Airmen at Kadena AB, Japan prepared ahead of time the 225,000 pounds of food, medicine, and cold weather items transported by two C-17s, one from Alaska and one from Hawaii, to Shanghai last week. The Kadena employed a new Smart Operations initiative called aerial port expediter, or APEX, for the short-notice mission, saving about “eight hours of downtime for the aircraft,” said TSgt. Korey Aschenbrenner, the APEX load director for the 733rd Air Mobility Squadron at Kadena. Under APEX, Aschenbrenner took the place of the loadmaster for the aircraft, enabling the ground crew to load the supplies while the aircrews took crew rest. Another facet of the APEX initiative trains aerial porters to power up airlifters. (Kadena report by TSgt. Rey Ramon)
In the face of Chinese war plans to disrupt U.S. command-and-control networks in the event of a conflict, the Air Force needs to focus less on its “connect everything” efforts and prepare its combat aviators to fight without a constant connection to higher-ups, according to a new report from AFA’s…
