Tag: U.S. Air Force

The Air Force is finally releasing their new PT uniform, but they are still struggling to design a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt:

After a two-year delay, the Air Force anticipates the new gender-specific uniform for physical training to be available on a limited basis in November. The PT uniform — short-sleeve shirt, running shorts, all-purpose shorts and warm-up suit — was originally scheduled for release in 2022, Air Force spokeswoman Ciara Travis told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday.

The uniform is now expected in November at select Army and Air Force Exchange Service locations in the continental United States, she said. When the Air Force announced the new uniform back in 2021, it planned on a four-year transition before it became mandatory wear.

Travis did not say when the new workout clothing would be available at bases overseas. Some optional items, including a long-sleeve shirt and sweatshirt, are in development and will be available later, she said. “That process took longer than expected,” she said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but why is it a multi-year effort to design a long sleeve shirt and sweatshirt? How much money is going into this?

Any Air Force types want to comment if it really makes a difference having nine F-16’s stationed on Osan AB instead of Kunsan AB? It is not like that is a very far distance:

Air Force fighter jets are temporarily moving closer to North Korea to “optimize combat capability and increase readiness” on the Korean Peninsula. Nine F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan Air Base, roughly 115 miles southwest of Seoul, will be assigned for a yearlong trial to the 36th Fighter Squadron at Osan Air Base, about 30 miles south of the capital, according to an Air Force news release Thursday. The F-16s began arriving at Osan earlier this month, 7th Air Force spokesman Maj. Rachel Buitrago told Stars and Stripes by phone Monday. Two fighter squadrons of F-16s and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs are permanently stationed at the base.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Flying bomber jets with South Korean fighters is one of the typical U.S. responses to North Korean provocations. What makes this one different is that the Japanese joined in to make it a trilateral deterrence drill:

U.S. B-52 bombers flew with Japanese and South Korean fighter jets Friday in separate exercises as a show of unity intended to deter would-be adversaries, the Defense Department said Friday.

The joint aerial training comes amid elevated tensions with North Korea and China.

North Korea has stepped up its pace of missile testing, including the launch Thursday of what it called a “new type” of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The new frontline on the war on woke has not shifted to the U.S. Air Force Academy:

Academy officials say such diversity training is long overdue and will build better leaders, while critics worry about what appears to be a changing culture and focus in the military and its institutions that will be to the detriment of the nation’s defenses.

One slide presented as part of the training program bore language that encouraged cadets to “recognize diverse family formation” by using broad terminology that avoided gendered references. The academy said the slide was taken out of context; cadets aren’t prohibited from using the terms “mom” and “dad,” as some news reports claimed, and the information presented as part of the training was “not intended to stand alone.”

But the academy’s response has only served to fuel ongoing controversy about so-called wokeism in the military, a debate that was re-stirred after images of the AFA training slides were shared beyond the campus north of Colorado Springs last month, reported on by Fox News Digital and then a slew of other outlets.

The slides , visual aids used in a moderated presentation at the academy — and the only elements of the presentation subsequently leaked to the media — made their points in a series of bullet points. One slide encouraged cadets to use “person-centered” and “inclusive language” that doesn’t imply presumptions about others’ situations, preferred pronouns or family life.

So, “parents/caregivers/guardians” instead of “mom and dad.”

And “ya’ll/team/squaddies/everyone/folks,” instead of “you guys.”

It also discouraged cadets from using terms such as “colorblind.”

A second slide explained that diversity and inclusion are key to developing warfighters who are prepared to lead the Air Force and Space Force “with character.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the Academy is pretty much just producing the standard diversity training that is going on in most colleges in the U.S.

This feeds right into the narrative critics have launched for years that the military would be forced for political reasons to drop standards to allow more females into combat arms and special operations career fields:

The Air Force Special Operations Command’s handling of news that a female special warfare candidate received preferential treatment in the training pipeline has sparked a fierce backlash and proven accurate the warnings of a 2016 report that called for transparency in the military’s integration of women into special operations forces.

