A-10 Warthog

Maintenance crews on the A-10 Warthog end their 12 hour duty day at the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq in 2004. The Air Force seeks to retire the A-10 fleet in the coming years. (DVIDS)

Updated 3/13/23 at 4:09 pm ET with a statement from AFA following more information on hypersonics. 

WASHINGTON — The Air Force wants to retire 310 aircraft in its $185.1 billion fiscal 2024 budget proposal, a request that officials argue will enable them to put greater dollars toward future capabilities like the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter and developing a drone that can join it in combat.

The service’s FY24 budget, unveiled today, asks for an additional $5.4 billion over the $179.7 billion Congress enacted in FY23. A major jump comes from the Air Force’s research, developmental test and evaluation (RDT&E) portfolio, with money geared toward meeting Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s seven operational imperatives.

“We’ve built a budget that we think has a reasonable balance between current-, midterm- and longer-term investments, if you will, or capabilities,” Kendall said during a Friday briefing with reporters at the Pentagon.

Including the Space Force, the Department of the Air Force is requesting $215.1 billion, a 3.8% increase of $9.3 billion over the current FY23 budget, according to Kristyn Jones, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of the Air Force. An additional $44.2 billion is budgeted for “non-blue,” passthrough spending charged to the Air Force that actually goes to organizations outside the Pentagon. (For more details on the Space Force’s budget, click here.)

Noting that the Air Force’s topline will increase by less than 3% compared to FY23 enacted levels, Air and Space Force Association President and CEO Bruce Wright, a former three-star Air Force general who served as the lead military representative for US forces in Japan, said in a statement that “at a time of grave threats and significant inflation, a rate of growth less than inflation is, effectively, a net reduction. Investments in airpower today will deter war tomorrow. Congress must work across party lines to ensure unfunded priorities are addressed and that budget legislation is completed in a timely manner this fall.”

For more FY24 budget coverage, click here.

Kendall said about $5 billion is specifically tailored to meet his operational imperatives, a list of priorities the service says it needs to tackle to keep pace with China. Much of that money is focused on space-based efforts, Jones said, like delivering a new missile warning and tracking architecture, though more dollars are also going to programs like the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) and NGAD.

The Air Force’s RDT&E account is set to grow to approximately $36.2 billion, an increase of about 9.7% over the enacted position of $33.9 billion, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget Maj. Gen. Mike Greiner.

Officials are also requesting to boost procurement of approximately $900 million over FY23 levels, for a total of $30.6 billion, including nearly $4.7 billion for missiles — more than double the $2.3 billion the Air Force is spending this fiscal year. (In FY23 the service got $1.2 billion for Ukraine-linked supplemental funding largely to replenish existing munitions, and the service additionally got other plus-ups for things like aircraft purchases.)

Besides money for new weapon systems, the Air Force is also seeking to make investments in critical infrastructure that underpins the Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept, which the Air Force is implementing to enable more dispersed operations in the Indo-Pacific region. About $1.2 billion will fund ACE-oriented objectives, Greiner said, with about $453 million specifically directed toward projects like altering fuel storage and providing new training.

Echoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown’s motto to “accelerate change or lose,” Kendall said his leading concern was not the speed with which programs can deliver. Instead, it’s receiving timely funding from Congress, where the prospect of yet another continuing resolution (CR) threatens to forestall the launch of key new start programs like one for the drone wingmen known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs).

“What we’re dependent upon is congressional action here,” he said. “We move at the pace of money and engineering. And you don’t start until you get the money. So if we have a year-long CR, or even just a very long CR, more even than what we’re used to, that’s giving away time for free. And I’m very concerned about that as we go into this.”

Bound For The Scrapyard

To free up space in its budget, the Air Force is looking to divest numerous aircraft that Kendall said “absorbs” much of the service’s resources. In FY24, officials are asking Congress permission to bid adieu to fleets like the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARs) and KC-10 and accelerate retirements of the A-10 Warthog.

After Congress blocked a similar request in FY23, the Air Force will try again to retire 32 older block 20 F-22s the service emphasizes are not combat-coded. Spending money to sustain the F-22 fleet — which costs about $2.3 billion every year, according to a June 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office — would be better used to further efforts like developing its NGAD successor, officials argue.

