“We don’t have to make that decision this year,” he said. Hinote said the F-22′s retirement would be “event-driven” and interwoven with NGAD’s development, occurring closer to the 2030s than in the upcoming fiscal year 2022 budget cycle. Talk of the F-22′s future was conspicuously absent in Brown’s comments, even though the Raptor currently ranks as the Air Force’s second newest fighter and its premier air superiority fighter. He added that the service would also retain the A-10 Warthog attack plane “for a while.” With that four, what is the right mix?” Brown said at the McAleese and Associates conference on Wednesday. Those four aircraft include NGAD, the Lockheed Martin F-35 joint strike fighter, Boeing F-15EX and Lockheed F-16. Brown disclosed the service’s upcoming plan to phase out the F-22 and streamline the service’s fighter inventory to four main fighter variants.

Hinote spoke with Defense News a day after Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. “We’re treating as the bridge to the NGAD capability,” he said, using an acronym for the Next Generation Air Dominance program, under which the service plans to develop a sixth-generation fighter to replace the F-22.

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