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Data Points
January 26, 2010—If current trends in DOD spending continue, the US military could lose its technological edge. |
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In More Depth
Modest GrowthUSAF seeks $140.4 billion in Fiscal 2011, including $20.8 billion for the wars. |
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The Document File
Annual Report to the President and Congress Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense 2005 Report Annual Report to the President and Congress
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense 2004 Report |
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Testimony
January 21, 2010
Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz Cmdr., AFGSC House Armed Services, Strategic Forces Written testimony January 21, 2010Maj. Gen. C. Donald Alston ACS, Strategic Deterrence & Nuclear Integration House Armed Services, Strategic Forces Written testimony Jan. 21, 2010
Brig. Gen. Everett H. Thomas Cmdr., Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center House Armed Services, Strategic Forces Written testimony |
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Daily ReportTuesday February 09, 2010
Great Parts for the Sum: Air  Force Secretary Michael Donley last week told airmen with the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, that their activities in areas like close air support, airlift, and intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance are critical to the success of US forces in that country. "The importance of the joint mission cannot be stressed enough," said Donley, who visited the base Feb. 1-2 as part of his weeklong tour of US Central Command's area of responsibility. He highlighted the new MC-12 surveillance aircraft, which recently made its debut in Afghanistan, as an example. "That is a testament to our ISR capabilities and the importance of the support we provide the combatant commanders," he said. Donley acknowledged the high operations tempo that airmen have endured in supplying these capabilities and thanked them for their sacrifices and commitment. (Bagram report by SSgt. Richard Williams) Long-serving Pennsylvania Congressman Dies: Rep John Murtha, (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel, passed away Monday at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., according to his spokesman Mathew Mazonkey. Murtha was 77. Mazonkey said the Congressman died peacefully in his hospital bed with his family at his side. He was attempting to bounce back from recent gall bladder surgery. Murtha was in his 19th term and was eighth most senior member of the House. First elected in 1974, the former Marine was the first Vietnam War veteran to serve in Congress. Just this past Saturday, Feb. 6, Murtha became Pennsylvania’s longest serving member of Congress. Among his stances affecting the Air Force, Murtha advocated a dual buy in the KC-X tanker contest and supported maintaining two engines for the F-35 strike fighter. (Murtha's official biography) Family Size: The Air Force plans to have three squadrons of aircraft oriented around partnering with nascent allied air forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, according to Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. In a recent interview, Schwartz said: "We will have a modest general-purpose force building partner capacity capability. That is in this budget; it’s reflected with a squadron-size element of strike and a squadron-size element of light lift. We already have light [intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance] in the form of the MC-12 program." The strike element would be a prop-driven counterinsurgency airplane, while the Light Mobility Aircraft would be an eight-person plus cargo small transport. Schwartz said he expects the Air Force to be in Iraq and Afghanistan, advising and co-operating with the indigenous air arms, long after the December 2011 extraction of US combat troops from Iraq. The Air Force plans to buy the first 15 LiMAs in Fiscal 2011. —John A. Tirpak Previews from the Dark Side: The secret, or "black" portion of the Air Force’s budget, although constrained, is producing useful capabilities, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said in a recent interview. Offering a peek behind the curtain, Schwartz said that there are things in the surveillance areas, command and control, and intelligence "that I think are pretty exciting." Based on his experience with classified programs, Schwartz said, "The classified areas of our budget are producing more product now than I have seen in the past." He added, "We are delivering things that I think certainly will be meaningful to the joint team for quite a long time." Speaking of black projects, the Air Force in December officially lifted the veil on the RQ-170 Sentinel, a stealth unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that has been operating from Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Message for Boeing: The Air Force appreciates that C-17 transports are selling reasonably well around the world; foreign orders have helped keep the line open by filling production slots over the years. But the Air Force won’t buy any more of them to help the industrial base. So said Gen. Norton Schwartz, Chief of Staff. In an interview, Schwartz said he’s aware that the Airbus A400M airlifter, which first flew in December 2009, could be canceled, but keeping C-17s in production in hopes of capturing abandoned A400M customers for Boeing isn’t affordable. "I think the question of whether A400M succeeds or not is something that Boeing executives should consider, to be sure, but I’m not expending any intellectual energy or, certainly, taxpayer’s resources on that," said he. The Air Force, Schwartz continued, has no money to be "a global business competitor. What we want to be is a global warfighter, and that’s what we pay attention to." Pratt Reaches F135 Milestone: As the political debate heats up again over the engines for the F-35 strike fighter, Pratt & Whitney, maker of the F135, the current powerplant, says things are heating up at its end, too, but in a good way. On Feb. 2, the company announced that it has delivered the first production-version F135 engine for the F-35. Pratt said this milestone is a "clear demonstration of the maturity of the F135," which has accrued more than 13,000 hours in tests thus far. The General Electric-Rolls Royce team developing the F136 engine is continuing to battle for the rights to supply the propulsion systems for thousands of future F-35s. The Pentagon wants to terminate F136 work, saying it has sufficient confidence in the F135 design and it doesn’t have the funds to build two engine types. (For more, read Counterpoint.) Happy Anniversary: Officials  at Maxwell AFB, Ala., celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Air Force Officer Training School Feb. 5-7 with three days of events that drew several hundred alumni and guests. The school has been located at Air University's Holm Center on Maxwell since September 1993 and now trains officers of the active duty and reserve components. But it opened its doors back in 1959 at Lackland AFB, Tex., with its first group of 89 trainees, Class 60A. The commemorative activities included a ceremony to honor the former OTS graduates who have been killed in combat, a tour of the OTS facilities, and a gala dinner. The Montgomery Advertiser reported Feb. 7 that the snow storm that pummeled the US East Coast Feb. 5-6 prevented Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz from speaking at the gala dinner on Feb. 6. (Maxwell report by Carl Bergquist) Air Sorties in Southwest Asia, Feb. 4, 2010
| Sortie Type |
OIF |
OEF |
OIF/OEF |
Total |
YTD |
| ISR |
32 |
9 |
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41 |
1,937 |
| CAS/Armed Recon |
21 |
65 |
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86 |
3,145 |
| Airlift |
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|
151 |
151 |
5,553 |
| Air refueling |
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|
45 |
45 |
1,475 |
| Total |
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323 |
12,110 |
OIF=Operation Iraqi Freedom
OEF=Operation Enduring Freedom
ISR=Intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance
YTD = Year to Date
Airlift includes Horn of Africa data
Note: Data includes all coalition sorties, except for airlift, which is USAF only |
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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. |
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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. |
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