SrA. Sarah McRae has managed to amass 1,000 combat hours as an airborne maintenance technician—a feat that in normal times would take such techs eight years. SSgt. Mike Andriacco reports McRae did it in two. She is with the 41st Electronic Combat Squadron at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., and reached the thousand hour mark while deployed to Afghanistan. Squadron commander Lt. Col. Richard Fojtik credits McRae and her cohorts with keeping the EC-130H Compass Call aircraft at a phenomenal 97 percent mission capable rate over the past four years.
The emphasis on speed in the Pentagon’s newly unveiled slate of acquisition reforms may come with increased near-term cost increases, analysts say. But according to U.S. defense officials, the new weapons-buying construct provides the military with enough flexibility to prevent runaway budget overruns in major programs.
