F-15EX Arrival

The first F-15EX parks next to a F-15E Strike Eagle on the ramp at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., after delivery 11 March, 2021. (U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Joshua Hoskins)

Edited at 3/28/2022 at 3:19pm EST to add details about aircraft divestements.

WASHINGTON: The US Air Force plans a short-term F-35 procurement slowdown in favor of the F-15EX, will seek to retire JSTARS and AWACS surveillance aircraft, and requests major increases in research and development money, all with an eye on China.

The Department of the Air Force budget, released today, includes $169.5 billion for the Air Force, $24.5 billion for the Space Force, and $40.2 billion in “non-blue” spending that is charged to the Air Force but pays for classified projects outside of the department.

Those figures represent real growth of about 8% when compared to the Air Force’s request in FY22 and including an estimated 2.2% inflation rate, said Maj. Gen. James Peccia, the Air Force’s deputy assistant Secretary for budget.

Fueling that boost is the idea of transformation — specifically, the need to transform the department into a force that can contend with the economic and technological power of China. During a briefing with reporters on Friday, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recalled a moment during his tenure as the Pentagon’s acquisition czar several years ago, when a reporter asked him whether he was a transformational or evolutionary leader.

“I answered the question at that time that I was more of an evolutionarily leader,” he said. “My answer to the question today would be the opposite, that it’s more about transformation now than it is about evolutionary change. What drives that is the threat.”

For both the Air Force and Space Force, research, development, test and evaluation (RD&E) surfaced as the major funding winner in this year’s budget, jumping from $40.1 billion requested in the FY22 budget request to $49.2 billion in FY23.

But while RDT&E grabbed the biggest slice of the pie, the biggest and most controversial moves are found in the department’s $29.3 billion procurement account — including $1.7 billion to buy an unspecified number of B-21 bombers and the Air Force’s decision to decrease the number of Lockheed Martin-made F-35s procured this year in favor of buying more F-15EXs from Boeing.

In total, the service will request 33 F-35As for $4.5 billion — a total of 15 fewer joint strike fighters when compared to FY22. Meanwhile, it plans to buy 24 Boeing F-15EX fighters for $1.4 billion, doubling the number procured in the previous fiscal year.

While this may seem like the service is pivoting its interest toward the Boeing-made fighter, the Air Force’s rationale is more circumspect. According to two sources with knowledge of the matter, Kendall had tasked the service’s budget corps to consider cancelling the F-15EX. However, proponents of the program within the Air Force and in the Pentagon pushed back, protecting the program.

As a result, the Air Force opted to surge F-15EX procurement so that it could replace its F-15C/Ds as quickly as possible and lower F-35 procurement until the time where the service can buy the more advanced F-35 Block 4 model.

The Air Force’s F-35 buy will go back up over the next five years, Kendall said.

“I’ve had people ask me … if we’re committed to the F-35. Of course, we’re committed to the F-35,” Kendall said. “We’re 15 years into production, and we’ll be building F-35s probably another 15 years. … It’s going the be the cornerstone of the [tactical air] fleet for the foreseeable future. There’s no question about that.”

Going To the Boneyard

The Air Force intends to divest more 269 aircraft in FY23 — far more than the number of planes it asked to mothball last year, which sat around 200 aircraft.

“We have to do that. We have to get rid of what I’ll call ‘legacy equipment’ in order to have the resources of tomorrow,” Kendall said.

The list of aircraft headed to the boneyard includes 119 aircraft whose retirements have been previously briefed to Congress, though they were not made public, an Air Force spokeswoman told Breaking Defense. However, some of the remaining 150 aircraft will likely surprise Capitol Hill and other budget watchers, as it contains several aircraft types that haven’t previously been divestment targets.

The Air Force’s surveillance inventory will take a huge hit, with the service planning to retire eight of its E-8C JSTARS aircraft that provide information on ground targets to the joint fleet, leaving only four JSTARS in service, which will retire in FY24.

In addition, the service hopes to retire 15 E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control planes — better known as AWACS — which senses, identifies and tracks airborne targets. Currently, the Air Force retains an inventory of 31 AWACS planes, which will be retired as the service fields a successor aircraft.

Tactical aircraft will also draw down significantly. For the first time, the Air Force wants permission to retire 33 of its old Block 20 F-22s, which Kendall said are not combat capable. Peccia said it would cost $1.8 billion to upkeep those aircraft over the next eight years if the service is not able to divest them.

