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i 

20–794 2017

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–127] 

AIR DOMINANCE AND THE CRITICAL 

ROLE OF FIFTH GENERATION 

FIGHTER AIRCRAFT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL 

AIR AND LAND FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JUNE 18, 2016 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio, Chairman 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

PAUL COOK, California, Vice Chair 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Professional Staff Member 

DOUG BUSH, Professional Staff Member 

NEVE SCHADLER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Chabot, Hon. Steve, a Representative from Ohio, Chairman, Committee on 

Small Business ..................................................................................................... 4 

Stivers, Hon. Steve, a Representative from Ohio, Committee on Financial 

Services ................................................................................................................. 5 

Turner, Hon. Michael R., a Representative from Ohio, Chairman, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces .................................................................. 1 

Wenstrup, Hon. Brad R., a Representative from Ohio, Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces .................................................................................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Harris, Maj Gen Jerry D., USAF, Vice Commander, Air Combat Command, 

U.S. Air Force ....................................................................................................... 5 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Harris, Maj Gen Jerry D. ................................................................................. 30 

Turner, Hon. Michael R. .................................................................................. 27 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

AIR DOMINANCE AND THE CRITICAL ROLE OF FIFTH 

GENERATION FIGHTER AIRCRAFT 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES, Washington, DC, Saturday, June 18, 2016. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in the 

Carney Auditorium, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, 1100 

Spaatz Street, Dayton, Ohio, Hon. Michael R. Turner (chairman of 

the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL R. TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM OHIO, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

TACTICAL AIR AND LAND FORCES 

Mr. TURNER. The hearing will come to order. Good morning. This 

subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on air dominance 

and the critical role of fifth generation fighters. 

We welcome our distinguished witness today, Major General 

Jerry Harris, a Vice Commander of Air Combat Command [ACC], 

United States Air Force. General Harris, we thank you for your 

service, and we look forward to hearing from you and your important testimony today. 

This hearing will be the first of two oversight hearings the subcommittee plans to hold on air dominance and the critical role of 

fifth generation fighters. Air dominance means that friendly aircraft can fly anywhere in enemy territory and can also be effective 

at performing their mission. 

Today’s ground and naval forces count on our combat air forces 

to provide air dominance so that movements of troops, supplies, 

weapons, and ammunition can quickly be brought to bear in order 

to win decisively. Here at the National Museum of the United 

States Air Force, I can’t think of a more appropriate place for us 

to begin this series on air dominance. 

Those of you who have toured the museum have noted aircraft 

such as the P–51, which was developed in World War II to defeat 

the threat posed by the German forces. The Korean War brought 

new challenges, such as the jet-powered MiG–15, which our Air 

Force answered with the F–86, eventually resulting in a 14-to-1 kill 

ratio over North Korean fighter aircraft. The Vietnam War saw the 

advent of radar-guided surface-to-air missiles, which resulted in 

the development of the F–105G Wild Weasel aircraft, designed to 

detect and destroy those missiles which were threatening our Nation’s capability to achieve and maintain air dominance. 

After the Vietnam War, lessons learned and technical advances 

by both our Nation and near-peer adversaries required the intro-
2 

duction of new fighter aircraft like the F–14, F–15, F–16 and F– 

18, which we call on today. We call these fourth generation fighter 

aircraft, characterized by improvements in maneuverability, radars, sensors, and weapons. 

That fleet of aircraft overwhelmingly achieved air dominance in 

the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. Although modified 

somewhat to keep pace with threats, our fighter aircraft inventory 

today is comprised largely of those fourth generation fighter aircraft we used in Operation Desert Storm. Like we have seen historically since World War II, our adversaries have not stood still 

in their efforts to counter American air dominance since Operation 

Desert Storm. Integrated air defense systems with more powerful 

radars and more accurate and longer-range missiles have been developed. Many of these systems are so mobile, they will be much 

more difficult to target. Our adversaries are also developing advanced fifth generation aircraft which include the Russian Sukhoi 

T–50 and China’s J–20 and J–31. 

To maintain future air dominance, our Nation will require a fleet 

of fifth generation aircraft characterized by a much lower radar signature to negate our adversaries’ advances in radars and radarguided missiles. Our fifth generation aircraft will also need to have 

machine-to-machine interfaces, giving pilots unprecedented situational awareness of where those mobile surface-to-air and air-to-air 

threats are in real time. Our air dominance force of the future will 

need to have the capability, capacity, and readiness to meet those 

future challenges and threats. 

The Air Force’s current fleet of fifth generation fighter aircraft 

consists of the F–22 and the F–35 Joint Strike Fighter. This subcommittee has received briefings from the National Air and Space 

Intelligence Center, or NASIC, located here at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, on the threats we are currently facing, and I 

am convinced now more than ever that we must resource and invest in fifth generation fighter capability. The investments we 

make now must be based on capability and countering the threats 

facing our national security. 

We only produced 187 fifth generation F–22 aircraft, but that 

number was 194 aircraft short of the requirement of 381 F–22s. 

Unfortunately, the decision to stop F–22 production was a strategy 

driven by budgeting goals rather than one driven by the need to 

obtain a required capability. That is why the House Armed Services Committee directed the Secretary of the Air Force to provide 

a report to the congressional defense committees on the costs associated with restarting the F–22 production line to procure those 

194 additional F–22s. 

Regarding the F–35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Marine Corps 

achieved initial operational capability [IOC] in the F–35 Joint 

Strike Fighter with 10 aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, 

Arizona, last year. Between August and December of this year, the 

Air Force will achieve its initial operational capability with the F– 

35A at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. This is good news, and indicates that the F–35 Joint Strike Fighter is remaining on cost and 

schedule. However, we are currently not producing F–35s at the 

rate that we had planned even last year. That is why the House 

passed the National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] for Fiscal 
3 

Year 2017 by adding 5 F–35As to meet last year’s Air Force F–35A 

budget plan for 48 aircraft in fiscal year 2017, an unfunded requirement identified by the Air Force Chief of Staff. 

The House bill also added additional F–35Bs and Cs for the Navy 

and Marine Corps, also unfunded requirements identified by the 

Navy and Marine Corps. 

Our Nation has met the challenges for air dominance in the past, 

and I am confident we will do so now and in the future. But we 

must remain committed to providing the resources necessary to 

provide the capability, capacity, and readiness necessary to accomplish the critical mission of maintaining air dominance. 

Before I begin, I would like to recognize each of the members of 

our panel today and then give them an opportunity to also provide 

an opening statement. 

Dr. Wenstrup from the Cincinnati area serves on the Armed 

Services Committee and on the Intelligence Committee with me. I 

have Representative Chabot, who is also from the Cincinnati area 

and serves as the chair of the Small Business Committee. And we 

have Representative Stivers from Columbus, who also serves on the 

Financial Services Committee and the Rules Committee, which is 

the committee that determines all of the business that gets to the 

House floor. 

