Modern Day
Today, the United States Air Force is the largest, most capable, and most technologically advanced air force in the world, with about 5778 manned aircraft in service, approximately 156 Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles, 2130 Air-Launched Cruise Missiles, and 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles. The USAF has 328,439 personnel on active duty, 74,000 in the Selected and Individual Ready Reserves, and 106,000 in the Air National Guard. In addition, the Air Force employs 168,900 civilian personnel including indirect hire of foreign nationals. However after two decades of failure to recapitalize its aircraft under Clinton and the two Bushes, the USAF has its oldest and most outdated fleet ever. Tactical aircraft purchases were put off while Fifth-generation jet fighters were facing delays, cost overruns and cutbacks and the programs to replace the 1950s bomber and tanker fleets have just been started over again after many aborted attempts.
An Air Force fighter pilot died February 20, 2008 after two F-15C jets collided during a training exercise over the Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. Air Force on February 29, 2008 announced one of the largest military acquisition programs in U.S. history, saying the service had chosen Northrop Grumman over Boeing to replace its aging air refueling tanker fleet.
The pilot of an F-16C fighter General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon#F-16C/D jet that crashed in a remote area about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, Arizona was killed when his plane went down. The plane was spotted late March 13, 2008. Rescuers could reach the site only by helicopter and arrived at daybreak March 15, 2008. There have been 17 other crashes of Luke Air Force Base F-16s since 1998, and only one of those resulted in a fatality. That crash happened in May 2004, when a pilot with the Republic of Singapore Air Force died after his jet went down during a training mission at an Air Force bombing range in southwest Arizona. The most recent crashes came in 2006. A pilot ejected safely from an F-16 in April 2006 after the lone engine on the jet exploded just after takeoff from the base. The aircraft came down in a cornfield.
On June 5, 2008 Robert Gates announced the results of an investigation into the misshipment of four MK-12 forward-section reentry vehicle assemblies to Taiwan. The investigation, conducted by Admiral Kirkland H. Donald, director of the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, found that the Taiwan missile incident was, in Gates' words, "A degradation of the authority, standards of excellence and technical competence within the nation's ICBM force. Similar to the bomber-specific August 2007 Minot-Barksdale nuclear weapons transfer incident, this incident took place within the larger environment of declining Air Force nuclear mission focus and performance" and that "the investigation identified commonalities between the August 2007 Minot incident and this event." In his investigation report, Donald stated that the issues identified by his investigation were, "Indicative of an overall decline in Air Force nuclear weapons stewardship, a problem that has been identified but not effectively addressed for over a decade. Both the Minot-Barksdale nuclear weapons transfer incident and the Taiwan misshipment, while different in specifics, have a common origin: the gradual erosion of nuclear standards and a lack of effective oversight by Air Force leadership"
As a result of the investigation, Gates announced that, "A substantial number of Air Force general officers and colonels have been identified as potentially subject to disciplinary measures, ranging from removal from command to letters of reprimand," and that he had accepted the resignations of USAF Secretary Michael Wynne and USAF Chief of Staff Michael Moseley. Gates added that he had asked James R. Schlesinger to lead a senior-level task force to recommend improvements in the stewardship and operation of nuclear weapons, delivery vehicles and sensitive components by the US DoD. Members of the task force came from the Defense Policy Board and the Defense Science Board.
In 2012, the USAF discovered that their billion dollar investment in the Expeditionary Combat Support System "has not yielded any significant military capability" and that it would take another billion dollar investment to gain even one quarter of the planned capability.
Read more about this topic: History Of The United States Air Force
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