The Air Force should return to a militia model where the majority of the force—equipment and personnel—is in the reserve components, said retired Gen. Ronald Fogleman, former Chief of Staff. “What we’re doing today is paying for manpower and starving procurement,” Fogleman told members of the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force at the panel’s public hearing in Arlington, Va., on July 23. “There is room for tiered readiness” in the reserve forces, said Fogleman, according to the committee’s release summarizing the hearing. However, Lt. Gen. Michael Moeller, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and programs, told the panel that tiered readiness doesn’t work for the Air Force because “we are in full usage all the time.” Moeller, who also leads the service’s Total Force Task Force, also updated the commission on the task force’s early findings, saying it has identified about 45 distinct mission sets that the Air Force must look at individually, according to the release. Commission Executive Director James Blackwell also announced that due to budget sequestration, the commission would defer site visits as much as possible until Fiscal 2014, employing video teleconferences where possible for the remainder of this fiscal year. (Commission website) (See also Rebooting the Total Force from Air Force Magazine’s July issue.)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.