Air Force Global Strike Command is close to rolling out some changes to its continuous bomber presence mission at Andersen AFB, Guam, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, AFGSC commander. “We’re now in the 11th year of our continuous bomber presence, so we had a focus team of ops and maintenance [personnel go to Andersen and see] how we can do that better,” Wilson told Air Force Magazine. Although he couldn’t say just yet what those changes would entail, he said AFGSC is working closely with Pacific Air Forces and US Pacific Command to “make things better.” The bombers are a visible part of the PACOM assurance and deterrence mission, said Wilson during the Jan. 9 interview. He noted that the Air Force is also making a conscious effort to send bombers across the globe so that crews get the training necessary to respond anytime, anywhere. Last year, the Air Force sent B-2A and B-52H bombers to the United Kingdom and also conducted a B-52 deployment to Australia, in addition to the regular CBP missions on Guam. As part of the command’s plan going forward, Wilson said the bombers would exercise with every combatant command as well as each of the military services so that the bombers crews “get that training and experience necessary to keep them ready.” (For more from Wilson’s interview, read Revamping B-52 Training.)
The Government Accountability Office wants the Air Force to explain who will run bases when wings deploy under the service’s new force generation model along with several other unanswered questions, saying the concept is long on vision but short on details.