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Troy Meink, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Air Force secretary, addressed the service’s recapitalization efforts and its continuing pilot shortage during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.
Prior to being tapped by Trump in January to serve as the next head of the Department of the Air Force, Meink spent four years as principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a Defense Department intelligence agency that works closely with the Space Force.
Meink addressed the service's older aircraft, including the KC-135 Stratotanker, which has been in service since 1956 and may stay in the fleet past its planned retirement.
Meink, who was a KC-135 Stratotanker navigator and instructor early in his five-year military career, said the focus needs to be on producing new tankers to replace the aging aircraft.
“[The KC-135] is getting pretty old and we’re going to have to replace those, he said, “which means we have to get the new tanker into full-production.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked how Meink will address the Air Force’s continuing pilot shortage, which stands at roughly 1,800 pilots.
Meink asserted that the solution is more than just raising pilots’ pay but looking for ways to improve their quality of life and ensure they get adequate flying time.
“We’ve got to make sure — not just with pilots, but across our highlight skilled areas within our workforce — that they have the opportunity to do what they’ve been trained, what they love to do,” he said.
Meink also said the Air National Guard is “critically important” to the Air Force.
“The Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve provide strategic depth and operational capacity across all mission sets, domains, and capabilities of the Total Force,” Meink said in his written testimony.
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., questioned how Meink will ensure the Air Guard gets its “fair share” of the new aircraft.
“One of the things I plan to do is take a holistic look across all the modernization activities to understand what we need from a numbers perspective and how fast we need to build to support the active duty and reserve units,” Meink said.
During his time in uniform, Meink completed 100 missions, including eight combat and 29 combat support missions in support of operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Provide Comfort.
Meink holds master’s and doctoral degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Ohio State University.
The SASC will next vote on whether to advance Meink’s nomination for consideration by the full Senate.
— By Donald Lambert