I appreciate each of you participating, and it is great that we 

can, with what I would call the powerful Ohio delegation, constitute a full field hearing on this very important topic. 

And with that, I would like to recognize Dr. Wenstrup. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner can be found in the Appendix on page 27.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. BRAD R. WENSTRUP, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM OHIO, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TACTICAL AIR AND 

LAND FORCES 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I want to thank all those here at 

the museum and the Air Force for hosting us. But I think it is important that we discuss the maintenance of air dominance and the 

role that the fifth generation fighters are playing, especially in 

comparison to our traditional adversaries in the world. It is really 

a precondition for any military victory to be able to control the 

skies. Our ground forces rely on it. They expect it. It affects our 

ground maneuvers. I am an Army guy, so I am speaking from the 

ground. And also as an Army doctor, it affects our MEDEVAC 

[medical evacuation] operations, which is very important to our 

troops, obviously. 

I think that we have enjoyed the dominance in the air, and we 

have to continue that, as well as dominance in air, land, sea, cyber, 

and space that are so important today. 

But you know as we have seen over a decade of war or more, we 

have seen recession and budget constraints, and there are concerns 

over modernization, obviously, and maintenance and training for 

our troops, especially in the air. And it is important to note also 

what our adversaries are doing. So I hope that is part of our conversation today as best we can to talk about what we need to do 

to prioritize modernization and technology. 
4 

So I enjoy the opportunity to be here today with you, and I look 

forward to your testimony. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Representative Chabot. 

STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE CHABOT, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM OHIO, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding this subcommittee hearing today at Wright-Patterson Air Force 

Base in your district. I happen to represent Warren County now, 

and a lot of the folks from Warren County work here at WrightPatterson Air Force Base, so we especially appreciate that, and 

thanks for the invitation to be here. 

I would also like to especially thank Major General Harris and 

all those who have served our country or are currently serving our 

country in the military. We appreciate the sacrifices that all of you 

are making for us every day and the need to make sure that we 

provide our men and women on the front lines with the very best 

equipment that is available, while also implementing the right 

strategy to maintain our air dominance, and to a great degree that 

is what this hearing is about, is maintaining that air dominance. 

I certainly look forward to hearing Major General Harris about 

the strategy to prepare our Air Force for the future to confront the 

numerous growing threats. I am especially pleased that we were 

able to hold this hearing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. This 

base is a vital asset to our military and comes with a great tradition and history. My dad, who was a World War II veteran, and 

my mom for many years got their health care here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. They would drive up here from Cincinnati, 

and it was outstanding care, and I certainly appreciate the care 

that they got here. 

Our family used to come up here for the Dayton Air Show, which 

is, I believe, this weekend—— 

Mr. TURNER. It is. 

Mr. CHABOT [continuing]. Or this week. So we would encourage 

folks who may see this hearing to come here to Wright-Patterson 

Air Force Base and enjoy that experience. 

And of course, Wright-Pat, a lot of the name is the Wright brothers, who grew up right here in your hometown of Dayton, Ohio. I 

would like to highly recommend a book that I brought along with 

me, a little prop here today. This showed up on my desk about a 

month ago. We reformed the congressional gift laws, and there are 

bans on certain stuff you can get, but we can still get books. And 

I am kind of a cheapskate, so when I get one I virtually always 

read it, and this one was great. It is called ‘‘The Wright Brothers.’’ 

It is by David McCullough. I strongly recommend it. That is the 

only ad I am going to give during the course of this hearing. 

But again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing 

and yield back my time. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging David 

McCullough’s book. The Library of Congress actually had Dave 

McCullough in to do a presentation on his book, and I was very 

honored to have Stephen Wright of the Wright family present with 

me. But it was nice to hear him highlight Dayton’s role in the 
5 

Wright brothers’ success, and it is not just a story being told in 

Dayton because he actually saw that Dayton itself, its infrastructure, was critical in the Wright brothers being able to achieve 

what they did. I thought that was certainly a great story. 

In representing Steve Stivers, I also want to acknowledge that 

Dr. Wenstrup and Representative Stivers currently serve in our 

Armed Forces. So in addition to serving their country in Congress, 

they also serve in the Armed Forces, and we certainly thank you 

both for that. 

STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE STIVERS, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM OHIO, COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

Mr. STIVERS. Well, thank you, and thanks for allowing me to be 

here. I want to thank Chairman Turner for holding this hearing. 

You know, he is a true leader on the House Armed Services Committee, and especially anything involving airpower, he is the go-to 

guy. I am just excited to be here at Wright-Pat. I want to thank 

the folks from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the National 

Museum of the Air Force for hosting us today. As a 32-year member of the Army and currently a colonel in the Ohio Army National 

Guard, I appreciate what goes on above my head when I am wearing the uniform, and air superiority is important to everybody on 

the ground because if you control the air, it is easier to control the 

ground. 

I am looking forward to General Harris’ testimony and answering our questions, especially with regard to the F–22, F–35, manning, and resources. So thank you for being here, General. 

Again, I want to say thank you to Congressman Turner for putting this together and for his leadership in our military to make 

sure that our military is at the cutting edge and can defend our 

own national interests. So, thank you, Congressman Turner, for 

your leadership, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

General Harris, before I turn it over to you, I will tell you that 

you are speaking in front of a group that have been strong advocates for relieving sequestration that, of course, has been a scourge 

on our military, has made it very difficult for us to achieve our advance acquisition programs, and it certainly has had a huge impact 

here on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where when sequestration went into place over 12,000 people were furloughed. But you 

are speaking in front of a group that not only is sympathetic but 

has been actively working to set aside sequestration and its effects 

on your work. 

General Harris, we look forward to your message. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MAJ GEN JERRY D. HARRIS, USAF, VICE 

COMMANDER, AIR COMBAT COMMAND, U.S. AIR FORCE 

General HARRIS. Well, thank you, Chairman Turner and Congressmen Wenstrup, Chabot, and Stivers. Thank you two also for 

your service and serving as Congressmen. 

The opportunity to discuss the Air Force capabilities and the 

challenges delivering air superiority is a great venue, and we appreciate your time. 
6 

As the Vice Commander of Air Combat Command, I have the 

privilege to oversee 140,000 airmen and civilians. Air Combat Command is responsible for organizing, training, and equipping the air 

superiority mission. This mission, as you have heard in the opening 

comments, is instrumental in achieving freedom of maneuver in the 

air, on the land, and on the sea, and it is a precondition for success. 

I am grateful the committee shares our interests and that we are 

looking at the advancement of air superiority, and I know that your 

combined concern and collaboration and work with us will assist in 

achieving these results and what they provide to the country. 

