To meet the program's delayed production decision, set for February 2025, the T-7A will need to qualify its escape system and finish its flight control software, though officials expressed confidence the jet could achieve the goal.
“I’d go so far as say if you drive north of the National Cathedral on Connecticut Avenue, that popping sound you hear is not stray gunfire. It is champagne corks at the Chinese embassy bouncing off the walls,” Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly said.
Gen. Mark Kelly, who heads the Air Force's Air Combat Command, said that the US's shrinking and aging aircraft fleet has emboldened Russian and Chinese pilots to seek "batting practice."
The announced deal covers 25 F-35A models, alongside 26 Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 engines and a host of equipment.
“Our mindset has to be that we use the spectrum to kill faster, not to protect things,” said Col. Joshua Koslov. “The more things we kill, the less things that can hurt us.”
Check out the photos and flavor of the 2023 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
The company also is providing a ground system for the sensors that could provide data about interference threats to users across the Defense Department and Intelligence Community, said Josh Hartman of GEOST's parent firm.
“We're still hopeful of having first flight this year,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. “If I were to say it will, I would be making a very specific prediction, and I never do that about an acquisition program for something that hasn't happened yet.”
Saltzman cautioned that the service is unlikely to "go from 'eat before reading' classification to unclassified."
The two new Integrated Mission Deltas will be responsible for all aspects of electronic warfare and positioning, navigation and timing.
Air National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Michael Loh called the F-16s a potential “gamechanger" for Ukraine, but said the timeline for pilots depends mostly on experience levels.
Air Marshall Harvey Smyth, UK Air and Space Commander, suggested that one way to move forward might be to find a mutually desired "capability set" and pursue it under a joint program along the lines of the F-35.
“What I would say is, be on the lookout [because] there's going to be a CCA near you… because we're gonna need them around just about everywhere,” Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said.
"The current fielding plan should stay intact for CBC2 if we don't get all the money that we need up front," Brig. Gen. Luke Cropsey told reporters.
"We just kind of need to get their no-kidding ground truth of, ‘this is what we think we can deliver and when we think we can deliver it,'" Andrew Hunter, the service's acquisition chief, said in a Sept. 5 interview at the Pentagon.