Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, the Air Force’s two top leaders offered this sobering information: Threats from advanced fighter aircraft continue to grow. They noted that “increased use of state-of-the-art radar jammers, avionics, weapons and reduced signature airframes/engines are becoming the norm in fighter design.” And, they said, the ability of countries like China and India to “produce their own advanced fighter” increases not only the quantity but also the quality of potential adversary aircraft USAF might face in the future. (Remember the Indian Air Force fighters that bested USAF?) They noted, too, that China is on a path to “more than double its advanced fighter inventory to over 500 airframes” by 2012. (Read joint statement here.)
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…