Air superiority capability remains at the highest level, but our 

near-peer adversaries are closing the gap. The image you see with 

me today over my left shoulder illustrates our F–35 compared to 

a Chinese J–31. It depicts our adversaries are not only impeccably 

imitating platform design, but they are also achieving comparable 

capabilities and technology. Improvements in the future and investments are certainly necessary to continue to outpace the adversaries in advance of this crucial mission. 

[The graphic referred to was not available at the time of printing.] 

General HARRIS. My first main point. We recognize the absolute 

imperative need for air superiority and its importance in ensuring 

our national defense. The goal of ACC is to be so capable that our 

enemies choose not to fight. During Operation Iraqi Freedom in 

2003, the Iraqi Air Force chose to bury their MiG–25s rather than 

face American airpower. That is exactly the response we are looking for. 

Our fourth generation fighters continue to effectively maintain 

air superiority in the permissive environment, but advanced air defense systems are making that more difficult. Our advanced fifth 

generation fleet have moved into a more prominent role of anti-access aerial denial, but continue to be in limited numbers, and they 

are used as a balanced approach with our fourth gen [generation] 

fighters. 

It is critical to rapidly increase our fifth generation fleet to ensure that the air superiority capabilities in the future are maintained. Along those lines, I would also like to thank the team for 

the five F–35s that were added to our upcoming fiscal year purchase. 

Second, our challenges do occur and are maintaining the dominant reign in air superiority, but Air Combat Command has a vision and a plan to ensure continued success. One of our largest, our 

most expensive to overcome in terms of money, manpower, and 

time, is the size of our force. We have 79 fewer fighter squadrons 

now than we did in Desert Storm, and we are more than 500 fighter pilots short on our rolls. We have enacted a fighter enterprise 

redesign to study and actively fix this. The Chief of Staff of the Air 

Force also commissioned Air Superiority 2030 Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team—and, Chairman, if you’re okay, I will 

refer to that as ECCT from here on out—and that is to highly address the contested anti-access area denial environments of the future. 

This plan highlights the requirements of a family of systems for 

success, and multiple domains will include new air superiority 
7 

fighter aircraft. Agile, efficient acquisition will be the critical enabler to attain this budget within a relevant timeline. Forty-four 

years ago was our last combat loss in air-to-air arena in Vietnam. 

Yet, near-peer adversaries are working towards being capable of 

ending that winning streak. It is the goal of ACC to advance air 

superiority capabilities to ensure that this never happens again. 

I thank you for the invitation to participate in this important 

hearing and to share our ideas on how to advance the mission in 

defense of our Nation. I welcome questions, sir, from the chairman 

and from the members, and ask that my written testimony be entered into the record. 

[The prepared statement of General Harris can be found in the 

Appendix on page 30.] 

Mr. TURNER. General, thank you. 

There have been recent news reports about the supply chain for 

spare parts for operation of our equipment, where even museums 

have been raided for some of their parts. In fact, as we were touring today, one of the members with us said, ‘‘I wonder to what extent this museum is in the inventory supply chain of spare parts 

for the Air Force.’’ 

Could you please speak for a moment on the pressures of sequestration, the effects that it has had? And one of the items I would 

also like you to mention is the effect that it has had on rated fighter pilot personnel. So both overall what you see sequestration 

doing, but also the concern of our ability to maintain air superiority 

while having the personnel, the manning to be able to accomplish 

it. 

General HARRIS. Well, thank you, sir. Those are great questions. 

Sequestration is hard on the services, and not just the Air Force, 

but the entire Department [of Defense]. We are struggling and we 

are challenged to achieve the missions success that our country expects of us, and that is winning in a dominant fashion. 

As much as sequestration has hurt, we need a stable budget that 

we can count on for year after year after year for our plans because, as you said, our fifth generation fleet is going to look different now from what we planned last year because of the changes 

that we have put in front of us each year. So our approach to that 

is, yes, we have a lot of fourth generation airplanes that we have 

intended to retire. We would like to get out of the fourth generation 

business to a fully fifth generation fleet, but we need to do that on 

a timeline that is both fast enough to ensure we have enough fifth 

generation airplanes and not so fast that we outsize our ability to 

train to that mission. 

So we will continue for the foreseeable future to fly older, fourth 

generation airplanes with dwindling parts supplies, as you mentioned, where we will have raids to museums. Really, we have a 

boneyard process of airplanes that have been retired that are in 

the desert in Tucson that we are able to go out and pull parts from 

as airplanes as we need to, and we can’t get them from diminishing 

manufacturing supplies. That will continue to be a problem for us 

over the next decade or two as we fly these older airplanes, yet we 

try to modernize them with newer parts, with upgrades to give us 

better capabilities with that, and that is one of the ways we are 

trying to work through the sequestration, is as a teammate, rather 
8 

than an adversary. That is part of what we need to do for our support of the Nation. 

When it comes to the people and the cuts we have had to take 

for the last 5 or 10 years, the Air Force has gotten smaller in an 

attempt to preserve the equipment that we have, but we realize we 

went too far, and we would like to thank Congress for the help in 

growing over the last couple of years, well this year and next year, 

the authorized growth that we have had, which allows us to start 

getting at some of the manpower shortages. Fighter pilots are one 

of those, so we have increased our throughput of both Air Education [and] Training Command pilot production, and then we are 

going to add in 2017 and 2018 additional F–16 training squadrons 

to produce more fighter pilots in general. So that is part of it, and 

we would also like to thank Congress for the increase in the aviation career incentive pay, which allows us to retain a few more of 

our experienced pilots, which is important to us also, not just developing and bringing new ones on. 

And then finally, sir, maintenance. That is another manpower 

issue we have had where we have had significant cuts in our maintainers, and I would say right now the Chief quotes, every squadron is 90 percent manned, so a 10 percent shortage. So 1 of every 

10 people are not in the squadron doing work. That applies to our 

maintainers also. And we are finding that getting their expertise 

back is not easy, so we are trying to do some of our easier maintenance work at our training locations with contract maintenance so 

we can continue to produce and get the training and readiness that 

we need. Those contracts have to be hired from somewhere, and a 

lot of the times a young maintainer who is on a flight line realizes 

they could do the same thing in a civilian environment and not 

have to deploy and do those things. That is going to be another 

drain on us. So we are working both the pilot side and the maintenance side to fix that. 

Mr. TURNER. General, the numbers I have indicate that due to 

experience levels and the needs in air superiority squadrons, that 

you may already be over 700 pilots short of your projected plans. 

Give us a feeling as to what that means. What does it take to catch 

up, and what does it mean if we continue with that shortfall? 

General HARRIS. Sir, again, that is a great question. Your numbers are right on. We closed out last year over 511 fighter pilots 

short of what we need to be 100 percent manned. We expect to 

close this year out just over 700. So your numbers are on target. 

What that means, the impact is that right now we are still able 

to man all of our flying organizations at 100 percent, but all of our 

supporting staff—so my command staff, headquarters Air Force, 

those staffs are manned at about 25 percent, right in that vicinity. 

