Airmen Have Just Days Left To Apply For Select Retention Bonus

May 15, 2025 | By David Roza

Airmen interested in and eligible for selective retention bonuses (SRBs) have just a few days left to apply, as retention runs high and as the Air Force reaches the end of the funding provided by Congress for the program. The program closes on May 20, so officials encouraged Airmen to submit applications by May 19 to avoid any cross-timezone deadline issues.

SRBs are meant to incentivize reenlisting in high-demand career fields such as special warfare, cybersecurity, aircraft maintenance, and intelligence. The size of the bonus depends on the field and the Airman’s time in service, but they can be substantial: in 2024 the Air Force upped the maximum allowable reenlistment bonus to $180,000, with a career cap set at $360,000.

In December, the service expanded the number of eligible career fields to 89, up from 73 the year before and 51 the year before that. The Air Force has nearly depleted the $172 million Congress allotted for SRBs, a service official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Had the Pentagon not been operating under a year-long continuing resolution, the Air Force may have had the flexibility to shuffle funding from other areas into the SRB to fuel it the rest of fiscal year 2025, but that’s not the case this year.

SRBs are often split between up-front payments and anniversary payments for each year after the reenlistment. Airmen already in the SRB program will still receive their anniversary payments, but the Air Force will no longer be able to accept new applicants after May 20. Ordinarily, the program would have run until Sept. 30, the last day of FY25.

“We realize there are Airmen who will be disappointed by this,” a service official said. “While we obviously prefer to run an FY25 program to the end of FY25, what I really appreciate is that we have used our entire budget that Congress appropriated for enlisted retention, and we’ve spent it on enlisted retention.”

That’s not always a guarantee: in 2023, for example, the Air Force had to pause bonus programs, permanent change of station moves, and some other incentive pay for nearly three weeks when the service ran out of personnel funds. Higher-than-expected PCS costs, a result of inflation, and higher retention and recruiting bonuses all contributed to the shortfall, officials said at the time.

The Air Force under-executed the FY24 SRB budget by about $50 million, FY23 by about $70 million, and FY22 by about $109 million—the budget for that year was $200 million.

Human behavior is difficult to predict amid a range of external economic factors, so while it is difficult to pin down exactly what made this year different, several changes may have helped. One is that last year the Air Force expanded the reenlistment window from 90 days prior to date of separation to a full 12 months prior to separation, giving troops more time to sign up.

The Air Force also opened the SRB FY25 window in December rather than in May as it did for the FY24 SRB. The number of career fields was also higher than usual, as were the multipliers that decide how large a bonus Airmen receive.

“I think all of those factors combined to drive very high take rates,” said the official, who anticipates a similar level of SRB funding in FY26, though that budget is yet to be finalized.

Retention in FY25 is right in line with Air Force targets, with 89.3 percent of enlisted Airmen staying on and 90.1 percent of Airmen overall doing so. To what extent large SRBs drive retention is unclear: a military personnel budget expert told Air & Space Forces Magazine last year that the Air Force often lacks information on the impact of past bonuses or incentive pays on accessions and retention.

“I can’t tell if a really big bonus offered 10 years ago to people working with computers was effective, because I can’t go back and see if the person who was offered the bonus got out or stayed,” said RAND senior operations researcher and retired Air Force veteran Lisa Harrington, who also called for better integration between personnel budget policy stakeholders to avoid or mitigate shortfalls such as the one that occurred in 2023.

The Air Force official thanked military personnel flights across the service, many of whom who will likely be busy processing last-minute applications over the next few days.

Golden Dome’s Price Tag Will Likely Exceed Half a Trillion Dollars, Space Force Chief Says

May 15, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

The “Golden Dome” homeland missile defense system proposed by President Donald Trump will likely cost more than half a trillion dollars, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said.

Saltzman’s prediction came during a May 15 POLITICO event when he was asked if he thought the Congressional Budget Office’s $542 billion estimate for the largely space-based air and missile defense system was too high. He said he believed it was not.

“I’m 34 years in this business; I’ve never seen an early estimate that was too high,” Saltzman said. “My gut tells me there’s going to be some additional funding that’s necessary.”

The Space Force is sure to play a key role in the initiative. The massive undertaking involves developing an architecture of satellites in low- and medium-Earth orbit designed to detect, track, and defeat hypersonic missiles and other sophisticated threats from adversaries such as China and Russia.

