In the small world of Air Force weather specialists, combat weather specialists are a niche unto themselves, deploying with Army ground units to provide forecasts and, if need be, fight alongside those Soldiers. For Staff Sgt. Francisco Estrada, the hardest part of the job isn’t ...
Personnel
The Department of the Air Force's new equal opportunity and harassment policy, rolled out to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's directives, redefines key terms and empowers commanders to dismiss complaints they deem not actionable. The new rules also bar investigations based on anonymous complaints.
The Air Force has begun depriving new trainees of more sleep and will soon ramp up the stress level in Basic Military Training to better prepare Airmen for the increased strain of combat operations such as Epic Fury.
The Air Force recently conducted a virtual stress test of its command-and-control capabilities, linking Air Operations Centers in New Mexico and the United Kingdom and forcing commanders to run personnel recovery and strikes under simulated fire.
The Air Force has ruled the M18 service pistol is “safe and reliable” after inspecting more than 100,000 of the service’s 9mm pistols, according to a Sept. 2 announcement. Leaders ordered a force-wide inspection after a July 20, 2025, discharge of an M18 killed an ...
The Air Force has pulled a piece of testing equipment for its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles after discovering some appeared to be contaminated with a possible carcinogen.
Just over a year ago, in July 2025, the Air Force established a dedicated office on the Air Staff for communications/cyber functions, separate from the intelligence directorate it had long been attached to. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Phillips, Deputy Chief of Staff for Warfighter Communications ...
In June 2026, airpower experts from the U.S. Air Force, seven allied air forces, and industry convened for a three-day wargame designed to stress notional 2036 USAF combat forces in a series of concurrent crises: a Russian assault against NATO...
New Enlisted Recruiting Commander By Todd South The Air Force appointed a colonel to head enlisted recruiting, more than 18 months after combining officer and enlisted recruiting into a single organization. Col. Lacresha A. Merkle took command of Air Force...