During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) asked Air Force leadership about Chinese threats and the F-47 jet.
00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Lest I be misunderstood, having questions about the durability of the military efforts to degrade Iran's nuclear enrichment capability should not be misunderstood as a lack of enthusiasm and support for the professionalism and skill with which airmen carried out a very difficult mission.
00:23So let me join many of my colleagues of both parties who congratulated the Air Force on carrying out a difficult mission well.
00:30If I could, General Alvin and Secretary Mink, much is made of the Chinese Navy.
00:36It's often discussed in hearings, but frankly, it's the Chinese Air Force and Missile Force and their increasing and sophisticated capabilities in space that present, I think, the most serious challenge we face in terms of capabilities.
00:49The Air Force has progressed fairly rapidly through development of the F-47, and I'd just be interested, given the critical time window, how the Air Force is working with industry to ensure that both programs, F-47 and the collaborative combat aircraft, are fielded on time, hopefully even ahead of schedule,
01:08and how confident are you in industry's ability to deliver and on the supply chains needed to do that, given our previous discussion about the F-35.
01:15Well, thank you, Senator, for that. I will tell you that this is, when we look at the programs you're referencing, the F-47, the collaborative combat aircraft,
01:24are both part of what we call the next-generation air dominance family of systems.
01:28We approach that fundamentally different from where we approach our other fifth-generation platforms, F-35, F-22, and the Secretary referred to it.
01:36Those were a different time when we sort of outsourced not only the contract to the contractors,
01:41we actually outsourced some of the intellectual property, outsourced some of the engineering.
01:45We have insourced that back in. We have gained knowledge parity, and we have the engineering expertise within our United States Air Force.
01:51Now we knew as much about the designs as all the competitors did when they were feeding into that.
01:56The second is this government reference architecture to where we have sort of control over the mission systems.
02:03That does a couple things. That lets a lot more of industry play in.
02:06So while we still have our prime contractors, if there are other innovative companies that have the opportunity to participate and add in new things in,
02:15we control whether that happens or not along with the contractors.
02:18So we have taken back some of that control, so there's more agility in the way that we can leverage those mission systems
02:24and move the program at the pace that we desire rather than the contractor.
02:28I think that is fundamentally how we're going to start doing all of our acquisitions,
02:32gaining more of that control back to ensure that the government has more flexibility in a way that moves the programs forward.
02:38And, Secretary, you've been doing this for much longer than me, so I have your thoughts.
02:44Yeah, that captured it very well.
02:47You know, these are some of the most complicated systems humans produce.
02:51So we need to keep our eye on the ball.
02:54Execution, execution, execution.
02:56I think the contract is structured really well for many of the things that the general just walked through.
03:04Now we need to make sure we execute, we keep a stable funding profile,
03:09and make sure we deliver these capabilities because they are critical, as is the CCA.
03:14Well, thank you.
03:15As your written testimony makes perfectly clear, a timely authorization and appropriation,
03:21full-year appropriations, a close consultation between the department and this subcommittee
03:28and the full committee is absolutely critical for our sending signals to industry,
03:32for your being able to deliver on what that agility now will mean,
03:37and for our being able to, whether in space and information or in air dominance,
03:42actually be able to meet this moment, because the PRC certainly isn't ever operating on a continuing resolution
03:48and doesn't have disconnects.
03:51They're executing, and we need to meet this and meet it in a timely way.
03:54Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the second round, and thank you all for your testimony and your service.
