Air Force to miss its data-linking goal for cargo aircraft, commander says

The Air Force will likely miss its goal to data-link one-quarter of its tankers and cargo planes by 2025—but the technology to “instantly connect” aircraft is already starting to prove its value, the head of Air Mobility Command told lawmakers Wednesday.

“What we're finding out now is when an airplane takes off from Europe to go do a mission down to Niger, we've got instant connectivity. We know the current status of the airfield. We know the current status of the joint force on those airfields. We know the security measures. We know the fuel state. We know the cargo state. And that ability is an absolute game-changer,” Gen. Mike Minihan testified during a House Armed Services joint subcommittee hearing on the survivability of aircraft in contested environments. 

Minihan, who is set to retire this year, has been pushing for more connectivity to improve efficiency and protect service members. He said about 20 percent of the fleet would get the new networking gear by next year.

“It would have been wonderful to have that connectivity during the Kabul evacuation. We didn't. So what we've demonstrated is we're taking those lessons learned, we're backing it up with data, and then we're moving forward with affordable capabilities that exist now that don't require massive modifications to the airplanes, and we're having wonderful, wonderful effects in the airspace and in the battlefield.” 

The Air Force tested connectivity kits last year during its massive Mobility Guardian exercise in the Pacific. 

“These are roll-on kits, so they require a modification to use an antenna or add an antenna to the top of the aircraft. And then a kit like RTIC or a kit like ATOMS can come on to the aircraft and take up about a pallet position,” he said. “It's a combination of radios and servers. It gives us access to satellites. So these are commercial solutions that provide an enormous amount of download capability with zero latency, which is the most precious quality…That's exactly what's executing in Niger right now.”

Air Mobility Command’s “25x25” initiative aims to deliver “big data to the cockpit” for line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight secure communications to 25 percent of its fleet by 2025. But Minihan said the command will likely only reach 20 percent, despite existing technologies that can do the job. 

“When we first were doing the initial planning for Niger operations, we knew instantly from our lessons learned from everything from the Kabul evacuation to the initial Ukraine response and then specifically, very recently, Israel…the critical capabilities that connectivity provides. So we did some work with industry. We did some work with the Air Force and TRANSCOM, and we got two of the airplanes supporting that with what I would call the connectivity that I desire: the connectivity that provides both line of sight and beyond line of sight secure comms so that we can link in with the joint forces,” he said.

Connecting the entire fleet would cost about $500 million, he said.

AMC has done connectivity experiments on every type of aircraft it flies: C-130s, C-17s, C-5s, KC-135s, and KC-46s, Minihan said. 

“The tanker, amongst everybody, is going to be the most precious resource in the Pacific AOR,” he said. “If the resourcing and the commitment were to follow, then we would heavily be biased towards a tanker approach and towards those that were operating in the Pacific the majority of the time. There is a need for that capability on a daily basis, and that need grows when we get into crisis and potential conflict.”

Minihan said networking AMC’s fleet is not just a command initiative, but more broadly aligned with the Air Force’s piece of combined joint all domain command and control, also known as JADC2. 

“We will be able to tie into the tactical data links that the joint force uses…tie back to all the command-and-control echelons that the joint force, the combatant commands, and certainly my team that runs an air operations center that's globally engaged every day back at Scott Air Force Base,” he said. 

“If that's not in place, then I can't have the ability to say that this is about supporting the joint team that's maneuvering in the battle space and in the battlefield on the battle seas, battle skies, everything. So, you know, I plan to back up that statement strongly with action, and the only way we can do that is if we're connected with not only the current architecture, but the future architectures that are being developed.”