USAF’s medical specialists fanned out across the globe recently, providing badly needed medical care, equipment, and instruction. A team from Soto Cano AB, Honduras, has been in Nicaragua, assisting with people in Leon who were poisoned from a batch of moonshine mixed with lethal methanol. Airmen from Offutt AFB, Neb., and Lackland AFB, Tex.,traveled to Colombia for a medical readiness training exercise and provided free medical treatment to people there. US Air Forces in Europe sent 50 medics from bases in Germany to Ghana, Africa, where, as part of the annual Med Flag exercise, they partnered with Ghanian medical personnel to treat hundreds of citizens and learned about regional diseases. And, airmen from Andersen AFB, Guam, who had joined Navy medical personnel aboard the USNS Mercy for more than two months to provide medical and civil aid to people in Bangladesh, East Timor and Indonesia, and the Philippines, have returned to Guam.
As Air Force leaders consider concepts of operations for Collaborative Combat Aircraft, sustainment in the field—and easing that support by using standard parts and limiting variants—should be a key consideration, according to a new study from AFA's Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies.