Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Thursday, “we’re not sure what the impact will be” on modernization accounts if the sequester kicks in next month. Broadly, he told AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., “the F-35 program will lose up to three aircraft this production year.” Research and development accounts will not be immune, “with greater software development risk, which affects [initial operational capability] dates,” he said. It’s uncertain how the KC-46A will fare; Welsh hopes that the tanker program will face less than a 12-percent funding reduction, so that the Air Force doesn’t have to renegotiate the tanker contract. Because of the current budget continuing resolution, the Air Force can’t change the quantities of Space Based Infrared System satellites it will buy, but would have to defer the buy of one of them, a delay that “will cost us an addition $1 billion,” said Welsh. Test and evaluation efforts will be delayed, amounting to “a tripling of our test costs,” he said. On new starts like the long-range strike bomber, “we’ll have to wait and see the impact,” said Welsh. Overall, the sequester implies significant changes for “how big we are in the future,” he said, but insisted that “out the other side . . . we will still be the best Air Force in the world.”
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.