Frank Kendall, Air For secretary, speaks at the annual Air Force Association conference in Sept. 2021. (AFA)
WASHINGTON — Whether it’s a new sixth-generation fighter or uncrewed wingmen that could join a jet in battle, 2024 is shaping up to be a vital year for the future airpower of the Air Force — an evolution service Secretary Frank Kendall has emphasized is critical in a peer competition with China.
A key part of the Air Force’s rush to modernize consists of fielding several new technologies, but a crucial part of its strategy also requires divesting several old platforms. Junking old tech that in many cases isn’t suitable for modern combat, Air Force leaders argue, will free up dollars and manpower for other priorities.
Many of the Air Force’s objectives will be at a critical juncture in 2024, and congressional action — or inaction — will play a big role in deciding the service’s future. Lawmakers are on board with many of the Air Force’s efforts, but are poised to block the service’s attempts to offload several platforms. An impasse on the fiscal 2024 budget that has resulted in a renewed continuing resolution (CR) is also destined to stretch into the new year, much to military leaders’ chagrin.
Out With The Old
The Air Force’s plans to retire several platforms are a leading area of disagreement with lawmakers. Though Congress would grant some of the Air Force’s desired divestments of platforms like the A-10, they would shield others — such as Block 20 F-22 Raptors and RQ-4 Global Hawks — from being sent to the boneyard in the version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that President Joe Biden signed into law Dec. 22.
Congress’s opposition to the Air Force’s cuts could result in significant impacts to the service’s procurement and research and development accounts. The Air Force in many cases structures its budgets around planned divestments, and in the case of the F-22 retirements tied those planned dollars saved directly into R&D money for the secretive Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter program.
It’s not clear how the service might move money around in response, particularly under constraints set by lawmakers in the debt ceiling deal reached earlier this year. Known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the legislation set a cap for defense spending at $886 billion in FY24 and mandates a 1 percent budget cut to FY23 levels if a CR is still in place by the end of April.
Lawmakers could bypass those limits with supplemental defense spending legislation like the over $100 billion dollar package championed by the White House, which many supporters emphasize would be a boon to domestic industry. But it’s not clear how or when the House and Senate could reach an agreement on a package.
In With The New
Several buzzy new platforms will hit key inflection points in 2024. One of the most high-profile is NGAD, where a winning design will almost certainly be awarded next year to either Boeing or Lockheed Martin after Northrop Grumman announced earlier this year it was bowing out. Notably, Boeing is planning to plow billions into future combat aircraft efforts as programs like NGAD approach a formal award.
Alongside NGAD, the Air Force is also set to make awards for programs like the replacement for the E-4B “Doomsday plane,” where Sierra Nevada Corp. is assumed to be the only remaining candidate after Boeing was eliminated. The Air Force could also make a decision on an air refueling tanker program for KC-135 recapitalizations — where a competition could be held between Boeing and Airbus or result in a sole-source contract to Boeing’s KC-46A.
Aircraft like NGAD are expected to be able to link with future uncrewed wingmen known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) — another program for the Air Force that’s set to make significant headway in 2024. As Breaking Defense previously reported, five companies are currently in the running to build CCA, and a down select could eliminate some of the contenders by the summer.
As for the F-35, its long-delayed full rate production decision could finally come by early next year, officials have said. But it may not matter for the stealth fighter’s actual production volume, which is already humming at about its max capacity of 156 jets per year.
However, an FY24 budget is imperative for the Air Force to realize many of the above objectives. The budget would permit new starts for marquee programs like CCA, as well as ramp up funding for existing ones. Officials have warned modernization efforts across the Pentagon would face a major setback if lawmakers fail to pass the FY24 budget in a timely way, with Kendall stressing some like CCA could lose a full year of time.
‘Reoptimizing’ For ‘Great Power Competition’
The Air Force is not only looking to field new tech and dump old stuff. Officials are examining significant organizational changes across the Air Force and Space Force, vowing to make any overhauls necessary to “reoptimize” and compete with China.
The “great power competition,” as Kendall has described it, will reportedly result in some 10 to 20 changes officials will look to start carrying out around February of next year. One of those choices, a top Space Force official recently said — before walking his comments back — could result in significant changes to the current major command structure.
Backtracking to reporters, Space Force Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein said that while he accidentally went too far with his comments, big changes aren’t off the table. “Right now, nothing is sacred,” he said.