The Boneyard

Retired aircraft sit in the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., June 2. The AMARG, often called the “Boneyard,” is a U.S. Air Force aircraft and missile storage and maintenance facility which takes care of more than 4,400 aircraft, making it the largest aircraft storage and preservation facility in the world. It is the sole repository for for out-of-service aircraft for all branches of the U.S. government. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Carolyn Herrick)

The service also wants to continue retiring F-15 C/Ds flown primarily by the Air National Guard and is asking to junk 57 of them in FY24. Kendall said those aircraft will be replaced with F-15EXs as well as future F-35 orders.

Greiner said the Air Force has met requirements laid out by the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act to continue retiring the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, and will seek to scrap an additional two to bring the fleet down to 16 in FY24. Citing the aircraft’s “ancient” sensors and diminishing parts, Kendall said the joint force is “not losing a lot by taking them out.”

However, Kendall added the Air Force has not found a “meaningful way” to accelerate fielding its successor, the E-7 Wedgetail built by Boeing, whose development was kickstarted by an undefinitized contract awarded earlier this month.

Congress provided an approximately $300 million plus-up for the program in the FY23 budget, which a Boeing official said during a media briefing at the Air and Space Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium last week enabled the program to procure long-lead parts and speed up production by about half a year. The Air Force will build off that extra funding with an additional $254 million to procure an extra test aircraft, Greiner said.

And, encouraged by the FY23 NDAA that permitted A-10 retirements to proceed after years of stiff opposition from the Hill, the Air Force is seeking to double the amount of retirements of the Warthog to 42 in FY24.

A full list of the divestments are as follows:

  • A-10s: 42
  • A-29: 3
  • B1: 1
  • C-130H: 2
  • E-3: 2
  • E-8: 3 (last in the fleet)
  • EC-130H: 2
  • EC-130J: 4
  • F-15 C/Ds: 57
  • F-22: 32
  • HH-60G: 37
  • KC-10: 24 (last in the fleet)
  • MQ-9: 48
  • RQ-4: 1
  • T-1: 52

One aircraft not on that list is the KC-135 Stratotanker, whose first commander-in-chief was Dwight Eisenhower. According to an Air Force spokesperson, the service must maintain a minimum of 466 tankers, and the planned KC-10 retirements will drop the refueling fleet down to 467.

Some of those Stratotankers will likely be progressively replaced with future orders of Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus as part of a new tanker recapitalization strategy officials announced last week at the AFA symposium. The service is asking for about $8 million in FY24 to fund an analysis of alternatives to help finalize an acquisition strategy for the refuelers.

Buying Now

The Air Force plans to buy a total of 95 planes including 72 new fighters, bumping up procurement of the F-35A to 48 — an increase of five compared to what Congress enacted in FY23 — and buying 24 F-15EXs. Officials slowed purchases of the F-35A last year anticipating that the fighter’s new Block 4 capabilities would be available soon, and though the timeline for fielding Block 4 is unclear, Kendall said future F-35 orders would remain around the level established in FY24.

A major change is in the F-15EX buy: the service previously planned to complete procurement of the fighter this year for a total fleet size of 80, earning the ire of Congress by truncating an original fleet size of 144. The Air Force seems to have partially heeded lawmakers’ concerns, as Kendall said officials have now settled on a final fleet size of 104.

RELATED: Despite cuts, HH-60W and F-15EX not at risk of ‘critical’ budgetary breach, cancellation

The service will also continue buying 15 KC-46s, one E-11 and plans to buy seven MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopters, which was approved to start production at the beginning of this month. Procurement of the B-21 Raider will continue as well with a request for $2.3 billion to buy an undisclosed number of the next-gen bombers. According to Jones, the Raider’s inaugural flight is still scheduled for this year.

About $1 billion will be added to seek multi-year procurements for several missiles: the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) and Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Air Force is also making a new request of $161 million to fund production of the Joint Strike Missile (JSM). Greiner said the JSM, built by Norway, will serve as a “bridge” as LRASMs come online.

The upcoming fiscal year will additionally be the first to fund procurement for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which is planned to recapitalize the hundreds of Minuteman III ICBMs siloed in the Midwest. According to Greiner, about $539 million will buy long-lead parts for the Sentinel program’s planned first lot in FY26.

