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Challenges of today's Air Force
Air Force Speeches, Feb 8, 2007 by Michael W. Wynne
CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue) has launched and with urgent timing. We look forward to the GAO (General Accounting Office) finally resolving and moving ahead with that program. We believe we succeeded in Congress in getting them to agree to retire a portion of our aging fleet, but we would like to be assigned the fleet management role of our own Air Force. And we would therefore have complete control of our aircraft inventory, thus freeing up precious resources for recapitalization. We understand the debate might go on between the combatant commanders and ourselves. This is a healthy tension, and we want that to be the argument.
The F-35 procurement continues. The first plane is flying successfully with very strong praise for its performance. Eighty-seven of the planned total buy of now 183 F-22s are operating with our Airmen. We are learning of the ability of these fifth generation fighters to be the best sensor on the battlefield. That gives us ISR data that we would like to disseminate in the information net. An exercise in Alaska pointed this out after expending ordnance the F-22A was tasked to remain in the fight for its data-gathering and target-monitoring power. I foresee these fifth generation plans evolving towards an additional duty as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance asset. That is assets poised to complement the duties that other assets might be performing. The potential is huge, and we're only beginning to gauge and deploy this power. This may allow these fifth generation fighters to be very effective managers of legacy assets into the battle.
We're adding 10 C-17s to the inventory. The assembly line will continue through at least fiscal 2009. Acquisition of these aircraft was an important step in making sure that we can maintain a warm line. We hope that our coalition partners will be major buyers, which will help us further extend the line. On long-range strike, our new bomber for 2018, we hear brought planning back on track. General Moseley refers to range and payload as the soul of our Air Force. Clearly, modernizing a bomber for the 21st century fight is an imperative and we are under way with much more to come.
As I mentioned a year ago, ground force connectivity through the Rover technology was relatively new to our Air Force. Army units in the fight were simply just becoming aware of it. We had gone from about 240 Rover download computers in the hands of ground fighters, to now over 1,200, with 700 more on order to include the allies. And Homeland Security is now acquiring them. As I have mentioned training and using such download links is proliferating across the services. This is actually rapid change and is saving the lives of ground fighters and minimizing fratricide wherever we can.
To fill needs where the Army is unable to fill the ground-fighting ranks, the Air Force is providing Airmen for ground fighter taskings in addition to long-provided JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) role. We provide improvised explosive disposal clearance, perimeter defense, and convoy fighters, and gun truckers. We're in the air fight and in the ground fight with a vengeance--16,000 Airmen have been or are now deployed in the ground fight. They do bring an Airmen's eye to the fight, and are doing a terrific job. But the question remains for how long, especially given the ground force buildup, perhaps it is time to re-assess this as well. Because we all know that in the limit every Airman or rifleman fails the test, it fails to leverage the Airman's role. It fails to leverage the consequences of not having air cover. And so the nation must keep the leverage that Airmen bring. This is another area where you as the Air Force Association can certainly nurture the debate. The convoy story has been transformed, not just by convoy schooling, but by smart work to get convoys off the road wherever possible by using aircraft to move supplies, the watchword in dealing with asymmetric attack by these improvised explosive devices is to make the roadway IED (Improvised Explosive Device) irrelevant through intratheater airlift and joint precision airdrop system. We have taken approximately 3,500 trucks and 8,000 of our brave men and women off of the roads per month, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, using C-130s, C-17s, as well as precision drop. Be prepared--you're going to be hearing more about this, we're extremely proud of it, but be prepared to be amazed.
