Orlando, February 18, 2010—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley chided Congress for continuing to add C-17s to the USAF inventory, saying “it’s a double hit” on the service’s priorities. In a press conference at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium, Donley said Congress not only takes money “from elsewhere in our budget” to buy the aircraft at the expense of things deemed higher priorities. The Air Force must then come up with operations and maintenance funding to operate, fix, and staff the airplanes. “We have more tails than we need” in the C-17 force already, Donley said. “We need to be allowed to manage the force” at the size the Air Force thinks is manageable, he said. (Also see No More Strategic Airlift)
Some Colorado officials are seeking to distance themselves from the state’s lawsuit against the Trump administration over its decision to relocate U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Huntsville, Ala.—signaling a decreased appetite for extending the yearslong political debate that has dogged the combatant command’s future plans.
