USAF Chief Of Staff Outlines Plans For Fewer USAF Combat Aircraft

The Air Force will have fewer fighters and strike aircraft, but the lethality of those that remain will increase, the service’s top general said Sept. 13 at the 2004 Air Force Association’s Air and Space Conference and Technology Exposition in Washington (DC).

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper said the service plans to reduce its number of combat aircraft. By reinvesting the potential savings from operating and maintaining those "surplus" aircraft, the Air Force can significantly improve the capability of those that remain, he said.

"I don’t think that even reduced numbers … will produce any less killing capacity," General Jumper said. "As a matter of fact, the lethality of even a reduced number of weapons systems will be extraordinarily increased over what we have right now."

To illustrate his point, the chief of staff reminded people of the successful test of a multi-unit bomb rack aboard the B-2 Spirit bomber that released 80 Global Positioning System-guided bombs.

"Eighty targets now are the potential for one airplane," he said. "So it’s neither right nor proper for us to argue that the same force structure and size is required when the killing capacity of each of these systems goes dramatically up.

"It’s already a matter of record that we plan on replacing an F-15 (Eagle), F-15E (Strike Eagle) and F-117 (Nighthawk) fleet that was numbered above 750 with F/A-22 (Raptors) in numbers around 400," General Jumper said.

Money saved from reducing the number of operational aircraft will then be used to improve the remaining fleet.

"We need to recapitalize the fleet, so we look at things like the A-10 (Thunderbolt II)," General Jumper said. "We can do that ... by taking savings from that reduction, as we did with the B-1, and make (the A-10) digitally capable."

While the number of F-15s may get smaller, the general promised gainful employment to those who fly and work with them.

"There is no need for anxiety on the part of anyone in the F-15 community -- their jobs will not go away," he said. "We intend to make the airplanes we have more versatile."

Specifically, the chief of staff said the traditional air-to-air version of the F-15 (the C model) will pick up air-to-ground capability. General Jumper said the remaining F-15Es will have their capabilities expanded.

"With the advent of bombs we can release just based on a cross on a display that says where a target is, it makes it much easier for F-15Cs to play in the whole execution phase after air superiority has been attained, and be active in all phases of combat rather than just be in the air superiority phase," the general said.

"To me, it’s good sense; it’s good finance; it’s good decision-making," he said.

(ANN salutes Master Sgt. Scott Elliott, Air Force Print News)

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