The Air Force is planning to shift the sustainment of its Minuteman III launch facilities and launch control centers to a depot-maintenance model by 2017, said Maj. Gen. Sandra Finan, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M. This is one of the efficiency and cost-saving initiatives that the service is adopting across its nuclear enterprise to squeeze “every bit of value out of every dollar,” said Finan on Sept. 17 during the nuclear panel at AFA’s Air and Space Conference in National Harbor, Md. She said the new model will be like the preprogrammed depot maintenance construct that the Air Force uses for its aircraft. “An aircraft goes in for PDM maintenance. It gets overhauled. It comes back out; it is almost like a new aircraft,” she said.
When Airmen eject, the mission is clear: America leaves no warrior behind. Airmen are trained to survive, evade, resist, and escape the enemy, and everyone from ground crew to rescue personnel and commanders are committed to doing everything necessary—and possible—to bring downed Airmen home.