A couple of years ago, the Air Force announced that it would remake its numbered Air Forces into warfighting headquarters, trimming staff and turning them into pure command and control structures supporting specific combatant/unified commanders. Most NAFs were to lose their numbers and be identified by the unified command they supported, such as Air Force Pacific, instead of 13th Air Force. Somewhere between then and now, the Air Force abandoned the term WFHQ in favor of component NAF, or CNAF. (We just reported on the new space CNAF.) Air Force spokesman Maj. David Small assures us that the original “command and control enabling concept,” as signed out by then-Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper remains intact. Last year, current Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne signed a program action directive to implement the concept, which has an initial operational capability goal of October 2007. The PAD simply updated the terminology from WFHQ to CNAF.
Members of the Air Force Reserve’s 920th Rescue Wing helped save 11 airplane crash survivors off the coast of Florida on May 12. The Reserve Airmen were flying an HC-130J Combat King II and an HH-60W Jolly Green II on a routine training flight when a Coast Guard call diverted…