Talk about odd statements, there is this one made by USMC Gen. James Cartwright July 9 during the Senate testimony in which he made the OSD case for only 187 F-22s: “There is a study in the Joint Staff we just completed and partnered with the Air Force on that, number one, said that proliferating within the United States military fifth-generation fighters to all three services was going to be more significant than having them based solidly in just one service, because of the way we deploy and because of the diversity of our deployment.” That drew this barbed response from a senior defense official: “Does that mean that we should also put ships, tanks, infantry in all the services as well?”
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design the Air Force said.