Category: United States Defense

Source: United States Air Force

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas (AFNS) —  

The Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center is leading a more than $500 million facilities construction project to facilitate expeditionary skills training and military pilot training at Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Arkansas.

In line with the National Defense Strategy, focus on collaboration between the U.S. and its allies and partners on shared objectives, the project will establish a permanent F-35 Lightning II training center for military pilots from Singapore and NATO countries who purchase the weapon systems under the Foreign Military Sales program. Ebbing ANGB will become the new location for the 425th Fighter Squadron, a Republic of Singapore air force F-16 Fighting Falcon training unit, currently based at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona.

“This project will provide additional capacity to allow training for more of our international partners than current facilities allow,” said Col. Adam T. Rice, Air Education and Training Command lead for Ebbing Field integration and synchronization. “The mutually beneficial FMS mission increases interoperability and enhances the long-term relationships between the U.S. military and our allies and partners.”

As part of the expansive multi-year effort, Ebbing Field will also host missions intended to enhance U.S. national security by providing additional resources for Air Force agile combat employment and large force employment training and exercises, U.S. Air Force F-35 pilot qualification and upgrade training while also serving as a standing aircraft emergency divert location.

“ACE shifts operations from centralized physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations that can complicate adversary planning, improve resilience, and provide more options for joint force commanders,” Rice said. “Ebbing will provide an excellent area for us to train the force on how to conduct ACE operations in support of deterrence, crisis response or other operations, while at the same time also supporting our U.S. F-35 pilot training mission.”

In June, the Air Force Civil Engineer Center partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the 97th Contracting Squadron at Altus AFB, Oklahoma, and the 772nd Enterprise Sourcing Squadron from AFIMSC, to award more than $27 million in appropriated funds for planning and design of construction. The work includes design on four military construction projects, construction of eight facility renovation projects and installation of 10 relocatable facilities. AFCEC, a primary subordinate unit of AFIMSC, is the design and construction execution manager of the effort planned to be complete in late 2028.

“AFCEC is partnering with the Air Education and Training Command to deliver timely and cost-effective design and construction solutions required to support operations at Ebbing Field,” said Col. George Nichols, deputy director of AFCEC’s Facility Engineering Directorate. “It’s the most hybrid beddown I’ve been a part of in 23 years: multiple active-duty missions on an Air National Guard base.”

The Arkansas installation officially became the location for the foreign pilot training mission in March when the secretary of the Air Force signed the project’s Record of Decision after completing the requirements within the National Environmental Protection Act and the Environmental Impact Statement. AFCEC’s NEPA team partnered with Ebbing ANGB and the National Guard Bureau to conduct the environmental impact analysis that led to the decision.

“The EIA gave us the green light to move forward with the construction phase and turn Ebbing into an Air Force foreign mission training center,” Nichols said. “Central location, existing fighter aircraft infrastructure, and range and airspace were decisive factors in making Fort Smith the official choice to host the FMS mission.”

Other key organizations engaged in execution include the host 188th Wing at Fort Smith and AFIMSC’s Detachment 7 providing installation and mission support for AETC, the parent of the training mission at Ebbing ANGB.

Ebbing ANGB will require new infrastructure, including a mix of military construction and facility renovation projects, to reach completion. AFCEC plans to use relocatable facilities to ensure the base is ready for initial operational capabilities in 2024, until permanent infrastructure is in place.

“It is a complex and large program that necessitates careful planning and construction of different facilities to line up with when the different countries will arrive for training,” said John Ahern, an AFCEC program manager. “Because we can’t build that quick, we’ll be leasing relocatable facilities to ensure the mission starts while MILCON construction is completed.”

Working hand-in-hand with multiple Department of Defense stakeholders, AFCEC is making steady progress with planning, design, and construction activities to ultimately accommodate 24 F-35 aircraft from the various nations and 12 Singapore air force F-16s.

Most facilities supporting the F-35 FMS aircraft will be new MILCON construction while beddown of the F-16s will require renovation and modernization of current infrastructure, Ahern said.

“A program of this magnitude on a constricted timeline shows how significant partnerships are to meet mission requirements and execute on time and within budget,” Nichols said. “We can’t succeed without the strong collaboration and partnership we have and utilizing all acquisition tools in our toolbox. Whether it’s managing the funds or awarding projects, we work as one team, across almost every AFCEC directorate, AFIMSC Resource Management and legal support, contracting agencies, and multiple USACE districts, to make this happen.”

Foreign Military Sales, overseen and directed by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is a security assistance program authorized by the Arms Export Control Act. The act allows the U.S. to sell defense equipment, conduct training, and provide services to a foreign country when the president deems that doing so will strengthen U.S. national security and promote world peace, according to the DSCA website.

Source: United States Air Force

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFNS) —  

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Human Systems Division is in the process of upgrading protective eyewear for aircrew operating various U.S. Air Force aircraft around the world. 

Comprised of eight different devices and known as the Block 3 family of products, the eyewear will provide protection from laser threats and introduces a combined laser and ballistic protection capability for the first time. 

