Not Telling the Story
Not Telling the Story: The Air Force isn’t doing a good job of telling its story and getting people in the defense community, Congress, and the nation to understand what it does and why that’s so important, Chief of Staff...
Not “Where We Think We Are”
Not “Where We Think We Are”: There’s good reason to put taking care of airmen as a top priority for the Air Force, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III said Tuesday. After 20 solid years of combat operations,...
Making Peace in the Total Force
Making Peace in the Total Force: Things are strained between the Air Force’s Active, Guard, and Reserve components, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said Tuesday, but the differences aren’t irreconcilable, and the Total Force “is not broken.” In a...
And With Congress
And With Congress: Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said he isn’t quite sure why the Air Force has a “trust” issue with Congress, a problem which came up in his confirmation hearings in July. “The feeling is, the Air...
Sexual Assault
Sexual Assault: The problem of sexual assault in the Air Force is one that Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III takes very personally. Speaking with reporters Tuesday after his speech at AFA’s Air & Space Conference, Welsh said:...
He Didn’t Say No
He Didn’t Say No: Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh didn’t shut the door on the possibility of restarting the F-22 production line, when asked about it Tuesday at AFA’s Air & Space Conference outside Washington, D.C. “I would never...
A New Type of Fight
A New Type of Fight: The Air Force is working with its sister services and coalition partners on a study called “Effective Warfighting in a Contested Environment.” The ultimate goal is to focus the overall discussion on what it takes...
Operational Shake-Up
Operational Shake-Up: Retired Lt. Gen. Robert Elder said officials in Pacific Air Forces are “very interested” in looking at the “Effective Warfighting in a Contest Enviornment” study, slated for completion in February, as they try to figure out how to...
Guarding Information, Not Just Networks
Guarding Information, Not Just Networks: To be truly effective in the dynamic flux of the cyber battlefield, the Air Force must shift from defending networks, to guarding the information they carry instead, said Maj. Gen. Earl Matthews, air staff cyberspace...
Talking About a New Generation of Airmen
Talking About a New Generation of Airmen: Today’s Air Force comprises young, tech savvy airmen—the “millennial generation” —who have different quality of life preferences than previous generations, and this will have to be understood as the Air Force transitions to...
Keeping the Quality of Life Core
Keeping the Quality of Life Core: As costs rise and billets shrink, the Air Force has consolidated a lot of support staffing and functions at field operating agencies and will continue to do so, Lt. Gen. Darrell Jones, USAF’s top...
Think Before You Act
Think Before You Act: The ICBM force “is stabilizing, lethal, responsive, and highly credible,” but may be coming under increased attack for reduction or all-out elimination due to increasing pressures on the defense budget and those who favor the United...
Live vs. Simulation
Live vs. Simulation: The Air Force Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nev., is founded on the principle of offering a live-fly training environment to the airmen and sister service personnel who attend, said Col. Robert Garland, Air Force Weapons School...
Building Better Reservists
Building Better Reservists: While Lt. Gen. James Jackson, the new boss of Air Force Reserve Command, is getting used to his new job—he told audience members (including Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley) at AFA’s Air & Space Conference...
Resilience and Changing Times
Resilience and Changing Times: Among the topics discussed at the Command Chief Master Sergeants’ Forum, moderated by Pacific Air Forces Command CMSgt. Brooke McLean, was the way in which the senior NCOs of the Air Force connect with their airmen,...
Connecting in a Smaller World
Connecting in a Smaller World: The Command Chiefs had mixed opinions on the evolution of social media and how their airmen use it, and said Sept. 17 at AFA’s Air & Space Conference that although there are very clear benefits...
Hoping for Compromise
Hoping for Compromise: Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley’s goal is to get “as much progress as possible” in the Fiscal 2013 budget toward money-saving force structure changes Congress doesn’t like. In a press conference at AFA’s Air & Space...
Check the TAGs
Check the TAGs: Separate from USAF’s negotiations with Congress over needed force structure cuts is an effort to find a way to make sure Congress and the state Governors aren’t caught off guard by any future unpleasant surprises with regard...
Bringing Veterans Care Into 21st Century
Bringing Veterans Care Into 21st Century: Recalling the heroes of Wheeler Field, Hawaii — who responded to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor— and Medal of Honor recipient Col. Leo Thorsness and his valor over Vietnam and time as a...
