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U.S. Air Force Will
Retire 286 Aircraft Over the Next Five Years By Eddy Metcalf |
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February 7, 2012 - Air Force officials announced
proposed force structure changes which support the new
DoD strategic guidance retiring 286 aircraft over the
next five years, including 227 in fiscal year 2013.
According to Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Donley,
the Air Force is shaping itself for future challenges by
realigning Air Force assets with the Defense
Department's new strategic guidance.
"We've had to adjust our force structure based on our
strategic objectives and to balance capability and
capacity with constrained budgets," Donley said. "We
must have the right tools and enough of them to credibly
deter potential adversaries and to deliver on our
objectives." |
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The new
strategic guidance requires the joint force to be capable of
fighting one large scale, combined arms campaign with sufficient
combat power to also deny a second adversary, and de-emphasized
large-scale, prolonged stability operations. The Air Force's
approach to this new strategy is to retire fighter, mobility,
and ISR that are beyond those needed to meet the capacity
requirements of the new defense strategic guidance.
"Where
possible, we attempted to retire all aircraft of a specific
type, allowing us to also divest the unique training and
logistic support structure for that aircraft," Air Force Chief
of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz explained. "When that was not
possible, we worked to retire the oldest aircraft first, and
redistributed aircraft into effective and economical units,
eliminating other units when that was most efficient. Where we
retained older aircraft, we are taking steps to ensure they will
remain viable into the future."
Although
the U.S. has removed all combat forces from Iraq and the new
strategic guidance reduces the steady state requirement for
ground forces, the Air Force expects steady state rotational
requirements to remain constant, or perhaps increase. According to Schwartz this continuing combatant commander requirement for Air Force aircraft and Airmen to deploy forward was a key factor in determining the required mix between Active and Reserve component forces due to differences in sustainable deployment rates and operations tempo. Schwartz also explained the need for reductions in the Reserve Component. |