In addition to the F-35 strike fighter, KC-46A tanker, and Long Range Strike Bomber, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh added two programs to round out the Air Force’s top five acquisition priorities. In a press briefing on Sept. 18 at AFA’s Air and Space Conference, Welsh said No. 4 would be a JSTARS replacement and No. 5 would be T-X, a replacement for the T-38 trainer. The T-X “to me, is kind of like the tide: it’s coming,” said Welsh, “and we’ve just got to figure out how fast we can get there from here.” He said he’s not worried that the T-38 will “fall out of the sky tomorrow,” noting that it’s performing well and the modifications done to it “have been very successful.” But the airplane is now better than 50 years old, said Welsh. “As soon as we have the budget space to accelerate that program, we should accelerate it, not slip it,” he said. Nevertheless, “there’re lots of things we think we need that are not going to be” in next fiscal year’s budget, he said.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.