The Air Force’s Fiscal 2015 budget request includes $15.7 million to start work on a sixth generation fighter to succeed the F-22, according to budget documents. Air Force Undersecretary Eric Fanning told reporters in Washington, D.C., Tuesday that maintaining USAF’s technological edge was a “guiding principle” in building the budget, and there was recognition that “to develop these types of platforms requires long leads.” Even as the Air Force is producing the fifth-gen F-35, he said, “We need to be investing in the research and science and technology necessary to be looking at sixth generation.”
Happy Birthday US Air Force: 78 Today
Sept. 18, 2025
Seventy-eight years ago today, on Sept. 18, 1947, Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson swore in Stuart Symington as the first ever Secretary of the Air Force, and the Air Force officially became the first new military service since the Revolutionary War.
