USAF has put lawmakers in the “dilemma” of having to make a decision about the service’s request to retire 30 older C-5 airlifters and purchase 30 additional new C-17s in their stead based on “imperfect information,” admitted Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, USAF’s military acquisition chief. Hoffman told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Service’s air-land panel April 26 that the service simply won’t know how much program cost growth it will have on the C-5 reliability enhancement and re-engining program until “later this summer.” Unfortunately, a Congressional decision cannot be put off, he declared, “because, if no decision is made, that, in fact, is a decision, and the C-17 factory will start to shut down.”
The Air Force has finished resurrecting a B-1B Lancer, completing a yearslong process to transform a bomber that had been stored for parts in the Arizona desert into the new flagship of the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.