New CMSAF Kaleth Wright said his tenure as the service’s top enlisted leader will focus on training, leadership, and resiliency. Speaking at at AWS17, Wright acknowledged the service was facing “pockets of morale challenges,” but insisted that morale was not low across the force. “It’s tough right now in our United States Air Force to be an airman,” he said, adding improved training will be part of the answer. “You don’t become a champion on the field,” he said, “you become a champion in practice.” Wright promised to work together with AETC boss Lt. Gen. Darryl Roberson to focus training on airmen’s specific fields of expertise. Wright also said USAF needs to become better at “managing our talent.” He mentioned senior leaders recently “having to be removed from their positions” because “they didn’t have the right character.” He said the key question that will drive his work will be “how do we ensure as we move forward that all our airmen are resilient?” The Air Force has done a lot to address resiliency already, Wright said, but it needs to “integrate the programs we already have and make sure airmen feel comfortable using them.”
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…