The nation’s Air Nationwide Guard adjutants normal are making their most unified push but to recapitalize the U.S. Air Pressure’s fighter fleet, with 22 generals signing a letter to Congress this month calling for multiyear funding to purchase between 72 and 100 new fighters yearly.
The letter, despatched April 1 to the chairs and rating members of the Home and Senate Appropriations committees and their protection subcommittees, calls on Congress to legislate multiyear procurement of F-35A Lightning IIs and F-15EX Eagle IIs at a baseline of 48 F-35As and 24 F-15EXs per yr, with a desired finish state of 72 F-35As and 36 F-15EXs, totaling 108 plane yearly.
“The US Air Pressure is the oldest, the smallest and the least prepared in its 78-year historical past,” the letter states. “We should construct a combating power that can win.”
The letter, which was first reported by Air & Area Forces Journal, marks the primary time the Adjutants Common Affiliation of the USA has collected signatures from all 22 adjutants normal commanding states with Guard fighter models.
Even at 100 new fighters per yr, full recapitalization of the full power may nonetheless take 10 to fifteen years given the prevailing backlog of legacy plane.
“When all 22 adjutants normal with fighter missions converse with one voice, it’s not advocacy, it’s operational suggestions from the commanders producing fight airpower each day,” Maj. Gen. Mark R. Morrell, adjutant normal of the South Dakota Nationwide Guard, mentioned in an emailed assertion.
“It alerts to Congress that this isn’t a regional or parochial concern, however a transparent, constant demand sign from the sphere that the fighter recapitalization hole is actual, rising and have to be addressed.”
The Air Pressure requested 48 F-35As in fiscal 2024, 42 in fiscal 2025, 24 in fiscal 2026 and 38 in fiscal 2027. For the F-15EX, it sought 24, 18, 21 and 24 over the identical years, respectively, in keeping with funds paperwork.
The fiscal 2027 request totals 62 mixed, nonetheless beneath the 72-aircraft threshold the Air Pressure has lengthy mentioned is required simply to forestall the fleet from shrinking. The final time the service acquired greater than 72 fighters in a single yr was 1998.
The readiness price of that shortfall is already seen on the unit stage, the generals mentioned.
“Our airmen are doing a heroic job holding these 40-year-old airframes within the air, however they’re paying the worth for many years of deferred modernization,” Brig. Gen. Shannon Smith, commander of the Idaho Air Nationwide Guard, informed Army Instances.
“Within the interim, we’re enduring danger by asking exceedingly extra from our upkeep professionals, cannibalizing components from already damaged plane to maintain others flying, and by our pilots dropping their vital warfighting edge as a result of they can’t get sufficient flight hours in mission-capable jets.”
Of the Air Guard’s 24 fighter squadrons, 13 at present lack a recapitalization plan commensurate with the 2026 Nationwide Protection Technique, in keeping with NGAUS.
The August 2025 Division of the Air Pressure Lengthy-Time period USAF Fighter Pressure Construction Report back to Congress independently confirmed the necessity, figuring out all 24 ANG fighter squadrons as required to satisfy the target power of 1,369 combat-coded whole plane wanted for acceptable army danger.
The letter attracts a pointy line on how that modernization have to be structured.
“Cascading legacy plane doesn’t recapitalize the power, it redistributes danger,” Maj. Gen. Timothy J. Donnellan, adjutant normal of the Idaho Nationwide Guard, mentioned in an emailed assertion.
“Operationally, it is going to end in decreased survivability in contested environments, increased upkeep burdens and decrease plane availability charges. For Guard models, it creates a structural mismatch — the Guard is an operationally prepared power anticipated to satisfy the identical combatant commander calls for however with much less succesful and fewer dependable plane. To fulfill the 2026 Nationwide Protection Technique the USAF should discipline a combating power indistinguishable in lethality and survivability throughout all elements, energetic, guard and reserve.”
With the fiscal 2027 funds request falling 10 fighters wanting even the minimal threshold, the generals have a direct message for appropriators.
“Funding beneath 72 plane per yr means the Air Pressure isn’t even sustaining present fighter capability,” Smith mentioned. “It’s actively shrinking.
“If the requirement is to satisfy the Nationwide Protection Technique, then in our greatest army recommendation, 72 plane per yr is absolutely the minimal to carry the road. Something much less means accepting better danger.”
The Nationwide Guard Affiliation of the USA has listed ANG fighter recapitalization as a high legislative precedence for fiscal 2027 protection deliberations.
