In a report, an advance copy of which was provided to Defense News, the Mitchell Institute blasted what it sees as a chronically underfunded and atrophying Air Force fleet - one that won’t be ready for a fight against China. “We need to not only meaningfully decrease the age of the fleet we need to grow the fleet in terms of total numbers for fighters because we’re looking now at a totally new global security environment where we need to be able to deter and prevail in the Pacific Europe.” “It isn’t just about stabilizing the fleet,” Penney said. Under the Air Force’s FY23 budget proposal, retirements of older F-15s, F-16s and F-22s would more than offset growth in the F-35A and F-15EX fleets, bringing the total number of fighter aircraft from the more than 1,850 it now has in its fleet to about 1,770 next year.Ī KC-135 Stratotanker refuels F-22 Raptors over the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, while an F-15 Eagle flies nearby. And Penney said the Air Force needs to bring on more than 72 to both lower the average age of the fleet and grow it. Heather Penney, a former F-16 pilot and senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and Heritage Foundation aviation expert John Venable each noted the Air Force in recent years hasn’t met the 72-fighter threshold.
Ultimately, the decisions on what to do with those F-16 squadrons and the time frame for making those choices will depend on how fast the Air Force can bring on new fighters. The Air Force will also likely continue temporarily rotating fighters such as F-35s through Europe to respond to emerging conditions. Moore said the Air Force’s F-16s stationed at three squadrons in Europe - two in Italy and one in Germany - will eventually require replacements, likely F-35s the service is yet to procure.Īsked if that meant a one-for-one replacement of an F-35 squadron for each retiring F-16 squadron, Moore said that will depend in part on local conditions at the time. And what does our posture need to be when we get to the point where we make these decisions? We don’t know.” “How long does it persist? We don’t know. “The conditions in Europe right now are extraordinary,” Moore said. and Italy, increases their usefulness, he added.īut the long-term picture of that fleet in Europe is undetermined, Moore said, and will depend on several factors - most significantly, the security conditions in Europe in years to come, and how many new fighters the Air Force can buy. The variant’s interoperability with other F-35s flown by allies and partners in the region, such as the U.K. The Senate’s version of the annual defense policy bill could add another seven F-35As for the Air Force, which the service said could cost another $921 million.Īs more F-35As come into the Air Force, Moore said, the aircraft type will increasingly serve as the “cornerstone” of the U.S. The original budget request for fiscal 2023 called for nearly $7.2 billion to procure 57 new fighters: 24 F-15EXs and 33 F-35As. Today, the average fighter aircraft in the service is about 28 years old. Moore said funding such procurements would help the service both modernize and lower the average age of the fleet. Top Air Force officials have long said the service should buy at least 72 fighters each year. Richard Moore is that replacement fighters, particularly F-35As, aren’t arriving fast enough. What makes that equation a problem for Lt. While the Air Force tries to breathe new life into some F-16s in hopes they’ll keep flying into the 2040s, the general in charge of planning for the service’s future knows a replacement is inevitable. Today, however, the fourth-generation fighters are aging: The average Fighting Falcon is more than 30 years old, and some started flying in the early 1980s.
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