How to Capture JSF

How to Capture JSF:

The Air Force on Thursday announced criteria it will use to select which bases get the new F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. The service plans to consider airspace, flight training ranges, weather, support facilities, runways, taxi ramps, environmental concerns, and cost factors for more than 200 sites. Then it will look at combatant commander requirements, the service's fighter retirement plan, maintenance and logistics support, and integration with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve to further refine its lists, producing two candidate lists—one for operational sites and one for training sites. Then it will commence environmental impact analyses, at which point communities around the candidate bases will be able to provide their inputs. In late spring 2010, USAF expects to release its preferred locations. It wants to complete all environmental requirements and announce its record of decision with final basing in early 2011.

9/18/2009

Verbatim

No Dog, Just Concern
"You know it concerns me that we keep hearing, 'Well this is something that the military doesn't want. They didn't ask for,' and all that. Then I go over there [Southwest Asia theater], and that's not their attitude at all. They have needs over there. Our lift capacity is in dire straights. … Now on the F-22—just yesterday we read about the T-50 … a fifth generation [fighter] that the Russians have. … I'm concerned about this. And I guess, you know, if we're down to 187 F-22s, and I think out of that only—what 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat. … I look at our committee—the Senate Armed Services Committee—and on these two vehicles I mentioned—the F-22 and the C-17—in Oklahoma. I don't have a dog in that fight. We don't have any parochial interest there. But it's the capability that we're going to need."
—Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), speaking during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Fiscal 2011 defense budget, Feb. 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Taming Expectations
"Every QDR disappoints those who look for radical reallocation of resources. The current fiscal environment is compounding that trend."
—Jim Thomas, vice president for studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, briefing reporters in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2010.