“We all saw it coming,” Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Resonnaissance, said Tuesday about the hard choices confronting Air Force leaders because of constrained funding. “We all knew that in 2010 the boomers would retire, and the draw on Social Security and Medicare would go up,” and reminded attendees at AFA’s Air & Space Conference that those programs are mandatory, while Defense is discretionary. “We’ve seen the high water mark for defense spending,” he observed. That doesn’t get USAF off the hook for keeping the nation safe, though, and he argued that ISR will be the great force multiplier that allows the nation to select where it can or should apply its capabilities selectively. “ISR is an area that people are recognizing requires more attention, not less.” He noted that there will be an “ISR summit” of top Air Force leaders on Sept. 29 to discuss, among other things, whether ISR should have its own major command. Deptula said that forming a major command is one of a range of options to highlight ISR and give it the resources it needs.
It'll take up to 18 months for Lockheed Martin to deliver the 100 or so F-35s that went directly from production line to storage, awaiting the completion of Tech Refresh 3 testing. Customers haven't complained about the order in which the backlog is being delivered.