The U.S. Air Force plans to buy 38 F-35 stealth fighters next year. Its most influential advocacy group says that is nowhere near enough, and that the real number should be at least 60, every single year.

In a letter to Congressional leaders this week, the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) laid out a blunt case: the Air Force fighter fleet is shrinking, the Space Force’s record-breaking budget is in jeopardy, and lawmakers are drifting toward a stopgap that could freeze both. It is the kind of Washington fight that rarely makes headlines but quietly shapes what America can put in the sky a decade from now.

The math on a shrinking fleet

The Air Force’s 2027 request of 38 F-35As is an improvement on the 24 it asked for in 2026, but it still falls well short of what its own advocates want. Analysts have put the number needed to reverse the fleet’s decline at around 72 a year, and Air National Guard leaders have argued the service needs closer to 100 new fighters annually just to keep pace with retirements.

The AFA also wants Congress to grant the Pentagon multiyear procurement authority for the F-35, an arrangement that could lock in lower prices by committing to more jets over several years at once. Across the whole U.S. military, the 2027 plan requests 85 F-35s.

It is not just jets, it is space

The letter’s other headline is the Space Force. Its $71.1 billion request for 2027 is the most ambitious in the young service’s history, more than double its 2026 funding, with roughly $5 billion for missile warning and tracking, $7 billion for airborne targeting satellites and billions more for launches and new operations centers. Almost half of that procurement money was meant to flow through the reconciliation process, which is now deeply uncertain on Capitol Hill.

Pourquoi maintenant ?

The timing is everything. With the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and a midterm election looming, the Pentagon is almost certain to open the year under a continuing resolution that freezes spending at 2026 levels and stalls new programs. A separate reconciliation package that was supposed to add $350 billion has been whittled to $60 billion, putting 14 of those 38 F-35As, and big chunks of the Space Force plan, directly at risk.

For the Air Force and Space Force, in other words, the most important battle this autumn is not over any ocean or border. It is over a spending bill, and the AFA is making sure Congress hears about it.

Sources: Air & Space Forces Magazine, Air & Space Forces Association, Aviation A2Z.