There’s no danger that stealth will be overcome by new radar and other sensor technologies anytime soon, said Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. At a Pentagon press briefing on Jan. 15, Welsh was asked if the slowness of fielding the F-35 places the aircraft at risk of being obsolete by the time it’s available in quantity. Welsh replied that critics assert that “stealth is no longer valuable” whenever a “piece” of what constitutes stealth is compromised. “The reality is, stealth is a combination of things,” he said. In addition to low-observable technology, stealth comprises “speed, … different ways of collecting data, different ways of transmitting and protecting transmissions. It is a way of breaking kill chains,” he said. Welsh said “as long as we break the kill chain … between when you arrive in the battlespace and when the enemy weapon approaches your airplane, you’re successful at using stealth. And I don’t see anything that indicates that is not going to be true 10 years from now.” (James-Welsh transcript)
The Government Accountability Office wants the Air Force to explain who will run bases when wings deploy under the service’s new force generation model along with several other unanswered questions, saying the concept is long on vision but short on details.