Members of Congress who've heard the Air Force's explanation of why it's trading capacity now to get connectivity later back the move, Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told reporters February 27. But he expects a lot more explanation will be needed. “The risk is real,” Goldfein said. If money was unlimited, “We would not be asking commanders to take short-term risk. But if you don’t do that, you never buy your future.”

A top Space Force official here argued the case for why the new service needed to become a standalone organization, praising Airmen at Buckley Air Force Base, Colo., for their role in warning U.S. troops overseas about the recent Iranian missile attack on an Iraqi air base. “Those missiles flew for six minutes,” Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson said Feb. 27 at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. He recalled a conversation with a U.S. Central Command official who said: “If those Airmen on crew that night, specifically the warning officer at the warning station, if she had not done her job better than her training, … today we would be talking about dead Americans at [al-Asad Air Base].”

The Air Force’s new combat rescue helicopter will be named Jolly Green II. The new helicopter, slated to replace the HH-60G Pave Hawk, will carry on the name of the venerable Vietnam-era HH-3E, which flew combat rescue missions from 1967 to 1995. Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett unveiled the name during her keynote at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 27 with an early production model on-site.

The Department of the Air Force is finished internally coordinating which USAF units will move into the Space Force and is awaiting Secretary Barbara Barrett’s approval, a top space official said Feb. 27. The first group of people who will be asked to re-commission and re-enlist into the Space Force are those with the specialty codes 13S, or space operators, and 1C6, or the enlisted equivalent. Those personnel will likely come in by the end of September, Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson said. The second group will be the intelligence officers, engineers, acquisition experts, and other related career fields who are crucial to space operations. They may begin joining the Space Force sometime in fiscal 2021. The Space Force is also within days of delivering a legislative proposal to Capitol Hill to shape the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill.

Air Combat Command is shifting from a "fighter roadmap" to a "capabilities" roadmap that will capture many of the things fighters do today, but likely with new types of unmanned systems and "attritable" aircraft, Gen. Mike Holmes told reporters Feb. 27. The idea of a fighter squadron may also evolve, and there may not be 55 such squadrons in the future, he added.

The Air Force doesn't begrudge the Army its long-range fires to counter adversaries like Russia, but Air Combat Command chief Gen. Mike Holmes said the services need to work together to prevent excessive duplication of effort. “We don’t have a monopoly on national technical means to go find targets,” Holmes said of Russia and China. Their long-range fires “are ubiquitous, and designed to keep us at a distance, and go after our strengths. I’m happy we’re building additional long-range fires capabilities, but we just have to make sure we’re able to target them.”

Air Force Special Operations Command is collecting evidence that may bolster a few valor cases for upgrades, possibly even to the Medal of Honor. The review is using hindsight to determine “where did we perhaps undershoot in terms” of the award nomination, Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. James Slife said Feb. 27 at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium. While he would not offer specific cases, he said the command is "doing a comprehensive search for the evidence that is out there.”

While NAS JRB Fort Worth-Carswell, Texas, is slated to become the primary home of Air Force Reserve Command’s future F-35As, AFRC is now reexamining three bases it has deemed “reasonable alternatives”—Whiteman Air Force Base, Mont., Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., and Homestead Air Reserve Base—to ensure it “didn’t miss anything,” Air Force Reserve boss Lt. Gen. Richard Scobee told Air Force Magazine on Feb. 27. A “more robust study” is also slated for Carswell, he said. The other three bases might get F-35As later on “based on suitability and what mission sets the Air Force” requires of the Reserve, Scobee said in an interview on the sidelines of the Air Force Association’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla.

Three U.S. Airmen are undergoing treatment for "mild Traumatic Brain Injuries" as a result of the Iranian rocket attack on al-Asad Air Base, Iraq, the Air Force confirmed Feb. 27." These Airmen are accounted for in the 112 service members with TBIs as reported by DoD on Wednesday," Department of the Air Force spokeswoman Capt. Carrie Volpe said in a Feb. 27 email to reporters. This new total reflects a 3-service-member jump since Feb. 10.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein on Feb. 27 received the highest award USAF enlisted personnel can bestow, the Order of the Sword. Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright presented the award, and large sword, during a speech at AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium, saying it demonstrates the “incredible support (Goldfein) provided enlisted airmen.”