Officials at Tyndall AFB, Fla., redesignated the 325th Air Control Squadron, the Air Force’s air battle management schoolhouse, as the 337th ACS. The name change marked the unit’s transfer from Tyndall’s 325th Fighter Wing to the oversight of the 33rd FW at Eglin Air Force Base, also in Florida’s Panhandle. The squadron will remain a tenant at Tyndall; neither its mission nor its training tempo will change, according to Tyndall’s Oct. 4 release. “The overall goal is to do this seamlessly without any effect on mission effectiveness and without a hiccup,” said Navy Capt. Michal Saunders, Eglin’s 33rd Operations Group commander, who presided over Tyndall’s Oct. 4 redesignation ceremony. The transfer occurred because the 325th FW, which oversees the Air Force’s F-22 schoolhouse, is transitioning from Air Education and Training Command to Air Combat Command with the addition of a combat-coded F-22 squadron. Meanwhile, the air control squadron is remaining under AETC with the move to the 33rd FW, which is home to the initial joint F-35 schoolhouse. (Tyndall report by SSgt. Rachelle Elsea)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…