Air Force Tells Congress It Needs 1,509 Combat Fighters by 2035

The U.S. Air Force flies fewer combat fighters than the law requires, and some of them are older than the pilots who fly them. Now the service has told Congress how big a fighter fleet it thinks it needs a decade from now: 1,509 combat-coded jets by 2035.

The number comes from a new force structure report delivered to lawmakers last week and explained by the Air Force's top planner at a Pentagon roundtable on Tuesday. It describes a fleet built more and more around the F-35 and a coming sixth-generation fighter, and it deliberately leaves out the drone wingmen now being tested in California and Nevada. For Silicon Valley, where autonomy software and defense startups have become big business, that omission may be the most interesting part.

What the Air Force Told Congress

The Air Force sent the report to Congress on October 16. Lt. Gen. David Tabor, the service's deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, walked reporters through its main estimates on October 20, though the full document has not been released.

The 1,509 figure counts only crewed, combat-coded fighters, the jets assigned to operational units rather than to training or testing. It is based on what the regional combatant commanders say they need to carry out their plans at "medium" risk, the second of four risk levels the Pentagon uses, running from low to high. Tabor said the analysis began before this year's combat operations against Iran and was not driven by them.

He was also clear that the number is not set in stone. "Certainly, world events and changing requirements in the combatant commands will change that number," Tabor told reporters at the roundtable.

Last year's version of the report set a goal of about 1,558 fighters by 2035 for a low risk posture, with an interim target of roughly 1,369 by 2030. Defense bills now moving through Congress would write similar floors into law.

A Fleet Built Around the F-35

Leave out the A-10 attack jets being retired, and today's Air Force fighter fleet is roughly 45 percent F-16s, 30 percent F-35s, 15 percent F-15s and 10 percent F-22s. The 2035 plan shifts that balance.

About 40 percent of the fleet would be F-35s, built by Lockheed Martin. About 20 percent would be F-22s and the new F-47, the sixth-generation fighter Boeing is developing to replace the F-22 in roughly equal numbers. The remaining 40 percent would likely be split about evenly between F-15 variants, including the new F-15EX, and F-16s. The A-10 has no place in the 2035 plan at all.

The Air Force still has about 185 F-22s in service, so replacing them with F-47s would by itself be one of the largest fighter programs of the next decade. The F-16 question is harder. Older F-16s reach the end of their service lives in the mid-2030s, and the service is weighing a new-build version, tentatively called the F-16G, but has not decided whether to buy it.

The Money and the Factories

Getting to 1,509 depends on two things the Air Force does not control: money from Congress and production from industry. Officials have long said the service needs to buy about 72 fighters a year to keep the fleet from shrinking. Its fiscal 2027 budget request asks for 62, made up of 38 F-35s and 24 F-15EXs.

Even that depends on politics. The budget counts on $2.34 billion from a separate reconciliation bill to pay for 14 of the 38 F-35s. If that money does not come through, the Air Force could shift funds from other programs or push those purchases to 2028. The service is also asking Congress for multiyear contracts for the F-35 and F-15EX, which would let manufacturers plan production further ahead.

"The question is, can industry produce at those levels?" Tabor said, adding that companies have told the service they can.

The gap the plan has to close is real. According to a Congressional Research Service report in September, the Air Force had 1,098 combat-coded fighters in fiscal 2026, below the legal minimum of 1,145, and the fleet's average age was about 27 years. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink formally notified Congress of the shortfall in May.

Why Silicon Valley Should Care

The most important aircraft for the tech industry may be the ones the report does not count. The Air Force plans to field 500 Collaborative Combat Aircraft, uncrewed jets designed to fly alongside crewed fighters, by 2032, and eventually a fleet of about 1,000. Tabor said they are not yet changing the fighter math, but that they could lower the number of fighters needed in future reports.

The first two designs come from companies built on software as much as on metal. Anduril, the defense startup founded by Palmer Luckey and backed by Silicon Valley investors, makes the YFQ-44A Fury. Earlier this month, an F-22 pilot gave high-level commands to a Fury in flight while the drone's own autonomy software carried them out, the first time the Air Force's top fighter has directed one of its new drone wingmen. General Atomics delivered its YFQ-42A to Creech Air Force Base in Nevada in September for testing.

"We are driving urgency into every part of acquisition," Meink said in the Air Force's announcement of the F-22 test.

The Pentagon's main bridge to the region, the Defense Innovation Unit, is headquartered at Moffett Field in Mountain View, where it works to bring commercial technology into military programs. For founders and engineers here, the fighter report is a signal of where demand is heading: autonomy, sensors, secure networks and manufacturing that can scale faster than traditional defense supply chains.

Can the Air Force Rebuild Its Fighter Fleet?

The prospects are real. The plan gives Congress and industry a clear target, and a growing share of the fleet would be fifth and sixth-generation aircraft that are far more capable than the jets they replace. Multiyear contracts could lower costs and steady production lines in Texas and Missouri, and the drone wingmen could multiply what each crewed fighter can do. If autonomy matures quickly, the Air Force may get more combat power out of fewer pilots, at a time when it has struggled to recruit and keep them.

There are serious concerns as well. The service has missed its fighter buying goals for years, and the current request already falls 10 jets short of the 72 a year officials say they need. F-35 production has faced delays and parts shortages, and the F-47 is still early in development, the stage where costs and schedules often slip. Retiring old F-16s before replacements arrive could leave units without enough jets, and more aircraft also means more pilots, maintainers and spare parts, all of which have been in short supply.

There is also a debate about the number itself. Some lawmakers and analysts argue that the Air Force needs a larger fleet to deter China in the Pacific, and that settling for medium risk is a step back from last year's low risk goal. Others say the service should lean harder on cheaper drones and long-range weapons instead of buying expensive crewed fighters that may struggle against modern air defenses. Counting rules add to the confusion: the Air Force has proposed a new way of tallying its jets, and congressional analysts have asked whether it could mask shortfalls in pilots and maintainers.

Drones are the wild card. If the Collaborative Combat Aircraft prove reliable and affordable, future reports could trade some crewed fighters for larger numbers of uncrewed ones. If the software, networking or communications fall short, the Air Force could end up short on both.

The signals to watch are specific. Will Congress pass the reconciliation funding and approve multiyear contracts for the F-35 and F-15EX? Will the final defense bill write fighter floors into law, and will it count drones? Can Lockheed Martin and Boeing deliver at higher rates without new delays? And will the next force structure report lower the fighter requirement as drone wingmen move from testing into service?

From Airliners to Fighters

At Sparknify we follow how new aircraft move from the factory to the flight line. Earlier today we looked at FAA Certifies Boeing's 737 MAX 10, the Largest Jet in the MAX Family, the long road to certifying Boeing's biggest single-aisle jet. The same company now builds the F-15EX and is developing the F-47, and the same question applies: can production keep pace with demand once the paperwork is done?

The fighter fleet of 2035 will depend less on the number in this report than on how many jets, and drones, actually roll off the line.

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