Page 5 - Aerotech News and Review February 7 2025

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The 412th is ‘Back in the Saddle’ — and ready!
by Mike Paoli
Edwards AFB, Calif.
The rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army under Chairman Xi Jinping served as context for a risk management-themed briefing by Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., during Monday’s Back-in-the- Saddle Day.
During the in-person and virtual brief from the base theater, Wickert said years of persistent Chinese Commu- nist Party cyber espionage, to include malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure such as electrical, water and transporta- tion systems, has left America and its allies vulnerable. “There are now at least a dozen telecom companies that have acknowl- edged being infected,” he said, leaving the U.S. susceptible to surveillance of senior govern- ment officials and associated
Air Force photograph by Todd Schannuth
Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert, 412th Test Wing commander, points to an image of the B-21 Raider in flight during an Edwards-based test mission. “Today is not the day to start World War III, because we have this.”
assets stationed west of the in- ternational dateline, by 2027 the PLA is expected to have numeri- cal superiority of approximately 12 to one in modern fighter aircraft (including five to three in fifth-generation aircraft) and three to one in maritime patrol aircraft. The PLA’s 225 manned bombers are uncon- tested in the region. On the sea, the PLA enjoys an advantage of three to one in aircraft car- riers and amphibious assault ships, more than six to one in modern submarines (including two advanced subs) and nine to one in modern multi-warfare combatant vessels.
In mid-December the PLA navy surrounded Taiwan in an unannounced exercise, the world’s largest naval demon- stration since the end of World War II. The exercise was three times larger in number of ships than last June’s vaunted Rim of the Pacific exercise involving 40 U.S. and allied surface ships.
“We are the smallest and oldest that we have ever been,” Wickert said. “The PLA is the largest and most modern that it has even been. That is risk. That is uncertainty.”
During December’s exer- cise the PLA skirted Taiwan’s territorial waters, conducted mock aerial attacks on shipping and formed a two-deep naval blockade to restrict sea and air approaches from the west.
In other preparations for conflict, the PLA has carved into the sands of the Gobi Des- ert an airfield replicating the runways, taxiways and parking ramps of Taiwan’s Taichung International Airport. 300 miles further west is a flat full-scale profile of a U.S. Navy Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier. It lays among other U.S. ship profiles and near mock U.S. destroyers that weave evasively through the desert on rails.
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government networks.
“The CCP now knows who
my government phone has talk- ed to for at least the last four years, and they’re still there and we can’t get them out,” he said. “That’s uncertainty. That’s risk. And it makes for a very, very dangerous world right now.”
Wickert said the pace of
modernization that the PLA is going through is also “unprec- edented and far outpacing” similar efforts by the United States.
On Dec. 26, the PLA revealed two new combat aircraft to com- memorate the birthday of Chi- nese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong. In relation to U.S.