Air Combat Command is dealing with severe fiscal challenges, but must focus its innovation, training, and operational effectiveness on the combat air forces’ core functions in order to maintain the Air Force’s dominant edge, states the command’s new strategic plan. Those core functions are: command and control; global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; air superiority; global precision attack; and personnel recovery, according to the 16-page document, released in mid June. “As we transition to a smaller Air Force, we will acquire new capabilities that will make us more capable, more lethal, and more ready to meet the nation’s security needs,” writes ACC Commander Gen. Mike Hostage in the plan’s introduction. “We are entering an era where American dominance in the skies cannot be taken for granted,” he adds. Hostage stresses the four principles that will guide the CAF: recapitalization of key capabilities versus refurbishment; the prevention of a hollow force; acceptance of short-term risk for long term capability; and the need for an integrated approach to all programs. (See also ACC release.)
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…