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I don't get it. Why were the navy giving up the search in such a short time? I think 36 hours is way to short to give up on the guy. I'll be very upset if I'm the family of the pilot.

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I don't get it. Why were the navy giving up the search in such a short time? I think 36 hours is way to short to give up on the guy. I'll be very upset if I'm the family of the pilot.

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ATLANTIC OCEAN (NNS) -- A MH-60R Seahawk helicopter crew embarked aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109), performed the at-sea rescue of an USS New York (LPD 21) Sailor Sept. 11.

The amphibious transport dock USS New York initiated the successful search and rescue mission after the Sailor failed to report for muster. USS New York, USS Jason Dunham, the guided missile cruiser USS Vicksburg (CG 69), and Coast Guard Cutter Tybee also assisted in search and rescue (SAR) efforts.

The Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM-46) helicopter located the Sailor who was recovered by their SAR swimmer shortly after 11 p.m.

The cause of the incident is currently under investigation. At this time, the Sailor is in the ship's Medical department for evaluation and observation and is being treated for minor injuries.

New York, Jason Dunham and Vicksburg are currently operating off the coast of South Carolina as part of an Amphibious Readiness Group exercise.

For more news from USS New York (LPD 21) and USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109), visit

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Women invited to apply for Ranger School
Students, observers to be part of combat-arms assessment
Sep. 12, 2014 - 06:00AM |

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By Michelle Tan
Staff writer Army times
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The Army is looking for female soldiers who want to volunteer to attend Ranger school.

The call-out is part of the Army’s ongoing effort to determine whether and how to open combat arms military occupational specialties to women.

Senior Army leaders are expected to decide in January if they want to move forward with this one-time, integrated Ranger school assessment. If the assessment moves forward, it likely will take place in the spring, and the Army will need volunteers already in place and ready to go, officials said Friday.

If the assessment takes place, it will be a first for the storied Ranger school, which until now has been open only to men.

“Right now we’re going through the deliberate planning process, identifying volunteers, and selecting them over the next few months,” said Lt. Col. Alayne Conway, an Army spokeswoman. “In January, we’ll determine the feasibility of conducting an assessment of the Ranger course in the spring of 2015.”

As part of this potential assessment, the Army is seeking two groups of volunteers, as outlined in two separate All-Army Activity messages.

First, the Army is seeking female soldiers who want to attend Ranger school as students. Women in the ranks of specialist through major can apply. They must meet the physical qualifications and prerequisites required to attend Ranger School.

If selected, female volunteers who successfully complete and graduate from Ranger school will receive a graduation certificate and be awarded and authorized to wear the Ranger tab. However, pending future decisions about whether women will be allowed to serve in combat arms MOSs, they will not receive the associated Ranger skill identifiers or be assigned to Ranger coded units or positions.

Second, female soldiers can volunteer to serve as observers and advisors to the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade. These slots are open to staff sergeants through master sergeants, chief warrant officers 2 and 3, and first lieutenants through majors.

These volunteers will not be Ranger instructors, and they won’t evaluate students in the course.

Deadline to apply
Selection packets for both groups of soldiers are due Oct. 10. Interested soldiers should work with their personnel officers and chain of command to submit their applications, according to the Army.

Potential participants will be identified in December, according to the Army.

The service has not determined how many volunteers it needs, said Lt. Col. Ben Garrett, an Army spokesman.

Part of the reason the Army is seeking volunteers and casting a wide net likely also is to determine the level of interest among female soldiers, officials said.

If approved, the Ranger course assessment will have male and female soldiers training together, according to the Army. The standards will remain the same, and there will be no change to current performance requirements or graduation standards, officials said.

“We will be prepared to execute the assessment professionally and objectively if directed,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning, Georgia, in a statement.

All female candidates selected for the course will be required to attend the Army National Guard Ranger Training and Assessment Course at Fort Benning before the start of their Ranger school class.

The two-month Ranger school has three phases — Fort Benning, then Dahlonega, Georgia, and finally Camp James E. Rudder in Florida.

The course has a graduation rate of about 50 percent, and as many as 60 percent of all Ranger school failures happen in the first four days.

Physical requirements to attend Ranger school include completing at least 49 pushups in two minutes, at least 59 sit-ups in two minutes, at least six pull-ups, and a five-mile run in 40 minutes or less. Candidates also are required to complete a combat water survival assessment consisting of equipment removal and 15-meter swim in the Army Combat Uniform and boots.

