By Theresa Hitchens on May 18, 2021 at 3:09 PM F-35 Joint Strike Fighter assembly line WASHINGTON: The US aerospace industrial base cannot meet emerging the Air Force’s or the wider military’s needs for rapid innovation to stay ahead of peer competitors, the Mitchell Institute says. “What we found was that the structure and business models of today’s aerospace defense industrial base is not configured to invent, develop or deliver the force, the future needs, and certainly not at the pace that a technologically peer adversary will demand,” Heather Penney, senior resident fellow at Mitchell, said today. “Time is the new offset; adaptation is our new advantage,” said Dave Deptula, the institute’s dean, today.