The Air Force’s budget enemies have finished beating up on the F-22 now that the aircraft is in the field and working beautifully, and the buy has been truncated to 183 airplanes, says Gen. Ron Keys, head of Air Combat Command. So that means they’ve moved on to the F-35, hoping to delay it long enough so that the price goes up and becomes unaffordable, asserted Keys, adding, “There are always termites out there looking for something to feed on.”
An important U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS command and control plane was among the aircraft damaged in a March 27 Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine.