Dr. Delaney: I am honored to have this opportunity to speak to you at this year's Air Warfare Symposium. In regions across America, one of the sure-ist things the total Air Force team can always count on is the outstanding support we get from the AFA and the Central Florida Chapter especially. I think I speak for everyone who has participated in this year's event when I say that you have earned our highest and most sincere appreciation for another job well done. 
Before I discuss the challenges facing today's Air Force, I want to take just a moment to recognize, on behalf of the entire Air Force, the tremendous contributions made by Secretary Peters and it was great to have that formally recognized with this plaque. We owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. Working with General Ryan, that team did a superb job in bring in the Air Force to an unprecedented level in our ability to succeed in combat with our sister services and allies. 

The role of aerospace power in the joint arena has been tested and proven to be extremely effective. It is truly impressive how far aerospace power has come and how much we've achieved in the last century. Flight throughout the entire vertical dimension has enabled mankind to succeed beyond our lofty dreams. It has enabled our great nation to claim air superiority over every battlefield. Aerospace power is America's asymmetric advantage. We must fund and continue to develop it across the full spectrum of capabilities. 
Given that I am the only thing between you, lunch and the golf course, I intend to keep this short, focusing on the critical issues facing the Air Force during this transition period and giving you back some important minutes necessary to hone your skills to deal with the aerodynamics of dimpled, spinning spheres in curvalinear flight, at least when I hit it. 
I do want to discuss today where we are in the Air Force and where we are going, detailing some of our more compelling successes and challenges in joint operations, Air Force transformation, space, and also covering critical factors for our future, such as re-capitalization, information technology and people programs.
Where are we today? The Air Force focused this past year on two main endeavors - balance and integration. To its credit, the total Air Force team finds itself today much more balanced and more fully integrated with our Guard and Reserve components than ever. We achieved and will continue to further pursue synchronization and integration across all of our systems, assuring freedom of action while enhancing our goal of global vigilance, reach and power. In addition, we successfully attacked some of the key challenges for the Air Force last year. Our focus on recruiting now seems to be paying off. We are ahead of schedule to meet our goals and are recruiting even more airmen this year than we did last year. As you know, this is only half of the problem. 

Early assessments on our retention efforts show some success but we need to continue our attack because our retention problem is far from solved. Since last year, we completed our first full rotation of the expeditionary aerospace force, proving its value as a maneuver force in support of national security objectives. We can deploy one aerospace expeditionary force, or about 120 aircraft and 10 thousand airmen, within 48 hours. Even more impressive, we can deploy five of them in just 15 days. By we are not done with our complete transformation to a light, lethal and flexible expeditionary aerospace force. 
We need to continue our efforts to fully fuse air and space systems and manned and unmanned ISR assets into the EAF structure. This will leverage these capabilities to provide around the clock surveillance in order to dominate the multi-dimensioned battle space. I'll now go through the comprehensive list of Air Force accomplishments this past year. Certainly the flight performance of the F-22 airframe engine and avionics has been remarkable. And the flight demonstration on the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft thus far has been spectacular. When you look at that list of our accomplishments, we also took care of our most important asset, our people, to the credit of the Air Force leadership, with a contribution of the Guard and Reserve and the support of the OSD and the Congress. Last year was a great year for Air Force, but I really want to talk about where we are headed in the future. 

We stand today at an important juncture between a brilliant past and a very tough challenging future. At the risk of sounding parochial, aerospace forces have become the crucial component of joint and coalition operations. We are the first-to-the-fight service, delivering significant mass rapidly and with precision to halt enemy operations day and night. We must continue to build and field this capacity during an era of restricted budgets, reduced manpower and increased operational requirements. It is my view that the next 5 to 10 years will be critical in determining the long-term contribution of aerospace power. 
We have the opportunities in the coming decade to positively affect the impact and influence of aerospace power for many decades to follow. I say this because we are at a point right now that is unprecedented in our past. We have no single dominant threat. However, given the proliferation of technology, both natural and surreptitious, we have many potential, formidable opponents. Our infrastructure and our aircraft are older and require more maintenance each day, without sufficient funding to replace or modernize them. Meanwhile, the cost of operations and maintenance increases each year. These challenges facing us are not insurmountable. To the contrary, we are very excited about the opportunities for change and improvement that these challenges pose. We are developing workable solutions. I know you are all aware of the studies and reviews that have begun in the Pentagon. These reviews will offer us opportunities to shape the future Air Force role in joint operations. We must respond and make our case, maintaining absolute integrity in the process. 
The Air Force has a tradition of constant formation, through revolutionary technologies, innovative concepts and fundamental organizational changes. We are exploiting emergent technologies, such as directed energy weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles, and 24-hour/7-day-a-week global surveillance systems to maintain our aerospace supremacy. As one advertisement says, the great risk is in not taking risk. We must make technology work for us. 

