Air Force 
programmers are struggling to get their annual buy of F-35A strike fighters up to 80 per year, say Pentagon officials. USAF wants to reach that production rate in order to avoid a big bill to upgrade aged F-16s if the replacement F-35s don’t enter the inventory fast enough. Undertaking a service-life extension of all F-16s is deemed unaffordable—Air Combat Command chief Gen. William Fraser noted this Nov. 9 during a speech in Washington, D.C.—and USAF would like to limit such a program to just the youngest Vipers. Moreover, having deferred a decision on whether to do this upgrade for so long, USAF may find itself being too late to launch an F-16 SLEP and head off a serious gap in airframes until F-35s arrive in adequate numbers. One official said there could be “a couple of years” of sharply underequipped fighter squadrons as F-16s age out and F-35s aren’t available yet.
The second version of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft should have more capability than the first but mustn't be an "exquisite" and expensive platform that would defeat the notion of "affordable mass," outgoing Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said.