The 19th Operations Group at Little Rock AFB, Ark., is reaping dividends from the decision made nearly one year ago to truncate the unit’s C-130 flying operations from five days to four to leave Fridays dedicated to training, according to a base release. This change has led to increased training rates and improved deployment readiness, while saving taxpayer dollars, states the Jan. 31 release. “What we wanted to do was come up with a way to improve our deployment readiness,” said Lt. Col. Toby Sernel, the group’s deputy commander. Through changes such as “more effective and efficient use” of flying training hours and maximizing the use of flight simulators on base, the group has achieved this, he said. “Our crews are more prepared for [US Central Command’s area of responsibility] now than they were a year ago,” said Sernel. “The benefits extend to everyone throughout the group,” he said. (Little Rock report SSgt. Jacob Barreiro)
Almost a decade ago, the Air Force created Kessel Run in 2017 as a military-commercial partnership and Airmen-led “software factory” in response to the service’s troubled rollout of the Air Operations Center 10.2. New leader Col. Brian Viola sat down recently with Air & Space Forces Magazine to talk about…