Gen. Paul V. Hester, Pacific Air Forces commander, today told reporters at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium that PACAF expects to receive its first F-22 in 2008 or 2009. The tiny size of the fleet (now only 183) means the command must start now to make careful plans for how it will use the Raptor—its missions, deployments, and so on. Because Pacific Air Forces will have so few, said Hester, “we will have to do a better job scheduling,” and “only put them in an AEF to go somewhere when it is absolutely necessary to have the skills and the talents and the technologies of the Raptor.” PACAF’s first Raptors will be based at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, where preparations for their arrival are already underway. “As you know, we wanted to have one squadron per AEF,” Hester said. “We don’t have that, and we’ve got to do a little better scheduling.”
Three of four congressional committees with influence over defense policy have voted to change the official name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War—but final approval of the Pentagon rebrand is months away and not yet assured.