Air Dominance 2030, or Sooner?

March will also see some public discussion of the results of the Air Force and Pentagon’s Air Dominance 2030 study, USAF plans and requirements chief Lt. Gen. Mike Holmes said Thursday. “We’ll do some public release after it’s briefed out to senior leaders … sometime in March,” Holmes told reporters after an AFA Mitchell Institute event in Arlington, Va. The disclosure will focus more on the process of thinking about the next steps in air dominance—a successor to the F-22 and F/A-18—and probably less on what recommendations were made, Holmes said, but he reiterated that, “It won’t just be one airframe, but a family of systems that help us make sure we can guarantee the air superiority that the joint force depends on.” Though the study postulated something in the 2030 timeframe, in keeping with USAF’s push to speed up the introduction of new technology and keep ahead of adversaries, “I’d like to get there sooner,” Holmes said. The next step in the process will be an analysis of alternatives, he added.