Frank Kendall, the Secretary of the Air Force, responded to Elon Musk’s feedback slamming the F-35.
While Kendall mentioned he respects the billionaire, he mentioned Musk is “not a fighter.”
Musk has dismissed the F-35 as out of date in comparison with drones, however Kendall mentioned the fact is a long time away.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall mentioned Elon Musk ought to know extra about air fight know-how earlier than publicly denouncing manned fighter planes as out of date.
“I’ve plenty of respect for Elon Musk as an engineer,” Kendall mentioned Thursday on the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“He’s not a fighter, and he must be taught just a little extra in regards to the enterprise, I believe, earlier than he makes such grand bulletins as he has,” Kendall mentioned.
Musk not too long ago gained public consideration for posting on X that manned fighters, such because the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, have been inefficient in comparison with drones and have a “shitty design.”
Calling the creators of the F-35 “idiots” Musk posted movies of drone swarms and wrote that manned fighters could be simply shot down by fashionable surface-to-air missile defenses and enemy drones.
Kendall, who oversees the U.S. Air Force’s funds, defined Musk’s imaginative and prescient the superiority of drones is many years away.
“It’s provocative, it is attention-grabbing,” he mentioned of Musk’s statements. “I can think about that sooner or later; I do not suppose it has been centuries, although; I believe it is extra like a long time the place one thing like he imagines might occur.”
“But we’re not there,” Kendall added. “And it should take a while to get there.”
Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark despatched outdoors of regular enterprise hours by Business Insider.
Kendall mentioned he pushed the Air Force to make a “key resolution” to discipline drones that work in tandem with manned fighters.
However, he added, the United States might finally reduce deliberate purchases of the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter made by Lockheed Martin, relying on how rapidly different applied sciences advance.
“Our stock aim for the F-35 is 1,700-something. I do not know what we’ll in the end purchase, and nobody can predict that proper now,” the secretary mentioned.
But he additionally does not suppose the F-35 shall be changed anytime quickly, and mentioned the U.S. remains to be shopping for extra planes for now and into the foreseeable future.
“It trumps fourth-generation plane. Period. And in a really, very critical means. It’s not even shut. And there is not any different to that within the brief time period,” he mentioned.
The United States is taking a look at a sixth-generation fighter, also called the next-generation air dominance program, that may give attention to manned jets working together with drones.
Kendall mentioned that if the NGAD program continues, it should nonetheless take years to supply that fighter in amount, and it’ll initially be “very costly” to supply.
It’s unclear how Musk’s views on the F-35 and drones might materially have an effect on U.S. protection spending. The billionaire was appointed co-head of a brand new Department for Government Effectivenesswhich goals to cut back what it considers extra federal spending.
Musk is in President-elect Donald Trump’s shut orbit, and this week he proved he can exert considerable influence in Congress, when Republican lawmakers adopted his lead in trashing a bipartisan invoice that sought to keep away from a authorities shutdown.
Meanwhile, Kendall is anticipated to step down as secretary of the Air Force when President Joe Biden, who nominated him, leaves workplace in January. The secretary expressed a want in September to stay in his put up because the Trump administration takes over.
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