The Air Force has adjusted special duty assignment pay for some assignments to ensure airmen are only paid extra if their duties “are extremely difficult or involve an unusual degree of responsibility,” said MSgt. Robin Childers, Air Force Personnel Command special programs branch manager, in a release. The changes take effect on June 15, according to AFPC’s June 12 release. Currently, some 12,000 enlisted airmen receive special duty assignment pay. Among the changes, air transportation airmen performing aerial duty will no longer be eligible for special duty assignment pay, states the release. Nor will free-fall parachute instructors at Yuma Proving Grounds, it states. Conversely, some operations intelligence airmen serving at Fort Bragg, N.C., will now be eligible. So will those airmen with the Air Force Specialty Code 1T0XX—survival, evasion, resistance, and escape—who are assigned to Fairchild AFB, Wash., or a subordinate unit in Alabama, Colorado, or Texas, according to the release. (JBSA-Randolph report by Debbie Gildea)
The Air Force's new Aircraft Readiness Unit will maintain and provide Collaborative Combat Aircraft for operations, but won’t serve as a “schoolhouse” teaching fighter pilots how to manage these escort drones.