The Air Force needs at least $20 billion more each year to fund necessary recapitalization efforts more efficiently and to sustain rising operations and maintenance costs, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told reporters at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in Washington. It is not a new figure. Air Force leaders made this claim earlier this year after they rolled out the 2008 budget request. And, in April, Gen. Michael Moseley, Chief of Staff, called the $20 billion figure a “useful mark on the wall,” but one he did not expect to get in the current budget climate.
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach a four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.