Further to this post,
Steve Trimble of Aviation Week explores the way ahead (note the fighters for the NORAD mission, especially vs cruise missiles, including the new F-15EX):
Era Of Hard Decisions Begins As U.S. Defense Spending Stagnates

Managing a flat or slightly declining budget is easier when the topline is over $700 billion, but some programs feel the pinch more than others.
The U.S. Air Force’s requested $169 billion share of a proposed $705 billion defense budget for fiscal 2021 reflects the dilemma facing fiscal planners. Although continuing to insist the Air Force needs scores of additional combat squadrons, service officials are proposing to accelerate retirements of dozens of aircraft across fighter, mobility and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) fleets. The savings would be used to fund development of capabilities that mainly would be realized only after passing through several risk-prone years with an inconsistent military acquisition system.
Specifically, the Air Force proposes through fiscal 2025 early retirement of 44 A-10 attack aircraft, built by Fairchild Republic; 17 B-1 bombers, built by Rockwell; 24 Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Block 20 and 30 unmanned aircraft systems (UAS); 10 contractor-operated MQ-9 UAS, built by General Atomics; and 16 McDonnell Douglas KC-10 and 13 Boeing KC-135 refuelers.
Bucking a trend, the Air Force canceled the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW) to focus on a more advanced boost-glide missile as interest grows in hypersonic air-breathing cruise missiles. The requested fleet reductions also follow the Air Force’s decisions during the last budget cycle to retire the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Stars in fiscal 2025 and remove funding for the final planned member in the Lockheed Martin Space-Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) constellation in the fiscal 2019 budget.
“We had to make additional tough choices and major cuts in some areas in order to free up money to continue to invest in the high-end fight,” Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist said…
Although inconsistent with the Air Force’s message that it needs to grow to 486 combat squadrons to meet operational requirements, the proposed fleet reductions since last year have a consistent purpose. The overall defense budget has stagnated since peaking at $716 billion in fiscal 2019, falling to an enacted level of $704 billion this fiscal year and edging up to a proposed $705 billion for fiscal 2021. With no top-line growth, the Air Force is financing an ambitious modernization strategy by leveraging savings from early fleet retirements and terminating certain upgrades.
“Our adversaries have designed their forces to exploit our vulnerabilities, and unless we evolve, they will someday face a force they have readily trained and equipped themselves to defeat [emphasis added, see post linked to at top of this one],” said Maj. Gen. John Pletcher, the Air Force’s budget director, speaking to reporters on Feb. 10. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
But the Air Force’s approach carries near-term risks. Fewer aircraft would be available now so more advanced capabilities can be developed for later. The Air Force applied a similar strategy when a budget-sequestration policy was imposed in fiscal 2012, leading to the retirements of hundreds of A-10s and Lockheed Martin F-16s with no immediate replacements.
“We are seeing the fleet literally fall off a cliff,” said a source familiar with the Air Force’s budget plans. “The replacements are not ramping up fast enough or soon enough.”..
“The combatant commanders are focused on the next year to two to three years, and the service chief is looking at 10 to 15 years,” said Gen. Charles Brown, commander of Pacific Air Forces, describing the tension between officers in his position and the service chiefs in the Pentagon.
Although some capabilities are being subtracted, the Air Force’s budget request restores funding for some long-sought modernization programs.
A Next Generation Adaptive Engine (NGAP) program appears for the first time in the fiscal 2021 budget documents. As of last year’s budget cycle, the Air Force planned to wrap up by 2021 the Adaptive Engine Technology Demonstrator (AETD) program, which aims to demonstrate a 45,000-lb.-thrust turbofan with three-stream airflow technology for the Lockheed F-35. The lack of a funded transition path for adaptive engine technology prompted frustrated lawmakers to slash the AETD budget by $200 million and chastise the Air Force. With over $400 million committed through fiscal 2024, the NGAP program appears to fund development of a follow-on design, which perhaps could be tailored to a future twin-engine fighter.
Moreover, the Air Force last year reduced the five-year budget for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program by half, or $6.6 billion, nixing prospects to launch full-scale development of a replacement for the Lockheed Martin F-22 as early as fiscal 2023. But the fiscal 2021 budget offers a brighter outlook in the long-term for NGAD, with spending exceeding $2 billion annually for the first time, starting in fiscal 2025.
The F-16 fleet also is due for a major—and long-awaited—upgrade in the fiscal 2021 budget. The Air National Guard has upgraded 72 F-16s with Northrop Grumman APG-82 active electronically scanned array radars since fiscal 2017. The Air Force now plans to expand the upgrade to 330 more fighters, including upgraded mission computers and displays that were not available for the first 72 aircraft.
A subset of the F-16 fleet then will join the core of an advanced fleet of nonstealthy fighters, including the Boeing F-15EX, that will be tasked with defending air bases and the homeland from attack by combat aircraft and cruise missiles [emphasis added].
…the biggest new Air Force commitment is devoted to the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), with $3.26 billion requested over the next five years, including a $302 million down payment in fiscal 2021.
In the near-term, the goals of ABMS are modest. An initial “on-ramp” event staged in December allowed the F-35 and F-22 to exchange data through a ground-based communications gateway that reconciled the waveforms of incompatible low-probability-of-intercept data links used by both aircraft.
During the next two on-ramp events, the Air Force plans to install the communications gateway on the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, a potential new airborne communications medium for the Air Force’s different stealth fighters. A similar role also would be demonstrated by the Boeing KC-46 tanker.
Ultimately, the Air Force wants to expand beyond gateways. Once the service can deploy a seamless and resilient airborne communications network, the ABMS program plans to introduce a cloud-like processing system, with applications that automatically perform the role played by airborne battle managers on the E-8C and Boeing E-3 fleets today.
Meanwhile our government is still slowly. slowly working to select a new fighter for the RCAF (no winner until 2022), has no formal project to replace its aging CC-150 Polaris tankers, and has not committed any funds needed for the massive modernization of NORAD’s North Warning System.
Oh well.
Mark Collins
Twitter: @Mark3ds