The Air Force has notified 1,100 noncommissioned officers that they must retrain into shortage career fields or face separation as part of its Fiscal 2007 force-shaping plan. Officials said earlier this week that the service must shed some 8,000 officers by Sept. 30, 2007, but that it has the right number of enlisted personnel—but apparently not necessarily in the right jobs. Vulnerable NCOs must select a new career field by Sept. 18 of this year, or the Air Force will do it for them—or separate them. Officials say that last year’s NCO retraining effort was largely successful; they only forced out 36 individuals.
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.