The airmen of the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, England, have devised a new method to prepare and disseminate notices to airmen. The old process forced every flying squadron in the United Kingdom to work independently, duplicating work and leading to errors. Under the new approach, intelligence, airfield management, and current operations team to produce a database, from which data is automatically overlaid upon electronic maps. Officials say flight planning can be done in real-time and credit the Air Force’s Smart Operations 21 effort for giving birth to the initiative.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.