A B-21 Raider lands during flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in September 2024. (Juan Femath/U.S. Air Force)
A new strategic stealth bomber, modernized ICBM missiles, and a sixth-generation fighter are President Donald Trump’s top priorities in the Air Force budget proposal for fiscal 2026 released by the Pentagon on Thursday.
The Air Force requests Congress spend $209.6 billion — a 13.5% increase from fiscal 2025, which ends Sept. 30. It includes $184.9 billion in the annual defense budget, supplemented with another $24.9 billion in one-time spending included in legislation now before Congress.
To fund its priorities, the Air Force will reduce its planned purchase of F-35A Lightning II fighters by 24 planes. The budget also calls for retiring all 162 of its remaining A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft by the end of 2027 instead of the previously planned phase-out over three years.
The budget was rolled out Thursday during an appearance by top Air Force officials at a congressional hearing and later in the day during a briefing at the Pentagon.
The budget calls for $10.3 billion to fund the B-21 Raider, now undergoing final flight testing, which will become the Air Force’s key manned bomber.
The budget also calls for modernization to keep B-52 Stratofortress bombers — originally designed in the 1948 — for launching long-range cruise missiles. Plans call for the eventual retirement of two other Air Force bombers — the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit.
The Air Force is requesting $4.2 billion to continue replacing the LGM-30 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM.
Cutting F-35A Lightning II fighter purchases will allow the Air Force to shift $3.5 billion in funds to develop the sixth-generation F-47 stealth fighter, announced in March by Trump. The development of small drones, which proved effective in attacks during the Russia-Ukraine war, will also see a boost in development funding.
The budget also calls for $3.1 billion to continue buying 21 F-15EX Eagle II interceptors.
The money from the F-35A cuts will also go toward increased funding for the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile and an extended-range version of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. The Air Force officials said Thursday that the weapons are crucial to maintain air superiority in the vast regions of the Indo-Pacific, where China is rapidly building its forces.
Another proposed budget victim is the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail surveillance aircraft. The Air Force cited cost overruns and questions about its survivability in combat zones. The Air Force had planned to buy 26 of the aircraft to replace older E-3 AWACs aircraft, but said at the briefing it would shift its surveillance emphasis to space-based satellites.
The service also plans to spend $39.8 billion on active-duty personnel, with an additional $2.75 billion for the Air Force Reserve and $5.6 billion for the Air National Guard.
Military construction for the Air Force is budgeted at $3.8 billion, with an additional $634 million allocated for family housing — the largest expenditure slated for any branch of the armed services.
At the congressional hearing Thursday, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., praised the Air Force for the long-range bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.
“At the end of the day, nobody in the world but the U.S. Air Force can do what you did this weekend,” he said. “America’s ability to project power globally is unparalleled.”
But McConnell said the “two bills, one budget” approach to the defense budget is gambling the future of key military weapons programs by betting Congress would approve the one-time funding that requires only a majority vote in each chamber.
McConnell was critical of the bottom-line budget for the Air Force, which he said was not keeping up with the rapid expansion of China’s military — or inflation.
“The Air Force needs to modernize its bomber and fighter fleets,” he said. “It needs new tankers and command and control aircraft. It also needs longer-range and more sophisticated munitions. And it needs a lot of them.”
