Air Force U-2 Spy Planes Flying Along Southern Border

March 14, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

U.S. Air Force U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes are flying along the southern border, Air Force and defense officials disclosed.

The high-altitude reconnaissance planes are flying missions along with RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft and drones, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said in a post on the social media site X March 14.

Allvin wrote that the U-2, RC-135, and remotely piloted aircraft “crews have been tirelessly providing unrivaled ISR support for [U.S. Northern Command] at the border to restore sovereignty and protect American communities.”

A U.S. defense official also confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine that USAF U-2 aircraft have been flying to support the Pentagon’s efforts to surveil areas around the southern border.

The Trump administration made securing the border a high-priority military mission with Air Force and Navy aircraft, Army helicopters, and other assets flying intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico as early as January.

The U-2 can collect high-resolution imagery, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) from altitudes over 70,000 feet.

The original U-2 first flew in 1955, but current models date to the 1980s, when U-2 production restarted. The aircraft has been modernized since then and can carry a range of payloads including advanced optical, multispectral electro-optical/infrared imaging, synthetic aperture radar, and signals intelligence sensors.

The Air Force’s fleet of more than two dozen U-2s is based at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., but the aircraft are also deployed to forward operating locations worldwide. In recent years, they have flown over the Middle East, among other locations.

U.S. officials said Air Force U-2 flights over the continental United States gathered some of the most vital information about the Chinese spy balloon that flew over North America and across the United States in early 2023 before being shot down by an F-22 Raptor.

The U-2s are part of an array of U.S. military aircraft collecting intelligence along the southern border and over water off the coast of Mexico.

Air Force RC-135 operations along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico began in early February, according to U.S. officials and flight tracking data. Those operations, out of their home base at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., are ongoing, with an RC-135 flying along the border on the evening of March 13.

Navy P-8s flights have been a common sight along the border and the Gulf Coast since January. Two Navy P-8s have been spotted near the border equipped with the highly-capable AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor radar—a long pod visible on the centerline under the aircraft. Those P-8s were based in Europe but were recently moved to Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas. The P-8 was originally designed as a maritime patrol aircraft that could be used for anti-submarine warfare, but can perform a variety of intelligence-gathering missions.

In addition to intelligence operations, Air Force C-17s and C-130s have been used to deport detainees out of the U.S under the Trump administration.

The Air Force and its Airmen have been doing “everything asked … in support of the southwest border and the president’s priority of restoring sovereignty and protecting our borders … from the rapid global mobility to be able to transport the illegal aliens to their destination, to surveillance and reconnaissance support, to anything that’s being asked of us,” Allvin said in Feb. 27 interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine.

About 40 Air Force intelligence analysts are now supporting the southern border mission, U.S. Northern Command announced on March 11.

Those Airmen, along with approximately 590 engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Army 18th Airborne Corps, will bring the total number of troops deployed for the border mission to 9,600.

Data collected by airborne intelligence-gathering assets must then be analyzed and coordinated within the U.S. government, particularly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. NORTHCOM established the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border to oversee the effort. At least 140 U.S. military intelligence personnel from multiple services were already assigned to the southern border mission before the latest batch of Airmen.

Some of those new Airmen will serve at the headquarters of Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., a defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. Other locations include the Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers, which are located in San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Jacksonville, Fla., the official said.

Watchdog: Hurricane Hunters Short On People and Planes, But Needs Data to Quantify It

March 14, 2025 | By David Roza

Hurricane Hunters with the Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are struggling to keep up with a rising number of storms, but a government watchdog says both agencies need to refine their data-tracking efforts and improve interagency communication between its most senior leaders to develop a cohesive plan forward.

“Developing a process to track these data would help the agencies better understand the challenges their Hurricane Hunter missions face and identify actions they could take to reduce missed mission requirements and improve operations,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in a report that was publicly released March 14.

Hurricane Hunters fly into storms to collect atmospheric data that help scientists at the National Hurricane Center predict the size of the storms and where they will make landfall, which in turn helps decision-makers make calls such as evacuation orders.

Giving forecasters better data saves lives and money; it costs at least $1 million to evacuate a mile of coastline, so it helps when planners have a better sense of where to focus safety efforts.

On the Air Force side is the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, a Reserve unit that flies 10 WC-130J aircraft out of Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. Meanwhile, NOAA flies two propeller-driven WP-3D Orion aircraft and one Gulfstream IV jet for high-altitude missions above storms.

None of the aircraft are spring chickens: the WC-130Js entered service in the late 1990s, the Gulfstream in 1994, and the Orions in 1974 and 1975. Flying into storms wears out aircraft faster, and maintenance issues have cancelled critical missions.

It doesn’t help that the Hurricane Hunters’ workload is rising every year: 2019 to 2023 saw 36 percent more tropical cyclone missions than 2014 to 2018. During the winter months, the Airmen fly to the West Coast to gather data on atmospheric rivers. They were nearly 13 times more busy during the winters of 2020 through 2024 than they were between 2015 and 2019, but their staff and equipment resources have not kept pace.