“The health of the eye is so important to our pilots,” said Capt. Pete Coats, lead program manager for the Human System’s Division’s Aircrew Laser Eye Protection Program. “The consequences of getting lasered without having proper protection could not only prevent the pilot from flying and landing an aircraft safely, but it could also cost them their career. So, our goal is to ensure the right eyewear is available to everyone.”

Eyewear devices include separate day and night spectacles, ballistics spectacles, and visors designed to integrate with night vision goggles. The devices will be available for all aircrew except for those operating U-2 and F-35 Lightning II aircraft.

The type of eyewear protection aircrew will receive will depend on the mission.

“If flying low and slow or hovering like a helicopter or CV-22 Osprey, aircrew would prefer to have ballistic protection as well as laser protection,” said Mark Beer, Aircrew Laser Eye Protection Program deputy program manager. “However, if you’re in a fighter aircraft or flying in a bomber at high altitude, the chances of you needing ballistic protection are not nearly as high.”

Along with improved protection, the night eyewear will allow more natural light through the lens increasing visibility for crew members. 

A key part of developing the eyewear has been partnerships with stakeholders.

“We’ve worked very closely with the Air Force Research Laboratory on this effort,” Coats said. “They [AFRL] were instrumental in the pre-engineering manufacturing and development phase and experiments with dye and filter technologies.”

“We also worked with the U.S. intelligence community which provided an assessment of the threats facing aircrew members,” Beer said. “We used that information to determine what we needed to protect against and which eyewear protection technologies we needed to pursue.” 

More than 42,000 devices will be fielded to Air Force units by 2027.

Source: United States Air Force

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFNS) —  

The Air Force Materiel Command continues to bolster civilian accessions by capitalizing on new, flexible recruitment policies and processes to attract and attain diverse talent across the enterprise. 

The command’s time-to-hire is at an all-time low, down 54% since dedicated reform efforts began in 2018, averaging 59.9 days to fill a position from recruitment-to-onboarding in Fiscal Year 2023. This is down from an average of 129 days five years ago. In-person and virtual hiring events, along with other recruiting efforts, have yielded approximately 8,400 external gains in FY23, the largest workforce growth in three years.

Continued evaluation of current policies and cross-component partnerships are enabling ongoing processes improvements to drive down timelines and find talent needed to execute AFMC’s mission.

“While we have made remarkable progress in driving down the time it takes to hire, we are not stopping here,” said Kathy Watern, AFMC Manpower, Personnel and Services director. “Our personnel teams continue to identify constraints in the hiring processes, while leveraging flexible initiatives to bring new talent onboard faster.”

Communication is an important aspect of the hiring process. Filling a civilian position consists of multiple steps, beginning with identifying the talent requirement and ending with employee onboarding.

“We all play some part in the hiring process, whether you are a requirement’s owner, a supervisor, or a wingman to a new employee,” Watern said. “Our goal is to ensure organizations have a better understanding of the hiring process so they can help influence it.”

Several initiatives are aiding organizations in finding and hiring top talent. In June 2023, AFMC received relief from the requirement to wait 180 days before hiring recently retired military members into certain direct-hire positions. This change removes the barrier to hire experienced veterans for hard-to-fill positions and enables faster onboarding.

In May 2023, AFMC began piloting a 28-day recruitment and hiring model for use at hiring events, enabling on-the-spot job offers to qualified candidates and expediting those hiring actions. The outcome of this pilot will help shape a permanent framework capitalizing on strategic planning and concurrent hiring steps to further optimize the employment process.

Additionally, AFMC expanded its Centralized Selection and Hiring Process pilot launched in August 2021 to enable faster hiring for developmental positions, ensuring a steady pipeline of talent. This initiative continues to show positive results, filling direct-hire positions at an average of 57 days versus the 61-day average for other external and direct-hire authority fills. The success from the initial pilot, which focused on two functional areas, has expanded AFMC-wide to cover most developmental positions.

AFMC has also recently provided flexibilities in making firm job offers to college students in their final semester of study, securing entry-level talent to build the civilian pipeline for future mission needs.

The ultimate goal is to cultivate new methods and best practices to better build and maintain talent pipelines.

“We want to establish a holistic approach to recruitment by fine-tuning our processes and procedures so we can continue to not only be timelier, but more diverse in our hiring efforts,” said Nicole Estes, AFMC Civilian Personnel technical advisor. “While we’ve made a lot of improvements over the past few years, we still have work to do. We are gleaning lessons learned from our ongoing initiatives, and we will pivot based on what our data tells us.”

AFMC talent initiatives align with the larger Department of Defense-wide strategy to shape an appropriately-skilled and ready future force through improved civilian force recruitment and retention. This strategy seeks to maximize use of direct-hire authorities for eligible and hard-to-fill positions, reduce time-to-hire timelines department-wide, leverage better candidate assessments during recruiting cycles and improve overall process satisfaction.

