In response to this, you will see substantial additional funding in our FY2000 budget and outyears when presented to Congress later this month. These funds are critically needed to acquire mission essential spare parts, training resources, and aircraft engines. Finally, as the age of our aircraft increased, we incurred greater costs and workloads to maintain readiness. As we stated in other testimonies, the average age of our aircraft is 20 years. Even including planned procurements, by 2015 the average age will grow to 30 years.
Modernization is tomorrow's readiness.
If we don't modernize by replacing aircraft that are beyond their useful life and revitalize those with life left in them, we can expect significant additional maintenance requirements, reduced reliability, and increased costs, as these aircraft grow older. The already high workload will significantly increase for our people who must maintain and fly them. The intense demands we place on them as they perform Air Force missions around the world require highly motivated, highly skilled, professional airmen. However, today we are performing more missions with fewer people. Indeed, today's active duty force is the smallest in the history of the Air Force.