Days 4 and 5 of AF Conference

Thursday was another interesting day of briefings. Some were more interesting than others, I assure you. The most interesting briefer, for me, was Maj Gen Paul Selva, the man in charge of thinking ahead for future AF needs, etc. If you know me at all, you know that I am really interested in thinking ahead to the future. What will we look like? What will we need then that we need to start working on now? Here are a few things from his briefing:
1. 30% of China's population lives in the cities. What will the energy demand be in the future if more of that 70% rural population moves into the city?
2. At the current rate, the new F-35 will take 50 years to buy.
3. The AF needs to think about replacing the F-22, the world's premier fighter, in 2018.
4. The last American Soldier killed by enemy aircraft was in Korea--1953 (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123052633).
5. Without air dominance, 1 of our servicemen dies to every 7 of theirs. With air dominance, 1 of ours dies for every 60-600 of theirs!

Very interesting stuff re: the importance of the AF and what we bring to the fight. Also interesting in that people wonder why the AF needs fighters unmatched by the rest of the world. You'll note three things--1) the rest of the world is not just twiddling their thumbs (SAMs, for instance, can lock on to aircraft that are 200 miles away--much farther than we can lock on!); 2) the buying process is so long that systems are in fact obsolete before we can procure them; 3) the R&D process and the procurement process are so long that we have to have systems far in advance of anything current so we can be current when we do get them!

I've been impressed by the deep thinking going on. It's great to know someone is thinking those thoughts!

Today, we went to the Pentagon and toured around (this was a personal tour). That was pretty neat as well. We go home tomorrow, and it's back to the grind. For now? It's time for supper! Ciao.