The Air Force can expect flat budgets in the years to come, and has developed a rule of thumb as to how it will afford what it has to do, says Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. In an address Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Schwartz said the trick will be to buy highly versatile and flexible systems, but only so much as USAF can get away with. The service will “implement a selective and incremental approach of modernizing legacy capabilities, essentially acquiring limited-capability systems as stopgaps, where necessary, and procuring next-generation technologies where fiscally possible and responsive,” he explained.
On Jan. 4, a dozen U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors departed Puerto Rico, where they had landed following their participation in Operation Absolute Resolve. Those fighters appeared to have flown directly from their home base at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., to participate in the operation and returned there two days…
