The first 15 of USAF’s new breed of dedicated Air Liaison Officers last week completed their 13-day joint air and space operations training provided by Air Force Warfare Center’s 505th Command and Control Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla. This training for the ground-breaking ALO class—comprising newly commissioned officers, Air National Guardsmen, and prior enlisted Tactical Air Control Party airmen—will enable them to “understand the systems and procedures to best support the Army,” said D.L. Hendricks, course director and instructor and himself a former TACP. The Air Force departed this year from previous policy of using only rated officers on temporary assignments to fill ALO slots, creating the dedicated 13L ALO field and expects to establish a 70 percent career to 30 percent rated temporary ratio of ALOs. (505th CCW release)
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