These physical qualification tests must be done within 90 days of reporting to Ranger school.

Enlisted applicants must have a standard General Technical score of 90 or higher and 12 months or more active-duty service remaining after completion of Ranger school.

Women who volunteer to serve as observers must undergo a selection process that includes a fitness test, land navigation, a combat water survival assessment, an operations order test, as 12-mile road march with a 35-pound ruck, and review boards, according to the Army.

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Navy identifies Hornet pilot presumed dead after collision
Sep. 14, 2014 - 08:18PM |

By Jeff Schogol
Staff writer Navy Times
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The Navy has identified the F/A-18C Hornet pilot who is presumed dead after his aircraft collided with another Hornet on Friday as Lt. Nathan Poloski.

The two Hornets from the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson were conducting routine flight operations about 250 miles from Wake Island when the collision occurred, according to the Navy. The other pilot was recovered about 45 minutes after the incident.

After a 36-hour search of more than 3,000 square miles failed to find him, the Navy called off the search for Poloski on Saturday.

Poloski, 26, is a 2009 Naval Academy graduate who joined Strike Fighter Squadron 94, based in Lemoore, Calif., in April 2014, according to a 7th Fleet news release on Sunday.

“Nathan was an outstanding person, naval officer and aviator,” Cmdr. Michael Langbehn, commanding officer of the squadron, said in the news release. “My personal thoughts and prayers are for his family, friends and shipmates as they endure this immeasurable loss.”

A memorial service for Poloski will be held aboard the Carl Vinson, according to the news release. The cause of the collision is under investigation.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Ranger training is no easy pass. The Women who go for it are going to have a hard fight.

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First Flight for KC-46 Tanker Platform Slips Further
Sep 12, 2014Amy Butler | AWIN First

Poorly designed wiring bundles for the U.S. Air Force’s KC-135 tanker replacement aircraft have driven program officials to further slip first flight of the Boeing 767-2C aircraft from June to no earlier than the middle of November.

Despite the delay, Air Force Maj. Gen. John Thompson, program executive officer for the KC-46 program, says he is confident the Boeing-led team can deliver the first 18 tankers by August 2017, as required in the contract. "We don’t see anything of great concern there that would really worry us about the ability to get to required assets available [RAA] … in the August of ‘17 timeframe," Thompson tells Aviation Week during a Sept. 11 interview. However, "Schedule performance must improve," he says.

Boeing won the $4.4 billion development contract on Feb. 24, 2011; the fixed-price terms of the deal limit the government’s cost to $4.9 billion. A 2013 cost and risk assessment put total cost of the development at $5.9 billion, Thompson says. Boeing is responsible for paying any overage to meet the 2017 milestone. Ultimately, the Air Force plans to buy 179 of the tankers as the first of three potential tranches of KC-135 replacements.

The company announced a $272 million charge this summer to keep the program on track. At issue was insufficient separation in some of the wiring bundles on the 767-2C baseline platform. Wiring bundles were one of the items that required a new design for the tanker variant because the Air Force requires double- or even triple-redundant wiring for some mission systems. The baseline 767 has about 70 mi. of wiring in the design; the 2C adds about 50 mi. to that, Thompson says. Along with redundancy, some of the wiring for specific systems must be separated by a certain distance for safety reasons. Boeing realized earlier this year while preparing for FAA testing that in 5-10% of the bundles safe separation distance for the wiring systems fell short or the wires were not properly shielded.

The poor design was "due to discrepancies traced to a transition of design tools," Boeing spokeswoman Caroline Hutcheson says. "While it in no way mitigates our disappointment in taking a charge, the issues here are well-defined and understood. There’s no new technology involved, just additional work that has to be accomplished."

Some of the wiring had already been installed in the first of four test aircraft for the program, driving program officials to remove some equipment. The other three test aircraft have been produced and are parked at Boeing’s facility awaiting the newly designed wiring bundles. However, production of these jets was to be fairly concurrent, and the redesign issue has shifted this work into a "serial process," creating a possible choke point for executing flight testing for the program.

