Air Combat Command is focusing its training and readiness programs on missions that airmen are going to do for sure, putting less likely missions on the back burner. That’s the word from ACC commander Gen. William Fraser, who spoke Tuesday at an Air Force Association-sponsored Air Force Breakfast Series presentation in Arlington, Va. Fraser said ACC asked regional commanders, “What do you really need us to do?” Based on the answers, he said the command will devote actual flying hours to likely missions, since it doesn’t have the money or flying hours—or simply the time—to practice everything the combatant commanders might ask for. Then, “we’ll probably have to draw a line” and practice less pressing missions in simulators and in distributed training, explained Fraser. “We’ll get credit for that” as if they were real-world exercises, he said. “I don’t have to do it all in the air,” he added, noting that “I don’t have the ability to do all of that.”
The 301st Fighter Wing in Fort Worth, Texas, became the first standalone Reserve unit in the Air Force to get its own F-35s, welcoming the first fighter Nov. 5.