The Air Force has reworked the evaluation system used to determine if an airmen is physically and mentally capable of performing nuclear-related duties, according to a Feb. 27 release. Officials rewrote the Personnel Reliability Program manual to eliminate need for base-level add-ons and to clarify standards for judging an airmen’s physical, emotional, and mental fitness for duty, states the release. Everyone on a nuclear base “is tied into PRP monitoring, from our commander’s and supervisors, to the medical professionals and personnel agencies to a member’s peers and each individual on PRP,” explained Col. Zannis Pappas, nuclear operations career field manager. According to an internal assessment, PRP covered 12,000 airmen force-wide in 2012, demanding nearly 38,000 hours of base-level administrative work, according to the release. The program overhaul was prompted by the Air Force’s 2012 internal study, as well as a follow-on review by the defense acquisition, technology, and logistics undersecretary, according to the release.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…