The Michigan Air National Guard’s 127th Air Refueling Group recently put together what may be a first of its kind in the Air Force: a training program that teaches KC-135 tanker crews how to perform specialized fueling operations (SFO): ground-based procedures that could help gas ...
agile combat employment
A new course at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. is meant to train Airmen in base defense, forklift operation, cargo handling, aircraft refueling, and other skills they may need in a near-peer conflict.
The 374th Airlift Wing at Japan's Yokota Air Base held its annual Beverly Morning 24-1 training exercise starting Oct. 16, focusing on its ability to rapidly respond to threats and deploy in less-than-ideal conditions across the Indo-Pacific.
As new trainees arrived to their first day at Air Force Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., on Oct. 10, they found themselves in the middle of what OTS Commandant Col. Keolani Bailey described as the school’s biggest change in its 64-year ...
Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Mike Minihan wants contingency response Airmen to develop more SOF-like capabilities to prepare for opening airfields in high-threat environments.
To make the Air Force’s concept of Agile Combat Employment work across the vast reaches of the Indo-Pacific, the head of Pacific Air Forces wants to clear jungle that's overgrown World War II-era airfields while the Air Forces top special operator wants faster vertical lift ...
The Air Force will pursue five lines of effort toward a speedy restructuring of the force, aimed at optimizing for great power conflict, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said.
Our national defense priority is now once again focused on the high-end fight, requiring the Services to embrace the need to modernize rapidly. However, in many cases our military advantage has eroded from decades of fighting a low-intensity war on...
The Agile Combat Employment (ACE) operational concept, a proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver executed within threat timelines to increase survivability while generating combat power, provides a starting point for Airmen to codify best practices. However, this can be quite...
MQ-9 drone student operators are now trained to land and take off via satellite, dramatically shrinking the footprint of of personnel and equipment needed for Reaper operations. Previously, Reapers have been flown by operators in faraway ground control stations but launched and recovered by Airmen ...
The massive, Pacific-focused Mobility Guardian 23 exercise that wrapped up last month helped showcase a new Air Force effort to make key logistical forces more nimble—and highlighted places that effort still needs work on, the head of the Air Expeditionary Center told Air & Space ...
Air Force weather specialists are used to providing essential data in austere conditions, and they have new tools to move even faster. Their skills could be even more crucial in a conflict against a near-peer adversary.
