AirSea Battle has moved off the front pages, thanks in part to the burgeoning budget debate in Washington, but the leadership of the Air Force and Navy are going over the first set of the documents and consulting the regional commanders as well, Gen. Gary North, head of Pacific Air Forces, told reporters Tuesday afternoon at AFA’s Air & Space Conference. “The short answer is, we are involved,” North said, but he noted, too, that the concept is not tied to the Pacific, but a “natural evolutionary step to joint integration.” Both the Navy and Air Force are grappling with how you tie in existing equipment and platforms into a fifth generation environment, from day to day monitoring of a region to full up combat operations. Eventually, in addition to service integration, there will be an international integration component of ASB operations—as allies continue to modernize their own militaries and interoperability becomes even more paramount.
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.