While it’s “the right thing to do” for top Air Force leaders to explore a possible cheap-to-buy-and-operate cost close air support aircraft for “permissive environments,” Air Combat Command chief Gen. Hawk Carlisle isn’t so sure such a program would be a good investment. “I wonder,” Carlisle told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, whether “in five-seven-ten years … will there be any such thing?” as a “permissive environment.” He said that Russia’s loss of multiple helicopters? in Syria to unsophisticated weapons is an indication of “where we’re going.” State-sponsored terrorists, he said, “have access to state-sponsored weapons,” and a low-tech CAS airplane might arrive just in time to be irrelevant. He also said he “doesn’t have the money to spare from other priorities” at the moment to invest in a new fleet of CAS aircraft, relatively inexpensive though they might be.
The Air Force is spending heavily on F-22 improvements through the end of the decade, suggesting it may not retire the jet in 2030 as it previously planned. New sensors, fuel tanks, communications, and electronic warfare systems are among the upgrades that comprise the package.