Although lawmakers prohibited the Air Force from closing the production line for the HH-60W Combat Rescue Helicopter and ordered the service to double its procurement of the platform from 10 to 20 in FY23, the service is sticking to plans to finish production of the helicopter and will not be requesting any more in FY24.

The plan to truncate the helicopter’s fleet size from 113 to 75 was announced during last year’s budget unveiling, which Kendall has explained the service is moving away from due to the need to operate in more contested environments defined by highly effective air defenses. Lawmakers were concerned that as the service seeks to retire more HH-60Gs, dropping the HH-60W buy would open up a gap in combat rescue capabilities.

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An HH-60W Jolly Green II prepares to land during a simulated rescue mission Feb. 25, 2021, at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. The 347th Rescue Group performed its first scramble launch with the Jolly Green II to effectively execute Combat Search and Rescue missions. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jasmine M. Barnes)

On Friday, Kendall said that a “hardened helicopter” isn’t the right fit for the service in a war with a peer adversary, adding that “there are a lot of other assets around where, if someone goes down at sea, we can use to pick them up,” likely alluding to a conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

Yet, Kendall also said the service’s budget will not feature any alternatives for combat rescue.

“We don’t have anything new that we’re introducing, we’re going to do it with existing assets,” he said.

Building Next-Gen

After previewing a plan to buy a “nominal” first tranche of 1,000 drone wingmen during a speech last week at the AFA symposium, Kendall stated the CCA program will officially be a “major new start” in FY24 and will grow to be a multi-billion dollar effort.

The FY24 budget will ramp up funding for the CCA program to over half a billion dollars, which Greiner said will separately fund platform development, autonomy efforts and the stand up of a new experimental operations unit. Kendall said the program will carry multiple vendors as long as funding permits, though he suggested a down-select to one contractor is likely in the cards depending on affordability.

Another large jump in funding comes in scaling up spending on the Secure Airborne Operations Center (SAOC), the planned replacement for the E-4B Nightwatch “Doomsday” plane that can coordinate a response in the event of a nuclear attack and is also often used to transport the defense secretary. The Air Force is seeking a total of $889 million, a massive jump over the $98 million enacted in FY23, indicating that the service is likely nearing the completion of an acquisition strategy.

Engineering, manufacturing and development work will also continue for both the Sentinel ICBM and the B-21 Raider, with both mostly holding steady to funding levels established in FY23. One of the other legs of the nuclear triad, the B-52 Stratofortress, will also move closer to modernized propulsion with an extra $200 million for the Commercial Engine Replacement Program (CERP) for a rough total of $900 million.

The service further plans to stick to enacted FY23 funding levels for hypersonic prototyping as it refines the designs of the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) and Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), with HACM receiving $380 million and ARRW getting $150 million. Both need to conduct more tests before the Air Force will be ready to procure them, Greiner said at a budget briefing today, adding that officials are still working to decide how the missiles will fit into the service’s inventory. The Long Range Stand-Off nuclear cruise missile that will be launched by bombers will also see similar funding compared to FY23 at $911 million.

Following the creation of a new program executive officer overseeing the effort, the Air Force’s ABMS projects will see an increase of about $264 million for just over $500 million in total funding. The service will focus on three primary areas of digital infrastructure work, developing the KC-46 as an edge node and cloud-based command and control, Greiner said.

According to Kendall, the budget includes a shift of some battle management capabilities to space, but officials are currently “still at the stage where we’re doing a lot of engineering and design work and requirements trade-offs to define what exactly those programs will be.”

NGAD will also get a sizable boost of about $276 million, according to Greiner, for a total of nearly $1.9 billion. Though Kendall said last week the service’s first NGAD tranche will consist of roughly 200 fighters, it is still unclear what airframe primes are in the running to build it.

Notably, the service will discontinue funding for its Adaptive Engine Transition Program, which was developing a new engine to fit into the service’s F-35A. The new powerplant was too expensive, Kendall said, and its lack of commonality among the fighter’s three variants prompted officials to go with a gradual engine upgrade plan for the global Joint Strike Fighter enterprise offered by Pratt & Whitney.

The Air Force’s other cutting-edge engine development program, called Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion, will still push ahead, where General Electric and Pratt will once again face off as they seek to power the NGAD platform. Officials are requesting an additional $375 million for a total of about $600 million to drive NGAP prototyping work, according to Air Force budget documents, which officials have said could push down to one vendor by next year.