By MARCUS WEISGERBER
The U.S. Air Force will return to its roots in the coming years, tailoring its acquisition needs to meet the Pentagon’s Pacific-focused military strategy by buying stealthy aircraft and systems.
That means the service will look to purchase systems and aircraft — particularly a new bomber — that can fly without being noticed in denied airspace, a reversal of Air Force operations over the past decade.
“I think right now what we’re trying to do is remind everybody that we’ve got to start planning to build systems and to field capabilities to fight in a contested environment again,” Lt. Gen. Charles “CR” Davis, the Air Force military deputy for acquisition, said during his first interview since becoming the service’s top uniformed weapons buyer.
Several Air Force systems, from unmanned aircraft to sensors, have played a major role in counterinsurgency operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. However, many of them are easily detected on radar, meaning they are vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles.
“We’ve become very good at fielding the conventional, non-hardened, non-threatened type of systems,” Davis said. “Now, we’ve got to take a look at a different kind of mindset when we start planning for how we’re going to tailor acquisition for that.”
This new frame of thinking will be taken into account as the Air Force develops a new bomber, data links, secure communications for intelligence systems and other systems.
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