“NOAA’s air crews are thinly staffed with limited backup options … NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter maintenance personnel told us that they have been thinly staffed for years, resulting in unsustainable heavy workloads that have contributed to greater burnout for personnel,” GAO wrote. “According to NOAA officials, the agency is often one illness or injury away from having to cancel missions.”

In August, NOAA had to delay its Gulfstream by two days during the early stage of Hurricane Ernesto because no backup staff were available when a dual-hatted flight director and in-flight meteorologist had to attend to a family emergency.

The Air Force is in a similar spot, with some crew members juggling civilian careers in addition to their military duties. The 53rd WRS missed a few mission requirements during the 2023 tropical cyclone season because its air crews were burned out, GAO noted.

Mission Requirements

Mission requirements refer to key hurricane hunting objectives such as dropping instruments called dropsondes into storms, which gather forecast data for scientists. Mission requirements might be missed due to mechanical or staffing issues, and when that happens it reduces the accuracy and confidence of forecasting decisions, which can lead to larger, more disruptive, and more expensive evacuations.

The number of missed requirements during the tropical cyclone season is on the rise, with about 6 percent missed from 2014 through 2018 on average and 9 percent from 2019 and 2023. The winter season is more difficult thanks in part to icing and limited maintenance capabilities on the West Coast, contributing to a nearly 30 percent miss rate on average since 2020.

But while it’s clear that the Hurricane Hunters are missing requirements, it’s not exactly clear why. GAO noted that neither NOAA nor the Air Force systematically tracks the reasons why they miss mission requirements. NOAA said it historically has not tracked the reasons because in the past mission requirements happened so infrequently. The Air Force did not track that data because they were not required to and did not consider it a priority, officials said.

GAO believes in evidence-based policymaking, so it recommended the two agencies start tracking that data to inform better solutions. The agencies agreed, and in September they started developing a system to synchronize rather than duplicate each other’s efforts.

“By working together to develop and implement a systematic process to track these data, NOAA and the Air Force would have the information needed to better understand the challenges facing their Hurricane Hunter operations so that they can identify and take actions to improve their ability to complete requirements,” GAO noted.

Comprehensive Communication

The same lesson applies to NOAA’s and the Air Force’s staff and workforce structure. It’s clear that both agencies’ Hurricane Hunters are over-worked, but neither agency has completed a comprehensive assessment of its workforce, GAO wrote.

For example, NOAA hired a contractor to assess its pilots and navigators in 2024, but the assessment did not include its other air crew, aircraft maintainers, and other employees. The 53rd WRS also lacked such a comprehensive study.

“Comprehensively assessing their Hurricane Hunter workforces would help inform efforts by NOAA and the Air Force to ensure that they have the appropriate staffing levels and workforce structure in place to meet the growing demand for Hurricane Hunter missions,” GAO wrote.

Besides more thoroughly assessing their operations, the two agencies also need to improve their high-level communications, GAO said. The two groups work closely together at the operational level and below, filling in for each other’s missions, holding lessons-learned meetings every year, and putting on an interagency aerial reconnaissance equipment working group to prioritize new technologies.

But decisions affecting long-term investment and strategy require senior leadership, and GAO noted a lack of communication between the most senior officials.

“Senior NOAA officials said they have tried unsuccessfully to reach out to the Air Force about its plans for its Hurricane Hunter aircraft and stated they were unsure which Air Force leaders they should communicate with on this topic,” the office wrote. “In the absence of such communications, the officials said they do not know what the Air Force’s long-term plans are for its Hurricane Hunter aircraft, which has made it more difficult for NOAA to determine the needs and requirements for its own aircraft recapitalization efforts.”

One senior NOAA leader likened it to building two halves of a house separately without discussing how the plumbing, wires, or other systems will connect with each other.

A WC-130J Super Hercules from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, aka Hurricane Hunters, taxis to the runway Aug. 25, 2019 at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. (U.S. Air Force photo by Jessica L. Kendziorek)

Upgrades

Better communication could lead to better-coordinated recapitalization efforts. NOAA plans to replace and expand its aircraft fleet with two new Gulfstream jets and four C-130Js. The 53rd WRS has no immediate plans to replace its WC-130Js (which are also aging quickly), but it does want better communications bandwidth and Wi-Fi so that Airmen can transmit more data mid-flight rather than wait until the aircraft lands.

“Air Force officials described the process to make modifications to the Hurricane Hunter aircraft, such as installing new technologies or equipment, as cumbersome and slow,” GAO wrote. “ … It can take years, in some cases more than a decade, for the Air Force to add new capabilities to its aircraft.”

Like with the other resource problems, the need for change is clear, but GAO said the Air Force needed to identify specific system improvement barriers and develop mitigation plans.

In his response to the GAO report, Lt. Gen. John P. Healy, the head of Air Force Reserve Command, said his troops had stood up a WC-130J Requirements Working Group to refine the aircraft upgrade process even before the GAO’s assessment.