The 767-2C was specifically designed for the tanker role. It is a 767-200ER modified with a strengthened main-deck cargo floor, cargo door and freighter features, 787-based cockpit, auxiliary fuel tanks and plumbing and wiring to support the refueling boom and mission systems. Boeing is building these features into the 767-2C as it is being built on the commercial production line in Everett, Washington, to minimize tear down and time to add mission systems at its finishing facility.

First flight for the first KC-46, which will be the second developmental aircraft (the first will be used in the 2C configuration for the amended and supplemental type FAA certification) is slated for April 2015, and Thompson said that schedule is holding, for now. But "if we don’t get the KC-46 variant in the air that first week of April, then we really start pushing almost a day-for-day slip of the Milestone C [Pentagon production decision], which is currently scheduled for September of next year."

He notes that if the Milestone C decision from Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall slips "a little bit to the right, that is not a death knell for the August of ’17 RAA." However, the slippage in 2C production is further emphasizing the development and production concurrency built into the KC-46 program. Officials said at the outset of the program this strategy carried little risk, owing to Boeing’s experience overseeing commercial-to-military conversions. However, flight testing will only have just begun on the 2C at the time of the Pentagon decision to produce the first 13 operational aircraft.

Further, the program is embracing a new "Test Once" concept that is designed to maximize the number of test points for different agencies accomplished in each test sortie. The delay could put further pressure on this new system.

Thompson says he is exploring options to mitigate schedule pressure as a result of the wiring bundle issue, though he said it is too early to identify specific measures under review. "There is more than one path through the forest," he said. "Just because we have established a schedule … doesn’t mean we could not better optimize that sequence of events."

Despite the high cost to Boeing of maintaining the schedule, Thompson says he still expects it to be a profitable venture for the company. South Korea and Japan have already expressed interest in a possible buy of KC-46s.

Before disclosure of the wiring bundle problems, Boeing officials maintained their estimate at completion would undercut the government’s estimates. Hutcheson did not refute Thompson’s estimate, but she notes that the company’s charge "is increased spending by Boeing to maintain the overall program schedule with no additional costs to the customer or taxpayer, per the contract design."

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Air mobility crews have logged more than 1,000 sorties to support airstrikes in Iraq
Sep. 16, 2014 - 06:00AM |
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A U.S. fighter jet refuels from an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker during an Aug. 21 mission in northern Iraq.
A U.S. fighter jet refuels from an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker during an Aug. 21 mission in northern Iraq. (Staff Sgt. Shawn Nickel / Air Force)

By Kristin Davis
Staff writer
FILED UNDER
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World News


Air Mobility Command tankers have flown more than 1,000 missions in support of airstrikes against the Islamic State, AMC commander Gen. Darren McDew said Tuesday.

That quiet support of a far more visible military campaign against the terrorist group that has swallowed up swaths of Iraq and Syria reminded McDew of an old acronym: NKAWTG.

“Nobody kicks ass without tanker gas,” McDew said at the annual Air Force Association conference outside Washington, D.C.

The commander’s remarks came as Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Staff, testified before Congress Tuesday that the fight against the Islamic State could require U.S. “boots on the ground.”

Meanwhile, U.S. military forces this week expanded its bombing mission against the militants also referred to as the Islamic State and the Levant, or ISIL, destroying six of the group’s vehicles and an ISIL fighting position outside Baghdad that was firing on Iraqi security forces, U.S. Central Command announced in a news release.

To date, CENTCOM has carried out 162 airstrikes across Iraq since Aug. 8. In addition to AMC’s more than 1,000 sorties, C-17s and C-130s have dropped over 800,000 pounds of humanitarian assistance, including 121,000 meals and 45,500 gallons of water in the vicinity of Sinjar and Amirli, Air Force spokesman Mark Voorhis said in an email.

That aid was packaged, prepared and flown by air mobility airmen, McDew said.

A day earlier, in her remarks to kick off the conference, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James described the service’s role in the fight against ISIL, as outlined by President Obama in a Sept. 10 speech. Airmen, working with sailors, have carried out the bulk of the airstrikes over northern Iraq, she said.

“First, systematic airstrikes will help roll back ISIL advances on the ground and create space for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to go on the offense,” James said.

Obama will also draw on the Air Force’s counterterrorism capability and continue those humanitarian missions, the secretary said.

On Tuesday, James told reporters she did not believe airmen are interested in getting credit. “They are interested in getting the job done,” she said.

