Air Force Launches Major New Strategy, Budget Looks; Start Work On Sixth Gen Fighter: CSAF Welsh

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/02/air-force-launches-major-new-strategy-budget-looks-start-work-on-sixth-gen-fighter-csaf-welsh/

Air Force Launches Major New Strategy, Budget Looks; Start Work On Sixth Gen Fighter: CSAF Welsh
By Colin Clark
on February 20, 2014 at 4:09 PM

AFA WINTER, ORLANDO, FLA.: The Air Force has launched a major effort to craft a new strategy and new efforts to better plan how it will spend its money, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said today.

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This raises the prospect of an Air Force master budget designed for 20 years. While it certainly won’t be binding on Congress, it may set a precedent for both the Air Force and the three other services. Below that will sit a series of so-called flight plans or master plans for such things as Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), bombers, fighters and human capital. That will be reviewed every year and updated every two years.

He also announced a reorganization of Air Force headquarters budget and strategy offices to improve the service’s ability to build budgets and to make decisions.

Later in the speech, Welsh committed the Air Force to begin the early work on a sixth generation fighter, something his immediate predecessors had resisted. “And folks: it’s time to start working on the sixth gen fighter. Nobody wants to hear that, but we have to,” Welsh said.



Boeing’s early conception of a sixth generation fighter, the F-X1.