“As this process continues to mature, Air Force Reserve Command will identify and support changes to improve processes both within the command as well as with their mission partners,” Healy wrote.

Both NOAA and the Air Force concurred with all of GAO’s recommendations.

USAF, Japan Look to Share Maintenance on Common Aircraft Closer to the Fight

March 14, 2025 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

The U.S. Air Force is working on a test program with Japan to establish a joint maintenance center that will perform repairs on aircraft operated by both nations—creating a “deterrent effect that will make adversaries think twice,” a top general said.

For the past few months, the Air Force Sustainment Center has been exploring ways to expand depot-level maintenance beyond the continental U.S. and get it closer to the fight, in line with the Pentagon’s Regional Sustainment Framework plan to tap into the allies’ maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities, particularly for shared weapons systems.

The Air Force’s part of the initiative, dubbed GENUS (Global Enterprise Network for Universal Sustainment), has led to talks and visits to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Guam, and Alaska, said Lt. Gen. Stacey T. Hawkins, commander of the Air Force Sustainment Center, during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on March 13.

But Japan offers a particularly intriguing partnership given past interoperability efforts and common platforms.

“We believe that Japan is a prime candidate to begin this journey,” Hawkins said. “One example of how this has been done successfully is our support center at Kadena… We feel that the ecosystem is rich to build on that success and scale it accordingly.”

The 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. military installation in the Asia-Pacific, is home to more than 2,300 aircraft maintainers in its 18th Maintenance Group. Located on Okinawa, just 200 miles from Taiwan, the base currently hosts a rotation of fighters, along with other aircraft

“We have actually put some ideas in motion as to how we can run a successful pilot using a basket of commodities for aircraft that we fly together,” added Hawkins.

USAF and the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force operate several of the same aircraft types—F-15 and F-35 fighters, C-130 transports, and KC-46 tankers.

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II assigned to the 134th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron taxis after arriving at Kadena Air Base, Japan, Jan. 13, 2025. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Tylir Meyer

By leveraging Japan’s maintenance capabilities and sharing its own, the Air Force hopes to keep its aircraft more ready and able to respond quickly to crises.

“When it comes to revitalizing the defense industrial base and re-establishing deterrence … we believe GENUS is right in the middle of that,” Hawkins said. “We can resolve the tyranny of distance problem, resolve the contested logistics problem and resolve the time challenge, we can actually create a deterrent effect that will make our adversaries think twice.”

A joint MRO center could also address supply chain issues, as both countries frequently face shortages of spare parts for aircraft repairs, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Leonard J. Kosinski, former director for logistics for the Joint Staff.

“If we can combine those together into what we call in the Joint Staff ‘forward pre-positioned operating stock,’ this will, collectively, keep the things in need available to use, maintain, replenish,” he said.

For Tokyo, the agreement could help revitalize the country’s shrinking defense industry. Japan’s long-standing export controls have historically confined its defense companies to domestic needs. The country aims to expand MRO services going forward and integrate into global market, officials said during the CSIS event.

The Navy currently operates a comparable sustainment center called the U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center, in Yokosuka, a port city just south of Tokyo. The facility provides ship repair, modernization, and support services to the service’s 7th fleet and Naval vessels across the region.

The Air Force is also exploring interoperability and shared maintenance on the F-35 with European allies—Norwegian personnel serviced two F-35s without any U.S. supervision last April, a historic first.

Robot Tug Could Save MQ-9 Reaper Maintainers Time, Money, and Risk

March 13, 2025 | By David Roza

A prototype aircraft tug being tested out at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., could save MQ-9 Reaper maintainers time and money and cut down on safety risks on the flightline.

The TowFLEXX is a remote-controlled, electric tug that has a smaller logistical footprint and takes up less space than old-school aircraft towing systems, which often involved specialized tractors or a gas-powered truck and a towbar. A smaller footprint would help with Agile Combat Employment, the Air Force strategy of dispersing teams of Airmen to smaller or austere air bases to complicate targeting for near-peer adversaries such as Russia and China.

“Typically you would take up two or three pallet positions with the older version of a tow vehicle,” Tech. Sgt. Dwane Parmelee, with the Holloman-based 49th Component Maintenance Squadron, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “This would take up one pallet position at most, and you can still stack bags and stuff on top of it, so you’re really getting a dual-purpose pallet position there.”

While other Air Force bases also use TowFLEXX, the prototype at Holloman are special. Unlike their counterparts, the TF3 variant is equipped with a Light and Detection Range (LiDAR) collision avoidance system which spots obstacles and automatically stops the tug. That means fewer Airmen have to be on hand to supervise a towing operation.

Under the old system, towing a Reaper might take five to six Airmen, Parmelee explained: one to operate the towing vehicle, three or more wing and tail walkers to make sure the 66-foot-wide, 36-foot-long aircraft doesn’t hit anything, and a supervisor overseeing the operation. With the TF3, that number falls to just the vehicle operator and two wing walkers, which frees up maintainers to do other tasks.

