Col. Gregory Jones surpassed 4,000 flying hours in the F-16 fighter during a training sortie from Luke AFB, Ariz., on Jan. 8. “I’ve been lucky in that I’ve consistently been assigned to jobs that included flying the F-16,” Jones said in a Luke release. He is currently serving as operations group commander of Air Force Reserve Command’s 944th Operations Group at Luke. Jones flew his first F-16 sortie during type conversion training at Luke in 1990. Jones is one of only 42 other F-16 pilots in the Air Force to log more than 4,000 hours in the type, including one other at Luke—also a Reservist—said Col. Kurt Gallegos, commander of AFRC’s 944th Fighter Wing.
Trainees in Basic Military Training and technical school no longer have the option to try alternate PT drills if they fail an initial assessment, according to a policy change the Air Force made in April. The move is part of a larger shift out of the classroom and into hands-on,…