Last week, a letter written by an anonymous special tactics airman emerged detailing how a female special tactics officer candidate quit the challenging selection process and training pipeline multiple times, only to be reinstated by the leadership of AFSOC and the 24th Special Operations Wing. (……..)

Since then, details have emerged that cast more doubt on AFSOC’s handling of the situation. On Thursday, Air Force Times reported that the trainee herself protested the training standards being lowered for her.

Task and Purpose

You can read more at the link, but I am all for women in special forces, but it shouldn’t be because of special treatment. This just devalues the accomplishments of the women who do eventually make the cut.

Air and Space Force personnel will soon have to get new insignia and nametapes for their uniforms:

The Air Force and Space Force are changing the look of nametapes on their camouflage uniforms to make them easier to read, the Air Force announced Thursday.

The services will move to a lighter, three-color pattern for rank insignia lettering of occupational badges, nametapes and service identifiers that should make ranks and names easier to see on the Operational Camouflage Pattern — OCP — utility uniform.

“We received significant feedback that prompted this update,” Lisa Truesdale, the Air Force’s military force management policy deputy director, said in a statement. “The current rank insignia, badges, name and service tapes on the OCP uniform are sometimes challenging to see against a seven-color background.”

Stars & Stripes

Airmen have a few more weeks to get their new uniforms:

The Air Force has delayed its switch to new color schemes for uniform boots, under garments and flag patches until September, citing “unnecessary stress” on its service members due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Airmen, including Space Force service members, by Sept. 1 must wear coyote brown boots and T-shirts and spice brown U.S. flag patches with their two-piece flight uniforms and utility uniforms in the operational camouflage pattern, better known as OCPs, according to a notice on the Air Force website. The original deadline was June 1.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Meanwhile in Alaska:

An airman in Alaska was demoted and received a letter of reprimand for peeing in his squadron’s office coffee maker, among other violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, according to documents from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

Formally charged as a violation of article 92, dereliction of duty, the unnamed airman “knew or should have known” to “refrain from urinating in the squadron coffee maker,” according to the redacted charge sheet provided by the base public affairs office. The incident occurred sometime between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31, 2019, but the document does not stipulate how the crime was discovered.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Korean media has been making a big deal about surveillance flights around North Korea and the PACAF commander says these flights are nothing new:

The commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces said Friday that recent surveillance flights around the Korean Peninsula were part of regular operations, refusing to confirm any connection to possible North Korean provocations.

In a telephone briefing from Hawaii, Gen. Charles Brown, Jr. said there has been an increasing number of North Korean missile tests and heightened rhetoric ahead of the end-of-year deadline Pyongyang has imposed for Washington to show flexibility in their denuclearization negotiations.

“I also believe as we get here towards the end of the year and the increase in rhetoric, it’s something we are actually really paying close attention to, not only for this month but into 2020 as well,” Brown told reporters.

“We’re pretty much flying the same way that we’ve been flying for the past year or so, so there’s no real change,” he said when asked if the surveillance flights implied there could be North Korean provocations.

“Our job is to provide some situational awareness and domain awareness to not only our military leadership, but also to our political leadership so they have an understanding of the dynamics of what’s going on within the region, whether it be around the peninsula or any other part of the region,” Brown added. “So, our tempo really hasn’t changed in the course of the past year.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is nothing new, the U-2 has been monitoring North Korea for decades:

A U.S. reconnaissance plane flew above the Korean Peninsula over the weekend, an aviation tracker said Sunday, in an apparent sign of beefed-up surveillance of North Korea following its recent test-firing of a multiple rocket launcher.

The U.S. Air Force’s U-2S plane was spotted flying at an altitude of around 15,240 meters over the Seoul metropolitan area, northern Gangwon Province and central Chungcheong Province on Saturday, according to Aircraft Spots.

The plane, nicknamed the Dragon Lady, is known to have carried out a surveillance mission over areas surrounding the heavily fortified inter-Korean border with an aim to monitor North Korea’s front-line military activities.

Before the North’s test-firing of what it calls a super-large multiple rocket launcher Thursday, the U.S. military operated several surveillance planes over the peninsula.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.