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Air Force expects to test counter-electronics missile in 2016
Sep. 16, 2014 - 02:14PM |

By Bradley Peniston
Staff writer
FILED UNDER
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Military Technology

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. — On the convention center screen, an animated cruise missile flew over a shadowy cartoon city. A beam of high-power microwaves emitted from its nose — and the target building went dark. More significantly, the ones around it stayed lit up.

Developed over the past half decade under a program called Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the technology for a steerable counter-electronics weapon will be “available” in 2016, said Maj. Gen. Tom Masiello, who commands the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

“It can target electronics well enough to fly over a city and shut down electronics in a single building,” Masiello said Tuesday at the Air Force Association’s annual conference here.

Tests over the past few years have proved the concept; now the AFRL is working to get the technology into a test missile. By 2016, Masiello said, the lab plans to design, develop and test a multishot, multitarget, high-power microwave package aboard an AGM-86 conventional air-launched cruise missile.

Beyond that, Masiello said, AFRL’s roadmap for high-power microwave (HPM) weapons calls for integrating the technology onto “maybe, a JASSM-ER-type weapon” in the mid-2020s and aboard “small reusable platforms” such as the F-35 or advanced UAVs by the end of the decade.

It’s unclear whether such weapons will actually enter production; there’s no program of record yet, he said.

But his own opinion is clear; he talked about the HPM concept in “Game Changers,” a presentation that also included discussions of hypersonics and autonomous systems.

Last year’s test flight of the X-51 hypersonic test vehicle achieved Mach 4.8 and 200 seconds of ramjet power — far beyond the previous record of seven seconds.

“That really put hypersonics on the map,” Masiello said. “It really added a lot of momentum to the program.”

As for increasingly sophisticated autonomy, Masiello said, “This has the potential to dwarf everything.”

But he took pains to make clear: “It’s not about taking the airman out of the weapon system, it’s about making an effective team.”

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US Air Force Special Ops Looks To Add Armor, Firepower to Ospreys
Sep. 16, 2014 - 04:12PM | By PAUL McLEARY |
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NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. — In response to two of its CV-22 Ospreys being shot up over Juba, South Sudan, in December, critically injuring two service members, the US Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) has added optional armor to the flooring of the aircraft and may also incorporate forward-firing weapons.

AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold told reporters on Monday that armor panels developed for the bird could add 800 pounds of weight if the full “blanket” is used, but crews have the option to use the armor sheeting or not.

The two CV-22s were so vulnerable in the attack because the crews didn’t expect the area around the mission to be “hot,” so were surprised by the 119 rounds fired at the aircraft.

The optional armor, which is being fielded now, can be put on in pieces to protect only certain parts of the aircraft, but any extra armor will create tradeoffs, Heithold said, either in how many troops can be carried or how far the aircraft can fly before refueling is necessary.

AFSOC is also working with industry to develop a forward-firing gun, he said.

“We’ve been challenged on this since the inception of this airplane,” he said. “We’re looking at various solutions that will be simple — not exquisite — solutions that fire forward so that I can keep heads down” going into a landing zone.

“It’s not going to be a real exotic, expensive solution” he insisted, echoing comments made by Lt. Col. John DiSebastian, SOCOM’s C-130 and CV-22 program director at a special operations conference in Tampa, Florida, this past May.

“If you’ve got a $1 million widget you want to put on the Osprey — [SOCOM has] 50 of them. We can’t afford a $50 million program,” he said.

“But if you’ve got a $100,000 or a $50,000 widget that can improve the sustainment, capability or ops of the aircraft, then bring that to us.”

Heithold also said his command has run into some unexpected costs in training Osprey crews, and that the mission-capable rates in garrison are lower than the command wants them to be.

“We’re flying the darn airplanes different than they thought we were going to fly them,” he said, “which puts a demand signal on the blades which is way more than anybody ever thought.”

While “we are beating them up” in training events that mimic the rigors of real world operations, he said, in operations around the globe, “the CV-22 is all we asked it to be.”

While AFSOC currently has 50 Ospreys in its fleet, and he doesn’t expect the number to rise anytime soon, Heithold is pushing for three or four more aircraft to act as an attrition reserve. High operating tempo is wearing out some aircraft sooner rather than later, he added. ■

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What's Next: USAF Lays Groundwork To Replace Fighter, Tanker Fleets
Sep. 14, 2014 - 03:45AM | By AARON MEHTA | Comments
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F-22 Flies over Arabian Gulf
US Air Force leaders are looking far down the road to envision operations beyond the days of the F-22 fighter, pictured, the KC-10 and KC-135 tankers. (Staff Sgt. Vernon Young / US Air Force Central Com)
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Read all of our stories from the Air Force Association conference
WASHINGTON — As US Air Force leaders gather this week outside of Washington, they bring a warning: Potential adversaries are spending big on technology, and the US can’t afford to fall behind.

Much of the focus of the Air Force Association conference will be on a series of recapitalization programs that will get underway in the next few years. But even as the Air Force tries to inject new systems into its fleet, it has its eyes on the horizon and what could be the next wave of recapitalization programs.

The most notable is the program known as “F-X”, “next-generation air dominance” or, much to the chagrin of the service, “sixth-generation fighter.” This would be the replacement for the F-22 and provide air dominance for the 2030s, 2040s and 2050s.

“It’s not a big money driver at the moment, but it’s really important for the future of the Air Force and I personally am going to spend a lot of my energy on it,” said William LaPlante, Air Force undersecretary for acquisition. The program is also a priority for Gen. Mark Welsh, Air Force chief of staff, and Pentagon acquisition head Frank Kendall, he added.

Air Force critics are quick to point out that the F-35 joint strike fighter, a fifth-generation jet, is still in the early stages of production — and still struggling with development and testing challenges. Why, then, should the Air Force be spending funds to develop a new fighter?

Col. Tom Coglitore, Air Superiority Core Function Team chief at Air Combat Command, said the timetable actually lines up with the development of other air dominance fighters, such as the F-15 and F-22.

“We’re at that point that we need to be thinking about replacement for capabilities we have today, because 15-20 years from now the F-22 will be 30 years old,” he said. And unlike their bomber cousins, which have notoriously long lifespans, “these platforms are sometimes pulling 8 or 9 Gs a couple times a day. We stress the heck out of them.”

The Air Force wants to complete its analysis of alternatives and begin Milestone A, the first real step in an acquisition program, in the early fiscal 2018 time frame, Coglitore said.

That’s an “aggressive” schedule, warned Mark Gunzinger, a retired Air Force colonel and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“I think that is pretty optimistic,” he said, considering that significant questions remain about what the next-generation system might look like — and whether it would be a “fighter” at all.

“There needs to be a great deal of work to assess how a family of capabilities could create an air dominance environment that will enable ISR/strike platforms to penetrate and operate effectively in contested areas,” Gunzinger said.

The Air Force is at least open to the idea of not following the traditional fighter mold.

“We’re not presupposing that this is a 9 G aircraft and manned with two tails, two engines and a gun,” Coglitore added. “It could be an unmanned platform that only flies around at 2 to 3 Gs, perhaps. It’s whatever will take us to achieve the capability to fill that gap we see out in the future.”

LaPlante said he is “very interested” in incorporating autonomy into the program, but emphasized the service needs to think hard about distance.

“We have to remember the world is the world and we can’t predict where we may have to put these things, particularly because of basing. We’re going to have to think about how to have air dominance globally,” he said.

“So what technologies do people bring up? It’s hypersonic, it’s variants of new engine technologies like the adaptive engines we’ve got, new directed energy type weapons, those are the classic ones folks talk about.”

The timetable for directed energy weapons is still “the great unknown,” Coglitore said.

“There are a lot of things to solve, but if you look around the world, lasers have made significant progress over the last decade or two,” he added. “Whether it’s mature or effective enough is something that we will need to determine.”

Directed energy weapons have been identified as a service technological research priority, but if it is going to reach its potential, it needs to have a steady funding stream, Gunzinger said.

“There are things that can be done to operationalize directed energy weapons in the near term — it’s no longer a pipe dream,” Gunzinger said. “The directed energy timetable for some weapons may now be driven more by the lack of resources rather than technological maturity.”

Coglitore’s team is also exploring incorporating open architectures, which he called “the wave of the future.” Coglitore brought up a hypothetical of a system similar to an iPhone that can be upgraded through downloadable apps without the need for hardware replacement.

Another major program on the horizon is the KC-Y, a potential follow-on to the KC-X tanker replacement program, which was awarded to Boeing and its KC-46 design.

“I would put the KC-Y as certainly key for the future of the Air Force, because we need to continue to have more tankers as we eventually start retiring” current fleets, LaPlante said.

