that toothless grin, “Deploying remaining Altius.”
The drones accelerated toward the inbound
it with focused electromagnetic interference.
Supersonic, and yet they still felt slow on the scope.
Doug watched breathlessly as the blips of the Chinese
missile and the U.S. drones merged onscreen.
DEFENSE ONE | 26
 Time stopped.

Doug waited. Then his heart dropped as the missile

continued past the drone swarm. Tears started to fill
his eyes as he reached toward Elizabeth’s picture.

“Drone swarm failed. Moving to intercept,” Jakko said.

Doug tore the photo from the console and held it to his
chest. The cargo bay boomed with a sound that seemed
both close and far away. His seat bumped violently.

And he waited.
U.S. AIR FORCE

Slowly, like a ringing in your ears that begins slowly

but then grows to the point where you feel you can hear “Wait!” Doug’s heart seemed to stop beating.
nothing else, he heard something: the cheering of the
rest of the folks on his aircraft. “Jakko, lost radar contact. Confirm location.”

He was still alive! They were all still alive! “…”

He looked at his scope. No missile. No J-20. And… “Jakko, confirm location!”

no Jakko.
“…”

AIR FORCE FUTURES DEFENSE ONE | 27

 “Jakko!”
Doug put down his headset and his eyes unfocused
behind tears.
“He saved me. He saved us! He sacrificed himself…”
Doug thought of all their banter…well, mostly
his banter. Jakko never talked too much. He
remembered their playful competitions, and all
of that Jerimiah Weed that Jakko “owed” him. He
vowed that when they landed—wherever that
might be—he would raise a glass to his friend.
Just how much of a hero had Jakko been? It was a
complicated question.
The airstrip was remote, but it had a functioning
and reasonably well-stocked bar. Doug wondered
how many lives had been saved that day—not just the
14 aboard WT917, but all of the other flights that the
AIR FORCE FUTURES
E-7 had helped during the fight’s remaining hours.
Jakko had thrown himself in front of a missile
like a soldier jumping on a grenade to save his
platoon. Hadn’t the Medal of Honor been earned
for accomplishing less? Jakko should be eligible, he
thought—but the Pentagon had never offered that high
honor to a machine. Doug resolved to honor his loyal
wingman in his own way. He raised his glass to the
Joint Autonomous Kinetic Kill Option, emptied it, and
had the bartender pour another.
Maj. Kyle McCracken is a career Office of Special
Investigations Special Agent with numerous
assignments conducting and supervising felony-level
criminal, fraud, and counterintelligence investigations
and operations in the physical and cyber domains.
This story is his and does not necessarily reflect the
positions of the U.S. Air Force or U.S. government.
DEFENSE ONE | 28
 PATRICK TUCKER
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Patrick Tucker is technology
editor for Defense One. He’s also
the author of The Naked Future:
What Happens in a World That
Anticipates Your Every Move?
(Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker
was deputy editor for The Futurist
for nine years. Tucker has written
about emerging technology in
Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology
Review, Wilson Quarterly,
The American Legion Magazine,
BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader,
and elsewhere.
AIR FORCE FUTURES
MARCUS WEISGERBER
GLOBAL BUSINESS EDITOR
Marcus Weisgerber is the global
business editor for Defense
One, where he writes about the
intersection of business and
national security. He has been
covering defense and national
security issues for more than a
decade, previously as Pentagon
correspondent for Defense News
and chief editor of Inside the
Air Force. He has reported from
Afghanistan, the Middle East,
Europe, and Asia, and often travels
with the defense secretary and
other senior military officials.
LAUREN C. WILLIAMS
SENIOR EDITOR
Lauren C. Williams is senior editor
for Defense One. She previously
covered defense technology and
cybersecurity for FCW and Defense
Systems. Before then, Williams
has reported on several issues,
including internet culture, national
security, health care, politics and
crime for various publications. She
has a master’s in journalism from
the University of Maryland, College
Park and a bachelor’s in dietetics
from the University of Delaware.
She can be contacted at lwilliams@
govexec.com or follow her on
Twitter @lalaurenista.
DEFENSE ONE | 29
ISTOCK | RZOZE19