Golden Dome has been compared to President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which was intended to protect the United States from nuclear attack. Dubbed by some as “Star Wars,” the missile defense program ultimately failed because of high costs and technology constraints.

Critics of the effort maintain that the billions of dollars already earmarked for it would be better spent on weapons capable of penetrating China’s formidable defenses.

“To build a system over the entire country would be incredibly hard, and we’re not sure it’s going to work,” said retired NASA astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who also spoke at POLITICO’s event, adding that the reconciliation package in the White House’s proposed defense spending plan has about “$26 billion in there for Golden Dome that could go toward things like [F-47] or the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which we really need if we want to be competitive in the western Pacific against China.”

Some of Kelly’s Democratic colleagues agree.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) criticized the money proposed for the Golden Dome as “essentially a slush fund at this point” during a Defense Writers Group event May 14.

“They have to identify the technologies,” Reed added. “They have to go ahead and design an integrated plan. From what I’ve heard, it’s more of a warning system than it is a firing system, although they will develop firing units to complement it. But the key now is to identify hypersonics as soon as they launch, so that we can engage them. That’s still a work in progress.”

Saltzman acknowledged that Golden Dome is still in the early stages of planning and will involve overseeing many advanced elements “that you have to stitch together in very technical ways.”

“You don’t buy Golden Dome; you orchestrate a program that includes a lot of programs … it’s a system of systems,” Saltzman said. The U.S military will need to decide “which systems are critical … which ones are affordable, which ones are practical in terms of the technology we can rapidly bring to bear.”

Once a basic plan is drafted, it will be submitted to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to present to the White House, Saltzman said.

“That’s where we are—it’s in that basic planning to say, ‘given the threat scenarios that we think you’re trying to defend against, here are the systems that we think are appropriate, here’s the technology that’s available; here’s our plan how we would proceed,’” he said.

Space-based interceptors—an explicit part of the initiative—are perhaps Golden Dome’s trickiest requirement, and for the Space Force, it “puts us front and center,” Lt. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton, the deputy Chief of Space Operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements, said during a May 15 event hosted by AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. He added there was “a lot of overlap” in some elements of Golden Dome with “space superiority” missions that the Space Force was already seeking to pursue.

“The technology to do that, we’ll be able to use that in other areas,” Bratton said. “That’s a tough problem to solve, but we’re going to figure it out.”

As the Space Force works out its role in Golden Dome, Saltzman noted it’s “the nature of the business” to see cost estimates increase in the early stages of complex strategic defense programs as programs move toward real-world fielded systems.

“I think that we don’t always understand the full level of complexity until you’re actually in execution, doing the detailed planning,” Saltzman said. “Space and these kinds of capabilities are exquisite. They are unique in the sense that there’s not a lot of market that would drive the cost down. And so yes, there is sticker shock—but it doesn’t surprise me.”

Pentagon Editor Chris Gordon contributed reporting.

Lawmakers Frustrated by Lack of Details for Trump’s Defense Budget

May 14, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

Senior U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed frustration that they are being cut out of some of the Trump administration’s most central decisions on military policy and spending, namely the budget reconciliation process and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans to slash the number of generals.

“We’re into a new, very complicated situation, which we’re trying to understand frankly,” Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event May 14. “We haven’t got yet a very clear plan of what they’re doing.”

One immediate concern involves efforts to boost defense spending through a process known as budget reconciliation. Congressional leaders of the Senate and House committees that authorize military spending have legislated $150 billion in add-on spending.

Republican Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, wants assurance that the money will be used as Congress intends. During a hearing May 13, he asked nominees for senior Defense Department posts if they were committed to following Congressional intent for using the extra money. The nominees said they would.

But Reed, a West Point graduate who served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, said he and his colleagues are worried that some of the “arcane rules” of how the reconciliation funds would be used were not entirely clear to lawmakers and there was a risk that the Pentagon would not follow their guidance and intent.

“I think it’s an extraordinary mistake,” Reed said when asked about the reconciliation budget by Air & Space Forces Magazine. “It surrenders congressional leverage and authority over the budget. Is it just a slush fund for the DOD to do what they want to do, or is it something that we can say, ‘No, these are the priorities?’”

