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.
Expanded production of the B-21 bomber can be accomplished at Northrop Grumman's existing Palmdale, Calif., facilities, the Air Force said. It also said test aircraft will be so simular to the production version that early examples could be used in combat if called for.