Airmen who previously had limited deployment availability due to medical issues may find themselves tapped for additional stateside taskings. Based on a recent decision, the 602nd Training Group (Provisional) at Keesler AFB, Miss., has begun accepting airmen with restrictive deployment availability codes to work in its operations center and at its training detachments. The provisional group supports airmen who are attending Army combat skills training, combat airmen skills training, and the Basic Combat Convoy course. “The overarching intent is to support 2nd Air Force without reducing the Air Force’s ability to meet combatant commander requirements,” said Col. Henry Polczer, director of Air and Space Expeditionary Force and personnel operations at the Air Force Personnel Center at JB San Antonio, Tex. He added, “We will accomplish this by sourcing to a name those airmen who would otherwise not be able to deploy.” (Randolph report by Jon Hansen)
The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force has unveiled a new electronic warfare drone designed to fly with fighter jets into contested airspace, including alongside its fleet of F-35s. RAF says it plans to develop models that draw on the U.S. Air Force’s approach of mating unmanned systems with crewed platforms.