Because they (we) will be getting the M18 instead. I had the chance a couple of weeks ago to sit down with the senior NCO in charge of the the AF’s small arms procurement during a class I was attending. Because I like handguns, pretty much all my questions were related to the timing/procurement of whatever new pistol we’re getting. We had some solid gems in this conversation, which I’ll just sum up in bullet points:
AF is getting the M18 (Compact) for the entire of the force except certain AFSCs in AFSOC which will keep the Glock 19. The Center decided to go with the M18 instead of a two weapons solution like the Army is doing. The simple rational for all of is that “the M18 does everything we need it to do, why complicate things?”
M18s will be issued in the following order: AFOSI first, since they’ve been crying about their M11s forever, followed by CATM shops, then straightleg Security Forces, then battlefield Airman that aren’t assigned to AFSOC (TAC/P, EOD, etc), then forcewide. All Defenders should have them in their holsters by 2022.
Holsters are (thank god) going to remain the Safariland, but the M18 is also going to be issued with a WML, and the holster has to accommodate that. Right now the front-runner appears to be the TLR-1, but that could change.
The AF is considering the possibility of slide mounted RDS but nothing is in the pipeline yet.
That’s all I remember off the top of my head, but I’ll happy to answer specific questions.