Air Force Magazine – July-August 2019

    JULY/AUGUST  AIRFORCEMAG.COM

T

he United States Air Force today is operating a

 ghter aircraft inventory on the brink of disaster.

Most of the service’s air superiority jets were

designed at the conclusion of the Vietnam War,

produced in the 1980s, and are ill-suited to meet

future threats. Making the situation worse, aircraft such

as the F-15C Eagle will wear out their basic structural in-

tegrity in the early- to mid-2020s. An immediate change

in defense policy and resourcing is required to restore

this critical component of US military capability and

capacity, made even more urgent given the objectives

of the new National Defense Strategy and real-world

security challenges.

 is was not the scenario the Air Force anticipated.

 e Air Force intended to acquire more than 750 F-22

Raptors to replace its F-15s, and 1,763 F-35 Lightning

IIs to replace its F-16 and A-10  eets.  e F-22 and F-35

were designed to complement each other:  e F-22 was

Ensuring the Common Defense:

By Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.), Maj. Gen. Lawrence A.

Stutzriem, USAF (Ret.), and Heather R. Penney

Lt. Gen. David Deptula is the dean

of the Mitchell Institute for Aero-

space Studies, Maj Gen. Lawrence

Stutzriem is Mitchell’s director of

research, and HeatherPenney is a

senior resident fellow at Mitchell.

This article is adapted from the

Mitchell Institute Policy Paper,

Ensuring the Common Defense:

The Case for Fifth Generation

Airpower, which can be down-

loaded in its entirety at:

http://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org.

Lt. Gen. David Deptula

of the Mitchell Institute for Aero-

space Studies,

Stutzriem

research, and

senior resident fellow at Mitchell.

This article is adapted from the

Mitchell Institute Policy Paper,

Ensuring the Common Defense:

The Case for Fifth Generation

Airpower,

loaded in its entirety at:

http://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org.

The Case for

Fifth-Generation

and NGAD Airpower