Some Republicans share Reed’s frustration, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense and a former Senate majority leader. In a May 14 appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he complained that Hegseth had vowed to spend $1 trillion in fiscal 2026 on defense, only for the administration to reveal later that the funding actually included the added funding package from Congress. McConnell accused the administration of engaging in “budgetary sleight of hand.”

Other lawmakers say they are also searching for details. House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told Air & Space Forces Magazine May 12 that he still has not been given “a real clear understanding of what’s going to be in the reconciliation package.”

Part of the problem is the lack of a presidential budget request to add to in the first place. “It’s getting awfully late in the day,” Cole said. “We need more specificity, and then Congress will make some decisions.”

The concerns go beyond spending. While Hegseth has ordered at least a 20 percent cut in generals and admirals, Congressional leaders have not been told which positions will be cut and what analysis led to the decision, Reed said.

Reed said he and Wicker are exploring ways to ensure the funds in the add-on spending follow Congressional intent. He warned that a Pentagon move to ignore the lawmakers and “just consider the money their money” would establish a precedent that Republicans might regret if the Democrats were to win control of Congress and eventually the White House.

“The one rule here is what goes around comes around,” he said.

Air Force Reveals Range and Inventory Goals for F-47, CCAs

May 14, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

The F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter will have a combat radius of greater than 1,000 miles—nearly double that of the F-22—and the Air Force plans to acquire more than 185 of them, Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin revealed May 13 in a post on the social media site X.

The first Collaborative Combat Aircraft, so-called Increment 1, will have a combat radius of more than 700 miles, which is greater than that of the F-22 or F-35, the service revealed. The Air Force plans to acquire more than 1,000 of them. The Air Force also suggested that it will take longer for the two CCAs to make their first flights than expected.

“Our [Air Force] will continue to be the world’s best example of speed, agility, and lethality,” Allvin wrote in the post. “Modernization means fielding a collection of assets that provide unique dilemmas for adversaries—matching capabilities to threats—while keeping us on the right side of the cost curve.”

The revelations came in a graphic accompanying Allvin’s post. It shows the F-15E/EX, F-16, F-22, F-35, F-47, and the two CCAs—the YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A. Each is labeled with the date of their entry into operational service, combat radius, speed, and a very basic description of their stealth capabilities.

The graphic confirmed speculation that the NGAD would have to have far greater range and stealth than the F-22, to fulfill the Air Force’s desire to be a stand-in force at transoceanic ranges. Yet, at a “combat radius” of 1,000+ miles, an F-47 launching from Guam would not be able to reach the mainland of China on internal fuel, or even Taiwan, some 1,700 miles away, and safely return to base. Aerial refueling would be necessary to extend its reach, although fewer tankings would be needed for such a mission.

Unclear is how much “+” sign in the graphic adds to the stated figure. The given numbers are likely to be less than what the aircraft are actually capable of in order to keep adversaries guessing about their real performance.

The range given for the F-47 would seem to exceed that of the Navy’s counterpart of the NGAD, the F/A-XX. Rear Adm. Michael Donnely, the Navy’s Director of Air Warfare, said at a recent Navy League convention that the F/A-XX would have 25 percent more range than the F-35C or F/A-18E/F.

With a combat radius of 700 nautical miles, the CCAs would be able to fly out ahead of the F-22 and F-35.

While former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said at AFA’s 2023 Air Warfare Symposium that 200 F-47s was the acquisition target, the graphic mentioned “185+”, revealing that the Air Force now plans the F-47 to be a virtual one-for-one replacement for the F-22, of which there are also 185. The reduction may have something to do with the F-47’s extremely high cost of an estimated $300 million per copy; so high that Kendall had planned to delete the NGAD from the fiscal 2026 budget request in favor of other priorities.

Both the F-47 and the CCAs were labeled as planned to enter service between 2025 and 2029, although the latter part of that timeframe is more consistent with previous service comments. The F-47 was also labeled as being a “Mach 2+” fighter; less than the F-15, which was labeled a Mach 2.5 aircraft, and consistent with the F-22’s top speed, also labeled as Mach 2+.

The graphic offered a rudimentary assessment of each aircraft’s observability. While the F-35 was described as a “stealth” aircraft, as were the CCAs, the F-22 was described as a “Stealth +” type while the F-47 was described as “Stealth ++,” consistent with service comments that it would have to be substantially stealthier than the F-22 to survive anticipated adversary air defenses.

The F-22’s combat radius was described as 590 nautical miles, higher than typical descriptions, which peg that number at around 470 miles. Combat radius, however, is a fungible figure, and depends largely on the profile flown to get to the target, and whether the aircraft is expected to perform aggressive combat maneuvers along the way. The Air Force’s official F-22 fact sheet doesn’t provide a combat radius, but the figure in Allvin’s graphic suggests a range augmented by external fuel tanks.

To be “stealth ++” though, it’s likely that the F-47’s range does not count any external fuel tanks, which would increase its radar signature.

The graphic also confirmed that the two CCAs have a primary mission of “air superiority,” meaning they will largely serve as missile carriers for the fifth-generation crewed fighters they will escort into battle, expanding the number of shots each crewed fighter can take per sortie.

The Air Force declined to say whether the “operational” descriptor on the F-47 and CCAs meant that those types will declare Initial Operational Capability in those timeframes. An Air Force official would say only that the F-47 “will fly during this administration,” a comment the service has made before, and which indicates the F-47’s first flight will happen before January 2029. A declaration of IOC requires a certain number of production-representative assets, but a USAF spokesperson declined to say how many F-47s or CCAs will constitute IOC, or when the service plans to declare that status.

The Air Force and its CCA contractors Anduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, have been promoting speed in the CCA program, and have said the two aircraft will fly “this summer.” However, the Air Force said in response to a query that Anduril and General Atomics “will fly their production-representative test aircraft by the end of the calendar year,” indicating a possible delay of three to five months.

It’s not clear if the inventory objective of 1,000 CCAs in the graphic refers to the Increment 1 aircraft now in ground test, or CCAs of all increments. The Air Force has said it will launch Increment 2 next year, and service leaders have suggested that it could be less sophisticated and less costly aircraft than Increment 1. Senior Air Force officials have referred to future iterations known as Increment 3 and 4 without providing further details.

The Air Force declined to say what prompted Allvin to make the revelations, but a service official said the release of the graphic was an Air Force initiative and not made in response to a Capitol Hill or White House request.

Our @usairforce will continue to be the world’s best example of speed, agility, and lethality. Modernization means fielding a collection of assets that provide unique dilemmas for adversaries—matching capabilities to threats—while keeping us on the right side of the cost curve. pic.twitter.com/vqjxCdBYid
— General David Allvin (@OfficialCSAF) May 13, 2025

Pentagon to Deploy Discriminating Space Sensor for Ballistic Threat as Part of Golden Dome

May 14, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The Pentagon is developing space-based sensors that can distinguish missile threats from clutter as a key part of the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

“We’re working on prototyping space sensor capabilities, in particular, Discriminating Space Sensor(DSS) to help improve ballistic missile defense in the future,” said Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, who heads the Missile Defense Agency, at a May 13 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We will prototype it, and the Space Force will operationalize it.”

Cold War-era systems like the Defense Support Program and the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) have existed for decades, but these launch-detection systems sometimes struggle to discriminate between real targets, decoys, and debris. The new DSS aims to distinguish real warheads from everything else to enable interceptors to defeat missiles in mid-flight.

An MDA spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine the agency wants to launch a prototype satellite by 2029.

The DSS will complement the Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensors (HBTSS) constellation. A Joint effort between MDA and the Space Force, the first two of these satellites were launched last February. HBTSS is designed to spot and track hypersonic threats, while DSS will zero in on the more predictable ballistic threats.

HBTSS satellites completed a demonstration test in March, in which the Navy destroyer USS Pinckney tracked a hypersonic-like target and simulated an intercept with an SM-6 missile; during the test, HBTSS satellites tracked the target accurately and relayed data quickly for interceptor operations.

“So far we have proven out the timeliness, latency, that of the fire control loop with those systems, as well as the sensitivity of those systems to close the loop,” said Collins, adding that the agency plans to continue to make “algorithm updates” to improve performance.

“All along, we’ve worked in parallel with the Space Force and Space Development Agency,” said Collins. “They now have our HBTSS-like requirements as part of their proliferated warfighting space architecture. In the tranches to come in the following years, they will solely be building up an operational hypersonic tracking layer for us.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency released an analysis May 13, warning that China, which already “may have deployed a conventional Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) with sufficient range to strike Alaska,” is building a stockpile of hypersonic weapons that could number 4,000 by 2035.