So every place you should have four fighter pilots, you have one 

doing all of that same work, providing the information, and that is 

impacting our ability to plan and foresee things in the future and 

to do the things that we need from a staff perspective. 

How do we fix that is the increased production at the start to try 

and build an additional 100 pilots a year so we can reverse the 

trend of losing more and start building more, and we won’t be able 

to fix a 700 shortfall in a year, but we will also retain some of the 

more experienced pilots, which are the ones that we have worked 
9 

10 or 15 years to develop, and they have a lot of combat experience 

that we would like to retain. 

So we are working on both ends of that spectrum, and we do that 

through job satisfaction, through the pay and incentives that they 

get with that and, to be honest, taking care of their families, because that is the most important part is taking care of our airmen. 

Mr. TURNER. Because just hitting the number, as you just described, is not the only issue. It is ensuring that they have the experience level. As we look to the operational capability of the F– 

35, we need to make certain that we have the greatest capability 

not just in the aircraft, but also in the pilots that are flying them. 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. That experience in the F–35, as obviously we are building that today, but the way we initially put the 

cadre into the F–35 on both the maintenance and on the operational side is to have pilots that are experienced in other weapons 

systems, so they are new on the systems, but they are experienced 

in the overall environment, and we are doing the same thing for 

the maintainers. We are cross-training them. Instead of an A–10 

or an F–16, they are now working on an F–35, and that is an easier transition than taking a brand-new start from a technical recruit and building them up, which we will be doing that shortly 

also. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, that graphic there is very telling and obviously very 

concerning and likely a pretty clear indication of their ability to tap 

into what we are doing and our technologies. So given where we 

are right now as you look at that, you could say they are pretty 

much copying the outer structure, and as we continue to develop 

the F–35 and modernize it because things are changing so quickly, 

how do we protect that from getting in their hands as well? 

And I don’t mean to go into a classified area, but I mean let me 

ask it differently. Are we doing things at a higher level of scrutiny 

that may be able to protect us from them getting that information 

as well? 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. The way you present that is right on 

target. We are, but we are required to be transparent, and we see 

that now at the B–21. Where our approach is we want to tell Congress everything, and we do, we just do it sometimes in classified 

formats instead of open formats. But I don’t think between our relationship—I think it also goes back to our defense contractors and 

just our industrial database, and where a lot of this is being 

worked within their own facilities, that we are seeing our adversaries catch up with different things. 

As you said, the mold line is exactly right. Those airplanes look 

very similar when you cut a line down the middle and you put 

them together. Clearly, there is some copying going on, but we see 

a lot of our adversaries are still struggling on some of the avionics. 

Their radars may not be as good, and they have engines that are 

not as good as what we are working on. So everything that we are 

putting together and integrating as a package, that is what is 

keeping us ahead of them, and to continue to make sure that we 
10 

are procuring at a number that allows us to have the numerical superiority so that they don’t want to fight us. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Maybe we can feed them some bad information 

in the same process or something along those lines. 

So you talked a little bit, too, sir, about the challenges that you 

face with number of pilots, and you coupled that with budget reductions, lesser training opportunities, maintenance inadequacies. 

I mean, these are tough times. We get it. My question is how do 

we—and again, sometimes you are getting into classified information. But how do we best get the American people to get it and, for 

that matter, sometimes other Members of Congress to really understand the jeopardy that we are putting ourselves in? 

General HARRIS. Well, the reason that we need to keep modernizing is so that we have fewer blue losses both in the air and on 

the ground. We are trying to keep our military alive and, to be honest, in a war, kill more of their military. That is what it boils down 

to. That is what it is looking at. 

We just completed—the first operational squadron is not IOC yet 

out of Hill, but should be soon—just completed a deployment to 

Hill Air Force Base, and the airplane, while it is still immature, 

is performing fantastically. And how we get that information out 

to the public is very important. Using forums like this that are 

open will help us with that message. But that unit deployed, flew 

sorties, and then flew home. It was scheduled and planned to fly 

88 sorties with 7 airplanes, and flew and actually were effective 

with 88 sorties. They didn’t drop a single sortie, and every one of 

the targets they struck they were 100 percent hit rate with precision munitions. So I couldn’t ask for more of a mature system, let 

alone an immature system, so that was fantastic for us. 

And then because it is F–35 and fifth generation, flying where 

they were, they were teamed up with some fourth generation fighters in scenarios that only the F–35 was surviving and some of our 

fourth generation fighters were taking losses. So clearly, the airplane is performing the way we want, and when I talked with pilots two days ago, Thursday at Nellis, they are very pleased with 

it. 

So we do have modernization work to do. We’ve got some other 

things we need to integrate, additional weapons systems to put into 

it, but it really is the airplane that we are looking for, and we are 

just trying to procure it at the rate that we need. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. And certainly that is encouraging in that regard, 

but we are still asking so many to do much more with less, and 

I think that probably makes it tough on your retention as well, especially for pilots where there are opportunities in the private sector. You are always battling that, but maybe even now more so 

than others. If there are things that we can try to do from Congress to turn that tide, we would certainly always be interested in 

knowing what those things are. 

But I think that that graphic right there is something that the 

American people need to see to know what we are up against. You 

bring up a very interesting point that we all recall from Iraq, 

where they buried their MiGs, right? They didn’t want anything to 

do with us. That is peace through strength. That is where we always want to be. 
11 

Anyway, I thank you, and I will yield back. 

Mr. TURNER. Representative Chabot. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to reiterate something that my colleague, Congressman Stivers, said, and that is that I would hope the people in the 

Dayton area realize how aggressive you have been in protecting 

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, that we are out here today. We 

have had innumerable conversations about sequestration and adequate funding for Wright-Pat, et cetera, and I know you have done 

that with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure 

that this air base gets the support that is necessary for it now and 

into the future. 

My question, General, would be, could you discuss Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s specific role in the near term and in the future 

in air dominance and the protection of our Nation? 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. Congressman, Wright-Pat has a storied 

history that everybody is aware of with the birthplace of flight and 

everything that started here. And I will be honest, when you look 

at Wright-Pat as an Air Force base, from Air Combat Command I 

don’t see fighters and bombers. What I see is that integral cell of 

all of our Air Force research labs that get their genesis from right 

here. It is the scientists and the people at Wright-Patterson Air 

Force Base that look at some of the theories and the advanced initiative that we are looking at. They study that across the labs and 

they task and get so much work done for us that allows us to look 

at what is next. If we have fifth gen airplanes that are so capable 

that are being cut, should we now look at sixth gen? We see a lot 

of genesis coming from that. 

The way we treat a weapons system, it starts and ends right 

here at Wright-Pat with our Air Force LCMC [Life Cycle Management Center], and it is our life cycle maintenance command that, 

cradle to grave, from an airplane when it first starts or, to be honest, any weapons system, because they are not all airplanes, we 

have our command and control to include our human design and 

our development of people, it all starts and ends right here. So that 

is significantly a portion of what Wright-Pat does. 

