An article this week in the Rapid City Journal recounts the first flight of Allegiant Air from Rapid City, S.D., to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, the new name for Williams Gateway Airport. Reporter Dan Daly notes that the airport is the product of a “13-year effort by Mesa and other nearby cities to turn the former Williams Air Force Base into a civilian economic engine for the east end of the Phoenix area.” Williams fell to an early BRAC, and Daly goes on to report how Ellsworth barely escaped BRAC 2005.
A new report on modernizing Air Force training and education suggests borrowing a method from the civilian technology industry to help Airmen and Guardians build skills in key new areas like artificial intelligence: stackable certificates.