A Defense Intelligence Agency’s assessment, titled “Golden Dome for America: Current and Future Missile Threats to the U.S. Homeland,” projects advanced threats and a modern, sophisticated and integrated defense.

Yet as steerable hypersonic weapons arrive, conventional ballistic missiles will remain the primary threat to the United States from both China and Russia. Both possess missiles that can strike the U.S. homeland. Moscow can also reach much of the continental United States with cruise missiles, and China is fielding similar capabilities in range of Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. West Coast. DIA predicts that both Beijing and Moscow will each have some 5,000 cruise missiles in 10 years.

Golden Dome aims to block such threats. Proposed in President Trump’s inaugural address, the dome initiative has some bipartisan support, with the House Armed Services Committee last month voting to support a $25 billion investment for the project in a pending fiscal 2025 defense package. Concerns over the development timeline and overall cost, which could run into the trillions of dollars, remain as details at this stage are scant.

Pentagon Rushing to Find ‘Low-Collateral’ Tech to Counter Hostile Drones

May 14, 2025 | By Matthew Cox

The Pentagon is seeking ways to down hostile drones to defend military bases without endangering nearby civilians or infrastructure—and it wants solutions soon.

In the wake of increased drone activity near U.S. and overseas bases, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit recently invited industry to present low-collateral defeat (LCD) capabilities that can engage hostile drones like the ones that hovered unchecked over Langley Air Force Base, Va., for two weeks in December 2023.

Engaging drones near civilian areas will always present challenges, however, experts say, either in the form of disrupted radio frequency signals, collateral damage from downed drones, or other disruptions.

The solicitation is part of Replicator 2, an effort to produce a myriad of counter-drone systems for every domain. It teams DIU, the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, and U.S. Northern Command and, if successful, would offer a range of counter-drone systems that could go into pre-production testing by next year.

The Defense Department has already developed counter-drone weapons ranging from high-explosive missiles to soft-kill technologies designed to jam GPS signals and destroy onboard electronics. But battlefield systems can’t be used in the populated areas around U.S. installations.

“You’ve got the missiles, which will just simply explode either at or nearby the incoming drone, you’ve got guns … and then you’ve also got all the non-kinetic options too—there are high-energy lasers, high-powered microwaves, radio frequency soft kill mechanisms for dealing with this,” said Shaan Shaikh, a defense analyst at RAND. “There are pros and cons to all of these methods. If you’re using a missile system … that is going to cause some debris. There are pieces of the drone, as well as of the missile system itself, that will come back to Earth. If you’re using high-power microwaves, that could potentially fry other electronics in the area.”

Members of Congress have questioned how more than 350 were able to fly over about 100 U.S. bases last year, and defense officials have acknowledged that the commercial drone industry has outpaced the tools to counter them.

“What we are seeing is kind of the rapid advancement of the threats,” said David Payne, director of the Defense Innovation Unit’s Replicator 2 program. “Drones, to put it simply, are getting better and better, driven by commercial technology, and that presents a significant challenge. They’re hard to aim at, hard to hit, and … whatever form of shot you’re taking at it, you do not want that to impact something behind it.”

Northern Command’s short-term fix is to acquire mobile “flyaway kits,” which include countermeasures such as jammers, lasers, or kinetic systems that can be rapidly deployed to bases at a commander’s request.

Payne said the goal now is to expand the options available to defeat drones without posing a threat to civilians nearby.

“There are numerous low-collateral defeat approaches that are out there today,” Payne said. “One of the common ways right now … is an electronic attack. So that’s commonly done by having a library or database of existing drones that are out there with what protocols they use. The system is able to pick up and see what drone is out there, what protocol it’s using, and is able to intercept that signal, replace the signal with what you [need] to be able to take over the drone … to fly it to wherever you would like it to be.”

On the kinetic side, Payne said one solution could be hardened intercept drones designed to ram hostile unmanned aerial systems.

Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, said collision drones would probably be safer than bullets or missiles.

“You’re trying to have it crash in a way that doesn’t crash on somebody’s house or somebody’s car or some kid that’s walking home from school,” Pettyjohn said. “And since spaces are very much nested in American communities, except for some of the nuclear sites that are in more remote locations, you still have those collateral damage concerns.”

