The Air Force is “involved in everything that I’m certain is going to be part of our future, whatever it holds,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told cadets at the Air Force Academy on Thursday. During a question and answer session at the academy, a cadet asked Carter what the big conflict of their careers was going to be. “History says if I give you an answer to that, I’m going to be wrong,” he said, noting that “almost every major mission of consequence” in his lifetime was “strategically unanticipated.” However, he said, the Air Force does a good job of focusing on capabilities that will be critical no matter what happens in the future. Carter also called the remotely piloted aircraft mission “bedrock” and the “most visible part of every day of mine, and every night of mine.” He told cadets that if they join the RPA career field that they will have “a lot of action that will be very satisfying,” but said all Air Force career fields are “exciting.”
The six-week government shutdown did not affect the hours flown by Air Force pilots, a service spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine—avoiding what could have been a major blow at a time when flying hours are already lower than they have been in decades.
