The Air Force will rely on a blend of manned and unmanned tactical aviation for “at least this generation” because of the need for planes that can survive contested airspace, according to the service’s chief of staff.

“The bottom line is that, for at least this generation, 10 years and probably 30 or more, there will be a continuing need for a blend of both remotely and manned operations where we will be able to act and not be overly constrained if the threat environment escalates,” Gen. Norton Schwartz told an audience yesterday at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Schwartz said remotely piloted aircraft, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS), are a “largely benign airspace platform” and cannot survive in contested airspace.

“As a result, there will be a continuing need for manned tactical aviation, which can survive and perform missions despite the advances of both state and non-state active cells,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz’s comments fit with the Pentagon’s continuing focus in the Asia-Pacific region, a region characterized with advances in Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) threats, where a potential adversary, such as China, gears up for a potential United States presence by focusing on preventing entrance to a space (anti-access) or restricting movement within a space (area denial).

While the Defense Department has increased its use of UASs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) over the past 10 years, much of that was in uncontested airspace over Iraq and Afghanistan.

Schwartz’s comments also come as a budget battle between Capitol Hill lawmakers and the Pentagon heats up. The Defense Department in February announced it would cancel the Block 30 variant of Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Global Hawk ISR UAS in the fiscal year 2013 budget in favor of maintaining the legacy, and manned, U-2 spy plane. The House Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee is calling for preventing DoD from shutting down the Block 30 by recommending adding $263.3 million to the Pentagon’s $75 million request for the Block 30 in the FY ’13 budget (Defense Daily, April 27).

“If the outcome is to restore force structure to the Air Force, it needs to come with the resources to assure it is good, it is resourced to do the training, the exercise, the sustainment and so on that is required,” Schwartz said. “To just indicate ‘keep it and make it work’ is not a satisfactory solution, in my opinion.”