The U.S. Air Force has adapted pretty quickly to Donald Trump’s “peace through strength” mantra. “Topics that were gingerly avoided six months ago like the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter or offensive space weapons, are now emerging into the open,” reported Tobias Naegele, editor-in-chief of Air and Space Forces Magazine, in an editorial posted yesterday. “Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin is ramping up his campaign for ‘more Air Force’ in bolder and more colorful terms,” Naegele wrote. “At any moment, he said at the AFA Warfare Symposium in March, the Air Force must be able ‘to put a warhead on a forehead anywhere the President might want.
“That kind of talk resonates with many, including President Donald Trump, who held a White House news conference in March to announce America’s first new fighter plane in 24 years.” The new fighter plane is called the F-47, with the “47” referring to Trump’s second turn at the presidency.
“Just weeks earlier, Allvin gave fighter designations—for the first time ever—to a pair of low-observable drones,” Naegele goes on. “The General Atomics YFQ-42 and Anduril YFQ-44 are autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft that will operate as armed wingman, extensions of the combat power of the F-35 and F-47. The fighter designation might be a stretch, but it represents revolutionary thinking and military ambition, even swagger.”
