I want to join Senator Inhofe in welcoming Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein to the Committee this morning to testify on the plans and programs of the Department of the Air Force in our review of the fiscal year 2019 annual authorization request. 

We are grateful to all the men and women of the Air Force for their truly professional service, and to their families, for their continued support. 

Our witnesses this morning face huge challenges as they strive to balance the need to support ongoing operations and sustain readiness with the need to modernize and keep the technological edge in the three critical domains of air, space, and cyberspace.  The Air Force has produced a budget that, even with proposed budget increases, reflects tough decisions. 

The budget increases the Air Force is proposing in fiscal year 2019 would seek to increase readiness, address shortfalls in munitions, address shortfalls in pilots and maintenance personnel, and modernize our strategic deterrent capability. 

In addition, the Air Force faces a continuing challenge in managing the costs and progress of its major acquisition programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter –the most expensive DOD acquisition program in history – and a new tanker and a new bomber.  We should hear from our witnesses on progress in all three of these programs this morning.

I would also like to hear more about another modernization program.  In this budget, the Air Force is proposing to truncate the program to modernize the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, program. 

The Air Force deserves our careful consideration of this proposal, but we must consider it against the recent history of abrupt Air Force program changes. 

  • The Air Force tried several years to retire the A-10 fleet.  Congress turned down the proposals.  Now the Air Force is keeping the A-10, and will continue experimenting with a new light attack aircraft, called OA-X, that would undoubtedly be less survivable that the A-10.  Spending for OA-X would could cost the Air Force several hundred million dollars or more.  
  • The Air Force supported a Nunn-McCurdy certification that the Global Hawk remotely piloted vehicle was “critical to national security,” and then proposed cancelling the program in favor of the U-2 program within a few months of the Global Hawk certification.  Later the Air Force wanted to cancel the U-2 program in favor of the Global Hawk. 
  • The Air Force first proposed to retire nearly half of the Compass Call aircraft without replacement, then decided that the modernizing the Compass Call program was so important that they had to pursue a sole-source contracting strategy for the program.  
  • The Air Force was pursuing a program to buy the C-27 airlift aircraft because Air Force witnesses said that the C-130 airlift aircraft could not meet their requirements.  Later the Air Force cancelled the C-27 program and said that the C-130 was perfectly fine for meeting the direct support mission.
  • With regard to the JSTARS program, the Air Force originally proposed to retire a sizeable portion of the current fleet of JSTARS aircraft with no immediate replacement in sight.  When Congress turned down that proposal, the Air Force submitted a modernization plan to replace the existing capability with a new business jet and a new radar.  The contract to implement that JSTARS modernization plan is currently in source selection.  But now, as I mentioned earlier, the Air Force’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposes to cancel that JSTARS solicitation and pursue another path.  The Air Force has mentioned the National Defense Strategy as a reason for making this decision, but the indication about this decision seems to be that the decision was made before the new National Defense Strategy. 

I look forward to hearing about the updating of these efforts and all your efforts, including your continuing effort to improve shortfalls within the remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) operator community, and shortfalls within the larger pilot personnel community.    

Again, thank you for your leadership in the Air Force and thank you for being here today.