Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, highlighted a point about the average age of the service’s aircraft—23 years, in case you haven’t been paying attention—by noting that he had just come from a trip to Hickam Air Force Base, where he saw the F-15 Eagle he flew in 1976 now being flown by the Hawaii Air National Guard. Moseley maintains the Air Force needs new airplanes, but he cautioned against thinking that the replacement will be on a “one for one” basis. There is no need to replace every current aircraft, he said, because the capability of the new aircraft far exceeds that of older aircraft. “For every F-15, we don’t need an F/A-22; for every F-16 we don’t need an F-35,” Moseley said.
The Air Force has spent more than two years studying cancer risks to Airmen who work with the service's intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now lawmakers in Congress are placing fresh scrutiny on the issue and have prepared legislation that would direct the service to clean silos and launch facilities.