Another QDR, Another Cut; Why an F-22 Stretch Out?; The UAV Factor ....

Posted on: Feb. 1st, 2006 || Source: afa.org | E-mail Article | Print Article

Another QDR, Another Cut; Why an F-22 Stretch Out?; The UAV Factor ....

The Air Force has lost its battle to get 381 F-22A Raptors from the Bush Administration and will have to drop 40,000 personnel by 2011 to afford its overall procurement program. These are among the principal budgetary effects of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, set for public disclosure this month.

In their first joint press conference, new Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and the new Chief of Staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, said in mid-December that they will live with the Administration’s imposed cap of 183 F-22As—renamed from F/A-22s—by extending the service lives of other fighters and depending more on advanced unmanned systems. However, they feel they won an important victory by persuading the Pentagon to extend the F-22A production line two years, until F-35 production is under way.

The personnel cuts will be absorbed as much as possible through reduced accessions and normal attrition, they said, adding that some of the cuts were coming anyway, due to the reduced support needs of the service’s modern systems.

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