Shaikh suggested those concerns point the way forward. “I think you’re gonna probably have a preference for the no- kinetic options—that is the lasers, the microwaves, the potentially radio frequency options as well,” he said. “But now the question is, under what circumstances can these be used, and in what areas can they be used?” The rules of engagement will have to be worked out.

Pettyjohn agreed that the services need more low-collateral options, but said its only part of a solution to a “really thorny problem that is largely a policy and regulatory” issue that will require better coordination between multiple government agencies.

“You have a bunch of different agencies that have responsibility for different parts of the issue. … It involves [the Department of Homeland Security], state agencies, local government agencies, police forces, as well as the [Federal Aviation Administration], which has set up most of the rules that really limit what can be done in terms of intercepting drones that might be hostile,” Pettyjohn said. “It is not a matter of legality; it is a matter of process and coordinating with the other agencies, like you’re going to need to. You want to tell the FAA before you go shoot something down because you want to clear the rest of the airspace, and you want them to understand what’s going on. You want to coordinate with DHS and others, and that sort of interagency process doesn’t exist.”

Legal and policy constraints must be addresssed. For situations where drone flights create an imminent threat, the Defense Department proposes to relax its requirements under section 130i or Title 10, which limits which installations in the U.S. can engage hostile drones without prior approval from other federal authorities, said Mark Ditlevson, acting assistant Secretary of Defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform April 29.

“We also want to expand the locations and missions covered under 130i,” Ditlevson said. “We’d like to expand that to cover all installations.”

Drone technology companies seeking to compete in DIU’s counter-drone program have until May 19 to submit proposals. Those selected would compete in an initial test event in the fall or winter of 2025. Follow-on testing and development would lead to pre-production assessments in just over a year.

“This specific opportunity is to expand the menu of options so each of the services have existing low-collateral defeat mechanisms, have sensor packages, have a whole system-of-systems approach,” Payne said. “We’re really going out there to find the best technology and approaches [available] today” and to identify entirely new approaches that may not have been available or possible in the past.

USAF’s Planned E-7 Fleet on Trump’s Chopping Block

May 13, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The future of the Air Force’s acquisition of 26 Boeing E-7 Wedgetail aircraft is in doubt under spending plans that are being weighed by the Trump administration, people familiar with the matter said.

The E-7s are to be the Air Force’s new battle management platform, providing airborne moving target indication (AMTI) as successors to the decades-old E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft.

Those in favor of cutting the buy argue that space-based assets can do the job. But the Air Force leadership has argued for years that E-7 is needed, including testimony as recent as this month.

“We have to do more than just sense,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense May 6. “We have to sense, make sense, and act. And right now, the E-7 is the platform that delivers what the E-3 can with greater capability. But I think we just need to ensure that we’re adequately covering all parts of that as we do that migration, before we just go from one domain to another specifically.”

An Air Force spokesperson declined to comment on the fate of the E-7 in the yet-to-be-released 2026 budget. In most years, the budget would have been released months ago. But with a change in administrations and the Trump administration trying to make major changes in a hurry, the proposed budget is still weeks away.

The E-7 Wedgetail aircraft are pricey. Although the basic system has been in use by the British and Australian air forces for years, the Air Force wanted additional capability. The first two prototypes, which won’t be delivered until fiscal 2028, are being developed under a $2.56 billion contract.

Boeing expects first flights of the prototype aircraft “in the coming months,” a Boeing spokesperson said. “We look forward to supporting the U.S. Air Force on the long-term evolution of the platform capabilities and fleet mission.”

Lawmakers are watching closely for signals from meetings between the Pentagon and White House Office of Management and Budget.

“We know there’s a discussion going on between OMB and the Air Force about these things,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “At the end of the day, I tend to have more faith in the Air Force that has to go fight and win the war than I do in another bureaucracy.”