“Every hour we save an Airman from doing a job that technology can do, that’s saving us time and it’s saving us money,” said Senior Master Sgt. Joseph Anger, quality assurance superintendent for the 49th Maintenance Group. “We’re looking at saving over 3,000 hours per year just towing the MQ-9 alone at Holloman.”

That would more than make up for the TowFLEXX’s price tag—between $50,000 and $90,000, depending on the variant—at a time when many Air Force bases have too few maintainers to sustain an aging fleet of aircraft. Besides cost-savings, the LiDAR-equipped TF3s could also increase flightline safety by preventing collisions.

“Humans, we’re really good, but we could be working an eight-hour shift in the rain or something like that and something happens,” Anger said.

At a recent demonstration, the TF3 avoided engineers from Evitado Technologies, the company that built the LiDAR anti-collision system, who served as obstacles in the tug’s path. Some maintainers “were shocked by the LiDAR system’s ability to identify obstacles inches away from the aircraft and then shut down,” Anger said.

“Everyone was amazed,” he said. “They were coming up like ‘hey, what else can we put this on?’”

mq-9 reaper — Members of Holloman, TowFLEXX Miltech and Evitado conduct an MQ-9 Reaper towing demonstration at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, Feb. 27, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Isaiah Pedrazzini)

Also impressive was the tug’s maneuverability: without a towbar expanding its turning radius, the TowFLEXX spun the Reaper in circles in place, which could help Airmen store more aircraft and equipment in tighter spaces. And while the older TowFLEXX models had just one motor, the TF3 has two, which means it can tow heavier aircraft.

In 2023, there was “an upward trend” in ground mishaps involving maintenance, aircraft towing, and other flight line work, Maj. Gen. Sean M. Choquette, the Air Force Chief of Safety, said in October. TF3 may be able to help with that.

“You have a 360-degree view of the aircraft and any obstructions,” said Parmelee. “Therefore your mishap prevention is going to improve astronomically.”

Anger sees a future where the LiDAR-equipped TowFLEXX can tow an aircraft completely autonomously.

“My overall goal is to have these TowFLEXXes just pull up to the aircraft, connect to the aircraft, and then tows without anyone being there,” he said.

Grassroots Innovation

Perhaps just as helpful as the TowFLEXX is the story of how the TF3 prototype got to Holloman. Anger has a history of liaising between flightlines and tech companies to make Airmen’s jobs easier. A key tool for doing that is AFWERX, an Air Force program that provides funding and technical expertise to support grassroots solutions to Air Force and Space Force challenges.

Through AFWERX, Anger learned how to access small business innovation research contracts, which helped him “push a lot more ‘outside-the-box’ thinking,” and he encouraged other Airmen to do the same.

AFWERX is there “to help the innovator at the wing level, or even at the squadron level or below, come up with grassroots innovations,” he said.

Anger had worked with Evitado in the past, which helped spark the idea to partner with TowFLEXX. Now he wants to move fast to get the project through the “Valley of Death,” the transition period between prototype and scaled-up production where many ideas fizzle out.

More cash from the Strategic Funding and Tactical Funding programs should help with that; Anger said those funding buckets and support from leadership has helped more projects get out of the valley.

“Hopefully in the near future we could be replacing the older systems with this new autonomous system,” Anger said.

“The more Airmen have a voice in innovation, the better,” the senior master sergeant said. “We have a lot of great technology that we’re working on, and we’re going to be able to save money, save time, and improve quality of life for Airmen.”

Tech Sgt. Jason Norris, 476th Maintenance Squadron crew chief, receives hands-on training from Uli Nielen, Aviate Enterprises executive sales representative, on the TowFLEXX Aircraft Tug, Dec. 5, 2022, at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia.(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. John Crampton)

Air Force and Space Force Look to Expand JSE, Pair It with Other Training Tools

March 13, 2025 | By Greg Hadley

AURORA, Colo.—As the Air Force and Navy prepare to spend billions of dollars expanding the Joint Simulation Environment, military and industry experts said last week they are already thinking about ways they can pair the high-end virtual environment with training for other services and allies.

The JSE—described by Col. Robert S. “Slip” Smith, commander of the 505th Combat Training Group, during an AFA Warfare Symposium panel as a “high-fidelity, fifth-gen-plus, physics-based environment”—started as a way to complete operational testing for the F-35 because some of the fighter’s capabilities were too sensitive to turn on during live flight.

It evolved, however, when the Air Force Weapons School realized it could be used for pilot training, said Col. C. Matt Ryan, senior materiel leader for the simulators division at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, in another panel discussion.

Now, the Air Force is planning to establish more JSE facilities starting in 2025 at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. The goal is to eventually expand that even further to every F-35 base, including overseas.

Along the way, the Air Force decided to mandate that all new weapons systems be able to plug into the JSE, Ryan noted.