In the space arena, the recently complete space commission study presents a major challenge to the Air Force. Our ability to adapt, respond to and assimilate change will help the Air Force greatly as we work our way through responding to and implementing the Space Commission's recommendations. Certainly, we have to protect our access to space and our assets in space. We must structure the most efficient air and space mission organizations to assure U.S. supremacy in space as we have achieved in the skies. This is a fascinating opportunity to make great strides for the future Air Force stewardship of space. We are ready for this challenge. 
The Air Force is in the business of anticipating future required capabilities and responding with necessary changes to keep us on the leading edge. Examples of issues we are currently addressing include the required increase in strategic airlift; meeting needed capacity for global broad-band communications; and shaping our civilian work force to ensure it meets our future needs. Our challenge is less in predicting the future than it is in finding the optimal balance among all the competing priorities. 
One of the most critical factors facing the Air Force today is the need to re-capitalize our forces. By recapitalize, I mean, to fund the programs that acquire and sustain the systems that meet our commitments to the defense of the United States and our allies. The average age of our aircraft, which stands today at about 22 years, is rising at such a rate that we may see in the near future a day when in which the average age of our aircraft is older than the average age of the pilots who fly them. 

This directly affects our readiness because the older aircraft are becoming more difficult and more expensive to keep mission capable. In fact, our mission-capable rates have declined by 10 points since 1991. We have already begun to address aircraft readiness by improving our spare parts acquisition and inventory programs. Recapitalization can bring down the average age of our systems and supporting infrastructure. This in turn should lead to lower operations and maintenance costs and provide lasting improvements in our readiness and mission-capable rates. Much of this depends on the resources that are made available to the Air Force for this recapitalization. 
Modernization remains a top priority for the Air Force. There is not a single space system that we are not currently modernizing. We take our stewardship of space seriously. Most of our top line procurement programs are being developed with revolutionary, not evolutionary, technology. In the case of the F-22, we have modernized so pointedly that we have, in effect, skipped a generation in technology with stealth, super cruise, integrated avionics and unchallenged maneuverability. 
Together with this focus, we still need to further streamline the process and shorten the time it takes to get new technologies to the operators. Technology won't wait. One of our chief goals is more agile procurement. We have come a long way. Commercial partnering for both the EELV and C-17 programs are just two examples. We still have a long way to go. 

Another good Air Force example of revolutionary change is in information technology. The Air Force has worked this past year with the strong support of Secretary Peters, General Ryan and the MajCom commanders to revolutionize the Air Force approach to information management by going network-centric. One goal is to consolidate network servers and desktop services on every base with each MajCom completing one base by August of this year. We are working to establish an on-line self-service capability so all of our people have access to their personnel and military pay services over the Internet. They will have that access anywhere in the world they have a connection to the Internet. We will have the single portal for the entire Air Force. This will bring significant changes in the way we do business, not to mention save us, according to what we've seen in industry, about 15 percent in our cost of doing business. We are working to web-enable the theater battle management course system, bringing us the capability, for example, to fully employ network-centric air tasking order processing for operational planning and execution. That should prove to be a most exciting IT force multiplier for theater commanders, planners and warfighters. 
We've been able to revolutionize the Air Force around these capabilities because through all of our years of transformation, we have hung on tightly to our two most important enablers - technology and people. We must protect our advantage over potential adversaries with the outstanding people that make up our total Air Force team. The other enabler, technology, is not inherently loyal. Technology can proliferate, be copied and be sold. Our challenge, then, is to stay ahead of it. We must stay at least two generations ahead of our potential adversaries. Herein again lies another example of the need to continue to increase our commitment and investment in science and technology in order to keep our forces modern, effective and less expensive to operate and maintain. 

