According to recent data, of some 33,000 airmen deployed to combatant commands, 4,000 are from the Air National Guard and 2,000 from Air Force Reserve Command—roughly 25 percent. At home, for Operation Noble Eagle, ANG and AFRC airmen have flown 30,000 of the 43,000 fighter, tanker, and AWACS sorties. Air Guard and Air Reserve members make up 88 percent of the service’s aeromedical evacuation crewmembers.
Air Force Global Strike Command has fielded a new prototype system for beyond-line-of-sight communications on the B-52H Stratofortress in a step forward for modernizing the Cold War-era heavy bomber.