It also hopes to divest a total of 26 F-16C/Ds and 67 F-16C/Ds, continuing last year’s divestment of aging F-15 and F-16s.

U.S. Air Force F-35’s arrive in Misawa

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II from the 356th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, 354th Air Expeditionary Wing. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Sean Martin)

The service signaled that it would retire 50 T-1 Jayhawk training aircraft, which are used to teach undergraduate mobility pilots before they move to platforms like the C-17 or KC-10. The Air Force said in a statement that advances to the T-6 Texan trainer will allow the service to move to a syllabus that trains students using that aircraft alone without an impact to pilot production.

It plans on continuing to retire some of its legacy tanker fleet as the Boeing KC-46 becomes operational, divesting 10 KC-10s and 13 KC-135s in FY23.

The service will mothball 10 C-130Hs from Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, which will be partially mitigated as four C-130J aircraft come online. It will also attempt to divest one EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft and three EC-130J Commando Solo aircraft, which are used by special operators.

The Air Force will retire 12 HH-60G Pave Hawks, which will eventually be replaced by new HH-60Ws.

And finally — as is tradition — the Air Force will take another run at retiring some of it’s A-10s, hoping to mothball 21 A-10s operated by the Indiana Air National Guard, which will get F-16s as a replacement. Historically, Arizona lawmakers have bristled against retiring any of the 281 A-10s still in service.

Although not an aircraft retirement, strictly speaking, the Air Force intends to offload the costs of 100 Block 1 MQ-9 Reapers to a government organization that Kendall declined to name (likely the Central Intelligence Agency). This move gets operations and maintenance funding for those Reapers off the Air Force’s budget books, while retaining the capability needed to meet combatant commander demands.

Where the Money Is Headed

In FY23, the Air Force continued its trend of trading near-term procurement for development funds for long-term priorities. It requested $33.4 billion for RDT&E — up from $28.8 billion requested in FY22—and $25.7 billion in procurement for FY23, up from $22.9 billion in the previous request. (These totals do not include spending for the Space Force. For more on that portion of the budget, click here.)

The B-21 Raider program shifted into procurement this year with a $1.7 billion request, although as befitting the secretive program, Peccia declined to detail how many stealth bombers would be purchased for that sum.

The service will buy another 15 Boeing KC-46 tankers, at a cost of $2.8 billion. It will also restart procurement of the Boeing MH-139 Grey Wolf, which paused in FY22 as the service worked to get the helicopter certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“There are two certifications that need to be passed for that helicopter,” Peccia said. “The first one is complete. The second one will be complete soon in the next couple of months, and so we’ll be able to start procurement of MH 139 again in FY23.”

In other rotorcraft procurement news, the Air Force will end combat rescue helicopter procurement early after buying a final 10 HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters for $870 million. For more on the HH-60W cancelation, click here.

Beyond the investments to buy additional F-15EXs and F-35s, the Air Force also plans to invest $344 million for advanced sensors for its F-22s.

The RDT&E budget includes large chunks of funding for the services’ nuclear modernization programs, including a whopping $3.6 billion for Ground Based Strategic Deterrent system that will replace the legacy Minuteman III, $3.3 billion for continued design associated with the B-21 bomber and $929 million for the nuclear Long Range Standoff Weapon.

After years of behind-the-scenes deliberations about how best to replace the Boeing E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control aircraft, the Air Force included $227 million in FY23 for a new E-3 recapitalization effort, which could pave the way for the service to field a new jet in future years. Kendall said that Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail is the leading candidate to replace the AWACS, but the service wants to complete market research before making a formal procurement decision.

The service requested $1.65 billion for the Next Generation Air Dominance program, a boost of about $133 million that mostly pays for advanced sensors and resilient communications gear associated with the sixth-generation fighter, Peccia said. The service also included $113 million for “advanced collaborative platforms” — the Air Force’s latest jargon for “Loyal Wingman” style drones that will augment NGAD and the B-21.

It contains $354 million for the Advanced Engine Development program, which includes $286 million for the Adaptive Engine Technology Program and $66 million for the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion effort.

Funding for the Advanced Battle Management System program increased to $231 million in FY23, an increase of about $28 million, Peccia said.