The Air Force would have to eliminate a fleet of aerial tankers and other manned or unmanned aircraft for performing intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions if sequestration returns in October, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh warned Congress this week.
Welsh told the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony Wednesday that the service would divest its fleet of KC-10 tankers under sequestration, which is scheduled to take effect on Oct. 1, the beginning of fiscal 2016, if Congress does not act to stop the draconian spending cuts from kicking in.
The loss of the KC-10s would deprive the Air Force of 13 percent of its refueling booms and 21 percent of its fuel capacity, he said. It would leave the KC-135s as the only current aircraft for carrying out the mission.
Sequestration would require the Air Force to reduce its planned buys of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in 2016, pushing them out to later years, he said.
Welsh also said the service would also give up its U-2s planes, which would cut high-altitude ISR capability by 50 percent, and gut the gathering of high altitude imagery by 70 percent.
Sequestration would hit an Air Force already at its lowest size in history and further hamper battle readiness, Welsh said. During the first Gulf War in 1990-91, Welsh said the Air Force had 188 fighter squadrons, a number that today sits at 54 and will drop to 49.
“We are now the smallest Air Force we have ever been,” Welsh said, a point that prompted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of SASC, to interrupt Welsh’s opening statement with a request for him to repeat it.
Welsh said sequestration means the Air Force would eliminate the Block 40 version of the unmanned high flying RQ-4 Global Hawk, a move that would reduce the service’s ability to collect intelligence on targets for Pacific Command and Central Command by 6,000 flight hours per year.
The Air Force would also have to eliminate some of its E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft and reduce orbits of its MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper UAVs by 10, he said. The two unmanned systems fly medium altitude ISR missions and support air operations against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.