STRATCOM chief Gen. Kevin Chilton believes that the current inventory of AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missiles can be modified “as a bridge” to last until about 2030, he said at a Washington conference Wednesday. To replace it, he thinks a follow-on, “single type” cruise missile, likely undertaken in partnership with the Navy, should be developed starting in the mid-2020s. Chilton also said that the B-52’s history—evolving from a high-altitude bomber to a low-altitude bomber and eventually to a standoff bomber—will be the pattern followed by the next long-range strike aircraft. “We ought to think about those things and plan for it in advance,” he said.
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.