The Air Force plans to place even more emphasis on its intelligence operations, placing functional management responsibility over intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance assets with its newly created three-star intel guru. Last year the service designated a new position, that of deputy chief of staff for intelligence, currently filled by Lt. Gen. David Deptula; this year, it will make that position the “single focal point” for all Air Force ISR capabilities, writes Gen. Michael Moseley in a new Chief of Staff “Vector.”
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…