Sitting in an isolated, small facility on Balad AB, Iraq, are airmen of the Combined Enroute Radar Approach (CERAP) who maintain air traffic—military and civilian—in central Iraq. The enlisted controllers man their radar scopes on two-hour shifts, handling more than 500 operations per day. They monitor altitude, direction, and separation of all aircraft. Each member of a six-person crew may handle 10 to 30 operations at a time. The work gets more complicated when they have to “weave air traffic” around an activated tactical battle airspace, controller SSgt. Brandon Oyen told Balad’s Red Tail Flyer.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. may have moved on from Air Force Chief of Staff to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but he is keeping an eye on the Air Force’s effort to “re-optimize for great power competition”—and is pleased by what he sees. At a Defense Writers Group meeting March…