Air Force pushes out upgrades to Alaska training range by six years

It will be another six years until the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex is able to achieve Level 4 capabilities, the Air Force's top planner told a Senate subcommittee today.

A training facility for land, air, sea, space and cyberspace, the Alaska-based range is now not expected to reach those near-peer capabilities until fiscal year 2032. The range, called JPARC, is key to supporting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

During a Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee hearing, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) said that projection flew in the face of a March 2020 Air Force report that included the goal to complete the fifth-generation modernization of JPARC by fiscal year 2026.

Slamming the delay as not "even remotely acceptable," Sullivan told Air Force leaders he just learned of the new timeline today.

"It's not one year, it's not two years, it's not three years. You bumped it half a decade," he said. "Do we have half a decade to get our fifth-gen fighting fleet ready to compete with China and Russia? I don't think so."

Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs Lt. Gen. David Nahom maintained that JPARC, along with the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR), remain among the service's "top two" priorities.

"Right now, we're aggressively looking at plans to make sure that the JPARC is our exclusive training ground," he said. "That and the NTTR truly are, especially for our Pacific forces."

Nahom didn't say publicly what caused the delay, and he told Sullivan officials would share "the exact breakdown of what was delayed to bump it out" with the senator's staff.

The joint testimony Nahom and other Air Force leaders provided noted the Air Force is currently "evaluating options to accelerate those upgrades," but didn't offer further details.

The joint presentation also showed the NTTR is projected to reach Level 4 capabilities in fiscal year 2030.