But we have other organizations such as SIMAF [Simulation and 

Analysis Facility] that takes some of our capabilities and helps us 

integrate those and shows us what we can do across the spectrum, 

and that power is central right here. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, General. 

Next, General, I know we have already referred to the graphics 

up there, but I think the similarities illustrated in there are so 

striking that it says a lot just by looking at the picture. Could you 

discuss, to the extent that you can in a non-classified setting, what 

role cybersecurity warfare has in something like this and how seriously we as a nation need to take that? 

General HARRIS. Sir, cybersecurity has a huge role, because any 

information that we are doing in today’s age, it is going to be electronic, what we are doing back and forth. We have ideas on the 

back of bar napkins, but we are using computers to plan, process, 

and disseminate everything that we are doing. So cybersecurity 

will play a huge role in that, and that can be a weakness at times 

when people are trying to steal things from us. So we have a huge 
12 

defense effort that comes down to every single airman, soldier, sailor, and marine to make sure that we are doing what we are told 

to do and using the systems as we are supposed to rather than circumventing those, and that is not just the military, but that is with 

our defense contractors and everything else. 

We will always have concerns of espionage and other events, but 

how we use these systems in cybersecurity, we can actually start 

monitoring some of that and making sure that we understand what 

is processing and who is doing what on our classified systems. That 

significantly helps us because that is the internal threat. It is the 

unclass [unclassified] side for the external threat. 

And in cyber also is getting to play a role as a warfighter. It is 

its own domain from an airman’s perspective, and we think that 

air superiority can be helped through cyber. There are things that 

our cyber professionals can do to reduce the effectiveness of an adversary’s capability, and that is something that we are looking at 

very hard now and working our way through for the future. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, General. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Stivers. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you very much. 

Thanks, General, for your testimony. I will quickly just comment 

on something that both Congressman Wenstrup and Congressman 

Chabot brought up. 

When you look at that graphic behind you, it is clear that is not 

by accident. This is a deliberate stealing and copying of our technology. We are lucky they cannot perfect it today, but we have to 

do more in cybersecurity. I don’t think our problem is with our uniformed personnel. I think we have an agency problem with a lot 

of defense contractors who are supposed to protect American secrets, and it is not always their bottom line they are protecting. It 

is the taxpayers and our own secrets as a country, our technology. 

So I am going to continue to fight to make sure that we raise the 

level of requirements on those contractors to protect our true national secrets. 

So, that was more a comment than a question, but I just want 

you to know that the folks in uniform are doing a great job, but 

we need to expect more from our contractors, and there are people 

out across the world trying to steal our technology every day, and 

you can tell by looking at that picture that that was no accident. 

That is stolen technology, and I am sure they got it through some 

cyber stealing. So we need to all, as a country, pay attention to 

that and be ready for the future. 

So I do want to talk about—you answered some questions from 

Congressman Turner—about the shortage of your rated pilots at 

this point. To what role can the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard help this shortage by either allowing some of their pilots to be called to active duty or maybe assuming some missions? 

I know you said you are actually shorting your own command staff 

and other things like that to meet the need at this point. Could 

those organizations supplement your staff and other staffs as well 

to make sure that we are able to meet the needs we are supposed 

to meet? 
13 

General HARRIS. Well, sir, that is a great question, and to be 

honest, they are already. They are in the exact same position we 

are in. The staff that I talked about that is 25 percent manned includes my Guard and Reserve teammates. The 55 fighter squadrons that we have today includes our Guard and Reserve teammates. So they are wearing the same uniform we are wearing, and 

they are part of this daily effort with us. So the same pressures 

that are on me are on them. As the airlines are hiring now and 

continue to do more in the future, which is always a draw for pilots 

in any service, they are seeing the same vacancy rates that we are. 

As long as we have the ability to continue to use the Guard and 

Reserve, if you take airmen who are going to get out regardless of 

what we do and retain some of them for that capacity and that callup in the future, then I think they are hitting the mark and doing 

exactly what we ask of them. Yet, as you know, they are doing so 

much more because they are deploying at a rate that is significantly above what we call the strategic reserve, and they are as 

ready as we are or as unready as we are on the active side, and 

they have been fantastic teammates for us. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, General. 

With regard to the fourth and fifth generation aircraft, do you 

believe policymakers in Congress should actually dedicate resources to upgrading our fourth and fifth generation aircraft to 

make sure that we can maintain our technological edge? 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. I would say the team is from Congress 

and OSD’s [Office of the Secretary of Defense] perspective. We are 

dedicating resources in that direction. We do need to upgrade our 

fourth generation airplanes to make sure they meet the mandates 

to fly in the airspace and to have the required equipment to just 

be able to fly like any other airplane, the airlines, those types of 

things, since we are changing our airspace structure, but then to 

continue to update the defensive and offensive systems that are on 

those. We are making our recommendation as to where those 

should go because 10 to 15 years from now, in the contested environments, the highly contested environments that we are talking 

about for air superiority, there may not be much room for fourth 

gen airplanes. That is why we are so concerned about giving the 

fifth gen at the rate we need. And, yes, we are still updating the 

F–22 and modernizing it with the systems that go through it to 

make sure that as the threat evolves, so does our aircraft to stay 

in front of that, and we are doing the same thing with the F–35. 

So we are currently buying Block 3F-type airplanes, and we will 

soon have a Block 4 that’s coming off, and what goes into that is 

part of the ongoing study that we are doing for the Defense Department, and then we will look at the funding from Congress through 

the normal processes. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

I yield back to the chairman. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Representative Stivers’ question is a great passing of the baton 

in the work that I get to do next. As you know, I chair the Air and 

Land Subcommittee, which means I write the portion of the bill for 

the National Defense Authorization Act that covers the acquisition 

programs for the Air Force and the Army. We have gone through 
14 

the House version of the bill, which has passed the House floor. 

The Senate bill is proceeding. There are differences between the 

House bill and the Senate bill, and here is my opportunity to ask 

you questions that can help us in conference in advocating on the 

side of the House bill. That is the context in which the question is 

being given to you. 

Representative Stivers indicated about the modernization of the 

fourth generation and the fifth generation. Although we will 

achieve the F–35, we will have to continue its modernization 

which, because of the manner in which the plane operates, the 

heavy reliance upon electronics, as you indicated, is a significant 

undertaking and its modernization. 

The GAO [Government Accountability Office], which is actually 

based here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, recommended that 

the F–35 follow-on modernization be treated as a whole separate 

acquisition program rather than just a continuation of the F–35 

program. On the House side we were able to defeat that measure. 

There was an amendment offered that would have implemented 

that GAO recommendation, and the reason why we defeated it is 

because we had additional information post the recommendation 

from the GAO, and that additional information is that it would result in a 6- to 12-month delay and over a $13 million cost increase 

overall in the maintenance and the modernization of the F–35. 