Yet as JSE grows, officials say they still see it as one component in the live, virtual, and constructive world of test and training—one they will need to make compatible with other systems.

“Being able to bring that down and incorporate that type of training into fourth- and third-gen networks, coalition networks, and being able to really incorporate that into the unit of action [concept of operations], to be able to execute ACE operations in the Indo-Pacific theater, that’s what we need,” Smith said. “We need to be able to share that information, to go from the high-fidelity to the low-fidelity, and have a full immersive battlespace, synthetic and blended experience.”

Iain Ferguson, an executive with SAIC’s Air Force and combatant commands business group, described that effort as “the larger JSE program of record” and said the Air Force and Navy “have already made really great strides … to include a lot of this understanding of different fidelities.”

One of those strides, he noted, was deploying some of SAIC’s non-JSE simulators, called FENIX, to U.S. Air Forces in Europe’s Warfare Center.

“It’s really exciting to see what we’re able to do at a lower fidelity, but very much focused on, how do you do integration, eight-ship integration with other components, joint, and coalition partners, training together, large-force exercises, much of it simulated or constructive, but also with pilots,” Ferguson said.

While high-fidelity training is important, both Smith and Ferguson cited the need for less sophisticated simulators and virtual environments that can be deployed on a wider scale than JSE right now. Those training tools are important for large-scale exercises, an area of particular interest for the Air Force as it prepares for a potential conflict with the likes of China.

Tying the JSE into the lower-end environments, however, is still important so that F-35 pilots can learn to operate alongside allies and forces outside of the “day one fight” as Smith put it—an inevitable scenario in any potential large-scale conflict.

“It’s important that we can train with our coalition partners without losing the fidelity of the training for our forces,” Ferguson said.

A Canadian coalition tactical air control party member operates within a simultaneously live, virtual, and constructive environment allowing warfighters to prepare to wage war, and then practice doing so in a realistic simulation so that they can learn how to be combat effective during Coalition VIRTUAL FLAG 22-1 at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Oct. 24 – Nov. 5, 2021. This photo has been altered for security purposes by removing monitor screens and paperwork on the floor. U.S. Air Force photo by Deb Henley

One way to ensure that is to bring allies into the JSE—something Ryan said the Air Force is working on at Nellis.

“Before the month is over, that’s our expectation, is that we will have that as a schedulable training asset for the [Combat Air Force], and hopefully for them to also bring in coalition partners,” he said. “That’s obviously a big emphasis area for our senior leaders, is to be able to do those reps and sets in a combined fashion with those coalition partners as well.”

To bring the JSE to allies instead of vice versa will require solving latency and security issues, Ferguson said.

It seems likely that officials will tackle those problems as JSE becomes more and more integral to test and training across the entire Pentagon. Col. Corey Klopstein, program executive officer for Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) at Space Systems Command, said the Space Force has joined the JSE user group and is looking to upgrade its OTTI.

“The Space Force needs to provide space effects to the joint warfighter to ensure the joint warfighter can validate in their training events and their exercises, whether or not they’re going to be effective,” Klopstein said. “The Space Force also needs a high-fidelity environment to be able to validate not just our system performance in the threat environment that we anticipate, but also our tactics, and validate our tactics.”

Just like the Air Force, though, Klopstein said the Space Force wants JSE to fit into a larger infrastructure that has more scalable systems.

“What we’re trying to do is establish multiple synthetic environments, one for distributed training and one for the high-end,” he said. “The distributed training environment that we’re working on right now is called SWARM. We use that for our Space Flag [exercises.] And we’re working … to try to get that as realistic as possible, and we want to make sure that that’s the training system that we use to have cross-mission area training. Going forward, though, we won’t just need the high-fidelity training. We also need the test capabilities.”

‘Peace Through Strength’ Starts with Rebuilding the US Air Force

March 13, 2025 | By Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula USAF (Ret.) and Douglas A. Birkey

“Airpower, anytime” is, as Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin recently declared, a promise the Air Force must uphold for the nation. “We have to sustain and maintain the ability to go anytime, anywhere in the densest threat environment and put ‘warheads on foreheads’ anywhere the President might want.” He is right. 

The roles and missions executed by Air Force warriors are essential to the nation’s security. Yet after three decades of constant demand and minimal replenishment, our Air Force is too small and too old. It needs to be rebuilt. The Trump administration and Congress must fund that modernization to ensure that the Air Force is sufficiently equipped, sized, and ready to fight and win when necessary. The nation’s security depends on it. 

Air Force Underfunded for Decades

The challenges facing the Air Force stem from executing non-stop combat operations since 1990—longer than any other service. Operations Desert Storm, Northern and Southern Watch, Deliberate Force, Allied Force, Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, Unified Protector, Inherent Resolve, and additional engagements demanded much from the Air Force. Other services participated in some of these, but only the Air Force engaged in all of them. Post-Cold War budgets failed to keep pace with the demands on the Service. In the wake of the Berlin Wall falling, Department of the Air Force procurement funding plunged 52 percent, deeper than cuts to the Navy, at 32 percent or the Army at 40 percent.

