NEXTAAM

Farnborough, UK The Air Force urgently needs an all-new class of air-to-air missiles, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Hawk Carlisle said Monday. To accomplish the air superiority mission that was supposed to have been handled by twice as many F-22s and F-35s joining the fleet at 100 a year—instead of the 187 F-22s and only 48 F-35s a year—a “combination of fifth generation aircraft … and a fifth generation weapon is the next big thing we have to move into,” Carlisle told reporters. The just-completed Air Superiority 2030 analysis indicates “we have to keep the F-35 buy rate up,” Carlisle said, and “we have to get at a new missile.” A program of record will be coming “soon,” he added, without naming a date. The AIM-120D AMRAAM improvement program is “doing very well,” he said, but “it’s not what we need in the next generation of missiles.” To keep up with “what we see out there as the threat,” a new missile will have to have longer range and better electronic warfare resiliency. Carlisle has also said previously that an AMRAAM successor should be smaller, to increase the number each fighter can carry, and have better agility. The F-35, he added, “does exceedingly well” at air-to-air combat, and is “truly an amazing air-to-air platform,” and will be even better with a new weapon. But, “we have to get to a new missile.”