VOA Interview: Air Force Has Too Few Fighter Squadrons to Meet Commanders' Needs
November 28, 2016 12:50 AM
Carla Babb
JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, VIRGINIA —
When Iraqi troops began the operation to retake Mosul last month, fighter pilots in America’s F-22 Raptor jets struck the first Islamic State targets there. But that kind of operation may be in jeopardy.
The U.S. Air Force says a shortage of fighter pilots has become so dire that it is struggling to satisfy combat requirements abroad.
“We have too few squadrons to meet the combatant commanders’ needs,” Major General Scott Vander Hamm, the general in charge of fixing the fighter pilot crisis, said in an exclusive interview with VOA.
http://www.voanews.com/a/air-force-has-too-few-fighter-squadrons-to-meet-needs/3614173.html
