The Air Force expects to send Congress in March the first of five reports on the planned fighter force restructure. That’s the word from Maj. Gen. David Scott, who told the House Appropriations defense panel Feb. 24 that the service has a plan to offset the F-35 program slowdown to “enable the Guard to maintain the capabilities that they have currently today.” In effect, he said it’s a “domino” plan to transition, for instance, active F-16s to the Air Guard as active units acquire the first F-35s. ANG also expects to receive F-35s fairly early, and Scott said, if the F-35 timetable “slips further,” the plan includes modifications to some older F-16s to increase their service lives “just to the outside of 2017.” That was welcome news to Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who noted, “It sounds like you’ve given considerable thought to this.” (Scott’s written testimony)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine said the U.S. needs to prepared for future conflicts in which its adversaries will be able to closely track the location of American forces and attack with autonomous systems that use artificial intelligence.
