Since July, a special Pentagon panel, led by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, has been gathering data to make recommendations to fix the department’s sagging acquisition oversight practices. According to Pentagon officials, the five-member Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project plans to deliver a top-to-bottom review to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by November.
The Air Force overall reduced its size by 120 aircraft in fiscal year 2021, but kept about the same number of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, according to data supplied by the service. The F-35 fleet saw the biggest increase while the B-1B bomber fleet saw the largest decline.