Later, the Air Force became the bill-payer for U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq: In the 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, national investment in the Army outstripped spending on the Air Force by $1.3 trillion; spending on the Navy was over $900 billion greater than the Air Force. Further spending reductions spurred by the 2011 Budget Control Act cut billions more from the Air Force, undermining readiness, reducing capacity, and slowing modernization.

Virtually every Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force for the past several decades has identified the risks of the consistent underfunding of the Department of the Air Force.

“Budget pressures are forcing us to be a smaller Air Force,” said Secretary Michael W. Wynne in 2007. 

“We can’t continue to cut force structure to pay the cost of readiness and modernization, or we risk being too small to succeed,” said Chief of Staff Mark Welsh in 2015.

“The Air Force is too small for the missions demanded of it,” said Secretary Heather Wilson in 2017. 

Doing more with less for too long will break any military service. The Air Force is on that precipice. It is now the smallest, oldest, and least prepared in its entire history—a dangerous reality given the scale and scope of the threat environment. Worse, Biden’s last budget plans—still in effect—have the Air Force scheduled to get even smaller by 2030. Now Gen. Allvin has made it clear that “America needs more Air Force.” 

At the end of the Cold War in 1989, the Air Force had more than 4,300 fighters; today it has just over 2,000—less than half as many. The Air Force had 410 bombers in 1989, but just 140 today—over 65 percent less. Airlifters, aerial refuelers, command and control types, plus intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft are also down substantially.

It is not just that the Air Force is smaller. It is also less ready. On any given day, only 54 percent of all of its aircraft are available due to maintenance issues and parts shortages worsened by ever increasing age. Apply that reality and those 2,000 fighters and 140 bombers drop to just 1,093 and 76, respectively. The fact is, when needed, 46 percent of all USAF aircraft cannot do what combatant commanders need them to do. On top of this, concurrent demands in multiple theaters—including homeland defense, Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific—take a small Air Force inventory and spread it thinner. Not only do combatant commanders not have enough in their Air Force components to meet peacetime missions, but in a time of war, the capacity gaps could prove catastrophic. 

Risk of War Dramatically Increasing 

Yet today, the risk of major war is greater than at any time since the Berlin Wall fell. The U.S. and China are increasingly locked in a rivalry that spans economic, technological, and military spheres. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the most significant war in Europe since World War II, and Moscow’s rhetoric around nuclear weapons makes the situation even more precarious. The combination of heightened geopolitical tensions between the U.S., China, and Russia, regional flashpoints, and new threats like cyber warfare, all contribute to an intensely dangerous international environment. The risk of miscalculation, aggressive posturing, and the breakdown of diplomatic channels all increase the potential for conflict.

Since the end of the Cold War, Air Force leaders across multiple decades received insufficient funding to buy enough new aircraft. Divestments of aging airframes outpaced new aircraft procurement for too long. The service now finds itself in a force structure nosedive. In the Biden administration’s 2025 budget request, the Air Force sought to divest 250 aircraft, while buying just 91. That math becomes terminal at some point, which is how the nation risks losing the next war. 

Rebuild the Air Force America Requires

Among the Air Force’s 140 bombers, just 19 are stealthy B-2s that can rapidly strike targets anywhere on the planet with virtually no fear of detection. The largest USAF bomber fleet is comprised of 76 B-52s—jets that average 63 years old. Only 28 percent of the Air Force fighters are fifth-generation aircraft, which possess the stealth, sensors, processing power, electronic warfare capabilities, and connectivity necessary to survive in the modern battlespace. The mobility and training fleets are also long in the tooth: T-38 trainers and KC-135 tankers predate the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis, and airlifters are on average a quarter century old.

Getting healthy will involve accelerating acquisition rates for aircraft like the F-35, F-15EX, Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), KC-46, T-7, and others. The Air Force must also continue to modernize types like the MQ-9, F-22, F-16, B-52, C-5, C-130, C-17, and KC-135. On top of this, the Air Force needs to recapitalize two legs of the nuclear triad with the Sentential intercontinental ballistic missile and the B-21 bomber.

Rebuilding the Air Force involves more than new equipment. Underfunding is also causing dangerous risk when it comes to the readiness of pilots and other crew members. At the recent AFA Warfare Symposium, Gen. Allvin shared a chart showing that the Air Force has been unable to meet its total “required flying hours” since 2017—gradually degrading overall pilot proficiency. With fewer aircraft available, pilots cannot fly the training sorties needed to maintain mission qualifications. 

Current Air Force leaders, like so many of their predecessors, are committed to fixing these deficiencies, but they cannot do so without additional resources. President Trump’s goal of peace through strength demands an Air Force with the capacity, capability, and readiness to meet our collective combatant command requirements for America’s defense. This is not just for the Air Force’s sake—it’s about ensuring the U.S. does not lose the next war. No form of U.S. joint power projection is possible without some element of the Department of the Air Force. 

Gen. Allvin sums up what is at stake: “I think we need more options for the President. And that’s what more Air Force provides. It means everything from rapid response all the way to decisive victory.” 

It is time to heed this call for action before it is too late. It is time to rebuild the Air Force the nation requires. 

David A. Deptula is a retired Air Force lieutenant general and dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and Douglas A. Birkey is the Mitchell Institute’s Executive Director.

Space Force Asks for ‘Flexibility’ to Manage Effects of Yearlong CR

March 13, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

With Congress considering another continuing resolution to cover the rest of fiscal 2025, the Space Force’s No. 2 officer asked lawmakers to give the service “flexibility” to deal with budget uncertainty.

The Pentagon has never operated under a continuing resolution—which for the most part keeps spending levels frozen at the previous year’s levels—for an entire year. But that appears likely to change as lawmakers consider their options ahead of a March 14 funding deadline.

At a Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee hearing on March 12, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) asked Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein about the impact of a yearlong CR.

“It’s a huge challenge. It’s very, very inefficient,” Guetlein said. “We are the smallest force with the smallest budget, so any churn in our budget is a huge hit to us.”

Yet if Congress does pass a yearlong CR, Guetlein echoed other services in asking for flexibility. The CR passed by the House and being considered by the Senate has “anomalies”—special permissions to permit the services to undertake new programs, which are typically prohibited under a CR.

Those would be crucial for the Space Force, Guetlein said.

“On new starts, we are seeing an enormous amount every single year, and it is very hard … when you have to wait two to four years to get the budget to get after those threats,” Guetlein said. “So anything you can do—budget flexibility for new starts, authorities [for program element] consolidation, the ability to move money between programs—would be hugely beneficial.”

Guetlein, who previously led Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s main acquisition arm, said USSF would also also benefit from authority to undertake multiyear procurements, which can save money over time. Congress and the Pentagon have worked on multiyear procurements for munitions, but the Space Force has not previously been deeply involved in discussions around those authorities.

While budget uncertainty swirls, Guetlein did say the Space Force is doing well with recruiting. “We are seeing two volunteers for every recruit that we take in,” he said. “So we’re able to be very, very, very selective for high quality.”

Some 15 percent of recruits join with some college education, and some even have PhDs, he said. The Space Force has met its recruiting goals in each of the past four years, and this year it is already at 104 percent of goal for enlisted and 101 percent for officers.

Better still, Guetlein said the Space Force is keeping its people, retaining them at a 98 percent rate, a level unprecedented in comparison to other military branches.

New Budget Deal Could Cost USAF Up to $14 Billion

March 12, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

A full-year continuing resolution in place of an authorized and appropriated fiscal 2025 budget would cost the Air Force at least $4 billion and potentially up to $14 billion, said Lt. Gen. Adrian L. Spain, deputy chief of staff for operations, in congressional testimony.

“The CR … has impact on our readiness up to the tune of about $4 billion,” Spain said at a Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee hearing March 12. “Without anomalies, and with the Fiscal Responsibility Act kicking in,” he added, the real impact is “closer to $14 billion, which we cannot afford.”

The flexibility and anomalies he referenced have to do with special permissions proposed to permit the services to undertake new programs, which are typically prohibited under a CR.

“We expect and look forward to the final version of this CR, if it were to pass, with flexibility and agility and anomalies, to spend as required, to retain readiness to the maximum possible level,” Spain told the committee.

Spain didn’t elaborate on the specific cuts or reductions necessary to live within the CR’s spending limits. Instead, he discussed the “four primary pillars” of Air Force readiness that could be affected by spending reductions: “parts and supply, people, flying and training, and current infrastructure.”

Other programs impacting future readiness will also be affected, he said, including “rebuilding acquisitions, long-term sustainment, and recruiting and retention at a relevant pace and scale.”

Spain said the Air Force would also benefit from flexibility on quality-of-life accounts “to mitigate those risks” should funding be insufficient in some areas.

While Airmen will always “get the job done,” he said, “they do so at an elevated risk” when budgets are squeezed. “It is … a fact that today’s Airmen [operates] with the oldest airplanes, the smallest force, and with fewer monthly flying hours than at any point in our history.”

He noted that while the U.S. Air Force is being cut, China’s military forces, by contrast, “are expanding and modernizing their nuclear modernization, [and] long-range missile proliferation.” Recent Chinese test flights “of two sixth-gen aircraft is simply further evidence of the elevated threat in the strategic environment,” Spain said.

While the Air Force has traditionally focused on individual elements of readiness, like flying hours for pilots, the service is now trying to look holistically at how those elements “must be synchronized to create a warfighting capability over time.” The Air Force can no longer afford “the luxury of segmented attention,” he said.

“We’ve specifically prioritized parts and supply in the flying hour program,” he said. “We’ve also reconnected our manpower and infrastructure priorities directly to our core readiness outcomes in both our processes and our data. It’s our intent to maintain focus and priority on these pillars to strengthen our readiness and improve our lethality, and we’re moving out.”

SASC Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) joined the readiness subcommittee for the hearing, and noted that the yearlong CR would leave the defense budget underfunded.

“The real flaw in the CR that we’ll be voting on later this week is that it doesn’t provide enough money, regardless of the anomalies and the tiny plus-ups here and there,” Wicker said. The Senate version of the CR has “$150 billion in the reconciliation bill” which he said “may not be enough.”

Wicker said he has heard “some comforting words from the administration that they realize that, too.” The House version of the measure, already passed, contains $100 billion extra for defense.

Wicker ticked off new and increasing threats from China, Russia, and North Korea and said additional funds would be necessary to counter those.

Readiness subcommittee chair Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) focused his questioning on how a yearlong CR would affect each service branch. One by one, each service representative offered a variation on how other accounts would have to be raided to pay for cuts imposed by the CR. Sullivan observed that the only thing worse than a yearlong CR would be “a government shutdown.”

A shutdown looms if Congress does not pass the CR or some other measure this week.

Sullivan indicated military end strength should be increased, noting that doing so would reverse reductions approved when the services couldn’t achieve their recruiting goals in 2023. All the witnesses said their services were above 100 percent of recruiting targets in fiscal 2024, but those goals were smaller than in prior years.

“From a recruiting standpoint,” Spain said, “the Air Force was above glide slope on our recruiting goals for the year. We increased the [goal] by 20 percent and in fact, we’re still above the 20 percent increase. And we have the largest delayed-entry pool that we’ve had in 10 years,” he said.

USAF is further along “at this point in the year [than it has been] in the last 15 years,” Spain added. “So we’re in a good position.” Spain credited the improvement to additional recruiters and increased training.

Pentagon Deploys Air Force Intel Analysts for Border Mission

March 12, 2025 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. military is sending approximately 40 Air Force intelligence analysts to beef up its surveillance of the southern border, U.S. Northern Command announced March 11.

The Trump administration has made securing the border a high-priority military mission, and the Air Force, Navy, and other U.S. government assets have been conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico, with some flights occurring as early as January.

Those operations are being carried out by U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft from Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft based in the continental United States, U.S. officials said.

“We are America’s eyes in the skies watching our southern border to protect the homeland in support of [U.S. Northern Command] and our interagency partners within [the Department of Homeland Security] and [Customs and Border Protection],” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin posted on the social media site X on March 12 to acknowledge the latest deployment. “Our ISR pros never blink!”

U.S. Air Force U-2 high-altitude spy planes and drones are also flying missions in support of Pentagon’s southern border effort, Allvin added in a post on March 14.

NORTHCOM has established the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border to oversee the joint service effort. Its intelligence analysts work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. There have previously been at least 140 U.S. military intelligence personnel from multiple services assigned to the command as part of the southern border mission.

“These intelligence personnel will provide full motion video analysis, counter network analysis, and Spanish language translation to the U.S. Border Patrol Office of Intelligence,” NORTHCOM stated on Feb. 4.

A P-8A Poseidon flies near the southwest border of the United States, Feb. 18, 2025. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jacquelin Frost

Allvin said in a Feb. 27 interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine that Airmen “have been doing everything asked for them, most recently, in support of the southwest border and the president’s priority of restoring sovereignty and protecting our borders—absolutely part and parcel of that, from the rapid global mobility to be able to transport the illegal aliens to their destination, to surveillance and reconnaissance support, to anything that’s being asked of us.”

Some of the approximately 40 new Airmen assigned to the mission will serve at the headquarters of Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border, which is located at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., a defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Other locations where the intelligence analysts are expected to serve include Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers, which are located in San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Fort Worth, Texas; and Jacksonville, Fla., the official said.

U.S. Air Force RC-135 intelligence-gathering flights have taken place along the border and off the coast of Mexico throughout February and March, according to U.S. officials and flight tracking data.

Navy P-8 flights, which begin conducting operations around the southern border in January, have been particularly common. At least one Navy P-8 near the border is equipped with the highly-capable AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor radar—a long pod visible on the centerline under the aircraft. That P-8 was based in Europe but was recently moved to Texas. As of March 12, it was located at Fort Carswell at Naval Air Station-Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, open-source flight tracking data shows. In addition to operations from the Navy air bases, the Department of Defense has acknowledged it has conducted P-8 flights from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the border intelligence headquarters.

U.S. military officials have said other airborne intelligence gathering assets are also being used to provide data, which must then be analyzed and coordinated within the U.S. government.

In addition to intelligence operations, Air Force C-17s and C-130s have been used to deport detainees from the U.S.

“While I cannot get into specifics regarding each Airman, I can confirm that intelligence analysts supporting Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border will be located both throughout the southern border area at various intelligence centers in the continental United States,” a NORTHCOM spokesperson said.