Now, General Bogdan has indicated his opposition and that, in 

his assessment, that the delay and the increased costs exceed the 

benefit of having the modernization program being treated as a 

completely separate acquisition program. 

General, do you have a perspective on that? 

General HARRIS. Well, Chairman, thank you. I do, but part of 

that is outside of ACC’s area of expertise. So I will defer on the cost 

and the schedule delays to the JPO [Joint Program Office]. I have 

no doubt that their authenticity is correct. I can say that. I suspect 

they are very accurate with what they say because they are the 

ones closest to it and looking at it. 

My concern as Air Combat Command is if we do that, the additional oversight that we are looking at the program will cost more, 

but more importantly it is going to delay the upgrades, and it is 

not minor things. It is upgrades to the electronic warfare system. 

It is radar enhancements. It is new weapons integration. It is all 

of those things that we are trying to get to mature this weapons 

system in a hurry, and any delays that we have are going to impact not just the U.S. Air Force, but all three services that are flying that and all of our partner nations that are part of this funding. They are paying their portion for the upgrade for the first time 

ever in any other weapons system. When they bought F–16s, they 

just paid for what the Air Force already paid for, and now they are 

part of that investment. So I would hate to delay that because it 

might put in jeopardy other funding sources. 

So my recommendation is that those capabilities become at risk 

if we delay, so we shouldn’t delay. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. Well another provision that is in the 

House version of the NDAA is looking at the cost of restarting the 

F–22 line. Now, the Air Force Chief of Staff recently said that it 

is not a crazy idea. I will take that as an endorsement. 
15 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TURNER. Obviously, there was a significant amount of shortfall in the number of F–22s that were produced. That goes directly 

to the capability of your command. Would you please give us your 

view of the issue of the shortfall in the F–22, any thoughts that 

you have on trying to produce additional ones to increase your 

overall command capability? As you know, you have—I believe it 

is 187 have already been produced, a shortfall of 194. General. 

General HARRIS. Chairman, I think we as an Air Force and a 

country would have been better suited to have those additional 194 

airplanes already in the inventory and being participants in everything that is going on, and it may have changed some of that calculus for what our adversaries are doing. But we just completed 

the 2030 Air Security ECCT study, and those results have been 

out-briefed to the Chief, and he has accepted those. One of the recommendations in that was not to restart the F–22 line. 

The major concern was that the funding that would be required 

would be significant and it would take away from additional funding of somewhere else within the service that is probably a higher 

priority, and there is nothing higher priority than air superiority. 

But the concern is that we would be 5 to 10 years away from the 

delivery of the first airplane because in 2009 when the line closed, 

all of those subcontractors have moved on to other things. We 

would have to rebuild that base. It is not a short-term fix. And 

then when we started taking delivery of those airplanes, the airplane itself would be 20 years old, and we are ready for what is 

next, and that is part of what that study is recommending. 

So as we look at those requirements and the future capability, 

we think it is wiser to keep the investment in the F–35 at the production levels that we need for our fifth gen to fill in where the 

gaps were from the F–22, and that will allow us to bridge into 

what is the follow-on to those two platforms. 

Mr. TURNER. General, I am aware of that study, of course, and 

our aspect of requesting the study that is in the House version of 

the bill is actually doing a holistic view of what would those elements be. Whether it be the F–22 or not, we are going to need 

something more than just the F–35. I know that your concerns, as 

are evident throughout the Air Force, is budgetary. You would not 

want to cannibalize one system in order to be able to launch another. 

But I am certain that as we have additional discussions, I am 

going to ask you as we close off our round to give us greater detail 

as you describe the F–35 and the fourth generation and how they 

work together. Having more cards in your deck of greater capability I am certain will be important. 

So the study itself gives us greater fidelity on some of the things 

that you identified. It doesn’t conclude. It really does that holistic 

assessment of what would it take, which could result in an additional—a different airplane. But it certainly should look at that, 

recognizing the gap, that you have a gap. 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir, we do. 

Mr. TURNER. What would it take to fill in that gap, and what are 

our overall costs? 
16 

So I appreciate that, and we look forward hopefully to the Senate 

agreeing to getting a greater understanding of what are those missing elements to study, and I will just rely on the Chief of Staff saying it is not a crazy idea. 

With that, Dr. Wenstrup. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. 

So a little bit, somewhat off the main topic, but overall air superiority. We look at the global threats and potential threats and the 

ability to be a deterrent, as well as to fight terrorism and to stay 

ahead of our traditional adversaries. Do you feel that we are positioned forward enough in the world, in enough locations? Let me 

give you an example. 

An Army guy’s observation serving in Iraq. I had a chance to go 

up to Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan for a couple of days while I was 

deployed for a year, and my thought as the war went on and as 

we were being more successful—and ultimately I say we won that 

war; and since, things have changed. We won that war, and I 

thought the Kurdish area would be a great place for an air base. 

It was the only place I went in Iraq where I didn’t wear armor. We 

were loved. They love Americans. We would be so central in the 

Middle East. We would have a show of force and authority there, 

and what a great place this would be for an air base, and I still 

think that if the climate was right. 

But my question really comes down to do you think with today’s 

threats that we have, are we forward positioned enough with our 

air forces to be comfortable? 

General HARRIS. Sir, that is a great question. And you and I, 

based on your military background, look at it a little differently 

from our perspective. Your Air Force deploys really quick. It doesn’t 

take us weeks and months. It is normally days and sometimes 

hours to get into place to do what we need to do. So I balance our 

ability to be forward with our requirement to defend our homeland 

and to be home where we get some of the best training, because 

when I am forward at those bases, I kind of have to limit my training because a small country that loves us as an organization, as an 

American people, I still have to train outside their borders, and I 

don’t want to give up things to my adversary where they can see 

what I am doing on a regular basis. 

So we have some strengths for that. And on that argument, if 

you look at my active duty F–15 placements right now, if you are 

an active duty F–15 maintainer, F–15C maintainer or pilot, your 

only places are Japan and the United Kingdom. We have no continental U.S. for those to go. So if that is what you do, you are either 

overseas at one or the other locations, or you are flying with one 

of our Guard units. It is flying them here in the continental U.S. 

for homeland defense mission, or you are on a staff. And again, I 

only have 25 percent on my staff. 

So it is not easy already. We are fairly forward deployed. Yes, 

there is that deterrent, that ‘‘fight tonight’’ effort, and that applies 

both to the Pacific and Europe, and we are just as concerned with 

everything going on in Europe. So we started ‘‘Rapid Raptor’’ deployments to where overnight airplanes show up and nobody knows 

that they are coming other than the host nation that has invited 

us and the training that we do, and we are seeing that from a lot 
17 

of our new NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies, saying come more often and stay longer, and we do understand that. 

