The Air Force has now made it official policy that a senior NCO must complete Senior NCO Academy coursework and must have a Community College of the Air Force degree before they can endorsed for promotion to senior or chief master sergeant. Officials say that the new, unequivocal, rule goes into effect for the 2007 chief and 2008 senior master sergeant promotion cycles. They also note that having filled these squares is not a guarantee of promotion.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.