In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Gen. Michael Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff, told lawmakers asking about the 7,700 airmen fulfilling “in lieu of” taskings for soldiers in such areas as detainee operations, explosive ordnance disposal, interrogation, and logistics, that the total number is “coming down,” since the Army has returned many of them. However, Moseley said that although a majority of the airmen performing ILO jobs have done so within their particular competency, the other 25 percent or so working outside their core competencies “concerns us.” It is those airmen that the Air Force must dedicate time and money to retrain in their USAF specialties.
The KC-Z4, a blended wing body tanker concept being developed by startup JetZero, could fuel larger groups of aircraft at longer range to hold more targets at risk, company officials say.