The service always planned to do a three-step renewal of its tanker fleet, but observers said the KC-Y is highly unlikely to be a new system. Instead, expect a slightly modified KC-46.

“The idea of derailing the KC-46 process and replacing it with something all new is a risk they just can’t take,” Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said.

He notes that the KC-Z, the last part of the three-step program, could look like a new plane, particularly if the Air Force goes ahead with plans to retire the KC-10 earlier than expected responding to sequestration cuts.

And there are other systems on the horizon that will need recapitalization programs to at least begin in the mid- to late- 2020s.

LaPlante highlighted the need to recap the National Airborne Operations Center aircraft that would be used by the president and other government leaders in case of national emergency, many of which are getting up in age, as a “wildcard” for future budgets. Aboulafia added a potential replacement for the C-27 cargo transport as another option.

One that may see movement sooner rather than later is upgrading ground terminals for many systems.

“I don’t know we’ll have to replace them but we will have to make them more cyber resilient and more common,” LaPlante said.

“So for example, we have more GPS going up, but we also have a corresponding ground control station that has to modernize the previous GPS ground control station and make it more assured in terms of resiliency.”

Realistic Options?
The overarching question, however, is how realistic these programs are in an era of budget drawdowns.

That’s particularly acute now, as the Air Force has a series of major recapitalization programs that are already fighting for funding.

The “Big Three” — the F-35 fighter, KC-46A tanker and new long-range strike bomber — are already well underway. In addition, a second tier comprising the new combat rescue helicopter, T-X trainer replacement and joint surveillance target attack radar system command-and-control aircraft are in various stages of development.

Keeping those six on track while also developing the next-generation fighter and tanker follow-ons is a challenge, LaPlante acknowledged, but said the service’s emphasis on a new 20-year budget strategy will help prevent it from being overwhelmed.

“What that does is it forces planners and all of us in the leadership of the Air Force to make sure that the sequencing makes sense, to make sure, for example, that in the mid-2020s we don’t have everything falling all on top of each other and it goes outside the boundaries of what we can afford,” he said.

“Believe it or not, with the basic planning scenarios it does hang together.”

There “are the uncertainties we have to deal with,” LaPlante said. “But we’re not starting those programs with an unaffordable 20-year plan. We’re just not.”

While acknowledging the service’s attempts at a longer budget view, Gunzinger warned that keeping all these programs on track will tax other areas the service may want to upgrade or modernize.

“There are going to have to be a lot of tradeoffs. Hopefully they are strategic tradeoffs informed by strategy, not just budget cuts,” he said.

One tradeoff for recapitalization? The Air Force has put newer designs ahead of legacy fleets in a move analysts and service officials said stresses the current flying force.

The first major decision of the recapitalization vs. modernization came in the service’s fiscal 2015 budget request, when it cut funding for the F-16 Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite (CAPES) upgrade.

That program would have added an advanced radar and other upgrades to the aging F-16 fleet.

Instead, that funding went to a service-life extension program (SLEP) to extend the service life of the F-16 fleet by 2,000-4,000 hours of flight time. Gen. Michael Hostage, the outgoing head of Air Combat Command, has characterized choosing the SLEP over CAPES as a tradeoff the service made in order to keep the jets flying.

The SLEP, which involves changes to the wings and bulkhead, was slated to receive $16.2 million in the service’s fiscal 2015 budget request with full-rate production beginning in fiscal 2019. The Air Force said 65 F-16s will undergo the SLEP through 2019.

And recent events show a SLEP may be needed, with the service’s fleet of F-16D models, as well as international F-16B designs, needing to undergo repairs following the discovery of systemic cracks near the cockpit of the jets.

Keeping new programs on track is vital, “but we also have to remember we are using our legacy aircraft right now in operations and these aircraft are quite old,” LaPlante acknowledged.

“We’re using these things today and we have to make sure we’re making them the most available, safe and effective for the war fighter,” he added. “The juggling is making sure we do that while we protect the next generation of it.”

At the end of the day, getting all of its mission areas covered with the current budget may not be a real option, Gunzinger warned.

“I think it’s inevitable that we’re not going to be able to do everything we want to, in the way of buying as many new aircraft as the Air Force needs to over the next 10 years, unless there is a change to how resources are allocated across services,” he said.■

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