The Air Force is resolute about not buying any more generation 4.5 fighters for the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve, let alone the active force, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said yesterday. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Schwartz said, “No. N.O. I can’t make it any clearer.” The “very pragmatic” reason why is that it’s essential to spend whatever dollars are available to quickly ramp up the F-35, Schwartz insisted. “We have to get production rates up” to manage the aging fighter fleet, on the one hand, and “keep the average unit cost on the F-35 competitive” so that the three US services and allies can afford them, he explained. “The idea here is to make that leap to F-35 production rates [of] certainly not less than 80, ideally as high perhaps as 110, for the Air Force,” he continued. The F-35, he said, is “the machine that will allow us to perform our missions for the next 20 to 30 years, to be sure, along with a smaller fleet of F-22s.” (New ANG Director, Lt. Gen. Harry Wyatt has said he would preserve a 4.5-gen option, if ANG can’t get F-35s quickly enough.)
Deptula, Chilton Earn Historical Foundation Honor
May 23, 2025
The Air Force Historical Foundation honored a pair of storied Airmen with lifetime achievement awards at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center May 22. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute...