That’s how Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes describes the Obama Administration’s efforts to end the F-22 production line. In an op-ed piece for the Sept. 7 issue of the business magazine, Forbes argues that White House officials and others “take our superiority in the air for granted and thereby conclude we don’t need to make big investments on future weapons systems to maintain that superiority.” Such thinking, he writes, “is a classic mistake.” Instead, the US “should take no chances with this superiority,” he continues. Forbes says, while “shooting down” the F-22 is supposed to demonstrate the Administration’s “determination to bring sanity to defense spending,” the issue of defense acquisition reform is separate from the need for more F-22s. “The need to reform our procurement systems shouldn’t stand in the way of developing the weapons we need now and will need in the future,” he says.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.