Cole toured an Australian E-7 at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on May 12 and discussed the platform with senior Air Force officials, including then-Acting Air Force Secretary Gary Ashworth and Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs Lt. Gen. David Tabor, and other senior service officials, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

A Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail soars over Southern California as aircrews from the USAF, RAAF, and Royal Air Force worked together to certify the aircraft to refuel with a USAF KC-46A. Air Force photo by Richard Gonzales

“This is a capability that our Air Force tells us we need, particularly given how rapidly the E-3s are leaving the fleet,” said Cole, whose district includes Tinker Air Force Base, home to the E-3 fleet. “Nobody tells me we’re ready to transfer this capability into space. Eventually, we get it in space, we think, but you’ve got to worry about the here and now.”

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vowed in April to spend $1 trillion on the U.S. military in 2026. But since then, it has become clear that the budget spending request will actually be far less, about $893 billion, and that the White House is counting on Congressional add-ons to make up the balance.

“I’m concerned about everything until I see a full budget,” Cole said. “We’re going to take very seriously whatever the administration proposes, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatic. We’re not going to lose this ability.”

The Space Force is working toward a future space-based moving-target indication capability, but officials say it will not be able to absorb the E-7’s missions in the near future.

“Space offers a lot of advantages, particularly in a contested environment, but it isn’t necessarily optimized for the full spectrum of operations that your military is going to be asked to do,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman during the hearing. “No one system is going to be perfectly optimized to take care of the full spectrum of ops. And so that’s where I think you need a mix of systems.”

Nominee for Air Force Manpower Faces Breezy Senate Hearing

May 13, 2025 | By David Roza

President Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee Air Force manpower and reserve affairs seemed to take a step closer to confirmation May 13 after a friendly hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Throughout my life, my focus has been on people,” retired Col. Richard L. Anderson said in his opening statement. “And in that spirit, I relish this opportunity, if confirmed by this committee, for a position of trust to lead the Air Force organization that focuses exclusively on the great Airmen and Guardians who serve our nation.”

Originally from Roanoke, Va., Anderson commissioned into the Air Force after graduating from Virginia Tech in 1979. He was a missileer for the first half of his 30-year career, then joined the international affairs career field where he “focused on building durable relationships,” between the U.S. Air Force and those of 40 countries across Asia and the Pacific, he said in his written testimony.

Anderson retired in 2009 after eight years in the Pentagon and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Then he represented the 51st House District in the Virginia General Assembly from 2010 to 2018. Anderson lost his reelection bid in 2019, then was elected to his current seat as chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia in August 2020.

In his written responses to lawmakers’ questions, Anderson highlighted three focus areas: recruiting and retention; mental health resources; and sexual assault and harassment prevention and response. He hopes a focus on critical career fields such as aviation, as well as a fresh analysis of quality of life and quality of service initiatives, will help recruiting and retention.

For mental health, the retired colonel believes that embedded mental health services can reduce the stigma of seeking help, but he wants a briefing on where resources may be lacking, “particularly in some of our more remote locations.” And while a new report found that sexual assaults across the military dropped four percent last year, “we can all agree that the work is far from finished,” he wrote.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said Anderson was well qualified for the position, but he would face challenges, including a five to eight percent cut to the Defense Department civilian workforce directed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“Mr. Anderson, I would like to know how you would plan to oversee such reductions while minimizing the impact on readiness and ensuring all Airmen, Guardians, and Air Force civilians are treated with the respect they deserve,” Reed wrote in his opening statement, but most questions during the hearing itself focued on the Air Force’s ability to recruit and retain pilots and technical talent.

Committee chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) each asked Anderson for his ideas on how to increase the number of Air Force pilots. For more than a decade, the service has been short about 2,000 pilots, too few to withstand combat losses against a peer adversary such as China or Russia, experts warn.

The retired colonel said pay alone, such as the $50,000 bonus rolled out in 2023, is not the only incentive to retain pilots.

“It is such things as the quality of their service, to have challenges, to be able to step up, and exercise their leadership skills,” he said.

When Wicker asked for specifics, Anderson referenced an April 4 article in Air & Space Forces Magazine about Air Education and Training Command’s effort to stand up Initial Pilot Training in private universities, where pilot hopefuls receive their private pilot licenses before transferring to an Air Force base for abbreviated undergraduate pilot training. The program aims to reduce overall course time while meeting the Air Force’s elusive goal of training 1,500 new pilots a year.

King mentioned a focus group where Air Force pilots said a key factor driving them away from retention was the lack of time spent flying. Rounds expressed a similar concern.

