Air Force Personnel Center officials at Randolph AFB, Tex., are automating active duty assignment notifications for airmen in the ranks of lieutenant colonel and below, beginning Jan. 21. These airmen will receive an e-mail notification and then have seven days to acknowledge their new assignments. Colonels, general officers, and basic military training and pipeline students will keep using the current notification process. “The new assignment notification process will automate how airmen receive new assignments and make it easier for local military personnel sections to manage this program,” said Maj. Gen. Alfred Stewart, AFPC commander. It’s also part of AFPC’s broader efforts to make the personnel process easier so airmen “can focus on the mission,” he said. AFPC specialists developed and tested the automated process for almost two years. (Randolph report by TSgt. Steve Grever)
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.