Why the Air Force needs a new fleet metric

Though the Air Force is actively advancing toward a more autonomous future, crewed fighters like the vaunted F-15, the advanced F-35, and the next-generation F-47 are — and will remain —the indispensable cornerstone of airpower.

That truth is beyond dispute, confirmed by an enduring history woven between flesh-and-blood aviators and their high-performance aircraft, underwritten by the global deterrence that only dominant airpower can provide.

The question now is not whether our airpower dominance will be sustained, but how it will be preserved. This could benefit from a new approach to configuring and funding our force.

Candidly, there is a stark divide between legislated direction on how the fleet should be counted and funded, and the actual combat capacity of the Air Force. This disconnect is rooted in a formula that creates a disparity between peacetime budgeting and the need for actual combat readiness.

For decades, the metric used to measure fighter capacity has been an accounting standard known as Primary Mission Aircraft Inventory. It dictates funding, flying hours and manning, but crucially excludes backup and attrition reserve aircraft. It measures only what we can afford to operate during routine training outside conflict. To adequately capture our warfighting capability, we must look at the entire combat-coded inventory.

It is a technical debate, to be sure, but it is a critical one. Legislation that modernizes this metric is essential to match the real-world requirements that guarantee global deterrence today.

The Primary Mission Aircraft Inventory counting method has shaped the size of the Air Force’s fighter fleet since 2017, when Congress mandated a legal floor set at 1,145 fighters. That 2017 Primary Mission Aircraft Inventory baseline was built on modeling originating from the 1999 and 2001 Quadrennial Defense Reviews, a different era of global security challenges and math that predates 9/11.

One step toward better defining airpower requirements would be using the National Defense Strategy to guide the required size,........

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