“The current program with increased compensation and bonuses for these pilots is insufficient,” Anderson said. “But also, it is all about quality of life, and I do believe the previous question about affording pilots the opportunity to remain in the cockpit for the duration of their careers is in fact a valid one, but one that has not been embraced by the United States Air Force.”

In terms of overall recruiting and retaining talent in technical fields such as cybersecurity and space operations, the retired colonel said, “We must go to the place where the talent resides, and it must be in places where there are younger people.”

He mentioned AFA’s CyberPatriot and JROTC cyber programs as examples, but he also suggested making recruiting a permanent career field rather than a temporary special duty assignment, as is currently the case.

“Perhaps we need to grow a career field so that we can put experts in the field,” he suggested.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) asked for Anderson to commit to an effort to stand up a Space National Guard, a move that bipartisan governors support and which Trump has expressed interest in, but which the Space Force itself opposes. In March, bipartisan lawmakers introduced a bill to establish a Space National Guard in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

“When I find myself inside, should I be confirmed, I would like to address this,” Anderson said. “However, I will commit to following the existing law as defined in a number of areas and in direction from the president and the secretary of defense.”

Air Force Launching New Artificial Intelligence ‘Center of Excellence’

May 13, 2025 | By Shaun Waterman

The Department of the Air Force will establish a new center for artificial intelligence development, building on existing partnerships with MIT, Stanford University, and Microsoft, according to outgoing Chief Information Officer Venice Goodwine.

“We’re establishing a Department of the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence,” she said at AFCEA International’s TechNet Cyber conference in Baltimore May 7.

Air Force Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer Susan Davenport will oversee the center along with other activities, Goodwine told Air & Space Forces Magazine

MIT already houses the Air Force’s AI accelerator and Stanford University’s School of Engineering operates the DAF-Stanford AI Studio, Goodwine said. The studio recently completed its first project, a 10-day course on “Test of AI and Emerging Technologies” for students at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, in California, taught at Stanford by university faculty. The course was designed to help students prepare for testing and evaluating AI-enabled autonomous aircraft and satellites.

The new AI Center of Excellence will leverage Microsoft infrastructure, Goodwine said, “because we had an investment already in our Innovation Landing Zone.”

Air Force Cyberworx, an innovation at the Air Force Academy, hosts the Innovation Landing Zone, a secure, accredited cloud infrastructure intended for prototyping “mission solutions for data and artificial intelligence, devsecops and infrastructure,” according ot its website.

Attempts to reach the Air Force Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office for comment went unanswered.

“AI has a broad continuum,” Goodwine told the AFCEA audience. “Yes, I can use AI for summarizing briefs in the legal world, or I can use AI for productivity, but I also can use AI for AI-enabled autonomy. So when you have a continuum that broad, how do you make sure that the use cases or the tools that you use or the investments that you’re making enable the [service’s] strategic objectives? So the AI Center of Excellence in the Air Force is going to do that.”

Goodwine said the entire Defense Department needs enterprise-level IT solutions, and urged contractors to find partners so they can scale offerings across the whole of DoD.

“We have to learn to think differently,” Goodwine said. When industry “comes to the Department of Defense, you go to the Army, to the Air Force, Space Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, all separately. I’m going to challenge you to not do that. I need you to do some extreme teaming and think about the capability [you’re offering] and how it will be employed for the department, so that we don’t have to try and make those relationships. If you will do that extreme teaming for us [first] and bring it to us as a solution that takes into account land, sea, air, space.”

The military services cannot afford separate agreements. “We’re thinking about how do we spend our dollars wisely,” Goodwine said afterwards in a brief interview. “I can’t have everyone spending IT dollars. We need to make sure those dollars are focused on the right strategic investment.”

Extreme teaming means leveraging current investments first and identifying offsets that can help pay for new expenses, Goodwine said. “The first thing I’m going to ask is [how can I] use my current investment. … There’s no new money. So if you want me to do [something new], you’ve got to help me with that. That’s what I mean by extreme teaming.”

The session opened with a warm tribute to Goodwine, who said her appearance at the event was her last official act as Air Force CIO. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Susan Lawrence, president and CEO of AFCEA International, thanked her for her service and awarded Goodwine the AFCEA Chair Superior Performance Award.

“Her passion for building bridges across government, industry in academia, is matched only by her steadfast leadership and generosity of spirit,” Lawrence said.