But we do have to have that balance between being able to train 

and have that white space at home to also be ready for. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Yes, and we are seeing movement by the Chinese, as you know, without going into too much detail, that is concerning. So I am sure that that is something that you have to 

watch on a constant basis. 

So as we are talking about fourth and fifth generation, one of the 

things that I think is Members of Congress, and the military as 

well, our role is to always be looking towards the future, what do 

things look like 20 years from now. So I am just curious how we 

are doing on sixth generation. 

General HARRIS. We are doing well, at an unclassified level. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Very good. That is all I need to hear. 

And then I guess one more question I do have is specific to 

Wright-Patterson. So how important is the role of Wright-Patterson 

in Ohio for the future of our air dominance? 

General HARRIS. I am impressed every time I come to WrightPatterson. The people I see around on the base, it is just a—the 

density of those smart scientists that are warrior technicians that 

have come here, they really seed our labs across America. So we 

come here from an airman’s perspective and try to give that operational flavor so that, as we look at the things that they are studying and doing at Wright-Pat, how that might apply to us. We actually have some of those, that 25 percent of fighter pilots. We have 

some of those on the staffs here at Wright-Pat, and AFMC [Air 

Force Materiel Command], just to help General Pawlikowski and 

the team out so that we know what can bridge and what is not 

going to go anywhere from what they are looking at. 

Quite often they will say, hey, this is a success, we just don’t 

know how to use it, and you get that in the hands of an operator 

or a maintainer and they say I know what to do with that. So how 

we work together with it, a lot of that happens right here at 

Wright-Pat, and that is kind of the focus of where we get a lot of 

our research. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Very good. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chabot. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General, I am also on the Foreign Affairs Committee and chaired 

the Middle East and Asia Committees in the past, and we have 

had innumerable hearings with respect to Asia, and China in particular, and how aggressive they have been of late, in the air and 

on the sea and building islands, and now militarizing them, much 

to the chagrin of much of our allies in the region, from Japan to 

South Korea to the Philippines, Taiwan, and countries that we 

have better and better relations with, like Vietnam now. They are 

all very, very concerned. 

Do you believe that the current planned F–35 squadrons are adequate to maintain a forcible presence in the Pacific theater while 

maintaining our current commitments in Europe and the Middle 

East, for example? And with current force projections, do you be-
18 

lieve that we will be able to maintain our air superiority with respect to China over the next decade and into the future? 

General HARRIS. Congressman, that is a great question because 

the next decade really is of concern. If we are acquiring 48 F–35s 

a year, China will have more fifth gen fighters 15 to 20 years from 

now than we have based in the Pacific, and that is including what 

the Marines are doing in Japan and what the Air Force intends to 

do with future basing and where we are going in the Pacific. 

So in a ‘‘fight tonight’’ scenario, they may actually outnumber us 

with airplanes like that than we are. That does go back to that forward deployed question that we spoke about earlier. What is in 

theater does matter, and both in the Pacific and Europe we look 

to make sure we’ve got sufficient to deter, but that we’ve also got 

ready forces at home that can reinforce, and we are concerned. 

The number of F–35s to procure a year is probably closer to 60. 

The program of record says we should be at 80 a year, and that 

would allow us to have the numbers there sooner before China can 

get their fifth generation airplanes fully operational. We think that 

would deter that conflict, but I don’t think it is going to stop them 

from still building any islands, and we will continue our freedom 

of navigation exercises in the air and on the sea to deter and make 

sure they recognize what we consider international laws and norms 

to be. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Thank you, General. 

One area we haven’t touched on really yet this morning, and 

since this will be my final question I will at least touch on it, and 

that is with the increased reliance of unmanned aerial vehicles, 

UAVs or drones, how do you see the integration of UAVs with the 

planned strategic roles of our F–35s, for example, and our other assets? How does this all fit in, and how important is it? 

General HARRIS. Well, if we looked at today’s UAVs we would 

probably think of it from a fourth generation perspective, the way 

they are being employed with a manned cockpit somewhere back 

in the U.S. or wherever they happen to be flying. And again, we 

are doing that in our Guard, Reserve, and our Active, teaming up 

with somebody that is forward deployed. 

I think, though, as we look at the air superiority study that we 

have been talking about, part of that does talk about UAV teaming 

and doing that in more of an autonomous fashion. We have that 

machine-to-machine communication so that while we still have people in the loop, they are not having to necessarily do as much as 

they are doing today of physical flying. So maybe then one crew 

can fly five UAVs, or one manned aircraft can have a dozen UAVs 

flying off of it and taking commands and signals from it. 

So we are looking at that from that air superiority study, which 

would make this much more defensible, and the risks that you can 

take with an unmanned system, or at least no person in the forward of the airplane, can actually help you with that if somebody 

is back flying from somewhere else. That is a different risk calculus, and we are willing to do that to achieve our Nation’s goals. 

So that is part of that study, and that is part of the family system. So it is not going to be a single silver bullet that solves any 

one of these. I think it will be a follow-on to the F–22 and the F– 

35, not just the 15 and 16. But it will also be improvements to our 
19 

current UAVs that will all come together with our cyber and the 

assets that we bring from space to make this a solvable problem. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Chairman, yielding back, I would just like to say I think this 

has really been a great hearing. The information that we have received from the general here is very important and helpful to us, 

and we will take it back to our colleagues. Thank you. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Representative Stivers. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

I would like to follow up on the last question that Mr. Chabot 

just asked. General, could you talk about the importance of voice 

and data communication in future air dominance? 

General HARRIS. Very important, and right now voice communication is a lot of times our primary mode of communication. Our 

fifth gen and our fourth gen don’t talk as well together as we would 

like to, machine to machine. So we are actually using the aircrew 

voice to get the information back and forth, and, I would be honest, 

that is probably third generation. 

So we are working on a couple of projects and efforts to make 

sure that we can get communication and awareness that the fifth 

gen airplanes bring down to the fourth gen fleet, to our command 

and control, to everything else, so that all of our sensors that are 

so far forward and doing great work because they can penetrate air 

defenses, come back and provide that information to everybody. So 

that makes it critically important, and we have a couple of different paths we are working on. 

Not all of it is based in the air. Some of it will be land-based, 

some of it will be space-based. So it is a family of systems, again, 

to get to that solution. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

General, could you talk about the impact any reduction in the 

1,763 aircraft requirement would have on ACC’s capability and capacity and readiness to meet the requirements for fifth generation 

fighter aircraft to assume air dominance in support of the national 

military strategy? 

