Washington D.C. — On Wednesday, May 20, 2026, Congresswoman Strickland questioned Secretary of the Air Force, Troy Meink; Air Force Chief of Staff, General Kenneth S. Wilsbach; and Space Force Chief of Space Operations, General B. Chance Saltzman on strategic mobility, airborne battle management, and Space Force structure. Strickland’s remarks are transcribed below and can be found here.
Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland: Thank you, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith and thank you to all of our witnesses. I’m over here today. I want to focus my questions on strategic mobility, airborne battle management and space force structures. I’ll have a question for each of you. General Wilsbach, the Air Force now expects portions of the strategic airlift fleet to remain operational for decades longer than originally planned, while the next generation airlift remains years away. The air force also waited decades to recapitalize KC 135 fleet before beginning the KC 46 program. What exactly is the department doing now to ensure the next generation airlift does not face similar recapitalization or schedule pressures as the strategic airlift continues to age?
General Kenneth S. Wilsbach: Thank you Congresswoman. Yes, we have in the budget this year a study that’s designed to look exactly at what you’re talking about, the next generation airlift. And the idea behind this study is to determine what the next aircraft will look like, what it will be, and the requirements thereof and it’s to replace the C-5 and the C-17. We have a lot of life left on both those platforms and so we’re not in a big crisis right now. We don’t think we need to replace the C-5 until about 2040 and the 17 is even beyond that. So I think we’re in okay shape and that the budget is designed to look at this for the next year.
Strickland: Thank you. And staying on operational capability, Secretary Meink, the department previously sought to terminate the E-7, but recently announced plans to move forward with five additional aircraft. We do not see funding for those aircraft in the FY27 budget request, though we understand the department plans to submit a budget amendment to fully fund the program in 27 and beyond. What operational realities actually cause the department to reverse course, and what’s the status of that funding request?
Secretary Troy Meink: Uh, maybe answer the second part. First, the status of the request is we’re putting through a budget amendment and the I think it’s in the ballpark of around $1.5 billion. It’s working its way through the system right now to come to the hill. That will fund 27. And then when we build the 28 budget, we will work it into the long-term plan. With respect to what’s changed, what’s changed is when the decision was made to cancel the E-7, we were working at a top line of the department of about 890. We have, we hope, much more budget flexibility now and that was one of the things that we put back on the back on the priority list to put into the budget. It is really just simply at the 890 mark, we were cutting things that we didn’t want to cut. Now we have enough flexibility to put some of that back in and that was one of the airplanes that went on it. Just at a very high level, we believe the space-based and the air-based AMTI mission working together is where we need to be and we’re looking for support from the hill, so appreciate that.
Strickland: Do you feel confident that the department can now execute airborne battle management without the E-7?
Meink: I think we had a plan to do that without the E-7, using space-based, because again, if you look at the larger air battle management, it is a fusion of sensors that are really across air space and the ground domains. The 7 helps make that problem easier. With that, I’ll maybe turn it over to General Wilsbach for a couple comments.
Wilsbach: I agree with the secretary. We can do air battle management from a number of different platforms, but the E-7 allows us, what we believe, is the highest capability to be flexible and get the air battle manager in the right space at the right time to manage that battle.
Strickland: Thank you. All right. Now I’m going to go to General Saltzman and turning to space force, which by the way, has the best logo of all the services. I’ve got to point that out. Very modern. General Saltzman, the Space Force is receiving major budget and manpower growth, while also stating the force remains too small for expanding mission set. Given recent information provided to congress showing shortfalls in both military and civilian acquisition personnel, what’s the service doing to address those gaps, particularly as it prepares to manage a roughly 300% increase in funding?
General B. Chance Saltzman: Well, we are planning to grow as quickly as possible. Something like 2,000 new civilian hires over the next year, for example. We’re doing about 300–I’m looking at my notes here–300 personnel actions per month to bring on that civilian workforce, which is a big part of our acquisition cadre. 2,800 new active-duty guardians is a part of the request. The missions that are coming on are going to require us to put together 10 new program offices to make sure we can do the kinds of acquisition that’s necessary on an operationally relevant timeline. It’ll probably result in about 40 new squadrons just with the new missions we have coming down the pipe. So, this is about understanding what the mission requirements are doing, doing all the manpower and then bringing in all the acquisition to do it.
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