As the largest civilian employer of any Air Force Major Command, AFMC is taking a proactive effort to address internal talent management issues to improve processes and identify best practices with potential for impact and change enterprise-wide. Internal efforts also align with the AFMC Strategic Plan’s Line of Effort 2, “Strengthen our Team,” which specifically cites improving end-to-end talent management as one of its objectives.

“AFMC leads the Air Force in talent management timeliness and process innovation, but we recognize that we have more work to do in order to achieve our workforce goals,” Watern said. “We continue to work closely with our functionals across the command. AFMC has a world-class civilian force, and we need to do all we can to ensure we continue to build and grow our talent pool for the future.”

Source: United States Air Force

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (AFNS) —  

Promising to lead the Total Force with “humility and resolve,” Gen. David W. Allvin was ceremoniously welcomed into his role as the 23rd Air Force Chief of Staff Nov.17 during a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews.

Allvin was joined by his wife, Gina, their three children, as well as former chief of staff and current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and numerous others. All were there for a dignified and historically significant ceremony to designate Allvin’s arrival as the Air Force’s highest ranking military officer.

“As I enter my role as the 23rd Chief of Staff, I do it with both humility and resolve,” Allvin said. “I am humbled by both the responsibility vested in the office – so deftly carried out by my predecessors – and the skill, dedication, and sacrifice of the Airmen and their families for whom this office exists to serve.”

Allvin steps into the job at a time of significant challenges – ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel, as well as the emergence of “great power competition” with China, the pacing challenge.

Allvin acknowledged those challenges in his remarks.

“The current strategic environment is one in which our national interests are threatened in a way we have not seen in decades,” he said. “And the evolving character of war is one that privileges speed and tempo, agility, range, flexibility, resilience, and precise lethality … these elements run deep in the DNA of airpower, and it is our responsibility to the Joint Force and the nation to bring these to bear to meet our pacing challenge.”

Despite the complexities, competition, and evolving challenges, Allvin said the service’s core mission has not changed. “We deter and defeat aggression to defend and protect our nation and its interests,” he said.

Doing that, however, requires new thinking and action, Allvin said. “We must solve for agility – initiating action in the right direction and building in the flexibility to learn and adjust while in motion. This is the spirit in which we must pursue the efforts to optimize for the environment we face.”

Despite the challenges, Brown and Kendall each said in their remarks that Allvin is the right choice at the right time to lead the Air Force.

“After our three years together, I couldn’t ask for a better person to follow through and build upon the many ideas we’ve shared,” Brown said. “… [His career] has provided him a wide foundation to draw on to lead the Air Force as it faces a complex and volatile global security environment.”

Kendall echoed that assessment.

“[Dave] is excited to come into this position at a time when our National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, Joint Warfighting Concepts, and Air Force priorities are in such clear alignment,” he said. “We are all on the same page, part of one team and one fight across the Department of the Air Force, the Joint Force, interagency teammates, and allies and partners … Dave is taking the baton at full speed, and he is going to ensure that we follow through on the next leg of the race.”

While the welcome ceremony was a significant milestone, Allvin had officially been in the job since Nov. 2. On that day the Senate confirmed Allvin to become the service’s highest-ranking officer and uniformed leader. That was followed the same day by a brief swearing-in ceremony while he was visiting the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The location bears a significant relevance as it was the same place Allvin swore his commissioning oath in 1986.

As with his 22 predecessors, Allvin brings his own unique leadership style to the Chief of Staff office. One tangible example is that he signs most written correspondence simply “23.” Signing in this humble manner is Allvin’s acknowledgement that he is merely the “next up” in a long line of leaders charged with overseeing the service and upholding the Air Force’s high standards. It is also one of the ways he redirects personal attention from himself to Airmen and their families, who “display a sense of commitment and dedication to the mission that is unparalleled.”

During the welcome ceremony, Allvin expounded on his first message to Airmen, titled ‘Follow Through’ – a charge which he intends to shape his tenure around.

Allvin carries this responsibility with a sense of urgency, citing time as one of the “biggest challenges in pursuit of our destination … as the future rushes toward us at a breathtaking pace.”

The call to follow through builds upon the changes set in motion by former service chiefs and brings into focus numerous initiatives that will be critical to the Joint Force in the years ahead. Among the most pressing are bringing the Air Force’s Operational Imperatives to operational capability, adapting the organizational structure for great power competition, and harnessing innovative talent.

Allvin’s intent is well-supported by other senior leaders, who have full confidence in his leadership, integrity and ability to lead the Air Force.

“I will spend every day from this one until I pass the baton in dogged pursuit of the change we seek … because [our Airmen] deserve it, and the nation demands it,” Allvin finished. “We’ve got the charge … now let’s follow through.”

Source: United States Air Force

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (AFNS) —  

In this week’s look around the Air Force, the new Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David W. Allvin, lays out his priorities in a letter to Airmen, the new T-7A training aircraft enters the next phase of developmental flight, and enlisted promotions testing goes digital. (Hosted by Staff Sgt. Stephani Barge)

Watch on DVIDS | Watch on YouTube
For previous episodes, click here for the Air Force TV page.