Both Air Reserve Components have equipment issues that bear fixing. In general, the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command forces fly the oldest of the Air Force’s aircraft. The service knows this and wants to retire old systems, replacing them with “new missions or newer equipment,” Lt. Gen. Daniel James III, Air Guard head, told Senators last week. At the same Capitol Hill hearing, Lt. Gen. John Bradley, AFRC commander, acknowledged that AFRC “aircraft are going to wear out sooner” because they are being flown “a lot harder and a lot more than our projections would have predicted.” (We call this more evidence of the increased use of reserve forces.)
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
