These Legacy Aircraft Are Draining the Pentagon Budget. Is It Time to Cut Them Loose? Retiring those planes would save $29.7 billion over the next five years. But that’s not to say their withdrawal is guaranteed—indeed that’s downright unlikely for certain types. Here's What You Need to Remember: America should take care to avoid losing the ability to perform certain missions if there’s no real replacement or substitute. In a speech on November 6, 2019 General David Goldfein, Chief of Staff the Air Force outlined a four-point plan to spend $30 billion over the next five years reforming the air warfare branch to make it more capable of tackling emerging hi-tech threats from China and Russia in the 2030s.