Ping.
Reopen Loring AFB, Maine!
leave some money for the Space Force with X Wing Fighters etc..
What aircraft?
That’s a big order. Are we going to be using more strategic bombing? ICBMs? What else does the Air Force do? (I know, inconus search and rescue).
Attended a lecture by an Air Force general defending North America. He explained the Obama cuts were so deep we are cannibalizing forces from around the world to defend the homeland.
Attention, Space Command ...
You are go for construction of the Death Star!
Paging Darth Vader ... Please pick up the Red Phone.
First of all, you don't have enough aircraft for that many squadrons, and the only active procurement programs are the KC-46, B-21 and the F-35. Good luck getting Congress to fund life extensions for F-15 and F-16 aircraft slated to be retired.
Second, thanks to the early 2000s fuster cluck of taking rated pilots out of cockpits to put them in air conditioned trailers 'flying' drones, your cadre of experienced mid-level pilots are now all flying vacationers to exotic locales. Where are you going to get the pilots to staff all of these new squadrons, assuming that somehow you do come up with the extra aircraft?
Do we need more squadrons? Or fewer commitments?
Ping.
better idea
more
USA
USMC
1 airlift? I think she’d better think outside the Force. Smart and stand-off weapons have reduced the need for a large bomber fleet, technology has allowed one fighter to do the work of a flight but nothing can replace the need to get stuff to the fight when it absolutely, positively has to get there. I know they’re not glam but the more airlift we have, the better. You simply can’t have too much.
I have a strong feeling that despite what they want, they will get far more drone squadrons. Second, a priority for cargo and bomber aircraft will be cheap and reliable, because for both, 98% of what they do will be low or no intensity “work horse” type activities.
A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress costs about $58m. Its projected high tech replacement is the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, which costs 10 times as much. However, the vast number of bomber missions are just work horse type over low tech battlefields. B-52s are also far easier to maintain, because they don’t need temperature controlled hangars, expensive maintenance equipment, etc.
This isn’t to say we don’t need expensive high tech bombers, just that we don’t need as many as the low tech ones.
22 C2ISR squadrons vs. 7 fighter and 5 bomber squadrons?
Hmmm...
Call up the folks at Davis-Monthan and tell them to start unwrappin’...
CC
If we are not going to use planes to protect our border why do we need more? Better yet, why have any?
Build the wall first.
Maybe the Air Force should prioritize securing our Military Defense satellites?
https://breakingdefense.com/2018/08/adversaries-could-have-fiddled-with-us-satellites-dodig/
September 16, 2018
“WASHINGTON: If Chinese and Russian spies have been doing their jobs well, they might well have been able to compromise some of America’s most important satellites, including the missile launch detection birds known as SBIRS.
A report out today from the Pentagon’s Inspector General says that Air Force Space Command’s failure to safeguard its supply chain means that “an adversary has opportunity to infiltrate the Air Force Space Command supply chain and sabotage, maliciously introduce an unwanted function, or otherwise compromise the design or integrity of the critical hardware, software, and firmware.”
Got to get out in front of the new Space Force ...
Space squadrons probably don’t have very many aircraft assigned. A special operations squadron might have 3 or 4 C-130’s. Combat Search & Rescue... sounds like Helo’s to me. Tankers... that will be some aircraft, but probably some of those would be ground support. Bottom line, other than the B-21 coming on line, I don’t see an extraordinary number of new aircraft here.