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The Air Drive is projecting comparatively restricted progress for its important F-35 fleet for the remainder of the last decade, based on the brand new fighter roadmap it offered to Congress. That roadmap additionally requires the general fighter fleet to shrink for 2 extra years earlier than beginning to develop.
The service didn’t embrace the precise variety of plane it plans to purchase every year within the unclassified model of the report, accomplished in August and made public in October. However it did mission adjustments to fleet measurement based mostly on procurement, attrition, retirements, and long-term modifications.
For the F-35 particularly, the roadmap exhibits a base fleet of 344 plane in fiscal 2026, adopted by will increase of:
- 39 plane in 2027
- 18 in 2028
- 32 in 2029
- 39 in 2030
The numbers “don’t characterize procurement targets however are the specified general USAF possessed stock on the ramp,” the Air Drive mentioned in textual content explaining its charts. “Recapitalization of getting older platforms on account of early lot obsolescence (e.g. F-35) diminishing components availability (F-35 and F-15E) and different elements will drive procurement of plane above the [total aircraft inventory] requirement.”
Nonetheless, the projected progress suggests the Air Drive received’t be buying greater than the 48 F-35s it purchased in fiscal 2024, to say nothing of the 72 plane some specialists have advised.
The fighter roadmap numbers are based mostly on the brand new “Fight Coded Whole Plane Stock” metric, which replaces Major Mission Plane Stock. CCTAI counts all of the fighters the Air Drive has, whereas the earlier yardstick didn’t depend airplanes that had been thought of backup stock or attrition reserve.
The Air Drive is setting a precedence on upgrading F-35s with Know-how Refresh 3 and 4, whereas the jets geared up with TR-2 “will fall behind,” the report states. Finally, that can “drive eventual substitute of these plane on account of low utility for the USAF, in comparison with newer-block fighter plane.”
Air Drive officers defined the service’s smaller purchases of the F-35 within the 2010s as due partially to their desire to attend for the totally realized Block 4 model, which had all of the capabilities leaders wished from the Lightning II. The Air Drive mentioned it most well-liked to attend, somewhat than face a big invoice to later retrofit these earlier jets with Block 4 capabilities.
Nonetheless, TR-3, which underpins the Block 4 upgrades, has encountered delays. And in its 2026 funds request, the Air Drive requested for simply 24 F-35As. Congress has made no strikes to spice up that buy because it has in years previous, not even within the huge reconciliation package deal earlier this 12 months that included billions of additional {dollars} for different fighter applications just like the F-15EX and F-47.
The entire fighter stock roughly matches the sample for the F-35, with 1,271 fighters general in 2026, dropping to 1,271 in 2027 and bottoming out at 1,215 in 2028, then rising in 2028-2029 to 1,250 and 1,304, respectively.
The report mentioned the service wants to extend its fighter fleet to 1,558 jets by 2035, which it mentioned could be executed if it “maxes out” F-35 manufacturing to 100 a 12 months and will increase F-15EX acquisitions by 36 per 12 months.
These first few years of the roadmap sees the divestiture of the A-10 by the top of 2027 and sharp reductions within the F-15C/D and F-15E fleets. The F-15C/D fleet particularly drops from 42 in 2026 to 21 in 20229, and people plane stay as “Platinum Eagles” serving as homeland protection jets into the early 2030s. The F-15E Strike Eagle fleet falls from 133 in ’26 to 78 in ’28 and hovers there by way of the top of the last decade.
The F-15EX fleet is the one different named plane exhibiting a rise, rising from 27 out there in fiscal 2026 to 111 by the top of 2030.
The Air Drive assumes it is going to be allowed to divest some 32 of its oldest and least-upgraded F-22s, leaving a fleet of 134 jets from fiscal 2026 into the 2030s. The F-16 fleet stays at 488 plane all through the identical interval.
No figures had been provided for a way these numbers can be offset by bringing on the brand new F-47, information for which was restricted to the labeled annex. Even so, the Air Drive mentioned within the report that these figures “are nonetheless being decided.”
The report didn’t embrace Collaborative Fight Plane in its tallies of fighter jets, saying CCAs, after they turn into out there, can be “additive” to the fighter stock.
Audio of this text is delivered to you by the Air & House Forces Affiliation, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their households. Discover out extra at afa.org