General HARRIS. Congressman, it is hard to talk about that reduction because 1,763, if we are producing, let’s say, 60 a year, that 

is still buying F–35s out in the 2030s. So I am less concerned about 

the overall number and the rate that we are acquiring them to 

make sure we can deter and defeat, if necessary, our adversaries 

in the next decade or so. If our further study in sixth gen says that 

we are able to develop and come up with a family of systems that 

allows us to stop production early on the F–35 and move into something else, I think we are willing to do that. But we don’t know 

what that number is at this point, so I would rather not speculate. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

General, I really appreciate your testimony today, and I just 

again want to commend Chairman Turner for his leadership on the 

Tactical Air and Land Subcommittee and what he has done to protect Wright-Pat and build a consensus in the Ohio delegation to 

help further our national security and make sure that we can be 

a major player right here in Ohio through Wright-Pat and the 
20 

things that are happening at Wright-Pat. I want to just comment 

and add to the comments that all my colleagues have said. 

Wright-Patterson is a very important strategic asset for the 

United States, not just for the United States Air Force, but for the 

United States. To the thousands of men and women who are working here at this base to help ensure that you can provide air superiority, General, I just wanted to say thank you to them, and thank 

you to Congressman Turner for making sure that he supports them 

and our national military the way he is doing. I wanted to acknowledge his leadership. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

General, I appreciate your comments to what Dr. Wenstrup said 

and Representative Stivers said. You focused on highlighting what 

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base does, and I just want to underscore one aspect of the debate that we always have in Congress 

with respect to personnel and how it affects Wright-Patterson Air 

Force Base. 

The issue of civilian career personnel continues to be a ball batted around in debates in Congress. But as you know by what you 

just described, the engineers and the scientists here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are largely going to be career civilian that 

populate NASIC, our National Air and Space Intelligence Center, 

and are doing the assessments on what our adversaries like China 

are doing and what we need to make certain we put in your hands 

to scope what the threat is. 

The Air Force Institute of Technology. Of course, there we have 

the graduate school here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base populated by professors and assistants and those that make that system 

work, largely again going to be career civilian. The Air Force research labs, the engineers and scientists that really try to define 

what is the possible, because here at Wright-Pat it is not just the 

battlefields of today, which are also a focus, but it is also the battlefields of tomorrow, what can we push in our boundaries of 

knowledge, just as the Wright brothers did, to make certain you 

have that air dominance. 

And of course, all of the acquisition support that we have here 

that is necessary for contract management, the oversight that we 

expect our government to do, is done largely by career civilians. So 

thank you for highlighting the fact that they play an important role 

in your combat command and ensuring our dominance. 

I want to go back to that topic again of dominance. You in the 

beginning foreshadowed the issue of fifth generation and fourth 

generation flying together. You also foreshadowed that our intent 

to retire fourth generation, as we look to 2030, we are going to be 

in a blended formation. Could you please give us a description, if 

you will, where people can understand how does fourth and fifth 

generation work together, and how is it going to ensure our capability as we look to that time period when fourth generation may 

be retired? 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir, in an unclassified format. The air superiority approach, because that is what we are primarily talking 

about from this, with the fifth and fourth gen working together, 

can get sticky pretty quick. So in not so much an air superiority 
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role, but in today’s fight, when the F–22s fly over Syria, their sensors see so many things and share that across the spectrum 

through our command and control efforts, that fourth gen fighters 

that would not otherwise have been aware have much more situational awareness, and that is what fifth gen brings to the fight. 

In an air superiority type of a role, we expect the fifth gen to be 

the only things that can initially penetrate, go in and make some 

of the initial kills or reduce an enemy’s IAD [integrated air defense], which will then allow fourth generation to even participate 

in the battle, and if that is a long distance away, it may take days 

and weeks to get air superiority. If it is something near, it just may 

take multiple sorties over a day or two period. 

But if it is truly in a highly contested environment, that’s going 

to include an integrated air defense where it is both aircraft and 

SAMs [surface-to-air missiles] and the entire package that an adversary brings against us, fourth generation may not have much 

play in that for a while until the air superiority portion is gamed 

and our adversary recognizes that this is important to us, we are 

not going to give up, and we are going to continue to risk our fifth 

gen aircraft, our people, the things that we need to do to get the 

Nation’s tasking done, and then fourth generation will be able to 

step up and participate at that point. 

That is our concern, the blended effort. We are leaning more towards fifth gen as quick as we can. 

Mr. TURNER. So in other words, fifth generation can go into a 

contested environment and clear the way so the threat level is lowered so that fourth generation can go in and continue to fight in 

the contested environment. 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TURNER. Excellent. Thank you. 

Dr. Wenstrup, closing questions, comments? 

Dr. WENSTRUP. I did have one other question. You talked about 

700 pilots short from where you would like to be. So where does 

the Air Guard come into play with that, and is their role helpful 

in that regard? 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. When I say 700 pilots, that is fighter 

pilots. We have shortages in other weapons systems also. But the 

Air Guard, they are seeing similar vacancies, although not as fast 

as the Air Force is. They are probably only a couple of years behind 

us. To be honest, they are on the leading edge of the airline hiring 

because several of those have already taken those job applications 

based on what they are doing but continue to fly for the Guard, 

which is exactly what we are looking for on a part-time basis. 

Where we are finding concern in the Guard is that they are deploying so much to support places that the Active Duty can’t go to 

because of our readiness and our OPTEMPO [operational tempo] 

already, that someone’s saying I was deploying this much when I 

was on Active, why would I expect to do that now when I am in 

the Guard? We find that they are getting some pressures that they 

haven’t seen in decades before based on their OPTEMPO also. I 

think they are in the same boat as we are. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Okay. Thank you. 

So in conclusion, I want to thank you, General, for being here 

today and for everyone here accommodating us so well. It has been 
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said by my colleagues here the relentless nature of Chairman 

Turner and his concern for this base, and for our Air Force and our 

military in general. I can speak to it firsthand, serving on two committees with him, and on his subcommittee, and I thank him for 

his leadership in that regard. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. TURNER. Well, I want to thank all my fellow members for attending. As they’ve described the aspect of protecting Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, it is both a game of advocacy and a game 

of whack-a-mole. Every now and then, we have to make sure that 

we do defend the assets that are here, but we also advocate for 

them, and every member here has been a part of that, and I greatly appreciate their support. Thank you for taking your Saturday to 

come out and do this. 

But I want to assure you that it is not just a Saturday morning 

that these gentlemen have given. They are part of what Ohio deploys in order to protect Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and to 

advance the Air Force. 

General, thank you for your service and thank you for your team 

giving their Saturday, and also for the team from the Air and Land 

Subcommittee. We appreciate them traveling here to be able to do 

this. General Harris, we hope to welcome you back to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the assets that are here. But thank you 

for your leadership, and thank you for giving us this insight. 

As you know, from your position, your answers are not just informative; they actually translate into policy. We have to take them 

back and place them in the legislative decisionmaking and in debates that help us ensure that you have what you need. So, thank 

you for helping us today. 

General HARRIS. Sure. 

Mr. TURNER. With that, we will be adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:14 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JUNE 18, 2016 

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JUNE 18, 2016 

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