Pre-eminence in aerospace technology requires a strong scientist and engineer work force and the state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure. I've mentioned people and I just want to say a word here about the importance of people to the success of the total Air Force team. It goes without saying, but it is also something that must be said. The Air Force is a retention-base force. Our reliance on technology means we must attract, train, mature and retain people on our team who can employ that technology. Toward that end, we keep the quality of life for our people and their families at the top of our priority list. We accomplish our missions because of our persistent and respected blend of superior technology and superior people. As much as we accomplished last year for our people - and there were many successes - we have more to do. So, we continue to pursue further improvements, such as increases in pay, compensation, benefits and other quality of life programs. 
Our civilian work force is also going to require much of our attention. Reshaping our civilian workforce for the future is just one example of improvements we need to make for our people. I am proud to be part of a team that recognizes and celebrates our dedication to the people who dedicate so much to us every day, serving throughout the world. 
In closing, I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak with you this morning. The Air Force is a military service with a brilliant future. As I stand here, with one foot in the present and one foot in the future, I want to say humbly that no one comes close. I appreciate all the support the total Air Force team receives from Americans across the country. We are lucky to have a very close friend who stands beside us, supporting, advising, helping, and that is the Air Force Association. We are blessed with a great relationship so I want to especially thank all of you for your outstanding support over the years. We face a challenging future, but one that I know is bright and promising for all of us who know that aerospace power built, delivered, operated and sustained by our outstanding people is the cornerstone for preserving our set of values. Thank you. 

General Shaud: Can you give us an update on the F-22 and Joint Strike Fighter, specifically, your take on long-term health of these programs?
Dr. Delaney: The long-term health of the F-22 is excellent. In getting to an LRIP DAB, which will be set by OSD, we had a list of criteria that we had to meet. It was a very tough list indeed. One of the toughest was the testing of the full set of avionics in an airborne aircraft. It turned out to be doubly tough because the original schedule had that for April of 01 and we actually pulled that all the way back into December. Lockheed-Boeing and Pratt and Whitney team working that pulled that off. In my way, that is a fantastic milestone. Now we have met all of our criteria to go into LRIP DAB and we are ready to go. 
As you know with all these studies that are going in the Pentagon, I sense there is truly the support that is needed for F-22 to bring it through the LRIP DAB successfully and then onto DIOTE. We are in good shape there. 
As I mentioned in my talk, the flight of the two concept demonstrators on the JSF has really been something to see. When I went out to Edwards, there was the F-22 and then right adjacent to it the Lockeed version of JSF and then the Boeing version of JSF and Global Hawk. You see this array of really revolutionary capability that is coming on board. We are emerging out of the concept demonstration phase for the JSF and we'll do a down select in the fall. The capability of that aircraft - and you've heard it in many of the presentations - is just a perfect fit for the high-low mix. We truly expect that it will not only be a most significant platform for the Air Force-Navy and Marines, but also for our allies. 

General Shaud: What, in your opinion, does the Administration mean when they speak of skipping a generation of weapons? 

Dr. Delaney: There is probably a lot of pools out there in Washington to the person who figures that out. I think if you look at the F-22 as an example of skip a generation because we could have done an evolutionary change to our current platforms and we are doing much of that, but that is not really the answer to truly a new plateau of capability. If you took all the lessons that we've learned from the F-15, from the F-16, from what we see our allies doing and you incorporate all that in a single platform where the objective being stealth super cruise and integrated avionics, it gives you a totally new class of platform. I think that is truly the best example on which we are ready to go now for skip a generation technology. 

General Shaud: You recently held a conference on science and engineering. With regard to the civilian work force and the uniformed members of the Air Force, how are we going to address this shortfall in scientists and engineers?

Dr. Delaney: From the S&E summit, we have a standing functional director, General Steve Plumber is shepherding that at the moment. There are a lot of resources out there that we should look to in a broadened search for how you attack this S&E work force capability that you need. If you look at depths and breadths, detailed knowledge, operational experience and you overlay where the center of gravity is for the civilian work force, where it is for the military, you can see that some combination of that is going to be a potential very important solution to that problem. We are not only looking at filling in this really dearth of hiring that we've had in the last 10 years, to fill in that younger part because we want as much of an input in the latest skills from the university that we can get, but we are also very carefully surveying the people who have retired recently from the military because they bring this operational knowledge as well as superb technical skills. We are laying out the plan. We know what we need to do and we are going to get on with it. 

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