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The 2010 Hit List
The 2010 Hit List: The Air Force plan to divest itself of 254 legacy fighters in Fiscal 2010 to free up funds to upgrade the remaining fleet shows a mix of 112 F-15s, 134 F-16s, and three A-10s under the 2010 budget proposal and five F-16s previously scheduled for retirement next year. The money to be saved—about $355 million in Fiscal 2010 and another $3.5 billion over the next five fiscal years—would go toward such things as precision weapons and advanced targeting capabilities to provide "bridge capabilities" for the legacy fleet to see USAF through to a fifth-generation force, said Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff, in a May 20 release announcing the Combat Air Forces restructure. In the same release, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said the service had "a strategic window of opportunity" that will enable USAF to field "a smaller, more flexible, and lethal" force, but he acknowledges that means "accepting some short-term risk." Several lawmakers have questioned whether the Air Force will now have too few fighters. However, Schwartz said service leaders had "taken this major step only after a careful assessment of the current threat environment and our current capabilities." He maintains that the CAF restructuring plan will enable USAF to sustain its advantage over potential adversaries, which he acknowledged is "eroding," until full-fielding of F-22 and F-35 fifth-generation aircraft. (Air Force 2010 fighter cut list)
5/21/2009
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Verbatim
Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.
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