China’s Cyber Spies Just Warming Up
China’s Cyber Spies Just Warming Up: China’s cyber espionage campaign to grab US aerospace technology is likely to continue and even escalate in the next few years, said Phillip Saunders, National Defense University’s Chinese military expert. China’s propensity to reverse-engineer...
China’s Murky, Stealthy Twins
China’s Murky, Stealthy Twins: The second new Chinese fighter—rumored to be the stealthy J-31—which appeared recently in Internet photos appears to be designed for a different mission than China’s stealthy J-20 unveiled last year, said Phillip Saunders, Chinese military expert...
Branching Out
Branching Out: Air Force Reserve Command wants to increase its support to Air Force Space Command, said Brig. Gen. Karen Rizzuti, vice commander of 10th Air Force, a Reserve numbered air force headquartered at NAS Fort Worth JRB, Tex. This...
Getting Perspective on Nontraditional ISR
Getting Perspective on Nontraditional ISR: The F-22 and F-35 fighters are capable of much more than air-to-air or air-to-ground combat. “They are tremendous ISR platforms,” said Lt. Gen. Larry James, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance during...
Global Stare
Global Stare: The Air Force is working to connect data collected by the wide-area surveillance sensor Gorgon Stare into its Distributed Common Ground System and then bring all Afghanistan-based personnel working with the sensor back to the United States, said...
JSF Officials Focus in on Helmet Issues
JSF Officials Focus in on Helmet Issues: Officials with the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office are trying to determine exactly how operational the F-35 helmet would be if left in its current configuration, said Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, deputy program...
SECAF Highlights Afghanistan Mission
Airmen have been keeping plenty busy in Afghanistan this year, flying more than 162,000 total sorties. That includes about 90,000 combat sorties, 22,000 close air support missions, and 15,000 aerial refueling sorties, said Air Force Secretary Michael Donley during AFA’s...
Back to Basics
The unstability in the international security environment and the continuing economic crisis in the United States is not going to go away by the end of the year, said Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, during AFA’s Air & Space Conference...
AOC of the Not so Distant Future
AOC of the Not so Distant Future: The next generation Air Operations Centers Northrop Grumman is building for the Air Force will replace the hodgepodge of systems operators currently use to control the fight, with a single, flexible information flow,...
Don’t Blame Airpower
Don’t Blame Airpower: Israeli airpower did not fail in Israel’s difficult 34-day military campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006, said Benjamin Lambeth, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Rather, that nation’s air arm...
Rapid Radar Refit
Rapid Radar Refit: Northrop Grumman’s proposed Scalable Agile Beam would allow F-16 maintainers to upgrade the fighters with new active electronically scanned array radars directly on the flight line, in as little as a day, said Joe Ensor, company vice...
Woman Will Lead BMT Unit
Woman Will Lead BMT Unit: The Air Force has announced it plans to install Col. Deborah Liddick as the new commander for the 737th Training Group, USAF’s basic military training unit at JBSA Lackland, Tex. USAF is in the midst of a full-scale review of its BMT operations, following charges of sexual misconduct by several military training instructors at Lackland. The service earlier this month sentenced one MTI to prison and has levied various punishments against other. Col. Eric Axelbank, head of Air Education and Training Command’s 37th Training Wing, which oversees the BMT mission, fired the group’s previous commander in August. Axelbank relinquished his command in early September to Col. Mark D. Camerer, who previously commanded the 436th Airlift Wing at Dover AFB, Del. According to an Associated Press report, Camerer said of Liddick, who has been serving as chief of the maintenance group at Luke AFB, Ariz., that he has “the utmost confidence in having Colonel Liddick take the reins of basic military training.” (AP report via mySanAntonio.com)
MC-12 Unit Reaches 100,000 Flight Hours
MC-12 Unit Reaches 100,000 Flight Hours: The 4th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, amassed its 100,000th flight hour, accomplishing the feat with its MC-12 Liberty ISR airplanes in less than three years of operations there. The Air Force...
Happy Birthday, Air Force!
Sept. 18 marks the 65th anniversary of the Air Force’s founding. “As we celebrate the United States Air Force’s 65th birthday, we salute all of the dedicated airmen who serve or have served in our nation’s youngest and most innovative...
Facing “Moderate Risk” in Audit Timetable
Facing “Moderate Risk” in Audit Timetable: A top Air Force executive told lawmakers late last week that notwithstanding the Air Force’s “remarkably successful year” in achieving the new timetable for the military services to achieve audit readiness, USAF officials “continue...