The Air Force will consolidate numbered air forces in Hawaii, Texas, and Germany as part of the service’s broader efforts to shed about $34 billion in overhead and operate more efficiently, said USAF Secretary Michael Donley Wednesday. Thirteenth Air Force at JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, will be inactivated and combined with the staff of Pacific Air Forces at Hickam, he said during his Air Force Association-sponsored Air Force Breakfast Series presentation in Arlington, Va. This new combined staff will have a single integrated headquarters and will operate the air and space operations center at Pearl Harbor-Hickam that supports US Pacific Command, he said. The Air Force will also inactivate 19th AF at Randolph AFB, Tex., consolidating its staff with Air Education and Training Command headquarters, also based at Randolph. USAF will also inactivate 17th AF at Ramstein AB, Germany, merging its staff with US Air Forces in Europe headquarters at Ramstein to support US European Command and US Africa Command, he said. The timeline for the consolidations is not yet clear, but could begin as soon as Fiscal 2012, he said.
The B-21 Raider stealth bomber was recently flown, for the first time, by an operational pilot as part of its flight test process, the Air Force said June 11. And a top Pentagon official said the move to bring operational testing into the B-21 process earlier than normal shows the…