During a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) questioned General David W. Allvin, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, about upgrades in their aircraft fleet.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00...needed Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, but here we are.
00:06General Alvin, I want to ask you a couple questions about sort of the changing on the battlefield,
00:13the use of drones, unmanned support.
00:17And there's a lot of conversation and discussion about that being for, you know, 5th Gen and 6th Gen platforms,
00:24F-47s, which we're very happy about in St. Louis.
00:28Will CCA be able to integrate, in your view, with sort of four-and-a-half generation platforms like the F-15EX?
00:39Is that something you contemplate?
00:41You used the right term.
00:42We're definitely contemplating at the threshold platform that we're looking for right now to be able to have those two,
00:47which, by the way, we have two of them that are prototyping very strongly right now,
00:51to integrate with the F-35 and the F-22, and obviously it'll be sort of born to integrate with the F-47.
00:57Some of that we will look at the integration challenges and opportunities to go back with the 4.5th Gen.
01:03But the more we can, the better, because the sooner we start our Air Force on this human-machine teaming piece,
01:09the better off we're going to be as far as better cost-exchange ratios as well as better combat capability.
01:14Dr. Mink, I wanted to ask you, we've heard a bunch of times, and I think it's pretty well known,
01:21the role the legacy F-15E has played in recent operations in the Red Sea, still incredibly valuable, still very important.
01:31And would you still agree, and there's a balancing act here, right?
01:38It's the F-37 is the future, but we have these, you know, legacy platforms.
01:44Would you agree, though, they still play a very, very important role?
01:50Yes, Senator.
01:51It's been demonstrated time and time again that those platforms are very effective and provide significant combat capability.
02:00Obviously, there are areas where they are challenged, right, and would not be the primary,
02:05but that doesn't mean they don't provide operational capability in many cases.
02:09And I want to ask you something that obviously plays into our national defense, but somewhat parochial.
02:15At Whiteman Air Force Base, we're the B-2, we've got the B-21, obviously, on its way.
02:20You've got the A-10 that's being phased out, and that's coming pretty quickly now.
02:27That the F-15E could be a suitable bridge before you have a longer-term solution like the F-15EX as a follow-on mission there.
02:42Dr. Meek.
02:43Oh, go ahead.
02:44Yeah, so I think that's one of the locations that's on the list for competing for future fighter wings.
02:52Yes, Senator.
02:53General Alvin, would you agree with that?
02:54I would.
02:56I think I'm really in close contact with Lieutenant General John Healy, too, the Air Force Service Command commander.
03:00And looking at opportunities for, you know, staying in the global strike community, the B-2, B-21,
03:06and how many we're going to buy those, and is there a better association there?
03:09But specifically to the A-10, more resources available, that's where we look at where we might be able to place and offset the loss of the A-10.
03:16And those are all things that more Air Force, we might be able to pursue.
03:21One of the, and I wanted to speak with you, and we'll have plenty of conversations, General Alvin, about this, I think, down the road.
03:28But was disappointed that the 139th airlift wing did not get the C-130Js.
03:38It's been a, St. Joe's ready.
03:42They do, ironically, do the training for other, like when the country of India comes in to train on the C-130Js.
03:49They do the training for the C-130Js, but do not have the C-130Js.
03:55I'm not going to put you on the spot right now on this, but we thought it was going to happen this go-around.
04:03Will you commit to working with me to make sure that that actually, we planned that plane?
04:10Senator, 100%, what we do, what we can provide to you, is an understanding of where the areas were, where it didn't compete well, and where it did compete well.
04:18That's what we try and do with all of these, when we go from the enterprise definition to the candidate location to the preferred location,
04:25to be able to understand where some of those discriminators were, and give you a sense of,
04:29hey, if there's something that might make this particular location more competitive next time around, this is where it might be.
04:34I think we owe you that, and we'll certainly be happy to do that.
04:36Well, I look forward to doing that again, because we took those comments to heart, and I think addressed those issues, but we'll continue to work with you.
04:43Thanks for your service. Thank you.