White to Become Czar for Highest-Profile Air Force Programs: F-47, B-21, and More

Lt. Gen. Dale White, the military deputy to the Air Force’s acquisition executive, has been nominated for a fourth star and a newly created job overseeing the service’s highest-visibility, highest-risk, and highest-cost programs.

In the new position, called the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Critical Major Weapon Systems, White would oversee:

The F-47 advanced fighter family, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft
The LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile
The B-21 family of systems
The VC-25B presidential airlift program, also known as “Air Force One.”

If confirmed by the Senate, White will report directly to the Pentagon’s No. 2, Deputy Secretary Steven Feinberg. While he will be an Air Force officer overseeing Air Force programs, White will technically be in a Department of War job, a Pentagon official said.

It has not yet been decided how White’s current job might be adjusted, or what changes—if any—may be coming to the portfolios of the program executive officers for bombers, fighters and advanced aircraft, or strategic systems, which work for the head of Air Force Materiel Command.

The new position was established “at the direction of the Secretary of War, in alignment with the acquisition reforms outlined in Executive Order 14265, signed by President Trump on April 9, 2025,” an Air Force spokesperson said, using the Defense Secretary’s alternate title. “The creation of the DRPM position was part of a broader strategy to prioritize these high-impact programs, ensuring they receive the highest-level attention, operational urgency, and coordinated support across the Department of War.”

There has been no word on who White’s successor will be as the acquisition deputy.

The details of the new position will be fleshed out “over the next few months,” the Air Force spokesperson said, but it will “ensure centralized oversight and accelerated delivery” of the major systems. The new position “aligns with the Department of the Air Force’s ongoing acquisition reform efforts to enhance efficiency, reduce redundancy and accelerate capabilities for our warfighters” in support of Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “move to a warfighting acquisition posture,” the spokesperson said.

Hegseth announced a series of sweeping acquisition reforms Nov. 7 that put a premium on speed of delivery of new systems, with a commensurate reduction in bureaucratic sign-offs and testing.

In his new role, White will “help streamline the acquisition process, enabling faster decision-making and expediting the delivery” of the marquee systems, and ensure that the Air Force “remains at the forefront of modernization and readiness,” the spokesperson said.

White will be “assisted by a small, highly-specialized staff resident in the Pentagon, with the current acquisition workforce supporting [him] to remain in place,” the Air Force spokesperson added.

The Department of the Air Force will work with the War Department, including Michael Duffey, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, to develop the authorities and structure of White’s new position, the spokesperson said.

The programs now receiving White’s exclusive focus are either those critical to the Air Force’s future success, experiencing difficulties, or both.

The F-47/CCA effort now taking shape will underwrite the Air Force’s future ability to achieve air superiority in future conflicts, one of the service’s core missions. Neither of the linked efforts is considered troubled at the moment, but together they represent more than $60 billion of development and production, and need to be set on a successful path that takes advantage of lessons learned from other programs.
The Sentinel is $80 billion over its baseline cost and the Air Force continues to restructure the program since it incurred large overages in cost and schedule. The main culprit seems to be unanticipated challenges in the massive civil engineering effort needed to modernize the launch silos and command capsules that will host the Sentinel; the Air Force is dropping plans to refurbish old infrastructure—which has proven not cost effective—and simply build new.
By all accounts, the B-21 is progressing on schedule, but Congress has funded an expansion of its production capacity, indicating that an increase in the bomber’s production rate and eventual production numbers is coming. The Air Force is also reportedly exploring a secondary role for the aircraft as an air-to-air missileer. The B-21 will need careful guidance and management as its scope evolves.
The VC-25B is well behind schedule and over cost. Although Boeing is building the two-airplane fleet under a fixed price arrangement, the mission is of a “no-fail” nature and service officials have said that further delay is unacceptable.

A service official said it is probable the DRPM will also have other programs added to his purview, such as the Survivable Air Operations Center, or SAOC, which is also a no-fail effort providing comprehensive airborne command and control for national leaders in times of crisis. The official said the programs the DRPM will supervise “may not require that level of scrutiny forever,” and may be handed off to the typical program management system if they are deemed stable. But given their high profile, the official said that’s unlikely to happen soon, and probably not during White’s tenure.

White is a 28-year Air Force veteran who has spent his career in acquisition management. He was the PEO for fighters and advanced aircraft, where he oversaw the creation of the F-47 and CCA programs, as well as PEO for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. He was also the senior materiel leader for the B-21 program at the Rapid Capabilities Office. White vaulted from brigadier general to lieutenant general in rapid succession after his nomination for major general was held up as part of a larger blockade of promotions in the Senate—he technically was a two-star for three weeks before being moving up another rank.

The officer in White’s current job often goes on to head AFMC, but that position may be permanently downscoped to a three-star position, as Hegseth has directed the military services reduce their numbers of general officers.

It’s not clear yet if new positions like the DRPM will be created for the other services’ highest-profile programs. The Pentagon has already implemented one DRPM job; Space Force Gen. Michael A. Guetlein was confirmed earlier this year as the program manager for the sweeping Golden Dome for America missile defense initiative, which spans multiple services.