Asked for his perspective on the challenges facing US Africa Command’s 17th Air Force, US Air Forces in Europe Commander Gen. Roger Brady said that the Ramstein-based numbered air force’s biggest challenge is to get the right rated expertise in place. “Getting [17th AF] manned up has been a challenge,” he said, as personnel have been shuffled around from other units and commands to address the needs of 17th AF/Air Forces Africa. Currently, just four C-130 aircraft are assigned to 17th AF, Brady said, which “probably doesn’t do it for the continent of Africa,” he added. With the new administration, Brady said there may be a change in the force size and structure of AFRICOM’s efforts, but for now 17th Air Force is working to get the forces it needs from other entities through the Request for Forces process, as it has no permanently assigned aircraft units.
The Defense Innovation Unit is gearing up for the first flight of its commercially developed hypersonic testbed as soon as the end of February—part of a larger project to quickly increase the cadence of the Pentagon’s hypersonic flight testing and field advanced, high-speed systems and components at scale.
