A four-man team from Holloman AFB, N.M., deployed to Manas AB, Kyrgyzstan, to help the Army pack up Force Provider assets—more than 500,000 tons of bare base gear—for reserve storage in Southwest Asia or shipment back to the States for reconditioning. The airmen of the 49th Materiel Maintenance Squadron ready the equipment first by cleaning it, coding its condition, making repairs, and gathering it into sets. Without their work, Army officials said the process would have taken up to 12 months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in contract labor. MSgt. David Lott, the team chief, said the 49th is the only squadron left in the Air Force that performs this type work.
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
